been smashed deliberately, but parts were taken away.” He opened the door, allowing Ligacheva and Schaefer to peer into the boiler room-Schaefer noticed that a certain warmth still lingered here, despite the ruined external door and the fierce cold outside.
He also noticed spent cartridges scattered on the floor and sprays of dried blood on the floor and door frame. Someone had put up a fight here-not that it had done any good.
”The missing parts aren’t on the floor?” Ligacheva asked, looking around at the clutter of tools and plumbing that Steshin had strewn about in the course of his repairs.
”No, Lieutenant, they’re gone, gone without a trace,” Steshin told her. “I had to patch the emergency generator around the main board directly into the lighting circuits to get us any power. To get oil to flow to the boiler I would have to rig replacements for those missing valves, and I don’t know how-I’m a soldier, not a mechanic.”
”Well, do what you can,” Ligacheva said.
”Lieutenant!” someone called from the far side of the maintenance area. Ligacheva turned to see a figure gesturing wildly from one of the corridors. “Back there! Down the other tunnel! He’s… he’s…”
Ligacheva saw the direction the soldier was pointing, and a sudden realization struck her. She dashed forward far enough to see past the pipeline and looked up at the corpses, more hideous than ever in the restored light.
”Twelve of them,” she said, counting quickly. “Twelve workers, Galyshev and his men but there was Sobchak!”
”Who?” Schaefer asked.
”Come on,” Ligacheva told him, striding down the passage toward the scientific station.
Schaefer hesitated, glanced around at the Russian soldiers standing on all sides with weapons held ready, and then followed the lieutenant through corridors that gleamed white with hoarfrost in the unsteady glow of the bare lightbulbs. Icicles hung in glittering lines from the overhead pipes; Schaefer had to smash them away with one gloved hand to avoid ducking his head, and his progress was plainly audible as ice rattled to the floor and crunched underfoot.
The final tunnel opened into a bare concrete room, the floor slick with a thin layer of black ice. A soldier was standing at an open door on the far side of the room-a mere kid, Schaefer thought, cold and scared despite the machine gun he held and the uniform he wore. He might be eighteen, Schaefer supposed, but he didn’t look a day over sixteen.
”Lieutenant,” the soldier said, his voice unsteady but relieved at the appearance of a superior. “He was lying there, he wouldn’t let me touch him-he wouldn’t even tell me his name…”
”Sobchak,” Ligacheva said. “Oh, God. His name is Sobchak.” She pushed past the soldier and stared into the room, expecting a scene of blood and devastation, expecting to see that the monster had attacked Sobchak.
Nothing was out of place; nothing had been disturbed. Many of the metal surfaces were white with frost, instead of their normal gray, but the equipment was all in place. Most of the meters and screens were dark- apparently someone had shut many of the devices down, or the cold had ruined them, or perhaps the restored power Steshin had provided was not sufficient to power everything. Certainly, the lighting throughout the station seemed dimmer than usual.
And the air in this laboratory was far, far colder than the rest of the station, almost as cold as outside. Ligacheva frowned.
”Where…”
The soldier pointed, and Ligacheva saw Sobchak, lying on his back on the floor, his hands and feet bare-and horribly discolored, red and purple and black.
Severe frostbite. Ligacheva had seen frostbite a few times before, though never a case this bad, and she recognized it instantly.
”So tired of white,” Sobchak muttered, holding one of his ruined hands above his face. His voice was scratchy and thin-the cold had damaged something, Ligacheva was sure, his lungs or his throat. “So tired of the cold and the white,” he said. “Isn’t it pretty?” He waved his arm, and his dead hand flopped limply. “See? Isn’t it pretty?”
Ligacheva hurried to the scientist’s side and knelt. “Sobchak, it’s me-Ligacheva,” she said. “What happened? You’ve got to tell us what happened.”
Sobchak turned his head to look at her, struggling to refocus his eyes. She saw that his left ear was black with frostbite, too. “Ligacheva?” he said. “Yes, yes, yes. I remember you.”
”Sobchak, what happened?”
”I hid,” Sobchak replied. “I was scared-I heard the screams, and the door was locked, and I didn’t dare… My boots were outside, but I… and the cold, the heat stopped and I still didn’t dare…”
”Yes, I see,” Ligacheva said. “I see completely, but you’re safe now. We’ll get you to a doctor.”
She knew it was probably far too late for that; Sobchak was almost certainly dying, and even if he lived he would lose both his hands and feet, which might be a fate worse than death for the little scientist.
”They left,” he said. “I charted them with the equipment, the seismographs… but I was still scared. And I didn’t know how to fix the heat anyway.”
”I understand, Sobchak,” Ligacheva said.
”I drew a map,” Sobchak said.
”Here,” Schaefer said, spotting the one piece of paper that had not been touched by the frost that had condensed from the once-moist air. He picked it up and turned it to catch the light.
”You,” Ligacheva said, pointing at the soldier at the door. “I want a medical crew up here on the double!”
The kid saluted and hurried away. Schaefer watched him go, then said, “Our friends seem to be based in or near a canyon or ravine about eighteen or twenty kilometers from the station.” He added, “That’s assuming your pal here was better at drawing maps than he was at keeping his socks on, anyway.”
Ligacheva jerked upright, then turned to glare at Schaefer. She rose to her feet and snatched the map out of his hands without looking at it; she stood staring angrily up at Schaefer. The top of her head didn’t quite reach his chin, but that didn’t seem to matter.
”A man’s dying and you talk as if it’s some petty inconvenience,” she said. “What kind of a man are you, to make a joke of this?”
Schaefer stared down at her for a moment without speaking; then a voice from the doorway interrupted.
”Lieutenant, on the radio-an urgent message from Moscow. General Ponomarenko! “ The voice was Sergeant Yashin’s.
”Coming,” Ligacheva answered without turning. She stared at Schaefer for a second more, then pivoted on her heel and strode away.
Schaefer silently watched her go, then nodded once to himself.
”Tough chick there,” he said in English. “Asks good questions.”
Chapter 20
Sergeant Yashin stood by impassively, listening as Lieutenant Ligacheva argued with her superior. The two of them were alone in the cramped little radio room, the lieutenant operating the equipment while Yashin watched the door.
”General, you don’t understand,” Ligacheva said desperately. “Yes, we have Sobchak’s map, we know where their base is-their ship, or whatever it is. But we can’t attack it yet-it’s impossible!”
”Nothing is impossible,” Ponomarenko replied.
”We’ve just arrived, sir,” Ligacheva insisted. “We haven’t even secured the Assyma complex, haven’t even cut down the bodies, let alone done any reconnaissance. We don’t know anything about what’s out there…”
”You do not need to know,” Ponomarenko interrupted. “Soldiers are often faced with the unknown, my dear. The arrival of these Americans necessitates an immediate attack-we must have firsthand information on whatever is out there before the site is further compromised. We have no way to be certain you have captured all the
