"And you're feeling okay?"

"Absolutely," Michael replied.

"And the situation with Kristin? Has that changed at all?"

He could see what was going through Gillespie's mind-he thought that Michael had begun to come a little unhinged over the lingering tragedy. And, much as he hated to exploit something like that, Michael did see an opportunity.

"Kristin pa.s.sed away," he said.

"Oh jeez. You should have said something sooner."

"So between that, and the weird conditions down here, maybe yeah, I have been a little out of whack." He made sure his tone implied that that was definitely the case.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about Kristin."

"Thanks."

"But at least her ordeal is over. And yours, too."

"I guess."

"Just take it easy-don't overextend yourself-and we'll talk again, maybe in a day or two."

"Sure."

"And Michael-in the meantime, why don't you check in with the doctor on the base? Have him make sure-"

"Her. It's a woman."

"Okay-have her look you over. Can't hurt."

"Will do." Michael waved the phone in the air, then rubbed his sleeve against it to create some more static. Whatever bromides Gillespie was offering next, he didn't hear. Michael mumbled a good-bye into the receiver, hung up, then sat with his hands hanging down between his knees. He still wasn't sure, but he suspected that he'd just done the dumbest thing in his life. He'd always operated on instinct-picking which route to take up a cliff face, which fork in the rapids to run, which cave to explore-and just now he'd gone with his instincts again. And he wasn't even sure why. All he did know was that something inside him had rebelled-recoiled, even-at the thought of delivering Eleanor. To Joe Gillespie. To the world. Sure, what he'd done was a lie, but anything else would have felt like a betrayal.

Michael, he said to himself, you have well and truly f.u.c.ked yourself.

He trudged alone to the commons, where he grabbed a sandwich and a couple of beers. Sam Adams Lagers, which only served to remind him of the flyers that Ackerley had written his last notes on. Uncle Barney had laid out a tray of Christmas cookies-gingerbread men decorated with pink icing-and Michael had a couple of those, too. But the Christmas spirit, which ought to have been easy to come by in a snowy landscape like the Pole, wasn't anywhere around. Yeah, they'd all sung Danzig's favorite songs at his memorial service, but he hadn't heard a lot of singing since. A kind of pall still hung over everything and everyone at the Point.

He thought about stopping off at the infirmary on the way back to his dorm, but kept on going instead; he had no heart to face Eleanor just then, much less to lie to her about Sinclair, as he had been enjoined to do. He had some serious soul-searching to do-especially since he had derailed things with Gillespie. He just needed to be alone with his thoughts.

That was getting to be a constant refrain for him.

What had started as a fleeting question, in the back of his mind, was becoming something more than that, something that his mind kept returning to. What was going to happen to Eleanor? She couldn't stay at Point Adelie forever, that was for certain. But how, and under what circ.u.mstances, could she leave? Did Murphy have some secret plan of his own? As far as Michael could see, she was going to require a friend, no matter what-someone she knew and trusted, to usher her into the modern-day world. And he also realized that, without any conscious deliberation, he had cast himself in that role.

In the communal bathroom, he took a long look at his own weary face in the mirror, and decided to shave. Why not shave before bed? At the South Pole, everything else was upside down.

But it wasn't just Eleanor-there was Sinclair to consider. The two of them would want to be together. And what role would he serve then? He'd wind up as a kind of chaperone, shepherding the two lovers back into a brave, new, and bewildering world.

His beard was so rough the razor kept snagging, and drops of blood appeared on his cheek and chin.

If he was honest with himself, what other scenario had he been imagining? Brewing inside him, he knew, were feelings that did not bear close scrutiny. He was a photojournalist, for Christ's sake, there on an a.s.signment-that was it, and that was what he needed to focus on. The rest was just noise in his head.

He wiped some steam away from the mirror. His gaze was wide but dull-was he skirting the edge of the Big Eye?-and he needed a barber, too. His black hair was thick and unruly and curling over his ears. A couple of guys were yakking in the sauna behind him- from their voices he thought it might be Lawson and Franklin. He splashed some cold water on the spots where he'd cut himself, then took a quick shower and went back to his room.

Once there, he pulled the blinds down tight-he never thought he could hate the sun, but he did at that moment-and got into a fresh T-shirt and boxer shorts. He hoisted himself into his bunk and tried to straighten out the bedclothes; Darryl, he had noted, made his bed every day, but Michael saw no reason to do something at Point Adelie that he never bothered to do at home. He tugged the sheet up to keep the scratchy blanket off his legs, then yanked the bed curtains closed on all sides. Lying back in the narrow confines of the bunk, with the foam-rubber pillow wedged under his head, he stared up into the blackness.

