Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

  Drawing Darryl toward the door, Michael whispered, “What's happening to her? Is there something we should do?”

  “I'm not sure there's anything we can do at this point,” Darryl replied. “The injection should take some time-a half hour, maybe an hour? — before fully circulating in her bloodstream and taking effect. We'll know better then.”

  Charlotte stepped to the bedside and took her pulse. “It's a bit fast,” she reported, “but strong.” Then she slipped a blood-pressure cuff around Eleanor's upper arm, inflated it, and watched as the LED numbers flashed. Eventually, they settled at 185 over 120, which even Michael knew was too high.

  “We'll have to bring that down, if it doesn't come down on its own,” she said, putting the stethoscope to Eleanor's chest and checking her heartbeat. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Light-headed,” Eleanor said.

  Charlotte nodded, pursing her lips. “Just try to relax,” she said, removing the blood-pressure cuff. “And rest.”

  “Yes,” she replied, her voice already fading, “Dr. Barnes.”

  “Call me Charlotte. I think we're on a first-name basis by now, honey.” Slipping a call button under her hand, she said, “If you need me, just press this. I'll be right next door.”

  Charlotte took the tray from the bed and herded them all from the room. Michael took one look back and saw Eleanor, the white compress draped across her eyes, her long brown hair brushing the rim of the ivory brooch.

  “Come on,” Charlotte murmured. “I'm sure she'll be all right.”

  But Michael detected a certain lack of conviction.

  “Maybe I should keep watch,” he suggested.

  “You've got packing to do. Get to it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  December 26, 12:45 p.m.

  For Michael, packing was easy. All his clothes just went straight from the dresser drawer into the duffel bag, where they were mashed down as compactly as possible. It was the camera gear that took time. He had learned, from bitter experience, that unless every lens and filter and strap went back in its proper case, he might not be able to lay his hand on it when the perfect photo op presented itself. Writing was about deliberation; photography was about serendipity.

  All he left out was one tripod and his trusty old Canon S80. He didn't want to leave the base without a few last shots of Ollie, enjoying whatever snack he could bring him from the holiday buffet. And the weather, for a change, was perfectly still-sunny and bright. The calm, Michael knew, before the storm due the next afternoon.

  Clearing the top of the dresser, he picked up Danzig's walrus-tooth necklace and slipped it around his own neck. He didn't plan to take it off again until he could hand it to Erik's widow in person.

  In Miami.

  Where he'd be, with a whole lot of luck, in a couple of days.

  He found himself standing stock-still by his bunk, simply contemplating the enormity of everything that lay before him. Everything that had to be done. From inoculating Sinclair, to convincing them both that this was their only way out of Antarctica-sealed in bags, transported on an airplane-a flying machine yet! — over thousands of miles in a matter of hours. And where to? A country where neither of them had ever set foot, in a century they barely knew. There were so many parts of the plan that they would find impossible to believe, he didn't even know where to start. And so many parts that he himself could barely accept-was he truly going to chaperone the two into the modern-day world? — that a kind of mental paralysis threatened to descend. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, he reminded himself. Confronted by so many variables, all he could do was attend to the small things, one at a time.

  When the door opened and Darryl came in, he was tucking a camera case into the bulging duffel.

  “Any word about Eleanor?” Darryl asked, plunking himself down in the desk chair.

  “Not since we left.”

  Darryl was eating a mammoth eclair. “You should check out the commons. Lots of leftover Christmas pastry. The hot punch is still going, too.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will, before we head over to the meat locker.”

  Darryl nodded, licking the yellow cream off his fingertips. “You told Eleanor yet about the rest of the plan?”

  Michael shook his head. “I'm still looking for a better way to say body bag.”

  “If you think that's going to be hard, try airplane.”

  “I'm way ahead of you there.”

  “Charlotte's got a nice supply of tranquilizers in her medicine chest. I'm sure she could arrange for them both to get a heavy dose.”

