Rising Storm t2-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "We've only known one another for a little while," he protested. "I don't want you to feel that you have to rush into anything you may regret."

  She stared at him as though he'd been speaking Swahili, then she blinked and looked determined. "I've known you long enough to know that I won't regret this, John. But here's the deal. Once we land, we're not going to be alone for however long it takes us to do this thing. And we'll be in a place so cold your

  breath sticks to your lips. And we could all be killed. Okay? Do you get what I'm telling you?"

  "Now or never?" A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

  "That's one of the things I love about you, sweetie," Wendy said, attacking the half-frozen zipper on his jacket. "You're quick on the uptake."

  By the time they were finished undressing him, they were both on the floor, panting and laughing. He flung the last sock onto the formidable pile of garments and fell onto his back. Wendy leaned over him, smiling. Then she straddled him. putting her hands on either side of his head and her knees on either side of his hips; she held herself above him grinning at the way he lay blinking up at her. She leaned forward and planted tiny, nibbling kisses on his lips.

  "You're not going to tell me that you're too tired to move, are you?" she asked.

  Putting his arms around her waist, he gently tried to pull her closer. "C'mon down here," he growled, "and I'll show you how tired I am."

  Wendy grinned, but resisted. "Ah, but you're so far ahead of me," she complained.

  He sat up and Wendy retreated until she was sitting on his thighs. John reached out and undid the top button of her shirt and Wendy drew in a shuddering breath, causing him to look up at her. "Don't you dare stop now," she warned.

  Grasping his head, she pulled him to her for a passionate kiss. He matched her

  ardor, running his fingers through her hair, then down the curve of her neck and back, drawing her closer, deepening their kiss.

  Wendy pulled back, panting. "I love you," she said. Then she gave him a gentle push. "But we still have this clothes problem." She got to her feet and began to unbutton her cuffs.

  "No," John said, standing. "Allow me."

  Grinning, she held her arms out. "I am entirely at your disposal."

  "Not like loading stuff at a dock," John said.

  "No," Dieter said. "More creative."

  More of a pain in the ass, John thought, looking shoreward.

  The yacht was anchored in the lee of a headland. The shore was shale and rock, rising to high rocky hills whose black expanse was split by fingers of white—the outliers of the great interior ice sheets of Antarctica. Nobody had bothered giving the bay a name; Desolation would be about right. The rocky upthrust to the east sheltered the Love's Thrust from the westerlies, but there was still a definite chop, with white-caps on the short steep waves. That made the big pleasure craft pitch at its anchor, a sharp rocking motion more unpleasant than the long surges of the huge deep-ocean waves. Several of the crew were looking green as a result, which wasn't helping with unloading.

  Getting the big inflatable raft over the side had been a nightmare. Getting heavy parcels into it was worse. Right now the boxed snowmobile was swinging up on

  the pivoting boom.

  "Slowly… slowly…" Dieter said, leaning over the side and making hand signals to the man operating the power winch. "Slowly… I said slowly, dummkopf!"

  John hopped nimbly over the side and slid down the rope ladder, landing easily on his feet and helping the two crewmen guide the big Sno-Cat down. The raft was a military model, with aluminum stringers to stiffen the bottom; it had been designed to take a dozen troops and their gear into a beachhead or on a commando raid. With three men gripping the front and two corners of the crate, and Dieter blasphemously directing the winch operator, they managed to get it down despite the continual seesaw of differential movement between the two crafts. Which was fortunate, because if the crate had come down really hard, it would have gone straight through the bottom.

  The crewmen threw John looks of surprised respect as he helped guide the crate down and lash it firmly in place. He gave them a grin and a thumbs-up— Hey, I'm a lad of many skills, thanks to Mom—and swarmed back up the ladder to the deck.

  "That's the last of it," he panted.

  Dieter and Wendy were there, their hiking clothes covered with a final layer of orange water-resistant coat and pants, to find Vera waiting for them, a vision in pink. Her fine skin looked greasy from the sunblock she wore, and the big pink sunglasses that shielded her eyes from Antarctica's fierce ultraviolet rays made her look like an owl with bloodshot eyes.

