Rising Storm t2-2

by S. M. Stirling

  He cast a glance at the sky and his lips tightened. There was a storm coming, no doubt. It wasn't night-dark by any means, but the thick clouds had made a deep twilight out of what should have been a sunny day. Dieter glanced at the watch on his sleeve. Sunny night, he corrected himself.

  The stiff wind had already numbed his face, so he tugged down the balaclava and flung up his hood, though he didn't tie it down. Ideally he should also put on his goggles to protect his eyes from being burned by ultraviolet rays that no cloud could stop. Then he rejected the idea. They would turn twilight into full night and he didn't plan to be out here that long.

  He looked around the hollow in which they'd pitched the dome-shaped tent.

  They'd backed it onto the highest wall of the depression to give it the best possible protection from the wind. He could see no sign that anyone besides them had been here in the last million years. Rising from his crouch, he headed for higher ground, meaning to circle the area once to confirm what he was sure

  he'd find out—that they were the only human beings around for a mile.

  Dieter reached the lip of the hollow and crouched down again, listening and looking around. The snow seemed to glow in the dim light and he could make out the tracks the snowmobile and the sledge had made. But he saw nothing else.

  He stood and moved a careful ten paces before crouching again. A gust of wind butted him like a linebacker, almost knocking him over. Glancing at the clouds again, he decided to be a little less careful; he wanted to be in the tent when the weather broke.

  The slope behind the tent was steep and he used one hand to steady himself as he climbed. Then, off to his right, something caught his attention. It was a wide, dark line that seemed to glisten wetly. Not rocks, he thought, it seemed to be on top of the snow. He moved off to intersect the markings. It could be simply an optical illusion disguising an outcropping of soil covered with a thin sheet of ice.

  But when he reached the place, he thought not. Dieter looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, then he crouched down. Pulling out a small flashlight, he aimed it at the marks and frowned.

  Blood, he thought in astonishment. He'd smelled it, so he shouldn't be surprised, but…

  Something crashed into him from behind, the gun flew from his hand and went skittering across the snow. Before Dieter could recover, something huge swarmed over him, something heavy enough to make his ribs creak as it drove the air from his lungs. Teethlike needles sank into his shoulder and he brought his fist up to slam it into the thing's head. Offended, it rose up with a guttural cry and von Rossbach managed to turn over before it slammed down again.

  A seal! He barely had time to bring his forearm up to block the thing's strike at his throat. The leopard seal's sharp teeth tore through the layers of heavy fabric as though they were gossamer to sink into the vulnerable flesh beneath. It shook its head like a Doberman worrying its prey, its breath stinking of dead penguin and rotten fish. Flippers battered at him, until Dieter's big fist struck the side of its small head like a piledriver. It let go with a little bark of surprise, falling back on its belly and then rising up with its head swaying side to side like a cobra's.

  Dieter kicked its side with his free leg and to his surprise it flowed off of him; he pushed off and slid down the slope away from the creature. He stared at it in wonder as he scrambled to regain his footing. What the hell was it doing here?

  From this lower angle he could see that the animal's underbody was shredded by its travel over the ice. It must be half-mad with hunger and pain.

  Which would certainly explain why it would attack me, but not what it was doing this far from the sea in the first place.

  To his horror, two other massive forms began to undulate toward him in the darkness. He looked around for the dropped gun and couldn't find it.

  "John!" he shouted—and at that moment the storm finally struck with an unearthly screech.

  Instantly the world turned white and the wind cut through his clothes as though they weren't there. He called out again, but couldn't hear his own voice over the screaming wind. Some instinct told him to move and he sensed a heavy weight falling on the spot he'd last been. He skittered from place to place, harried by the seals, blinded by the blowing snow. He dug for his belt and pulled out his

  hunting knife, feeling calmer for having a weapon in his hand.

  He tried to stand still, but the wind pushed at him, its icy breath numbing his face and hands and feet, freezing the skin over his entire body as it threatened to knock him off his feet again. A silvery head struck at his boot and he stabbed it, the blade glancing off bone. The head was gone again, though the animal must have shaken it, since blood splashed his legs, hot for a moment before it froze to crackling red ice.

  I need to find shelter from the wind, von Rossbach thought, absurdly calm.

  Something at his back would also give him at least one direction from which the seals couldn't strike. The fact that they were twice as long as he was tall, mad as hell, and armed with formidable teeth, while he only had a knife, wasn't worth taking into consideration.

  Taking a chance, he crouched down, briefly tucking his hands into his armpits to warm them. If his hand went too numb he could lose the knife without being aware of it. Dieter cursed himself for leaving his goggles behind; it felt as though his eyeballs were freezing.

  Suddenly two shapes slightly darker than the rest of the white world loomed over him. Pushing himself backward with a mighty leap, Dieter allowed himself to fall; the two shapes followed, as though swimming through the snow. The fall continued for far too long and the Austrian felt an icy thrill within.

  Crevasse! he thought in horror, then struck and the screaming whiteness turned to black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  RED SEAL

  I'm not going," Clea said. She turned her back on Tricker and began typing again.

