”Americans?” Galyshev straightened, startled. “What would Americans want here?”
”Who knows?” Sobchak replied. “But the impact of a downed plane, a large one, would account for the seismic disturbance. Burning fuel could have been responsible for the heat, and who knows what might have caused the radiation, eh? Isn’t something like that far more likely than your ghosts that walk through walls?”
Galyshev considered that. “And the missing soldiers?” he asked.
Sobchak shrugged. “Ambushed by the Americans, perhaps, or caught in an explosion…”
Galyshev frowned. “Was there an explosion?” He gestured at the seismographs and other equipment.
”Well… well, it’s hard to be sure,” Sobchak said, which Galyshev immediately realized meant there was no evidence of any explosion. “The storm distorted the readings. But there might have been one, I can’t tell. A small one.”
Galyshev glared at Sobchak. “You believe this?” he demanded.
Sobchak let out his breath in a deep sigh. “I told you, Galyshev, I don’t know. I am a scientist-I believe what I can see, what I can demonstrate, I take nothing on faith. This idea about downed Americans is my best hypothesis, but I have no way to test it, not until the storm stops and Lieutenant Ligacheva returns with more soldiers.”
”Very well,” Galyshev said, turning away. “I accept that you do not know what is out there, that it might be American spies. You will watch your dials and gauges then, Sobchak, and you will tell me at once anything you learn. And if you speak to the authorities again, or anyone else, you will tell me that, as well. Now, I’ll try to calm the men, to get us all back to work.”
”Very good,” Sobchak said primly as he began reconstructing his customary calm detachment. “Thank you, Galyshev.”
Galyshev marched out through the barren anteroom of the scientific station and back down the corridor toward the rest of the complex. After the damp heat of Sobchak’s hideaway the cool air of the passage was like a bracing shower, clearing away the fog.
The men wouldn’t like this, that the authorities had said nothing. They would be pleased to hear that more soldiers were coming, perhaps less pleased to hear that the cocky young Lieutenant Ligacheva was returning with them-the men liked her well enough, and Galyshev included himself in that, but they still had doubts about her abilities. She was still very young for an officer, and despite her efforts to prove herself any man’s equal, she was still a woman, though admittedly perhaps an exceptional one. The men might well have preferred a more experienced, more authoritative officer in charge, and Galyshev wouldn’t blame them for it if they did.
As for the rest of it, they might or might not accept Sobchak’s guess that it was a crew of downed Americans who were responsible for the squad’s disappearance. While it might be the most logical explanation, it didn’t feel right to him, and Galyshev knew the others would think the same.
He could feel the cold seeping into the corridor through the concrete walls as he walked. He even thought he could hear the wind howling overhead.
Why would Americans venture into this white wasteland, this frozen corner of hell? Americans were soft creatures who lived in warm, easy places like Florida and California; why would they ever leave their sunny homes to come to this cold, bleak land of months-long nights?
It was almost easier to believe in arctic ghosts.
Chapter 12
Master pipefitter Sergei Yevgenyevich Buyanov was not at all happy to be out in the snow, walking the station’s pair of guard dogs.
Ordinarily he wasn’t supposed to handle them at all; that had been Salnikov’s job. But Salnikov hadn’t come back from Sobchak’s little errand, so someone had to take the dogs out, and Buyanov had been ordered to do it. He had made the mistake of admitting that he knew something about dogs.
The dogs didn’t seem very happy about the state of affairs, either, and it wasn’t just the cold, Buyanov was certain of that. Instead of trotting along as they usually did, sniffing at anything interesting, they hugged the station’s walls and seemed to be constantly whining, heads down, or else staring out into the icy gloom of the arctic night and making unhappy noises in their throats.
At first Buyanov had thought it was just him, that the dogs didn’t like him, that they missed Salnikov, but when they didn’t improve, and it sank in that they always both looked into the darkness in the same direction, he reconsidered.
There was something somewhere out there that they didn’t like.
But there wasn’t anything out there, Buyanov told himself. It was quiet and clear. The storm had ended, at least for the moment-everyone who had been here for more than a single winter seemed to agree that this was probably just a lull and they could expect howling winds and blinding snow to come sweeping back down on them at any time, but right now the air was calm-so cold and still that it seemed almost solid, as if all the world were encased in crystal.
Did the dogs sense a new storm coming?
That couldn’t be it-there were storms here all the time, and Buyanov had never heard of the dogs being spooked like this before.
There had been all those stories about the missing squad, about ghosts or monsters or some crazy American commando mission, but Buyanov hadn’t believed any of that-and he didn’t see anything. He stared repeatedly in the direction that seemed to worry the dogs and couldn’t make out anything but snow, ice, and the overcast sky.
”What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded, tugging at the leashes as the dogs crouched, staring out into the wilderness. “There’s nothing out there!”
Just then a puff of wind swept down at them from the nearby hilltop; snow swirled around Buyanov’s boots. As if that had shattered the stillness gusts and eddies began to appear everywhere.
That new storm was definitely coming, Buyanov decided, and might break any moment. The storm was coming, and he wanted to get back inside, where it was warm, where he wouldn’t have to worry about these crazy dogs, and where he wouldn’t find himself half believing children’s stories about snow demons or ghosts. Next thing you know, he told himself, I’ll start believing Baba Yaga’s out there, coming in her chicken-legged house to snatch me up for her stewpot.
”Come on!” he said angrily, giving both the leashes another Yank.
The dogs didn’t move. The big female growled, deep in her throat. This wasn’t just worry, Buyanov knew-he did know something about dogs, or he wouldn’t have spoken up and wouldn’t have been given this duty. That was a serious warning, that growl, and Buyanov knew it. That wasn’t playing, or any sort of low-level threat; that was a “back off right now or I’ll rip your throat out” growl, nothing halfhearted or playful about it. If any dog had ever growled at Buyanov like that, he’d have backed down immediately.
She wasn’t growling at him, though. She was growling at something out there.
”There’s nothing out there,” Buyanov repeated, baffled and frightened. “Just the wind.”
The dog barked angrily, once, her hot breath a dense cloud in the cold air. The wind picked up just then, and snow sprayed up from the hillside, glittering white in the light from one of the station’s few windows, like a flurry of diamond dust.
The storm was coming, no doubt about it, and coming fast. Buyanov realized suddenly that that eerie stillness must have been the calm before the storm that people spoke about. Wind roared in the distance.
”Come on,” he said, pulling at the leash.
The big dog jerked back, and the leather strap slipped from Buyanov’s glove. The dog immediately charged up the hillside, her legs churning through the drifts as she bounded away into the darkness and swirling snow.
”No!” Buyanov shouted. “Come back, damn it!”
The dog didn’t come back, and by the time the echoes of his own shout had died away Buyanov couldn’t hear her anymore over the mounting howl of the wind.
”God damn it,” Buyanov said as he dragged the other dog growling and yapping around the final corner to the door. The dog planted his feet, but Buyanov was bigger and stronger, and with just the one dog now he could rely on brute force to haul the animal to the door.
He shoved the heavy steel door open and caught a faceful of warm, damp air that felt like a foretaste of