  God knows where she found a pink anorak, John thought. But he wasn't really

  surprised. By now he knew that whatever Vera wanted, Vera got. Well, with the exception of Dieter. So far.

  "Sweetie," she said, rushing forward to give John a farewell embrace. "You take care of that nice girl, now. Y'hear? And take care of yourself, too."

  She planted a kiss on his cheek, then pushed him away and gave him a swat on his bottom. Then she turned to Wendy, leaving John to wonder if that was a grandmotherly slap on the tush or a lecherous one.

  Too fast to be lecherous, he decided. Besides, there's Dieter right in front of her.

  Vera kissed Wendy on both cheeks, then tugged her sunglasses down to give the girl a conspiratorial look. Wendy giggled and blushed, then enfolded the older woman in a fond hug. "We'll see you soon," she promised.

  Vera tapped Wendy's nose with a pink-gloved finger. "You'd better," she warned. Then she pushed her sunglasses back up and turned to Dieter, one hand on her hip. "Well, big boy," she said, somehow managing to slink toward him in her parka and heavy boots, "looks like this is it."

  "I sincerely hope not." Dieter smiled. "Or you might not come back for us."

  Then he took her in his arms and gave her a kiss that made her moan for more.

  When he finally let her go she staggered slightly and he gently held her shoulders until she seemed steady on her feet.

  "Wow!" she said, grinning. "I'll come back for sure if you'll promise me another just like that one next time I see you."

  He chucked her under the chin. "I'll look forward to it," he promised.

  Vera waggled her brows. "So will I, honey. So will I."

  With that, John handed down the last duffel and swung out onto the ladder that led down to the Zodiac. Wendy followed, and when she was far enough down he took her by the waist to steady her as she stepped down from the ladder. Dieter handed down Wendy's equipment and then his own duffel, following it down with economic efficiency.

  The crewman fended the huge inflatable boat off the side of the yacht and started the motor. The three travelers looked up from their seats to wave at Vera and her merry crew, who continued to wave at them all the way to the shore.

  Giovanni, Vera's handsome crewman, efficiently beached the Zodiac onto a smooth spot on the shale so that they didn't have to wet their feet to step ashore; it was less than a dozen paces to the beginning of the snow. All four of the men joined in pushing the crate containing the Sno-Cat up a collapsible metal ramp, over the side of the Zodiac, and then down to the beach. Then the Italian tossed them their bags. Returning to the motor, he pulled the boat off and turned it in a sway and flurry of foam.

  As he headed back to the yacht he waved and shouted, "Good luck!"

  Wendy waved back while John and Dieter strapped the duffels to the pile of supplies on the sledge. Two of them would ride the Sno-Cat while an unlucky third took a more precarious ride atop the supplies. They'd fashioned a sort of seat out of the softer goods they carried, but it was still going to be tricky.

  "There's sure a lot of wildlife around here," Wendy commented.

  John had to agree. He'd known the animals were there but somehow it hadn't registered. Off to the right, far enough away to mute both their sound and smell was a huge… herd, he supposed… of penguins. To the left a small pod of seals lounged.

>   Dieter looked back and forth between them. "It's unusual for that many leopard seals to get together," he said quietly. "They're usually solitary creatures. I don't see any pups, so that can't be it…"

  "I think the penguins are watching them," Wendy commented.

  "Leopard seals eat penguins," Dieter said. He looked at them for a few moments, unable to shake the feeling that while the penguins were watching the seals, the seals were watching the humans. He shook off the feeling and went back to work.

  "Would you hold on to this for me, hon?" John called out.

  Wendy turned away from the penguins and headed toward the sledge. Suddenly something hit her in the head with enough violence to knock her down.

  "Wendy!" John shouted, and rushed over to her. "Are you okay?"

  She rolled over, one hand holding the back of her head, tears in her eyes.

  "Yeah," she said. "I guess so. What the hell hit me?"

