There was a sudden shriek as one of the creatures burst out of the water, launching itself at the side of the canoe. It landed half-in half-out, causing it to tilt perilously. As it scrabbled for a hold, Callum ignited another flare, reached forward and stabbed it at the creature’s face.
With a shower of sparks, the flare went off, thumping into its jaws. It screamed, choking as coloured smoke poured from between its teeth. Then it released the side of the canoe and crashed back into the water, clawing at its snout.
Callum’s gaze searched out the other creature. Using its partner as a distraction, it had drawn level with the side of the canoe. It was keeping pace with Darya as she fought to control the vessel, its head turned, water slicing underneath its eye as it watched her.
“It’s stalking you!” he shouted.
“What?”
Before he could speak again, the creature had dived out of sight.
“Get down!”
He lunged forward and wrenched her out of her seat just as the creature exploded up out of the water and smashed into the stern. The outboard’s wooden mount shattered with the force of the impact, and with nobody at the rudder the canoe was thrown into a spin.
The creature clung to the rear of the spiralling vessel as the centrifugal force pinned Callum and Darya into the prow. They could only watch as it battled for grip, clawing at the timber with all four limbs before being flung back into the whirlpool.
The relief that Callum felt was short-lived. Next second the canoe bucked, the prow dug down into the waves and he was catapulted out into darkness.
4
Callum resurfaced, gasping for air as the cold beat it from his lungs, punch after freezing punch. What was left of the canoe was scattered around him, and the air was sour with the smell of fuel. Splinters of wood swirled past. The outboard propeller floated upside down on the buoyancy of its half-empty tank, the blades still churning into the air.
There was a sudden rush as Darya resurfaced next to him. He swam towards her and brushed the clumps of hair from her face. “Are you hurt?”
“Not badly,” she replied, gasping for air. “But if we do not get out of this w-water quickly…”
“How long do we have?”
“When the water is this cold, n-not long.”
“It’s okay,” he replied on instinct, “somebody must’ve seen that flare. They’ll be on their way to rescue us.”
Darya’s eyes widened. “Der’mo!”
He sculled around. A short distance away, the two creatures were side by side, watching them. Only the tops of their heads were visible, their eyes focussed, their snouts protruding out in front of them. Their plumage now appeared the same grey-blue as the water.
Slowly, they started forward.
“Come on!” Callum raced over towards the propeller. Heart pounding, he took a hold of the residual wood attached to the rudder and turned back towards the island.
“Get behind me!” he yelled. “If these things want a meal, they’re gonna h-have to work for it.” He watched as the two creatures advanced, Darya’s hands clinging to the back of his jacket.
The creatures shared the briefest of glances, then they left one another’s side; the slighter creature swam around to the left, as the larger broke to the right.
Callum swallowed hard. “They’re gonna come at us from both sides,” he shouted above the growl of the motor. “Do you have anything you can use as a weapon?”
“Everything was in the bag!”
At that moment, the larger of the creatures burst forward. Callum dashed the propeller blades into the water and sliced them in an arc towards its head. At the last instant it dived. The blades tripped along its back as it bolted past, churning up a slick of blood and feathers. It resurfaced a short distance away, thrashing in agitation. Then it charged again.
Once more, Callum dragged the propeller into its path. This time it dived sooner and then burst up from below. He could feel it collide with his legs and he braced himself for pain. But there was nothing.
It re-emerged suddenly beside him. A piece of wood was protruding from its chest. He turned to see that Darya had grabbed one of the splintered oars and speared it into the creature’s armpit. Now she was fighting to hold it at bay as it raged at her, swiping for her throat with its hind claws.
“Where is the other one?” she yelled.
Callum scanned around for it, but he could see nothing, only the bobbing wreckage of the boat and the distant shoreline. As he turned back towards her, something clamped on to his foot. He kicked out with his other leg, but it was no use. He was dragged under.
The creature pulled Callum along feet first, deeper and deeper. The world was a freezing blur as the silty water rushed past his face. He stamped on the side of the creature’s head, and it reacted by shaking him and jarring its body from side to side. Already his lungs were screaming out for air. All he could think about was Jamie and Darya.
Fighting against the rush of water, he dug his hand into his pocket and forced two, three, four numbing fingers around the bolt gun. He withdrew it, pressed it into his other hand and drew back on the rear portion to open the chamber. He grabbed a bolt and attempted to load it, but the feeling had drained from his hands and he fumbled the shaft of metal against the handle.
He reached for another. This time it slid home, and he slammed the chamber back into position. He leant forward and scrabbled around. His fingers clawed over his ankle and along his boot before they met with the creature’s teeth, a dozen solid rungs protruding from the leather. He continued to scratch his way across its gum, along its snout and all the way to its eyeball, where the protective membrane twitched against his fingertips.
Sensing his intentions, the creature accelerated, dipping and rising, doing everything it could to try and throw him off balance. But Callum dug his free hand into the feathers along its nape and held on tight. Then, with one jerk of his hand, he pressed the barrel of the gun up to its eyeball and fired.
