Helix (27 page)

Gina
smiled at her, reassuringly. “I understand what you mean. It’s a surprisingly
common reaction to individuals in extraordinary circumstances. They close down,
concentrate on the small-scale. It’s one way of combating the fear.” The medic
looked at Kaluchek, glanced down to her hand gripping Hendry’s. “You are
afraid, aren’t you, Sissy?”

For
a second, Hendry thought the woman beside him was about to tell Carrelli to go
to hell, but what she did say made Hendry admire Kaluchek even more. The Inuit
nodded her head minimally and said, “Afraid as hell, Gina,” and she squeezed
Hendry’s hand all the tighter.

Carrelli
said, “Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We are all a little scared of what the
future might hold, aren’t we, gentlemen?”

Hendry
laughed. “Ever since those things back there got Lisa... I’ve been wondering
what might happen next. Sure I’m scared.”

Carrelli
turned pointedly to the driver. “Friday?”

The
African gripped the wheel, eyes straight ahead. “I’ve seen a lot, Gina. I’ve
been through hell in Africa. What happened to Lisa back there, sure, it was
god-awful but I’m not scared of anything the future might throw at us. The
worse that can happen is that we die, right? I’m not afraid of dying.”

Kaluchek
said, “There’s worse things than dying, Olembe. How about dying slowly, and
knowing you’re going to die?”

The
African took his attention from the screen and turned to glare at the Inuit.
“I’ve been there, Kaluchek.”

She
was about to say something, but Hendry frowned
no
at her, and to her
credit she restrained herself.

Hendry
looked at Carrelli. She had closed her eyes, head against the rest, in a fair
imitation of sleep. But she wore a satisfied expression, and he wondered how
much she had learned about her fellow travellers.

Thirty
minutes later, with Kaluchek asleep beside him, and Carrelli breathing evenly
in the passenger seat, Olembe looked at Hendry in the rear-view and said, “How
about that, Joe? We’re shacked up here with a dyke and a shit-scared Eskimo.
You were just going along with all the fear stuff to make the women feel cosy,
yeah?”

Hendry
smiled. “Wish I was, Friday. But it’s true, and I don’t mind admitting it.
Maybe I led a sheltered life the past five years, but I wasn’t expecting anything
like this. Of course I’m afraid. It’s a natural human reaction.”

Olembe
shook his head. “We’ll be fine, Joe. Have faith. I’ll see us through. Okay?”

And
the way Olembe said this, with a touching belief in his own abilities and
without a trace of macho bravado, made Hendry wonder if he would ever truly
understand the outwardly surly nuclear engineer.

He
closed his eyes and was asleep in minutes.

Then,
all the more shocking for coming so unexpectedly, the truck hit something and
pitched forward, slamming the passengers against their restraining harnesses
and waking them instantly.

“Christ, Olembe!” This
was Kaluchek, hanging forward in her harness as the truck tipped nose-down, its
tracks screaming as they churned uselessly through the air.

Olembe
cut the engine and yelled, “Quit it, Kaluchek. I didn’t see the fucking thing!
A mist came down about five minutes ago.”

In
the silence that followed, Carrelli said, “Everyone is okay?”

Hendry
massaged his neck. “I’m fine.”

Kaluchek
said, “I’m okay. What the hell happened?”

The
view in the central section of the windscreen, still set on magnification, was
blurred, but the glass to either side showed a wall of ice a metre from the
windscreen. Hendry peered through the misted sidescreen. The truck had pitched
into some kind of trench or ravine.

“Okay,”
Olembe said. “It’s no problem. We’ve fallen into an ice trough or whatever. We
can dig a way out in front of the truck and drive on.”

“Hope
you brought some spades along,” Kaluchek said.

“There
was a set in the truck’s storage unit,” Olembe said. “I’m going to crack the
hatch, okay?”

They
pulled up their hoods and sealed the faceplates of their atmosphere suits.
Hendry upped the temperature against the imminent cold and unfastened his
harness. Olembe climbed out, followed by Carrelli.

The
wind buffeted Hendry as he opened the hatch and peered out, assessing the drop
from the truck’s step. The ice appeared to be level, perhaps half a metre below
the track. Hendry climbed down, then turned to help Kaluchek out.

The
grey gloaming, which passed for daylight on this world, was light enough for
them to make out the feature that had impeded their progress. The trench was
perhaps a hundred metres long and five wide; it came up to Hendry’s shoulders.

Kaluchek
was staring about her, frowning at Hendry through her faceplate. “Strange,” she
said.

“What?”

“This.
I mean... I know all about ice and snow, Joe. But this doesn’t make sense.”

He
felt a prickle of unease migrate the length of his spine. “How so?” He glanced
at Olembe, who was lifting a hatch on the side of the truck and handing out the
short-handled spades.

“Maybe
I’m being paranoid,” the Inuit said, “but this doesn’t look natural to me.”

Olembe
looked at her. “Hey, sweetheart, we’re on an alien world light years from
Earth. This isn’t the North Pole here. Things are different, yeah?”

Kaluchek
pointedly ignored him, turned her back and examined the side of the trench. She
reached out and touched the face of the ice, tracing something with her gloved
fingers.

Hendry
crossed to her. “What?”

She
was shaking her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the ice had been
cut.”

Olembe
was standing beside the front of the truck, staring at where its snub nose was
embedded in the wall of ice. Using the bonnet as a step, he climbed up, then
hoisted himself onto the plain of ice and looked down at them. Even at this
distance he appeared a faint ghost in the mist that had suddenly descended.

“Okay,”
he called. “I suggest we start digging up here. If we excavate a ramp, starting
around five metres back... the four of us should have it done in no time.”

He
moved away, out of sight across the plain. They heard the crunch of Olembe’s
spade as it bit into the ice.

