you work yourself up into one of your mighty snits?'
Garth slowly shook his head. I glanced at Whisper, stuck in the log twenty feet away; she might as well have been twenty miles away.
There was no response, no gorilla-only the rising wind whistling through the swaying trees. The flames of the campfire were starting to gutter and die, and I was growing cold and sleepy. I fumbled at the knot around my wrists with my gloved fingers, got nowhere.
Inspired by desperation, I began belting out arias from
Nothing.
Act Two. More arias, complete with a la-la-la orchestral accompaniment. I could feel my voice going when I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I yelped, looked around to see Golly standing behind me.
GO Y LOV?UPQINGM ZAAT
'Right, babe. I love Mozart too, remember? Listen to me carefully, Golly. I want you to take the knife out of that log over there and bring it here. I want you to cut us free. Do you understand?'
?
More Mozart. This time I hummed a cheerful, soothing etude. Golly inclined her head, half closed her eyes, and seemed to be swaying tentatively in time to the music.
'Golly, please try to concentrate and understand,' I said softly.
'I understand now what you meant when you told me you felt funny; you're losing your wrongness. But you have to stay like people just a while longer. Understand?'
FUCKING TRY
'If you can't, sweetheart, Garth and I will die. You have to take the knife out of the log and bring it here.'
Golly slowly ambled over to Whisper. She cocked her head and stared at the blade for a few moments, then pulled it free. She shuffled around the campfire three times, then responded to more Mozart and coaxing, and came over to me. Half an aria, another instruction, and she cut the bark strips around my wrist.
Not knowing how she would respond, and not caring, I wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed her brow. Then I took Whisper from her hand, cut the rope around my ankles, and cut Garth free. I immediately rushed to throw more logs on the fire, and the three of us huddled around the leaping, life-giving flames.
'Listen, guys,' I said, 'I've got a problem. London's plan was the best; wait here in the shelter of the cliff, by the fire, until the storm blows over. I can't do that. I've gone cold-blooded, and the only thing keeping me alive in this cold is a battery-operated heating unit. The batteries are going dead. I have to make a run for it now, hope that I can find the snowmobile, and hope there's enough gas to get me back to the Institute-if I can find it in the- '
Garth didn't wait to hear any more. He straightened up, came over and pushed me in the direction from which we had come. I resisted, clutched both his naked, hairy forearms.
'Garth, I don't know what's going to happen out there. I've lost my sense of direction; even without the storm, I'm not sure I can find my way back before I run out of gas. If you and Golly stay here, at least you have a fire, and maybe there's a chance- '
Now Garth actually growled at me, and anger flared in his eyes as he motioned for me to lead the way. I grabbed one of Golly's hands, Garth grabbed the other, and together we hurried back through a forest that had grown ominously still. Heavy snowflakes had begun to fall.
36
A half hour after we'd dug one of the snowmobiles out of a drift and started off, I knew we were hopelessly lost. The sense of direction that had guided me so unerringly through Mount Doom had disappeared. By now the storm was hitting us in full fury, and we were wallowing in a howling, wind- and snow-blasted world of freezing cold that had no horizon.
Even with Garth and Golly huddling around me, I kept nodding off at the controls, and it was only Garth's persistent shaking and slapping that kept me even semiconscious.
Then we ran out of gas.
My mother's dream…
Bad decision to allow Garth and Golly to come with me into the blizzard; maybe they could have made it out on their own, in the morning.
Maybe other Warriors from the Institute would have mounted a rescue party, found them; at least Garth would have been alive.
Maybe Garth's cells would have stopped exploding.
Despite his prehuman form, maybe Garth could have found Siegmund Loge on his own and stopped Project Valhalla.
While there's life, there's hope. Ho, ho, ho.
Maybe Loge, or even some other scientist, could have cured Garth.
Maybe.
April Fool's Day.
Bad decision.
My mother's dream…
Suddenly I realized that I had been asleep, and Garth's sharp pinch on my cheek had awakened me. I was in his arms, and he was on foot, struggling through snow that was thigh-deep, refusing to give up until his last strength was gone.
My mother's dream…
All the world…
Then Garth could go on no longer. Swaying, he held me very close, kissed me good-bye, then toppled sideways with me into the snow.
Something furry and very heavy fell on top of me, driving me even farther down into the snow. I wriggled, pushed at Golly, and she raised herself just enough so that I could see her display screen.
GOLLY LOVE MONGO
GOLLY KEEP MONGO WARM
While there's life, there really is hope. Ho ho, ho.
Alive, Golly and her sacrifice might keep me alive for a few more minutes, at most.
Dead, her sacrifice might keep both Garth and me alive for a considerably longer time.
Shhh.
'I love you, Golly. Thank you for your life.'
I sliced open her throat, killing her instantly. Hot blood gushed forth into my face, momentarily clearing my senses, melting down the snow around my head. I wriggled the upper part of my body free, wiped the blood off my glasses, then buried Whisper in the base of Golly's throat and ripped down through bone and flesh, spilling her steaming guts into the snow.
Garth saw and understood what I was trying to do, and he helped me stretch and break open Golly's rib cage. Covered with warm, life-sustaining gore, we squeezed together into more gore, huddled together with our bodies wrapped around one another inside Golly's carcass.
Dripping blood and strands of gut hanging from the ripped rib cage almost immediately began to freeze, forming a bloody, intricate, lacelike barrier of strange and unlikely beauty between us and the storm outside.