The jaws cramped. He could feel its bite crushing into his foot and pain forced the last of the fading breath from his body. Then, just as quickly, the jaws relaxed and he was free to make for the surface.
He burst up out of the surf. The air hitting the back of his throat was pure ecstasy and the world went on hold as he drank in lungful after precious lungful. As he worked to regain himself, there was a splash beside him and the creature bobbed to the surface, blood pouring from its eye.
Callum backed away in horror, as the creature turned towards him before rolling over onto its back, thrashing weakly. It called out in a series of pitiful wails, which lapsed into clicks and then, finally, into silence.
“Callum!”
He could see Darya a hundred metres away, waving an oar frantically above her.
His mind raced. The other creature must have grabbed her. The image of its teeth sinking into the soft flesh of her ankles overtook him and he set off swimming towards her.
He had taken his first few strokes when he became conscious of her calls once more. His brain was sluggish with cold, but it was telling him that they weren’t the screams of somebody in pain. They were warnings. Warning screams. He stopped and strained to make out her words.
“It comes to you! Please, Callum! It comes to you!”
Halfway between the two of them, the second creature broke the surface of the water and bellowed into the air. Responding to the calls of its dying sibling, it was heading his way fast, tearing through the water like a shark about to breach. There was no chance that he could outswim it or make the shore. In his scrabble for air he had dropped the bolt gun, leaving him defenceless, and he could feel the extreme cold sapping the last of his energy. He brushed his hands over his jacket in a vain attempt to find a weapon, something, anything that he could use in a last-ditch defence. But there was nothing.
The creature had c
losed the gap to only a few metres. Its eyes were milky pale where the membranes had closed, protecting them against the rush of brine. As it bore down on him, Callum did the only thing he could and closed his eyes.
He waited.
Nothing.
When he reopened his eyes he could see that the creature had stopped dead only a couple of metres in front of him, sending a pulse of water slapping into his face. Blood seeped from its back where he had caught it with the propeller. The membranes had retracted from its eyes, replaced by a look of unmistakeable confusion.
As he looked on, it burst back into life, scrabbling and fighting, not against him, but against some invisible enemy. What the hell was it doing? Panic and exhaustion turned suddenly to rage in Callum’s chest. “Come on!” he shouted. “I’m right here!”
Then, still writhing, the creature began to rise up out of the water as if levitating. Water dripped from its feathers, which changed colour suddenly, shimmering from the grey-blue of the water to a brilliant white. The sea around it seethed with bubbles and a large shadow began emerging out of the depths.
“For God’s sake, w-what now?”
The creature continued its incredible ascent until its entire torso was suspended above the surface of the water. Below it, a huge, dark fin broke through the water’s skin, followed by a pointed nose.
Clamped around the base of the creature’s neck was a tripartite metal pincer, each of the three fingers speared firmly into its skin. Another identical metal pincer gleamed around the base of its tail. Both were attached to mechanical arms, which trailed off into the now-unmistakable shadow of the Sea Centaur.
Callum let out a massive sigh of relief as an equally unmistakable voice boomed out from the loudspeaker: “You sure know how to pick your company, McJones!”
Chapter 8
Atomic Particle Explosion
1
“Your symptoms are mild, you lucky son of a bitch,” Peterson said, resealing the Centaur’s hatch. “And your foot wound’s nothing but a scratch.” He gestured towards Darya. “She’s a different story.”
She was on her back, head propped up against the wall, fighting to remain conscious. Callum knelt beside her. Her skin was freezing and her lips were blue. “She w-won’t stop shivering.”
“That’s good,” Peterson replied. “That tells us she’s only moderately hypothermic. If she was still… well, then she’d be in a world of shit.”
Callum took her hands, attempting to warm them. But his own were just as cold. “Darya?”
“I’m o-okay,” she answered; her voice was low and breathy. “W-what about you? I-I… thought… that thing…”
“I’m fine,” he said, stroking her cheek. “But I won’t be going swimming again any time soon.”
“Help her get her clothes off,” Peterson ordered, “yours too. And don’t worry, Docs plural, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Come on now, every second counts.”
Working as fast as he could with numb fingers, Callum unzipped her thermal jacket and pulled it from her shoulders. Then he removed her underlying fleece, thermal top and undershirt, followed by her boots, trousers, long johns and several pairs of saturated woollen socks. The previous night, they had laughed at the drawn-out process of removing each other’s clothes. “Does this count as foreplay in the Arctic?” he had asked. She had laughed and moved on top to straddle him. “Not a chance!”
Now she was silent, and as her pale skin emerged before his eyes once more, the atmosphere couldn’t have been more different. “Are you sure this isn’t going to make her c-colder?”
“Nope,” Peterson replied. “Those wet things are preventing heat getting to her skin. Yours too, so quit stalling and strut your stuff.”