Hendry
looked at Kaluchek. Her expression, framed in the rectangle of her faceplate,
was worried. Carrelli was about to join Olembe by way of the truck’s bonnet,
but stopped to say, “Are you two okay? Joe? Sissy?”

Kaluchek
shook her head. “This isn’t right, Gina.”

Standing
in the ice pit, with the wind raging above his head like a banshee, Hendry felt
suddenly desolate and very afraid.

They
all heard Olembe’s cry, a sudden grunt followed by a truncated exclamation—and
then silence. Carrelli jumped onto the truck’s snout, peering over the edge of
the pit and across the plain.

“Friday!”
she called.

Hendry
joined Carrelli, hauling Kaluchek after him. The hood dinted under their
combined weight. They stood unsteadily, gripping the lip of ice before them and
staring at ground level across the plain.

There
was no sign of Olembe.

Only
then did Hendry realise that he’d left his laser in the truck.

“Oh,
Christ,” Kaluchek wept beside him.

Hendry
opened radio communication and hailed Olembe. Silence greeted his call.
“Olembe, for Chrissake, are you reading?”

“What
happened to him, Joe?” Kaluchek sobbed.

Hendry
reckoned that he could see for about five metres, though the depth of
visibility was hard to judge; it was impossible to focus on the grey mist
before them.

Carrelli
said, “He fell—he must have fallen into another ravine like this one.”

Before
Hendry could stop her, she had hopped up onto the ice. She squatted for a
second, taking in the scene ahead, then stood and strode into the mist.

Hendry
said, “Gina, switch on your radio, okay? Keep in contact.”

Through
his headset he heard a crackle, and then her voice. “Okay, Joe.”

They
looked over the edge of the ice, watching Carrelli peer ahead into the mist.
She was perhaps fifteen metres from them now, moving cautiously forward, a step
at a time.

Hendry
was not sure what happened then. He heard a quick cry, almost an exclamation as
if the medic had slipped. She fell onto her back, heavily, and seemed to be
dragged forward through the mist. It was over in seconds. She was there one
instant, gone the next.

“Gina!”
Hendry yelled.

“I...
I’m being—!”

Silence.

Kaluchek
cried, “The lasers! I’m going to get the lasers!”

She
dived from the bonnet, slipping on the ice then scrambling on all fours towards
the slanting tracks of the truck. She used them as footholds to climb, then
hauled open the hatch and pulled herself inside.

Hendry
was about to start after her—gripped by a sudden fear of being left alone—when
he felt something fasten tight around his neck, then a quick vicious pressure
around his upper arms. Something was forced over his head and he was aware of
being yanked from the pit and dragged across the ice.

He
yelled, a cry inarticulate with terror. He felt something crash into the side
of his head, the pain unbelievable for a split second. Then, thankfully, before
either the agony became unbearable or the awareness of what was happening to
him increased his terror, he slipped into unconsciousness.

“Joe?”

Hendry
groaned and tried to lift his head. His skull throbbed. He let it drop and
stared into the greyness. He was aware of heat, and a terrible stench.

“Joe?
You okay, man?” It was Olembe, speaking as if from a great distance.

His
awareness faded. He was alive, at least. And so was Olembe. He was suddenly
taken by the need to know that Sissy was safe, the desire overwhelming, but he
could feel himself drifting back into unconsciousness.

Later,
he was aware of voices. He was sweating, and the stench was just as strong, and
this time he felt movement, a constant jolting sensation as if he were aboard
some kind of rapidly moving vehicle. He kept his eyes closed, listening.

“They’ll
be okay.” This was Carrelli.

“What
about Kaluchek?” Olembe asked.

“I
don’t think her skull is fractured, but she’s concussed. She’ll pull through
okay.”

Hendry
felt relief flood through him.

Olembe
was saying, “... reckon they’ll do with us?”

A
silence, then Carrelli responded. “If they wanted us dead, they would have
killed us back there. They’re taking care of us, after a fashion.”

“How
the hell do you make that out? First of all they beat our brains out, then tie
us up in the back of a sledge—”

“And
they have supplied us with pelts, to keep us warm.”

That
explained the stench, Hendry thought, and the cloying heat. He was weighed down
by a great animal skin, and his atmosphere suit was still set to combat the
freezing temperature of this world.

“Wonder
where the hell they’re taking us?”

Carrelli
said, “To their leaders, in some town or other? These people obviously have
some degree of organisation.”

“People?”
Olembe half-laughed. “You call those things
people?”

“Whatever,”
Carrelli said. She seemed too tired to argue the point.

Olembe
grunted. “Just hope their leaders show more humanity than these bastards.” Then
he laughed at the irony of his words.

“We
will find out,” Carrelli said, “in time.”

Hendry
gathered his strength, pushed off the stinking animal skin and struggled into a
sitting position, his head throbbing.

Olembe
helped him. “Hey, take it easy, okay? You’ll be fine. They clobbered you on the
head, but Gina took a look and said you’ll be okay.”

Hendry
blinked. They were sitting in some kind of open cart, which was sliding at
speed across the ice. Olembe was sitting across from him. Carrelli sat beside
Hendry, cradling Sissy Kaluchek’s head in her lap.

“Sissy?”
Hendry managed.

Carrelli
said, “She took a bad blow to the back of her head, Joe. I think she’ll be
okay. Don’t worry.”

He
looked at Sissy. Her expression appeared serene behind her faceplate. The hood
at the base of her skull was discoloured with blood.

“The
truck,” he said, more to himself.

“We’ve
lost everything, Hendry,” Olembe said. “The truck, the softscreens, lasers,
provisions...”

He
glanced at Olembe. A dark stain covered the material just above his faceplate
and rivulets of blood had run down the sides of his nose like tears.