  Michael could certainly subscribe to that. His only hope was that Sinclair's belligerence would evaporate once he understood that this was the only way he and Eleanor could be rescued from their immediate plight.

  And would he trust Michael enough to go along?

  Darryl kicked off his boots, got up, and crawled into his lower bunk. “Eating makes me sleepy,” he said, stretching out his legs. “Come wake me whenever you want to go over to see Prince Charming.”

  “Will do.”

  Darryl stretched his legs out. “By the way,” he added, “you do know that what you're doing is crazy, right?”

  Michael nodded, while yanking the zipper halfway up the duffel.

  “Glad to hear it. ‘Cause if you didn't, I'd have to start worrying about you.”

  Eleanor awoke with a start, the picture of Miss Nightingale's reproachful face still before her. She had never overcome the sense of guilt at betraying the great lady-and the profession itself-by absconding with Sinclair, and she often dreamt of making amends somehow.

  Her limbs felt cold and dead, even under the blanket, and she rubbed her arms vigorously to get the blood circulating. Sitting up, she gave herself a second to get her bearings, then pushed the blanket aside and stood up beside the bed. She was about to stamp her feet on the floor, too, but then thought better of it-the sound might bring Dr. Barnes running from the next room, and she didn't want company, much less medical attention, just yet.

  Had she been cured? And if she had, would she feel the way she did-slightly numbed, a trifle chilly-forever? Was that the price?

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, she stepped to the window and drew back the black curtains. It was preternaturally still outside, and it occurred to her that this might be the calm before the storm. The snow on the ground glinted in the sharp, cold rays of the sun. She had to step back and shield her eyes from the glare.

  And then something crossed her field of vision, a flash of red- and she stepped closer again.

  It came again, moving swiftly, surreptitiously, down the snowy concourse, looking this way and that. She put her face closer to the window and peered out… and the figure stopped, raised a hand to shield its own eyes, and peered back.

  It was Sinclair, the red coat with the white cross billowing out over his cavalry uniform.

  Before she could even raise a hand to signal him, he had run across the snow, skidding and nearly falling several times, and she could hear the door to the building flying open down the hall. She hurried on tiptoe to the infirmary entry, and when he saw her she put a finger to her lips and waved for him to follow her inside.

  Once there, she closed the door to the hall, and had no sooner turned around again than he had clasped her in his arms.

  “I knew I would find you!” he whispered. He quickly surveyed the room, taking in the cabinets filled with medical supplies and said, “This is the field hospital?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And this is where they've been keeping you? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, gently trying to extricate herself from his too-eager grasp. “But how did you get here?”

  He brushed the question aside, and said, “We have to go.”

  “Where, Sinclair? Where would we go?” She grabbed his hands and stared into his bloodshot, half-mad eyes. “These people can help us,” she said, implor
ingly. “They have helped me already, and they can help you, too.”

  “Helped you? How?”

  “They have a medicine,” she said, “a medicine that can help us… change.”

  His breath was short and ragged. She knew he was in the grip of the terrible thirst. She cast her eyes wildly around the room, and then settled on the fridge, where she had found the bag of blood. Surely that would be where the other bag, the bag with the medicine in it, was stored.

  “Wait,” she said, moving to the refrigerator and flinging it open. A bag identical to the one that Charlotte had used to fill the syringe- perhaps the very same one-sat on a wire shelf; a label on it read AFGP-5. She prayed it was the right one.

  “Come on,” Sinclair urged. “Whatever this is, we haven't time for it.”

  But Eleanor ignored him. If she could save him, she would, and she had seen the procedure with the needle done enough times that she was confident she could do it herself.

  “Take off your coat-quickly!”

  “What are you saying? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Just do as I say. I'm not moving an inch until you do.”

  He yanked the coat off in exasperation.

  She took out the bag and found a fresh needle in the cabinet.

  “Roll up your sleeve!” she said, filling the syringe.