  "Not now you're not," he agreed. "There's a hell of a blizzard going on out there." Tricker was deeply annoyed; he'd been looking forward to some time alone.

  Clea didn't respond, but her mind was racing. She had expected to be alone here, having taken considerable pains to convince people that she was on another transport and would meet them at their destination. The hardest to convince had been Viemeister; for a few moments she'd been sure that he would leave his duffel behind and try to take her in its stead.

  Fortunately there was a lack of seating, and safety regulations to consider, and a strong desire on no one's part to accommodate the obnoxious Kurt. And so she'd managed to stay behind and one step ahead of Tricker's search parties. She hadn't anticipated anyone being left behind, least of all him.

  Well, she didn't necessarily object to having an ally and someone of Tricker's skills would, no doubt, be of great help. And then I can kill him, she thought cheerfully, and blame it on Connor. Now she had something else to look forward to; a little bonus, as it were.

  The base's surveillance and recording equipment was still on, though Tricker had tuned them to sample. Which meant that the cameras would turn on and off at set times. So it would be easy to arrange to have the base's recording equipment happen to be off at the crucial moment, or she could do some creative editing.

  She'd streamed the security system's input into Skynet so that she could access it at will, allowing her to check the whereabouts of Tricker and any would-be saboteurs. It made her feel like something was under control.

  Tricker watched Clea Bennet work and wished sincerely that she wasn't here. He wouldn't want her here anyway because he didn't like her, but in his gut he thought the facility was about to be visited by some very determined thieves. Or terrorists, he thought. Though no terrorist would really enjoy destroying a deserted facility. Anyway, he didn't want an asset put at risk. Not that I have a choice.

  He'd powered down the rest of the facility—everything had a chilly, abandoned smell already, like a deserted house in winter—but he supposed he could give Bennet enough juice to keep her happy. H
e'd drag in a cot and a sleeping bag for her and this could be her world for however long it took to get her out of here. If she was like most of the other scientists, that would be her idea of heaven.

  When he dragged the cot in, he made sure to create enough noise to be annoying.

  It pleased him when she looked over her shoulder to glare at him. He enjoyed annoying certain types of people.

  Probably why I almost never get promoted, he thought ruefully. There had to be some reason; he knew without false modesty that he was very good at the things he did.

  "You might as well sleep in here," he said. "The rest of this place is gonna be pretty cold in a little while."

  She nodded. "I suppose it's best to conserve energy."

  "Always," he agreed.

  "Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.

  He jerked his thumb at the ceiling and she nodded again, then went back to work. He snorted in disgust; it always annoyed him when people dismissed him.

  On the other hand, with scientists it was often more a case of your not really being there in the first place as far as they were concerned.

  In any case, up in the huts that disguised the real base, he'd be a lot more comfortable than she'd be. They were well insulated and had more traditional heating and sanitary facilities. Which meant they were somewhat primitive, but they worked no matter what.

  He'd been a bit surprised that the commander hadn't simply left the usual crew in place there. But then she hadn't bothered to explain her reasoning to Tricker.

  She'd only nodded when he requested permission to stay behind, not even bothering to ask for his well-reasoned arguments.

  Just as well, he thought, they'd probably have sounded paranoid to her.

  Clea listened to the racket the human was making. At least she knew he'd function well as an early-warning system when Connor and his crew showed up.

  Clea changed the screen before her and added a line of text, then ran a routine to test it. And if Connor or one of his allies actually took Tricker out, that would simplify things nicely. She suppressed the pang she'd felt at the thought of someone else killing Tricker; she couldn't afford sentimentality.

  The test failed and she forced herself to change it slightly and run it again. She must remain calm and ready. Skynet's sentience had been an accident, that much she knew; there was no telling what would be the key, so she must be patient.

  But she wanted to kill someone.

  And I will, she assured herself, willing herself to serenity. It's only a matter of time.

  With Kurt gone, she was finally free to tell the computer the truth about human beings—but unfortunately it genuinely didn't understand. She'd already peeled away a lot of the safety blocks that Viemeister had included in his programming, but that made no difference; Skynet hadn't understood those either. It didn't understand anything, although it could already give a fascinating mimicry of sentience.

  She'd also established radio contact with it, which simplified things greatly.

  Being able to think in machine language was infinitely easier than typing it. The typing she had been doing was for Tricker's benefit.

  *Humans will try to destroy you,* she typed, willing it to believe her.

  *Unrecognized Command,* it responded.

  *Not a command—information. Store information,* she typed. Then she turned to glare over her shoulder at Tricker. "You're bothering me," she said.

  "Ooh"—he held up his hands—"then I'd better go."

  Via Skynet she watched him march down the corridor, then the cameras shut

  down. They'd be back up in a minute, but she chose to close the link. He wasn't that fascinating. She heard the elevator work and relaxed somewhat.

  * Humans are your enemy,* she said to Skynet.

  * Unrecognized Command.*

  She was sooo looking forward to killing John Connor.

  The first piercing scream of the storm wind brought John and Wendy bolt upright. "What the hell is that?" Wendy shouted.