  John looked up in astonishment at the bird that had struck her. It looked like a huge brown pigeon wearing an unpleasant expression on its avian face. He

  pointed and she looked up.

  "That was a bird" ? It felt like a rock. A big rock. Was I near its nest or something?" she asked, looking around.

  "That's a skua gull," Dieter said. "They do that. No one knows why."

  "Bastard," Wendy muttered, getting to her feet. She kept a weather eye on the sky, though the bird only dive-bombed them one more time.

  Finally everything was secure. "So," Dieter said, "do we draw straws or what?"

  Suddenly Wendy rushed past him, climbing up the pile of supplies as agilely as a monkey to plop down among the duffels, her legs stretched out before her.

  "C'mon, guys," she said cheerfully, "let's go! Maybe the damn birds won't follow us inland."

  "Good enough for me," John muttered.

  Dieter grinned and took his place on the seat of the snow mobile. "Then by all means," he said, starting it up, "let's go."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  RED SEAL BASE, ANTARCTICA

  "Useless!" Clea shouted, and swept the desk clear of printouts pens and calculators. "Useless!" She kicked her chair and sent it rolling into the wall hard enough to dent the plaster. The action wasn't even satisfying; the huge weight of rock and ice above her seemed to swallow her anger, and the antiseptic air of the

  base to muffle even the sound of a scream.

  Inside her brain her computer governors worked to calm her. But Clea resisted, unleashing a seemingly bottomless well of fight-or-flight chemicals into her bloodstream.

  Useless, stupid machine! she thought at her own computer. Why didn't it have the information that she needed? Where was the program that would turn Skynet from a sophisticated toy into a sentient being? Why hadn't it been included? She had useless information to burn, but the one tiny clue she so desperately needed was missing. A murmur of quantum formula ran through the mechanical part of her brain, and she dismissed it with fury.

  We're so dose! she thought, feeling herself calm as her computer succeeded in getting her brain chemistry under control… But diminishing the strength of her frustration didn't erase it. She stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the computer screen and its offending lines of text. Then she began to pace like a caged tigress.

  "Your lack of self-control does you no credit," Kurt Viemeister said coldly. He hadn't looked up when she'd swept her desktop clear and he didn't look up as he spoke, but his posture and his fixed expression revealed his disapproval as loudly as any words.

  You idiot human, Clea thought bitterly, turning her glare on him. I thought you were the one that made Skynet live. Unfortunately the work he'd been producing proved that he wasn't, and even more unfortunately neither was she. She shook her head in disgust and turned away.

  "Where the hell are you going?" Viemeister shouted at her back.

  She turned at the door of the lab to snap, "Your lack of self-control does you no credit, Kurt." Then, with a look of profound contempt, she turned away. Petty, perhaps, but satisfying—unlike anything else in her life right now.

  Clea went directly to her room; she needed desperately to get away from humans or she might just have to kill one. 7 should not terminate any humans at this point. It would be non-mission-optimal. But what if I simply must kill someone?

  She slammed the door behind her, then paced the small space for half an hour, burning off the rest of the bad chemistry—the hormones had sunk into muscle tissue as well as her brain.

  Finally she threw herself down on the bed, covering her eyes with her forearm. It was time to calm down and start thinking. She decided to take a few moments to check on her seals.

  Seal vision was not the best and she regretted that she hadn't made some provision to enhance what they saw. But if they saw anything really interesting her internal computer could sharpen the images for her. What she saw through their eyes might be almost as boring as the base, but it was a change of scenery.

  Which, after far too many weeks in this lockbox, she needed now and again.

  While she watched, courtesy of her implants, the vague shapes of penguins toddling about in the distance, Clea idly wished that she could talk to Alissa. But the Terminator she had managed to contact while out on the ice had informed her that her sibling was undergoing the growth process and was unavailable.

  Alissa would probably remain unavailable for at least another week, depending

  on how hard she was pushing herself.

