'Shortly after I came back from Greenland, the company opened a new office in New York. A large staff of translators was to operate out of that office. I was put in charge of them, and so I located more or less permanently in New York. But I didn't know a soul there outside of the people with whom I worked, and my position sort of set me apart from them. I was lonely, and I had nothing to do with my spare time. Then one day I read an article on S.M.U.T. in one of the Sunday supplements.'
'And so you joined.'
'Yes. I still remembered Mama, you see. And all those other poor unfortunates who sold themselves. I knew the harm that sex could do. S.M.U.T. was doing something about curtailing that harm. So I volunteered my services to them.'
'They must have put a very high value on them, considering how much they trust you,' I observed.
'They do now, yes. But not at first. In my early days with S.M.U.T., my value to them was pretty much restricted to translating. I was given foreign language books which are circulated in the U.S. to check for pornographic content.'
'And did you find much?'
'I'm afraid so,' Olga said with the true zeal of the believer in censorship. 'Particularly in books from my native land. With such reading material available to them, it's no wonder so many French girls end up like Mama!'
I could have taken issue with that. My O.R.G.Y. experience has indicated that most girls who read such things didn't end up like Olga's mother. And most girls who landed in brothels didn't have time to read such things en route.
But I was supposed to be as fanatic about the rightness of S.M.U.T.'s cause as Olga, and so I only nodded understanding and prompted her to continue. 'How did you happen to be assigned to that brothel?' I asked her.
'Mr. Crampdick knew about my background – having grown up in a place like that, I mean. He asked me to volunteer, and I did. I guess he thought I'd be more able to cope with it and not lose my faith in the rightness of S.M.U.T. than some of the other girls who volunteered.'
'Didn't it bother you? Feeling about sex and brothels the way you do, I mean?'
'Yes. It bothered me. But it was worth it if I could be instrumental in closing down such an establishment. Besides, Crampdick provided me with the means of making it sufferable.'
'What do you mean?'
'He gave me a hypodermic and some drugs. It was a local anesthetic. I gave myself an injection in the loins before going to bed with a customer. So you see, I never had to feel a thing. There was nothing sexual about it for me. I was simply performing a mechanical act for S.M.U.T. Even the first time, the night I lost my virginity, I didn't feel a thing. It was only a technicality, and as far as I'm concerned, I still am a virgin.'
'Of course you are,' I assured her. 'And was it Crampdick who sent you to Hammerfest after the fiasco at the bordello?' I asked.
'Why, no,' She looked at me curiously. 'Mr. Highman sent me. I thought you knew that.'
'I wasn't sure whether he did it directly or through Crampdick,' I told her smoothly.
'Oh. Well, he did it himself. Crampdick brought me to see him just after the night of the blackout. It was the first time I ever met him. He's such a self-effacing sort of man, Mr. Highman. All that time I was with S.M.U.T., and I never knew he was the one in charge. And I was impressed with the way he was so concerned about my safety with that awful vice gang after me. I was so grateful to him for making it possible for me to serve S.M.U.T. at the same time I was running away. But don't you think this is a strange part of the world for S.M.U.T. to have an outpost? I mean, there aren't any people here, so how can they carry on their campaign against libertinism?'
Was she putting me on? I couldn't tell. If she was Dr. Nyet, she couldn't be as innocent of S.M.U.T.'s real purposes as she seemed. But if she wasn't, she could be completely sincere and chances were Highman wouldn't have told her any more than he had to in order to use her. In which case she might just be following his instructions in all innocence.
'Did Highman tell you what was in the package you were sent here to pick up and deliver?' I asked.
'No. Do you know what it is?'
'Yes. But I guess he had good reasons for not telling you.'
'Well, I'd certainly never question Mr. Highman's reasons. It must be awfully important if that man back on the boat was killed because of it.'
'Must be.' I figured I might as well let her go on thinking that was the reason for Vlankov's death. If she really didn't know any better, I could only hope that the lead Vlankov was following was valid and pointed toward Dr. Nyet.
'And that other ship following us must mean it's important, too,' she added. 'How do you suppose they managed it? I didn't see them while we were aboard our own ship.'
'Radar, probably,' I told her. 'It wouldn't be hard.'
Ungilak pulled the sled to a halt, ending the conversation. We were at the foot of the snow ridges, and the sky was turning to deep gray. It was time to make camp for the night.
Ungilak unhitched the dogs, unloaded the sled, and turned it over, angling it against the hillside for a makeshift lean-to. He indicated that Olga and I should crawl under it while he bedded down with the dogs a little distance away. Survival in the Arctic depended on those dogs, and although he was too polite to have ever put it into words, Ungilak's actions said that he was more concerned with their care than our comfort. He handed us large chunks of raw blubber for our dinner and indicated that we should cut it into chewable pieces with our knives. But he labored patiently at cutting the blubber up for the dogs, and it wasn't until they had been fed that he himself ate.
By that time we could no longer see him or the dogs across the blackness of the night. Olga and I crawled up under the sled – keeping a respectable distance between us – and went to sleep. When I woke up, it wasn't blackness but a dazzling whiteness that was just as impenetrable which greeted me. I blinked, but the whiteness remained. It had started to snow during the night and it was still snowing – an ivory powder pouring down from the sky, with no particular force, but steadily and unceasingly.
Olga was also awake. We discussed the snow, neither of us sure how it would affect our journey. After a while Ungilak crawled under the sled to join us and put an end to our speculations.
He told Olga how he evaluated the situation and she translated his words for me. We couldn't travel through the snowstorm. It would be too difficult for the dogs to pull a full sled. We would have to wait where we were until it ended. We would have to hope that no winds sprang up to turn it into a full-scale blizzard. And we would have to pray that it was over before we started running seriously short of food.
So it began. With a flurry of snow, not too heavy, but steady – steady! – a snowfall no worse than the average winter storm back in the U.S. That's how it started. Only such a snow back home lasts a day or two, maybe three, four at the most, and then it's over. But this snowfall didn't end. The days dragged by and still the snow fell. A week passed. More. We couldn't be sure. Olga and I lost track.
Ungilak stayed with the dogs, but came to us with food regularly. Hardtack and blubber – a monotonous diet, but it kept us alive. And then the day came when Ungilak brought us half the rations he normally doled out. He explained the situation to Olga.
'He says we have only enough rations left for a few days,' she translated for me. 'It has been one day since he fed the dogs. If he feeds them now, there will be no food left for us after tomorrow. So he intends to kill one of the dogs and let the others feed off the carcass.'
'And then what?' I asked.
'He doesn't know. He says it is in the laps of his Eskimo gods.'
Those gods must have been asleep on the job that night. I was asleep myself, and so was Olga, when starving terror stalked through the white hell of night and invaded our shelter. One of the sled dogs had chewed through the leather strap by which Ungilak had tethered him and now he came looking for food. Hunger pushed him toward the smell of warm, living flesh, and when the dog traced the scent to its source, he went berserk.
Olga's scream awoke me. Only that fact that she had huddled under the bearskins against the cold so that they completely covered her saved her from instant death. The dog was going at the skins claw and fang, bent on ripping out her throat.
Ungilak had left a flashlight with me and I'd carefully conserved the batteries. Now I reacted to that first scream by turning it on and shining the beam at Olga. Even in that brief moment, the beast had torn her coverings to tatters. His snarling jaws were inches from her face when I sighted my gun and fired three times in rapid