  “Eleanor, please, there is no hope, or help, for us. We are what we are.”

  “Be quiet,” Eleanor whispered. “The doctor might hear you.”

  She swabbed his skin with the alcohol, patted his arm to bring up a vein, then pressed the syringe, as she had seen Charlotte do, to remove any air. “Stay very still,” she said, inserting the needle and slowly depressing the plunger. She could guess what he must be feeling-the blossoming chill in his bloodstream, the slight disorien-tation. When she removed the needle, he seemed at first to be unaffected, and she was seized with fear. Had she used the wrong medicine, or administered it incorrectly?

  “I don't know what witchcraft you think you've just performed, but can we go now?” he said, rolling down his sleeve again, and pulling on the coat over his uniform jacket. Loose strings of gold braid dangled like tassels. “Where's your coat?”

  He barged into the next room and found her coat and gloves there, then came back and began to bundle her into them.

  “I have a plan,” he said, “to launch a boat, from the whaling station. We'll be picked up at sea…”

  Then he shivered, from the top of his head to the soles of the boots-different boots, she noted-on his feet. And stumbled backwards onto the edge of the bed.

  It was the right medicine. Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief. Now he would be incapacitated-at least long enough for her to explain everything to him. She knelt by the side of the bed, the tails of her long coat hanging down to the floor, holding his cold hands in hers. “Sinclair, you have to listen to me. You have to understand.”

  He looked at her with rolling eyes.

  “The medicine will take time for its full effect to be felt. But once it has, you will no longer feel the need you feel now.” Even at their worst, sleeping in cellars or spurring their horses through mountain passes in the driving rain, they had always referred to their affliction in only the most oblique terms. “But the doctor tells me-”

  He harrumphed at that. “The doctor…” But then he could not go on.

  “The doctor, and the others too, tell me we must not touch ice. Do you understand that? We must not touch ice! If we do, we will die.”

  He stared down at her as if she were the one who had truly lost her wits. He chuckled, bitterly. “A fairy tale and you believe it.”

  “Oh, Sinclair, I do. I do believe it.”

  “And this in a land of nothing but ice. Is there any better way to make you their willing prisoner?”

  Eleanor bowed her head in despair. “We are not their prisoners. They are not our captors. This is not the war.”

  But when she looked up, she saw that for Sinclair, it was, and would always be, the war. Even if the physical need were relieved, the affliction had struck its roots so deep into his soul that there would be no extracting them, ever. Even then, with sweat beading his brow and his skin clammy to the touch, he staggered up, as obediently as if a bugle had sounded, and pulled on his coat and gloves. She waited, praying for the medicine to further sap his strength, but he seemed to be using all of his willpower to fight its effects.

  “Sinclair! Have you heard a word I've been saying? We can't go out there unprotected.”

  “Then in God's name, button up!” he said, grabbing her by the sleeve of her own coat. She just had time to snatch the brooch from the bedside table before he dragged her from the sick bay. “It's a lovely day outside.”

  He lumbered down the hall and threw open the door to the outside ramp. Sunlight glinted off the snow and ice, and Eleanor instinctively pulled the goggles from her coat pocket and put them on.

  “The dogs are already in harness,” he said, with satisfaction. “I made sure of that first.”

  He had? How long had he been haunting the camp?

  He was clambering down the ramp with Eleanor in tow, when he suddenly stopped short and said, “Of all the damn bloody nuisances…”

  Eleanor had pulled the hood of her coat tightly over her face, but when she peeked out from under it she saw Michael-slack-jawed-standing a few yards away a black metal contraption with three legs tucked under one arm. He seemed to be trying to make some sense of what he was seeing.

  “If I were you,” Sinclair said, “I'd turn tail now and run.”

  Michael's eyes went straight to Eleanor's, searching for some answer.

  Sinclair pushed the flap of his overcoat away, revealing the saber that hung at his side, but when he tried to move off, Michael hastily blocked their path.

