Terminal Freeze

“Bloody yobs crashed the file server this evening,” she said by way of reply. “As if they didn’t bring enough laptops of their own, they had to steal our processing cycles as well. Gave me some chat-up about ‘special rendering requirements.’ I didn’t half cause a fuss.”

“There was only a single empty seat when I went to dinner,” Marshall said.

“At least you got a seat,” Barbour said. “I waited, standing, for ten minutes before I packed it in. Took an apple and a bag of crisps back to my lab.”

Marshall glanced at Faraday. The biologist wasn’t joining in the conversation. Instead, he was staring into the cave, apparently lost in thought.

Although Marshall knew better, he heard himself ask anyway. “So, Wright, what’s your take on things?”

Faraday didn’t reply. Instead, he just kept looking into the dark maw that lay before them.

Marshall gave him a gentle poke. “Hey, Faraday. Rejoin the living.”

At this, Faraday glanced over. The moon had lent a spectral sheen to the lenses of his glasses, and he stared back at them like a goggle-eyed alien, looking perpetually surprised as usual. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking.”

Sully sighed. “Okay, let’s have it. What’s the dire theory for the day?”

“Not a theory. Just an observation.” When nobody replied, Faraday continued. “Yesterday, when they were cutting the Smilodon out of the ice?”

“We were there,” Sully said. “What about it?”

“I took some readings with a sonar spectrometer. You know, since the earlier readings from the remote imager, top-down, were quite imprecise, and having access to a cross-section I wanted to-”

“We get the picture,” Sully said, waving a gloved hand.

“Well, I spent much of this afternoon analyzing the readings. And they don’t match.”

“Don’t match what?” Marshall asked.

“They don’t match a Smilodon.”

“Don’t be daft!” said Barbour. “You saw it, didn’t you? Like the rest of us, and all?”

“I saw very little, in an extremely cloudy medium. The sonar analyzer gave me far more data to examine.”

“So what are you saying?” Marshall asked.

“I’m saying that whatever’s inside that block of ice appears much too large to be a saber-toothed tiger.”

The little group fell silent, digesting this. After a few moments, Sully cleared his throat. “It must have been illusory. Some debris cloud you saw, maybe a lens of sand or gravel, trapped in a position to resemble the corpse.”

Faraday simply shook his head.

“Just how much larger, exactly?” Barbour asked.

“I can’t be precise. Perhaps twice as big.”

The scientists exchanged glances.

“Twice?” Marshall exclaimed. “So what did it look like, then? Mastodon?”

Faraday shook his head.

“Mammoth?”

Faraday shrugged. “The readings are pretty clear on the issue of size. They’re not as clear on, ah, shape.”

Another silence.

“Those were cat’s eyes,” Barbour said in a low voice. “I’d bet on it.”

“Sure seemed that way to me,” Marshall said. He glanced back at Faraday. “Positive those new readings are accurate?”

“I ran the analysis twice. Cross-checked everything.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Barbour. “If it’s not a Smilodon-not a mastodon-not a mammoth…then what the bloody hell is it?”

“There’s one way to find out,” Marshall said. “I’m tired of being pushed around our own research site.” And he began walking briskly down the slope in the direction of the base.

12

Conti had taken not only the base commander’s quarters but the deputy commander’s as well-three floors down on C Level-as his private suite. He seemed irritated to be disturbed by the delegation of scientists. When they explained their business, his irritation increased noticeably.

“Absolutely not,” he said, standing in his doorway. “That vault is climate controlled, kept frozen to a very specific temperature.”

“We’re not going to melt the ice,” Sully said.

“Besides, it’s well below freezing outside,” Marshall added. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“Nobody can see the animal,” Conti retorted. “Those are the rules.”

“We’ve already seen it,” Barbour said. “Remember?”

“It doesn’t matter. It can’t be done, period.”

Marshall wondered exactly why the producer was being so territorial. “We’re not going to steal the damn thing. We just want to take a closer look.”

Conti rolled his eyes. “The vault is to be kept locked. Blackpool has issued strict written instructions on that point. It’s critical for the publicity campaign that it not be opened until the live telecast.”

“Publicity,” Marshall repeated. “You’re calling your special Raising the Tiger-right? You and your sponsors are going to look pretty foolish if you open up the vault on prime-time television and find a dead bear lying on the floor.”

Conti did not reply immediately. He looked from one scientist to the next, his features settling into a deep frown. Finally, he sighed. “Very well. But only you four. And no cameras, no equipment of any kind-you’ll be searched before you enter and watched carefully while inside. And you’re to tell nobody what you see: remember, you’ve already signed nondisclosure agreements with hefty penalties attached.”

“We understand,” Sully said.

Conti nodded. “Five minutes.”

It had grown colder still-almost fifteen below-and the stars gleamed piercingly in the blackness overhead. The vault stood by itself not far from the perimeter fence within a circle of tall sodium vapor lamps: a squat structure, perched some three feet above the ground on heavy cinder blocks. Thick bundles of power cables led directly to it from the powerhouse, and a backup generator was attached to the rear of the vault, ready to instantly take over refrigeration duties in case the main diesels failed. Not that there’s much need for that, Marshall thought as he hugged himself against the arctic chill.

The little group stopped before the steps outside the vault entrance. Marshall noticed that the front wall was hinged along its left edge, the entire wall swinging open like the door of a bank vault. Three heavy padlocks had been attached to the right side-no doubt more for visual effect than anything else-and an oversize dial was mounted in its center. Beside it, a bank of meters and switches for monitoring and controlling the internal temperature was set behind a thick metal cage, secured with its own padlock.

One of Conti’s techs, a youth named Hulce, approached from the thicket of outbuildings, heavy boots crunching on the permafrost. He checked the pockets of the scientists one by one, found a digital camera on Faraday.

“He always carries that,” Sully said. “I think it was surgically attached at birth.”

Hulce confiscated the camera, then nodded to Conti.

“Turn away, please,” the producer told them.

Marshall did as requested. He heard the spin of the vault’s dial; heard the chunk of a heavy lock disengaging. This was followed by three distinct clicks as the padlocks were removed. “You may turn back,” Conti said.

As Marshall turned around, he saw Hulce pull the front wall of the vault ajar. A thick shaft of brilliant yellow light flooded out. Conti gestured for them to step inside.

Marshall followed Sully, Faraday, and Barbour up the steps and into the vault. Conti and the tech came last,