Chill Factor

by James Axler

  "Better shut him up or the sec men'll come in blasting!" Ryan shouted, bringing a kind of a hush to the hut.

  But things were going from bad to worse, with the women tearing at their hair, down on their knees, eyes streaming with tears, the men staring in horror at the sagging body.

  Ryan had an inspiration.

  "He left a message with me," he said.

  Kate looked at him, puzzled. One or two of the followers stopped and turned to face him, but the others carried on with their weeping and lamentation.

  "Elder Bluffield spoke to me and left a message for you all."

  This time more of them heard, and they hushed and quieted the rest.

  "Why would the elder speak to you, an outlander and an unbeliever?" asked the oldest of the women, eyes screwed up with suspicion.

  "Because I am an outlander and an unbeliever. That was why."

  "What?"

  Ryan held his hands up over his head in what he profoundly hoped looked vaguely religious. "Last night, as he slept, the elder had a wonderful dream. A true vision."

  There was a collective drawing in of breath all around him.

  "He told me that meeting us and the small trouble between us had convinced God that—"

  "Not Jesus Christ, the blessed savior whose coming we wait?"

  "What? No, though…just a minute. Yeah, he said that Jesus was in the vision as well. And that he'd been told we were a sort of a…" He struggled for the word.

  "A sign," said the man who'd been banging his head against the wall.

  Ryan nodded. "Right, brother, a sign. A sign that his labor here on earth was done, his race run. God has called him to heaven to work for…" Again he hesitated, looking at the expectant faces all around him.

  "To work for the blessed second coming of Jesus the savior."

  Ryan pointed at the speaker. "You got it. The biggest and best ace on the line, sister. That's what he's been called for. He told me all this himself. In the middle of the night."

  "And hanged himself without a farewell to any of us?"

  "No, he told me to pass on this message, as his unworthy… messenger."

  The oldest woman was on her knees again, hands clasped. "And he has brought, as need arise, no soiled or tainted sacrifice."

  "Right," Ryan agreed.

  "What should we do, brother?" asked a younger man with a dreadful nervous tic that made his head tremble on his narrow shoulders.

  "Elder Bluffield told me that you shouldn't mourn for him. That he has gone…" A phrase he'd heard from Doc Tanner came to him. "Gone to a far, far better place than he has ever known and done a far, far better thing than he'd ever done before."

  "Oh, bless him and keep him safe in the bosom of Abraham."

  Ryan looked at the man who'd spoken, wondering who this "Abraham" was, who'd suddenly appeared in their prayers.

  "Should we seek a sign, outlander?" called the oldest of the women, looking up from the floor at him.

  "A sign?"

  "A raven with an ear of corn in its beak?" someone suggested.

  "A flood of fire that passes by but scorcheth us not," another offered.

  "The mighty rushing wind that brings honey and locusts to feed us in the wilderness?" said the youngest woman nervously.

  Ryan closed his eye for a moment. "No, he didn't say anything about that sort of a sign. Just to remember him and keep your mouths closed when the sec men come in here."

  "Oh, we will, we will," they chorused enthusiastically.

  "Shouldn't we take him down?" Kate whispered to Ryan as the followers of the dead leader began to return to their own bunks.

  "No. Hard enough getting the old bastard strung up there in the first place."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  IT PASSED OFF WITHOUT any trouble at all. When they were called out into the bitter grayness of the dawn, one of the older men in the shift reported to the sentry that one of their number had topped himself during the night.

  "Drag it out" was the sec guard's response, not even bothered enough to go into the hut and investigate the corpse.

  The rest of them lined up for their bowl of gruel and hunk of bread, all shivering in the icy wind that came howling down the canyon.

  "Be a relief to get into the mines out of this cold," said Ryan.

  ZIMYANIN STOOD on the balcony of his main control hut, looking through the smeared glass at the straggling lines of workers as they filed off toward their respective areas of the mine.