  “Good God, I'm in a hurry!” Sinclair exploded, as if he were scolding a slow-witted stableboy Letting go of Eleanor's arm, he pulled the sword from its scabbard. “Now get out of the way,” he said, brandishing the sword in the gleam of the polar sun, “or I'll drop you where you stand.”

  “Michael,” Eleanor interceded, “do as he says!”

  “Eleanor, you can't be out here! You have to get back inside!”

  Sinclair's eyes flashed at the exchange, and moved from one of them to the other. But when they returned to Michael, they burned with a cold fury.

  “Perhaps I've been blind,” he said, advancing on Michael with the tip of the sword extended.

  To Eleanor's horror, Michael did not retreat, but raised the metal contraption-it had three legs, like an artist's easel-and held it out like a weapon.

  This was madness, she thought, utter madness.

  “You can go,” Michael said, standing his ground. “I won't try to stop you. But Eleanor stays.”

  “So that is what this is about.” Sinclair sneered. “You're a bigger fool than I thought.”

  “Maybe you're right,” Michael said, taking a step closer, “but that's the deal.”

  Sinclair paused, as if mulling it over, then suddenly lunged at Michael, the sword whistling through the air. The blade struck the legs of the tripod, and blue sparks flew into the air. Michael fell back, struggling to hold on to it.

  Sinclair advanced, baiting Michael with the end of the sword, twirling it in small circles. Eleanor saw now that the back of her lieutenant's head had a gash in it, and the blond hair had been cut short, as if someone had tended to the wound.

  Michael feinted with the tripod, pushing it back at Sinclair, but Sinclair knocked it to one side and continued to advance on him.

  “I'm pressed for time,” Sinclair said, “so this will have to be quick.”

  He slashed once, twice, and on the third blow the tripod was wrenched from Michael's hands and clattered to the hard ground. Michael scrambled after it-he had no other weapon-and as Sinclair swung the gleaming saber back over his left shoulder, ready to deliver the fatal blow, there was a bloodcurdling scream and Charlotte-in a green
silk bathrobe, with her braids flying about her head-hurtled down the ramp and shoved Sinclair off-balance. He stumbled forward, barely hanging on to the sword, before whirling around and swinging at his new assailant. The blade caught the doctor's leg, and she fell, blood spraying onto the snow.

  It was Eleanor's turn to scream, but before she could go to Charlotte's aid, Sinclair snatched her by the sleeve of her coat again.

  “Can you bear to be parted?” he said, seething, and dragged her toward the kennels.

  She went willingly, if only to give Michael and Charlotte time to escape.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  December 26, 3 p.m.

  Kneeling in the snow beside Charlotte, Michael tried to ascertain the damage.

  “It's not bad,” Charlotte said, sitting up and wincing. “It's a flesh wound.”

  “I'll help you back to the infirmary.”

  “I can get there myself,” Charlotte said. “Go get Eleanor!”

  But when she tried to stand, her knees buckled, and Michael had to sling an arm around her waist to get her back up the ramp and into the infirmary. As he lowered her into a chair, and followed her instructions to bring the antiseptic, antibiotics, and bandages, he heard the jingling of the harness on the dogsled passing by outside. Glancing out the window, he saw Sinclair in his red-and-gold jacket, standing on the runners. He'd pulled a ski mask over his head and goggles covered his eyes; apparently, he'd learned quickly about how to weather the Antarctic. Eleanor was huddled low in the bright orange cargo shell, her head down and her hood drawn tight, as the sled whooshed past.

  “Tell me that was Santa Claus heading home,” Charlotte said, saturating a cotton pad in antiseptic.

  “He'll head for the old whaling station,” Michael said. “There's nowhere else he can go, especially with a storm coming on.”

  “Get rolling,” Charlotte urged him again. “But get a gun first from Murphy.” She cringed as she applied the pad to her leg. “And take reinforcements.”

  Michael gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder, and said, “Anybody ever tell you not to take on a man with a sword?”