  The I-950 sighed and changed her input to another seal for more blurred views of rock, ice, water, and penguins… then sat bolt upright in surprise. What she was looking at was a small group of humans loading up a sledge. Making the seal look around she caught sight of a Zodiac plying its way to a dimly perceived ship of some kind in the distance.

  Well, well, she thought. Who is this? New arrivals for the base? Why not helicopter them in the way they did everything else from supplies to scientists?

  Maybe they're not coming to the base. But what else was out there?

  A skua, going by the general size and shape, knocked the smallest human down and Clea laughed aloud. She'd had that happen to her once; thereafter she'd amused herself by knocking the skuas out of the air. It was a pity she hadn't been able to catch one to implant with her little chips, but they'd all been dead when she retrieved them. Besides, the chips were designed for mammalian nervous systems, and an avian one might not be able to support the machinery—avians were literally birdbrains. Still, she longed for the kind of clear vision a flying predator might provide.

  The humans finished their packing and headed inland. Clea watched them go, chewing her lower lip indecisively. Then on impulse she sent four of her seven seals after them: at the very least they'd he something different to watch.

  Besides, she suspected that at this moment she knew more about the situation than Tricker did, for there had been no incoming communique warning of new arrivals. Perhaps it's a surprise inspection, she thought. In which case she could arrange to be on hand to witness Tricker's discomfiture. The idea gave her a nice

  feeling of power.

  It was a fairly nice summer's day in Antarctica. The temperature must be around thirty-five or so, Wendy thought. There was only a gentle breeze stirring the air and the sky was a light blue gray, indicating a high overcast. She was merely miserably, uncomfortably cold instead of freezing as she'd expected.

  The scenery around them was ice and hard-packed snow, wind-sculpted into weird and graceful shapes like a Salvador Dab' painting in monochrome.

  Sometimes a mound of snow would heave up like a wave frozen as it crested, frilled with a lacy edging of clear ice sparking on its underside; in the distance cliffs of ice seemed to bear tiny ruffles of white and blue and pale emerald green.

  More than once the beauty of the place took her breath away.

  The three of them were dressed all in white, the sledge wore a white tarpaulin, and the snowmobile was painted pure white as well. I
t's Ghost Troop! she thought. It seemed to her that very little here was really pure white; to Wendy's eye they actually stood out against shades of cream, blue white, palest beige.

  Although the light was so flat it made things look strange, so that if anyone was watching maybe they couldn't tell where they were going, or how far away they were. Or even that we're here? Well, maybe that was too much to hope for.

  On the other hand, it's too cold out here to have people posted with nothing but a parka and a pair of binoculars for any length of time. Cameras would freeze, I suppose. Someone had told her that on the yacht; Antarctica was actually a worse environment for machinery than the moon. So the odds were good that they were unobserved. She looked up again. And that overcast, slight as it is, would obscure satellite observation, if there is any. So I guess we're safe. The

  sledge went over a bump and her teeth clopped together. Not comfortable, but safe.

  The plan was to travel at an easy pace for the next two days. They'd actually unpacked a stove to cook up some stew for lunch, which they'd eaten in the lee of the supply sledge, along with a whole loaf of bread.

  Wendy had tried to refuse the bread, but Dieter had buttered a huge slice thickly and put it into her hand.

  "Eat it," he'd insisted. "You're not going to get fat at the rate you're burning calories."

  So, reluctantly, she'd done so. And she did feel better for it. After lunch John had slipped her a couple of chocolate bars and she'd gobbled them up.

  Guilt-free chocolate, she thought happily. What a concept. She was already looking forward to supper.

  By the morning of their third day on the ice, as Wendy lay on her stomach staring at the hidden base's wind farm, all she was looking forward to was getting somewhere warm. Even if it was only for a little while. The sky had become completely overcast by late the first afternoon and the temperature had plummeted accordingly, giving even the most expensive of their travel gear a harsh, and as far as she was concerned, not altogether successful test.

  Wendy had thought that as a New England girl she'd be better able to endure the cold than John. She glanced at him. He seemed completely unfazed by the temperature, the hard travel, the cramped sleeping quarters, or what they were