  He held the reports in his hand of the deaths during the night. There had been only three, one of which could have been natural causes. One was stabbed with a concealed knife and the third was a suicide.

  "Work Unit Twenty-five," he said to the charge sec man who stood uneasily by the door. "That is the one that came together from the Middle West?"

  "Believe so, Major-Commissar."

  "A religious community, was it not? And you think the man dead was their leader?"

  "Believe so, Major-Commissar."

  The Russian turned from the window, his deep-set eyes boring into the guard. "There is something happening here and you don't know what it is, do you?"

  "Happening, Major-Commissar?"

  "I can feel it in my bones. There is some rat boring away behind the wainscoting and I need the services of a rodent control operative."

  "Lot of rats in the mines, Major-Commissar."

  Zimyanin took a slow, deep breath. "Rats everywhere. I think that we will have a thorough check on our workers after this shift. I will personally examine their testimonials tonight. Man by man, face by face. Make it known."

  "Yes, Major-Commissar. At once."

  Zimyanin watched him leave, then turned back to look out over the dull, wintery scene. His fingers stroked across his cheek, exploring the pitted pock-marks, brushing his luxuriant mustache.

  "Rats," he said to himself, his hand dropping to the butt of the Makarov in his belt.

  RYAN HEARD THE TWO GUARDS talking as the line of workers filed their stumbling way through the yellow slime toward the top of the first ladder.

  "Russkie wants a big sec check tonight," one said.

  "Fuck it."

  "Doin' it himself."

  "Fuck him."

  "Seems he wants to see every worker, face-to-face sort of thing."

  "Fuck them."

  If there was any more to the conversation, Ryan didn't catch it, intent on taking his turn on the slippery rungs, down into another fetid layer of darkness.

  On the next level, he pulled Kate toward him, glancing around to make sure none of the others on the shift were close enough to hear what he wanted to say to her.

  "Trouble."

  "What?"

  "Heard sec men talking up there. Said that Zimyanin's going to take a double-special inspection. Sort of a parade."

  "When?"

  "Tonight. At shift change."

  Kate bit her lip. "You reckon he'll recognize you, Ryan?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, he'll recognize me."

  "Could…" But the ideas ran out.

  "Why's he doing this?" Ryan wondered.

  "Coincidence."

  "No such thing, Kate. If Zimyanin orders a special check, just a day or so after I get here, then he feels something. Man like that… No, it's surely not a coincidence."

  THE SHIFT WAS STILL in the same place. Level Six, right at the bottom of Shaft Four.

  Kate and Ryan were waiting their turn on the last ladder when she turned to him.

  "Got a question."

  "Sure. Go ahead."

  "Your story about Bluffield coming to you before he got… before he hanged himself."

  "What about it?"

  "They believe you!"

  "Course."

  "Why?"

  Ryan grinned. "Because they wanted to believe me."

  IF HE LINED UP in front of Zimyanin, then he was dead. So, they had to get away from their working party and make for another section of the sulfur mines, and either tag onto
a different shift or simply try to vanish into the labyrinthine tunnels.

  Ryan and Kate dug and shoveled a little away from the rest of their group, giving them a chance to talk and plan. They were near one of the guttering lamps, so Kate tried to make out a plan of where she thought they were, and how they might get away.

  "Here's the main entrance. Shaft Four is about a quarter mile this way."

  "Where's the river we came down?"

  "Here," she replied, using the point of the pick to scratch a snaking line.

  "And the huts are there?"

  The young woman nodded. "Right."

  "Can we get from where we are now, up this direction, and then around the back, mebbe a ways higher up the mountain?"

  She looked at where his fingers had traced a faint path through the mud. "Wasn't here long enough to be sure, but I think I could find a way. Might take us around where those boggle-eyed trackies live. Up here." She touched the rough plan with the muddied toe of her boot.

  Ryan nodded and sniffed. "Rather face fifteen dozen of those trackies than just one Oregon Zimyanin."