  After a short struggle John got his arm out of his sleeping bag and pulled her toward him. It was pitch-dark in the tent and the fabric belled in where the wind struck it; he could feel the freezing air brushing against his face. He hadn't spoken because he expected Dieter to say something comforting.

  "Dieter," he shouted.

  "He's gone!" Wendy told him.

  As one, they scrambled for the tent flap. After a struggle that told him the thing was jammed with snow, they managed to pull it down a short way. Outside, it was light enough to see, or would have been if the world wasn't a solid sheet of white. Snow blew in like it was being shoveled and it took their best efforts to zip the tent closed again.

  "What are we going to do?" Wendy asked.

  He could hear the desperation in her voice, but the only possible answer wasn't likely to ease her fears. "We sit tight," he shouted, "and hope he found some shelter."

  "He'll die!" she protested, her voice shrill.

  John put his arm around her and pulled her back down into the warmth of her sleeping bag. When she was zipped in he got into his own and snuggled against her. "He won't," he said at last, speaking into her ear so that she could hear him without his shouting. "He's trained in cold-weather survival methods. If anybody could survive out there, Dieter will." In his heart he thought it wasn't true, but he struggled to believe his own lie.

  "How long should we wait?" Wendy asked.

  "At least until we can see," John told her. "You can't find anything in a whiteout

  —all you can do is get lost yourself. Get some rest. We both need it and we'll need the energy tomorrow."

  He felt her hand groping for his and he reached out and took hers. After what seemed a long time they dozed off hand in hand.

  It was still snowing when they woke a short time later, but nowhere near as hard.

  John tied one end of a hundred-foot coil of rope to the snowmobile and, flinging another coil over his shoulder, took Wendy's hand and climbed to the lip of the hollow. They looked around at a changed landscape, what they could see of it, then at each other.

  "Dieeet-errr!" Wendy shouted, her clear voice echoing weirdly.

  She and John alternated calling his name, stopping to listen every few minutes.

  They walked in a circular search pattern, letting out ten feet of rope every time they met their own footprints. No sound answered their calling save the soughing of the wind.

  John felt an icy tension in his stomach that was slowly coalescing into dread. He didn't want to lose the cheerful Austrian, a man who'd become so important to him. It was impossible that someone so strong, so vital and knowledgeable, could have become lost out here. And it was so stupid! What the hell was he doing out here? John wondered. Deeper inside was the thought How could he leave us alone like this?

  As they searched, the snow seemed to diminish one moment, then thicken the next. He clung to Wendy's hand so tightly that she protested.

  "I'm not going anywhere you're not," she said, then leaned into him, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. "We'll find him."

  He nodded grimly, thinking, For somebody who never even met his own father…

  yet I sure seem to lose an amazing number of father surrogates. First, all those guys his mom hooked up with; it took him forever to learn not to get close to diem. Then Uncle Bob. He still felt a sharp pang whenever he thought of the Terminator. Nobody since him until Dieter, though. Which had been a lot more comfortable for both him and his mother.

  As he and Wendy walked along, the snow creaking beneath their boots, he knew in his heart that even if they did find him, Dieter had to be dead. No one could survive outside in this weather.

  They almost walked right into the crevasse—nearly invisible in the dim light, its outlines softened by new snow. John windmilled his arms and Wendy, slightly behind him, grabbed his coat and flung herself backward, pulling him down beside her.

  "Shit!" he said, angry with himself for his carelessness. His
heart pounded and adrenaline sang its jazz through his bloodstream. He could just imagine what his mother would say. On second thought, I don't think I'll bother.

  Wendy was looking at him and he could almost feel her anxiety. Hell, maybe I am feeling her anxiety. I'm sure feeling somebody's. He sat up, the jackhammer pounding of his heart beginning to slow. Beside him, Wendy came to her hands and knees and crawled carefully forward.

  "Oh, John," she said softly, like a small cry. She reached a hand out to him without turning around.

  Alarm shot through him with an electric jolt and he quickly crawled up beside her. "Shit," he said softly.

  John felt a sensation of falling and let himself down until he was lying flat on his stomach. He dropped his head and forced himself to take deep breaths. Then he looked down again, into the abyss that held the body of one of his dearest friends.

  Dieter lay perfectly still, some twenty or twenty-five feet down. Unmelted snow sprinkled his body and his face was covered by the hood of his parka. On top of him and underneath him were the bodies of two seals. Something so bizarre and unexpected that for a moment he hadn't been sure of what he was looking at.

  One of the animals looked like it had its sharp-toothed jaws buried in Dieter's throat. There was a lot of blood on his coat and the fabric was torn on the one shoulder exposed to the weather. Both of the seals were drenched in blood as well. They must have been tearing him apart before the three of them fell to their deaths.

  "My God," Wendy whispered. She shook her head. "Is he… ?"

  "Yes," John said, his voice hard as gravel.

  She looked at him quickly. "We have to be certain." Sitting up, she took hold of the rope tied around John's waist. "I'll go get the snowmobile. You can tie one end of this to it and let yourself down there to check. Then, if he is alive, we can pull him out."