what the walls up there, hidden behind that framework, looked like.
Regulations required that this entire area be kept clear, so in a crowded, uncomfortable station this huge open space remained virtually empty, and almost unlit. Galyshev reached for the switch at the end of the corridor and flipped it up; three dim work lights came on, but most of the cavernous chamber remained dark.
There should have been more, he knew; they must have burned out. He’d want to do something about that later, during the next round of maintenance.
He stared out into the dimness, scanning the immense chamber for his enemy, whoever it might be; the AK- 47 was ready in his hands.
Nothing moved anywhere that he could see. There were no intruders, nothing out of place. He heard a faint dripping, but that wasn’t unusual; not only did the lubricant from the pumps sometimes leak, but the temperature differential between the station’s air and the pipeline itself often produced heavy condensation on the pipe.
He glanced up at the pipeline, more out of habit than concern, and froze.
”Holy Mary,” he said.
Not all of the spots on the floor, Galyshev realized, were water or oil.
Three headless corpses were dangling by their ankles from the steel framework overhead, dangling and dripping blood into puddles that were slowly oozing down across the floor into the waiting drains.
”So much for finding them alive,” Leskov said, with no trace of humor in his voice.
”But who killed them?” Shaporin asked. “And where’d the killers go?”
”There,” Galyshev said, pointing. “Rublev, you did your rounds?”
”Yes,” Rublev said, trying to see where Galyshev was pointing.
”See the boiler-room door?”
Rublev and the others looked. The boiler plant was just the other side of the maintenance area, closed off by a simple wooden door, a door that was supposed to be kept closed at all times. Whoever had the duty of making the daily security round was supposed to check that door.
”But that was closed!” Rublev protested. “I tried it myself! “
”I’m sure it was,” Galyshev said. “Come on.”
”But there aren’t any lights on in there,” Shaporin said as the group began advancing across the concrete.
”I’ve heard that the Americans use infrared goggles to see in the dark,” Leskov said. Galyshev glanced over at him, expecting the comment to be turned into a joke, but Leskov wasn’t smiling.
Galyshev remembered who had had watch duty in the boiler room that shift-Dmitri Vesnin, Leskov’s best friend. Vesnin had presumably gone to see what was happening at the east door, and now his body was one of the three dangling in the maintenance area.
”Americans?” Shaporin said. “You think Americans would hang them upside down like that?”
”Who else could it be?” Leskov asked.
”Or what else could it be,” Rublev said. “How could it be anything human? How long would it take to climb up there and hang them up like that?” He gestured with the barrel of his weapon.
”Let’s take a look in there and find out,” Leskov said, taking a step toward the boiler plant.
”Whoever did this may still be in there, or they may not,” Galyshev said, moving along with Leskov. “You wait here-cover me.”
”The others can cover us both,” Leskov said. “Those were my friends.”
”Mine, too,” Galyshev said. “Come on, then.”
Side by side, the two men advanced across the maintenance area, stalking as if the boiler room were the lair of some dangerous beast-which, Galyshev thought, it might very well be. He had talked bravely about how there were no monsters out there on the ice, but he knew they weren’t all that far from the old nuclear testing ground on Novaya Zemlya, and visions of horribly mutated polar bears were lurking somewhere in the back of his mind.
Sobchak had said something about higher-than-normal radiation levels back when all this trouble first started, Galyshev remembered that all too well. The scientists all said that the stories of radioactive mutants were nonsense, bad American science fiction-but the scientists had lied before or been wrong before.
And why would any human being hang those corpses up like that? It had to be some sort of beast!
He crept up to one side of the door, while Leskov took a position at the other. Galyshev waved to Leskov to wait, then leaned over and slid one hand through the door, groping for the light switch.
”They’d have an advantage with the light behind -me,” he whispered to Leskov. “I need to see them.”
Leskov nodded.
Galyshev’s fingers found the switch. He tensed, braced himself-then flicked the switch and burst through the door, AK-47 ready.
It took him a moment to understand what he saw.
The door opened on a short passageway, a meter or so long, that led into the main boiler room. That boiler room was not well lit, even with the four ceiling lights on; it was a shadowy place of hissing pipes, black dust, and the orange glow from the burners.
This was the heart of the heating system for the entire complex-here oil was burned to boil water into steam, which was circulated through a network of pipes and radiators to every inhabited portion of Station #12. The oil came straight from the fields, so it was heavy, dirty stuff, and despite the chimneys and blowers soot seeped out into the boiler plant, covering everything with black grit.
The room was sweltering hot, of course, despite the biting cold outside the station. The heat radiated off the main boiler in waves of rippling air. The metal sides of the boiler were too hot to touch, new workers arriving at the station sometimes put themselves in the infirmary with second-degree burns while discovering this.
Galyshev had been working in Assyma for years; he would no more have touched the boiler than he would have thrust his bare hand into live coals.
It took him a moment, therefore, to realize that he really did see three big, man-shaped creatures leaning up against the boiler, their backs pressed tight to the unbearably hot metal.
He couldn’t shoot them, he realized; his fire would hit the boiler. The metal walls were thick, but the boiler was old, and was designed to hold pressure in, not to keep bullets out. It might explode if he shot at it.
These things were unquestionably the killers, though. They held things like spears, there were jagged blades on their wrists…
And they weren’t human at all, he realized. Not only could they press up against metal heated to 120 degrees Celsius without being burned, but they were huge, their skin was yellowish, their nails black and hard and pointed, like claws. They wore strange metal masks that hid their faces completely, while elsewhere much of their inhuman flesh was exposed.
They not only weren’t burned, they seemed to relish the heat.
”My God,” Galyshev said as it sank in just what he was seeing.
The three masked faces turned to look at him. Something moved-not one of the creatures themselves, but something on the shoulder of the one nearest Galyshev, something humped and black that lifted up and pivoted to point at him.
Three red dots roved briefly before settling onto Galyshev’s face.
A weapon, Galyshev realized, and he started to duck, to point his own weapon, but the blue-white fireball tore his head off before he had had time to fully react.
Leskov had not yet looked into the room, though he had been tempted upon seeing how Galyshev was staring; he was holding himself back, staying in reserve, letting Galyshev take the lead here. Galyshev was the superintendent, after all.
Then something flashed blue-white, momentarily blinding Leskov. Galyshev’s AK-47 stuttered briefly as the superintendent’s finger squeezed the trigger in a dying spasm, and when Leskov could see again Galyshev’s headless corpse was falling to the floor.
Leskov let out a wordless scream of rage and fear and swung himself into the doorway, firing wildly.
He never even saw them. He saw a blur, and then felt the hot shocking pain of a blade ripping through his belly, and then Leskov died, falling beside Galyshev, the AK-47 spraying bullets across the boiler-room ceiling as he toppled backward.
On the other side of the maintenance area the others watched in horror. They saw the blue-white flash, saw Galyshev and Leskov fall, but they didn’t see the enemy, didn’t see what had killed the two.