  "Best get on with work!" a woman called from behind them. "Sec men'll be down here soon to see what we been doing."

  Ryan shuddered. "Fireblast! Felt like someone just walked across my grave."

  TWO OF THE SEC GUARDS were patrolling near the highest point of the mine workings. It was an area of some danger, as the muties who scurried through the passages of the mountains sometimes came that way. One or two miners had been butchered by their crude spears.

  It wasn't a popular region of the workings, and Zimyanin often used it as a punishment.

  The men knew that they'd probably be safe just as long as they kept alert; their M-16s were more than enough firepower to keep the trackies away from them.

  The only good thing was that they were also close to the fresh air. A small tunnel cut off to the right, leading to one of the maze of narrow trails that wound around the sides of the massive canyon.

  Saul was just about the biggest of the Russian's men, standing six and a half feet tall and weighing over two-eighty. The other man on duty with him happened to be his brother, Ben, who was nearly as tall but only half the weight.

  They'd been arguing since dawn about reports that there was some kind of weird mutie moving around the mountain. Three different patrols claimed to have seen something moving, but it had been at impossible heights and in appalling weather.

  Neither Saul nor Ben believed it.

  "Too high."

  "Too cold."

  "They'd been at the home brew," Saul suggested.

  Ben leaned against the cold wall of rock and laughed. "Be so lucky, bro," he said.

  "Reckon that— Hey, you hear something?"

  "No."

  Saul punched him on the shoulder. "Me neither."

  They were both doubled over with laughter and didn't hear the faint sound outside of metal on stone.

  Nor did either man notice a slight shadow pass across the tunnel, as if something had moved between the passage and the pale light of morning.

  Saul nudged his older brother. "Hey, want to see something real scary?"

  "What? Not that old one where you shove your fingers up your nose and peel your eyes wide open? Come on, bro."

  Saul nodded. "Yeah. Look at…" His eyes wandered beyond his brother, just a few steps farther up the tunnel. "Oh, my…" he began.

  "Pull the other one," Ben said. "The one with bells on it and…"

  He half turned.

  And opened his mouth to scream.

  THE STANDARD OF SECURITY in the lower depths of the sulfur mine was absurdly lax. Nobody could escape from there, and the work quotas were easy to check. So the guards generally contented themselves with walking around in the less wet sections and occasionally clubbing a worker who wasn't showing sufficient enthusiasm for their task.

  Kate and Ryan waited and picked their moment, simply climbing up the nearest ladder and then moving laterally through the twining passages and dark corners.

  They saw sec men only on a couple of occasions and simply waited in the shadows until they'd moved past them.

  "You want to try and get someplace we can keep a look out for your little boy?"

  "Sure. Keep in touch. Like, on the fringes of the mine, where we can move in or out. That's all we need to try for."

  Kate wiped a smear of mud off her forehead. "Then let's go."

  ZIMYANIN SAT at his desk, his polished boots settled on its scarred top. His chin rested in his hands and his eyes were drilling into the senior sec man who'd come to report to him.

  "I am having a difficulty in the credibility of all this misfortune," the Russian said.

  "Sorry, Major-Commissar?"

  "Do I believe you?"

  "It's true. Both of them were just sort of ripped apart, like a gang of triple crazies got to them. I seen corpses after stickies finished their funning, and they wasn't no worse than these two."

  Zimyanin picked up a metal ruler from the desk and gripped it between his muscular hands. "And not a single one of your men saw this battalion of maddened muties?"

  "No, Major-Commissar."

  "No." The syllable was flat and finite.

  "There was just those one lot of tracks in the snow outside, and they didn't come into the open again."

  There was a sharp crack as the ruler snapped in the middle, leaving bright jagged ends. Zimyanin pressed one of them against the ball of his thumb until he drew a tiny round ruby of blood.

  "This battalion is then but a single creature who rips into slivers a pair of armed men."