His hair was still wet in back, and he lifted his head for a second to rub it dry. His eyes closed, and he took a long breath to relax himself. Then he took another, slow and deliberate. But his thoughts were still teeming. He pictured Sinclair on the cot set up in the old meat locker-the condiments box had been moved to make way- with a battery of s.p.a.ce heaters running and Charlotte tending to his wound. She had needed to put in six st.i.tches. Franklin and Lawson were a.s.signed to keep watch in eight-hour shifts. Michael had volunteered to share the job, but Murphy had said, "Technically, you're still a civilian. Let's try to keep it that way."

His mattress sagged in the middle, and Michael inched over toward the wall. Regardless of what Murphy thought, someone would eventually have to tell Eleanor about Sinclair. But how would she react? It should have been a simple question, but Michael wasn't so sure that it was. She'd be relieved, of course. Delighted? Probably. Pa.s.sionate? Would she insist on going to him at once? Michael didn't know if it was wishful thinking, or some deeper insight, but he suspected that there was something in Eleanor that feared Sinclair. From what she had told him of their story-as fantastical a tale as any that he'd ever heard-Sinclair had taken her on a wild and dangerous odyssey ... an odyssey that was still unfolding.

But as much as she might love him, was she still as dedicated to that journey as she had been at the start?

He pictured the brooch she wore. Venus, rising from the sea foam. It was appropriate, wasn't it? Eleanor had risen from the sea. And she was beautiful. Immediately, he felt disloyal even to have entertained such a thought-Kristin was barely in the ground.

But there it was. He couldn't deny it any more than he could stop it.

Eleanor's face haunted him. The emerald eyes under their long dark lashes. The rich brown hair. Even the ghostly pallor. She seemed as if she came from another world-perhaps because she had-and he feared for her entry into his. He wanted to protect her, to guide her, to save her.

The bunk itself was as silent and black as any grave.

He remembered his first sight of her, entombed in the ice.

And then coming upon her, frightened and alone, in the abandoned church. But she had not cowered. There was a spirit in her that had never been extinguished, despite everything she had endured.

What was it she played on the piano in the rec hall? Oh, yes, that sad old ballad-"Barbara Allen." The plaintive notes tumbled through his head.

The curtains at the foot of the bed stirred.

He remembered the blush in her cheek when he had sat down beside her on the bench. The rustle of her dress, with its billowing sleeves. The tapered toes of her black shoes, touching the pedals.

The mattress sagged ... as if it were accepting some other burden.

He thought of her scent, soapy but delicate ... and the aroma seemed to envelop him now.

He thought of her voice ... soft, refined, accented ...

And then, out of the pitch black, he heard it.

"Michael ..."

Had he just imagined that? The wind wailed outside.

But then he felt a warm breath on his cheek, and a hand touched his chest, as gently as a bird alighting on a branch.

"I can't bear it anymore," she said.

He didn't move a muscle.

"I can't bear being so alone."

She was lying on top of the blanket, but he could feel the shape of her body, pressing against his. How on earth had she ...

"Michael ... say my name."

He wet his lips, and whispered, "Eleanor."

"Again."

He said it again, and he heard her sob. The sound nearly broke his own heart.

He turned toward her, and lifted his hand to her face in the darkness. He found a trickle of tears ... and he kissed them. Her skin was cold, but the tears were hot.

She burrowed closer, and he could feel her breath-shallow and hurried-on his neck.

"You did want me to come to you ... didn't you?"

"Yes," he murmured, "yes, I did ..."

And then he found her lips. They were soft and pliant ... but cold. He longed to warm them. He kissed her harder, and held her close. But the blanket was so coa.r.s.e, and it came between them.

He shoved it down, and his hands groped in the dark for her body. She was slim as a sapling and wearing only a slip of some kind ... something as sheer as a sheet, and as easily dispensed with.

G.o.d, how good it felt to touch her. He ran his hand up her naked side, and she shivered. She was still so cold, but her skin was so smooth. He felt the k.n.o.b of her hip, the flat plain of her stomach-the flesh quivering at his touch-then the soft swell of her breast. The nipple hardened like a b.u.t.ton under his fingers.

"Michael ..." She sighed, her lips against his throat.

"Eleanor ..."

He felt her teeth nibble at his skin.

"Forgive me," she whispered.