As Callum stripped himself down, Peterson turned the heating system to max, and a burst of super-heated air flooded the cabin. “I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making here. Any minute now and I’ll be sweating like a whore in church.” He pushed to the back of the craft and began rooting around in an overhead compartment. “And keep her talking, McJones. Don’t you let her sleep now.”
Before he could open his mouth, something patted against Callum’s head and tumbled to the floor.
“Thermal blankets,” Peterson said. “One for each of you. Make sure you wrap ’em round good and tight.”
Callum removed the silver blankets from their packets, tucked the first one around Darya and pulled the other around himself. He watched as Peterson now wrestled a bright orange machine with an attached respirator from the back of the compartment. He placed it down beside Darya’s head, sloshed some drinking water into one of the inlets and turned it on.
“Here, place this over her mouth and nose.”
Callum took the face mask and did as Peterson instructed.
“It’s an IRS, an Inhalation Rewarming System,” Peterson said, cranking up one of the dials. “A souped-up humidifier. Hypothermia kills because it decreases the core body temperature. The fastest way to treat it is to reheat the core and not just the outside of the body. Like most things, it’s plain old common sense.”
Callum held Darya’s hand underneath the blanket and watched as the machine ticked away, the transparent plastic mask filling with vapour. Peterson scrutinised the various dials and then sat down next to him.
“Why doesn’t she stop shivering?”
“She will,” Peterson replied. “Trust me.”
After what felt like a lifetime, Darya’s hands fell still. The deep blue left her lips and the first traces of pink flushed back into her cheeks. Ten minutes later and they had eased her up into a sitting position.
“How are you feeling?” Callum asked.
She squeezed his hand. “Like I am no longer an ice cube.”
“We should get you back to the Albanov as quickly as possible so you can get checked out.”
“No,” she protested, pulling the mask from around her mouth. “I will be fine. I just need drink of water.”
Peterson grabbed the bottle of drinking water and handed it to her. “Easy does it, princess. Small sips.”
She raised the bottle to her lips and took two enormous gulps.
“Or I guess you could down the whole thing, sure.”
Callum eased the bottle from her fingers. “I really think you should get checked out.”
“No! I need to get my camera.”
“Your camera?”
“Yes, it is the only evidence for those animals.” She looked to Peterson. “Will you please help me to find the camera? It fell from my bag, but the water is not deep here and it will be near to where the boat is sinking.”
“If it’s the animals you’re interested in then I can do better than that,” Peterson replied with a grin. He pointed out through the curve of the front screen.
Darya climbed to her feet. Confusion turned to wonder on her face as her gaze skipped up over the console and through the window. Callum rushed to support her as she staggered towards the control deck.
Outside, the creature was still struggling to free itself from the pincers. As if sensing the sudden attention, it stopped and slowly turned its neck to stare back in at them. Its mouth cracked open and it let out an ear-piercing screech.
“You have caught him!” Darya said, her voice shrill with disbelief.
Peterson perched himself in the sub operator’s seat. “Sure I managed to catch the ugly son of a bitch. Now would one of you care to tell me what the hell it is?”
2
“We’ve no idea what it is,” Callum said, his gaze fixed on the creature. “Darya thinks it might be a new species.”
“You have not seen anything like this?” she asked Peterson.
“Not in twenty years of trawling the oceans looking at weird critters.” He leant his arms across the control deck and manoeuvred the creature closer to the screen. Darya wa
tched him closely. The arms whirred as they retracted and turned, and the creature hissed back and launched a series of kicks into the air.
“Those clamps are secure, right?” Callum asked.
“Those pincers can exert hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch. Any securer and Mr lizard bird’s cahones would be stuck in his back teeth.”
Callum’s eyes widened. “Lizard bird?”
“That’s sure what it looks like to me,” Peterson said, “unless you know better.”
“Tansu Taibaa.”
“Tansu what-now?”
Callum surveyed the confusion on the Texan’s face. “Tansu Taibaa. It means lizard bird in Nganasan.”
“Since when do you speak Nganasan?”
“I don’t.” Callum hesitated. Whether it was the adrenaline controlling his lips, mental exhaustion or something much more basic, the urge to keep on talking was overwhelming. “A couple of days ago I found something.”
“Something archaeology?” Darya asked.
“An ice mummy. A man frozen solid, his body preserved for thousands of years.”
Peterson let out a loud cat-call. “Sounds like a pretty big deal.”
“The mummy on its own would be a big deal. But there are two things which make this one even bigger. For one thing, I’m pretty certain I can identify him. He was called Ngana’bta. He was an ancient Nganasan warrior.”
“How can you be sure?” Peterson asked.
Callum told them about his discussion with Lungkaju, about the tooth pendant that he had pulled from beneath the mummy’s parka and held in his palm.
“You sure this ain’t some kind of messed-up Candid Camera?” Peterson asked.
“Out here?”
Colony Page 15