  "One lost the top half of his skull, but the rest of his face wasn't touched. The other had the bones in his arms just kind of splintered. Must've been a hundred fractures. And the eyes of both was—"

  The Russian held up a hand. "I will peruse a written report on their injuries in one hour from now. See to it."

  "Sure, Major-Commissar."

  The door clicked shut and Zimyanin swung his feet onto the floor, walking to stare out of his window at the cold gray day.

  "Like the Kamchatka peninsula," he muttered, "but more profitable." He coughed and spit on the floor, nibbing at it with his toe. "So why do I not feel more contented?"

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  RYAN REALIZED EARLY during their escape that they faced one serious problem.

  "Fireblast! The lights are stopping."

  Kate was leading the way and she had slowed down, halting at a junction of two tunnels. The one in the direction they wanted was in total darkness and was obviously not in use.

  The other that remained lighted seemed to drive more toward the east, which would simply bring them back into the main workings.

  "We going on into the blackness?"

  "No." Ryan's voice was flat with disappointment. "I hoped that there'd be lamps, even in the farthest workings. Have to go the other way and keep a real good watch out."

  "Sure."

  "You know the way through from here?"

  "Oh, yeah." Kate's reply was that fraction of a second too fast and infinitely unconvincing. She realized it at the same time as Ryan. "I kind of know the way. Really."

  "It saved your life, telling me how you could find your way through this warren." His face was as blank as death as he looked at her. Tiny beads of ice glimmered in the stubble around his mouth, giving him a surreal appearance.

  "You'd have done the same," she replied, failing utterly to keep the tremor from her voice.

  He nodded very slowly. "But if I'd got myself caught out, I wouldn't ever have expected any more favors. You understand me, Kate?"

  "Sure." Wisely she left it at that.

  ONCE AGAIN they had to rely on Ryan's highly developed sense of direction. But it was like trying to teach him. You had to take account of every movement in two interlocking planes, each of three hundred and sixty degrees.

  Once they found themselves moving fast toward a very busy area of the sulfur min
es, with powered compressors wheezing and drills hammering. They could hear men shouting, and the occasional noise of leather on flesh.

  Ryan pointed to a narrow cross tunnel and they both ran quickly for it, avoiding being spotted by any of the sec men.

  A hundred yards farther on they were in a totally different atmosphere. The air was thick and still, filled with the stench of the yellow powder. The lamps in the walls were fewer and farther apart, leaving great pits of stinking darkness between them. It felt like nobody had been down there for days.

  "Someone?"

  The voice came from one of the areas of blackness immediately ahead of them. It was very quiet, almost ruminative, as though the speaker were having a private conversation with himself.

  Ryan held up his left hand, drawing the SIG-Sauer with his right.

  "You got the scythe, mister?"

  There was the faint rattle of iron chains, giving them the clue.

  "One of the prisoners," Kate whispered, "left here to rot."

  Ryan nodded and led the way forward, straining his eyes until he could just make out the pale blur in the gloom.

  "No scythe? Death and no scythe? Just my luck. Well, who then?"

  The voice was gentle and resigned, though hoarse and muted.

  "Any sec men around?" Ryan asked.

  "None. Not for… What day is it? No, a stupe question. What is a day? What a night? What immortal hand or… Time has no meaning to me or to you."

  Now they were near enough to see him more clearly, standing half stooped against the right-hand wall of the narrow passage. He was naked, and his head was on his chest. He had thick cuffs around both wrists as well as a rusting collar locked around his thin neck, all linked to a massive bolt that was hammered deep into the raw rock.

  Ryan noticed the dark rings of blood that had trickled over his hands as well as down his chest. Despite the bitter cold, the man seemed amazingly well.

  "How long you been here?" he asked.

  "How long is a piece of string, you might as well ask me. The petty pace has crept by with an infinite slowness. If I were forced to guess, then I'd say five days. Or seven."

  "With no food in this chill? And with nothing to drink?" Ryan's voice was frankly disbelieving. He knew that a man could live for an amazing time without food, but would die within hours if deprived of water.