Before he could ask why, he felt the teeth sink into his throat like ice-cold pincers. A hot wet stream-his blood?-coursed down his neck, and he tried to cry out. But he strangled on the sound of his own scream, and he kicked out hard, to free himself from the bedclothes. His hands pushed at her, and kept pushing ...

The bed curtains screeched back.

He could see her, rearing back, naked, with his blood on her lips, her eyes blazing ...

Bright light shone in his face.

He pushed again, to throw her from the bunk ...

And a voice was crying, "Michael! For G.o.d's sake, Michael ... wake up! Wake up."

His hands were still pushing, but someone had grabbed hold of them.

"It's me! It's Darryl!"

He stared out from his upper berth.

The lights were on. Darryl was hanging on to his hands.

"You're having a nightmare."

Michael's heart was hammering in his chest, but his hands stopped flailing.

"The mother of all f.u.c.king nightmares, I'd say," Darryl added, as Michael started to subside.

Michael's breath slowed. He glanced down. The sheet and blanket were twisted around his legs. The pillow was on the floor. He felt the side of his neck. It was damp, but when he looked at his fingertips, they were only covered with sweat.

"You're lucky I came back," Darryl said. "You might have given yourself a heart attack."

"Bad dream," Michael said, his voice hoa.r.s.e. "Guess I was having a bad dream."

"No kidding." Darryl blew out a heavy breath, then turned to take off his wrist.w.a.tch and laid it on the nightstand. "What the h.e.l.l was it about?"

"I don't remember," Michael replied, though he could recall every detail.

"You forgot it already?"

Michael dropped his head back onto the pillow and stared numbly at the ceiling. "Yeah."

"For the record, I thought I heard you say Eleanor."

"Huh."

"But I'll never tell." Darryl grabbed his towel off the hook on the door, and said, "Back in five. No matter what, do not go back to sleep."

Michael lay there, alone again, waiting for his heart to slow down and the last of the panic to pa.s.s ... and seeing, in his mind's eye, Eleanor's long brown hair tumbling down over her pale white b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and her wet red lips, still open and wanting more ...

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.

December 23, 10:30 p.m.

"I'M THIRSTY," Sinclair said loudly, and Franklin got up off the crate he was sitting on, picked up the paper cup with the straw, and held it out to him.

Sinclair, whose hands were cuffed, sucked through the straw, greedily. His throat was parched, but no amount of water, he knew, would ever quench it. He was sitting up on the edge of the cot. Ranged around him in the storeroom were mechanical devices the size of blacking boxes, capable of sporadically emitting waves of heat, even though they were supplied with no coal or gas source that he could detect.

It was truly an age of wonders.

There was a nagging pain in the back of his head, where the bullet fragment had grazed his skull, but he was otherwise intact. Around his left ankle he wore an improvised shackle, a chain looped through a pipe on the wall and clamped with a padlock. The room was stacked with boxes, and on the floor off to one side he noted a broad russet stain, which could only have been caused by blood. Was this where prisoners were normally taken for interrogation, or worse?

He had tried to engage his guard in conversation, but beyond learning his name-Franklin-it had proved hopeless; he wore something in his ears, connected by a string, and buried his face in a gazette with a half-naked girl on its cover. Sinclair had the impression that Franklin was afraid of his prisoner-justifiably so, if it came to that-and that he had been ordered not to exchange any information. But if the opportunity ever presented itself, Sinclair would very much like to repay him for that wound on the back of his head.

The time crawled. His own clothes had been removed-he could see them neatly piled on a crate belonging to a "Dr Pepper," whoever that was-and replaced with an embarra.s.sing pair of flannel pajamas and a pile of woolen blankets. He longed to get up off the cot, reclaim his clothes, and go in search of Eleanor. She was somewhere at this encampment, and he meant to find her.

And then ... what? It was like running smack into the proverbial brick wall. What were their prospects, marooned as they were at the end of the earth? Where could they run? And for how long?

There had been boats, he remembered, at the whaling station- a big one, the Albatros, that he would never be able to launch on his own. And smaller, wooden whaling boats that might, with some repair, prove seaworthy, but Sinclair was no sailor. And they were surrounded by the most perilous of oceans. His only chance would be to embark in decent weather, and hope to be rescued by the first pa.s.sing ship they encountered. Apparently, there was some commerce, and if he and Eleanor could acquire modern clothing, and come up with some plausible explanation, they might be able to board another ship and be transported back to civilization again. To lose themselves among people who did not know, nor would ever learn, their terrible secret. Once that much was done, Sinclair could rely on his native wits to carry them along. He had become, of necessity, a great improviser.