Siberius (16 page)

Nick poured the warmed water from the pot into the last of their canteens and offered it to Talia. She took a few unenthusiastic sips and handed it back. He drank, then screwed the cap on and hooked it over his belt. “This is your territory. Where do we go from here?”

It was a good question, but Talia didn’t want to think about it. Something was happening, something she couldn’t understand. After Leonid had disappeared, she had established a routine to follow, and she had strengthened her ties to the Chukchi village. Now, her routine was shattered and her Chukchi friends no more.

“
Hey,” said Nick. “Are you okay?”

Before she could answer, the sound of a deep roar echoed from the horizon. Talia jumped up and noticed for the first time the sinking sun.

“That wasn’t the wind,” said Nick.

Talia watched the opposite line of trees and said, “No, Mr. Somerset, it wasn’t.”

“Do me a favor, will you?” he said as he searched the distant forest. “If we’re on a first name basis, can you call me Nick?”

She nodded without looking at him. “Okay, Nick.”

“Should we try for the trees?” he asked. The image of the dead Chukchi in the lake had now taken on a more personal meaning.

“
I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Talia. “Something might be waiting for us there.” Neither of them could tell from which direction the roar had come.

“
I’m open to suggestions then,” Nick said.

Desperate, Talia looked down at the snow. She picked up a handful and packed it into a ball. It held together. She turned and said, “Have you ever built an igloo, Nick?”

The sun had sunk below the horizon half an hour before, and the indigo light of evening enveloped the Chukchi village.

On the lake shore and piled up against the boulders, a six foot mound of snow sat invisible against the white backdrop of the lake. Inside was just enough space for two people. Talia and Nick sat huddled together, their bodies entwined for warmth. Through an air hole, they watched the pale light vanish with the setting sun.

Nick found her soft body comforting. He couldn’t help but look at her; he turned when she looked at him. He now saw through the facade. Her guard had been lowered earlier, and through the tears, Nick saw a frightened woman. He had no doubts about her tenacity, and in fact, he was growing to like it. But now, she had a human side.

Per Talia’s instructions, they made sure the walls of their little igloo were not less than two feet thick. It had taken them less than an hour to seal themselves inside, and once they had, Nick was surprised by the silence within.

“
Snow is the perfect insulator, for sound and warmth,” Talia had told him as they piled snow around themselves.

“
Yeah,” Nick had replied. “But it’s not going to stop anything larger than a squirrel from getting at us.”

“
True, but if we remain absolutely quiet, they’ll never know we’re in here.”

Nick considered what she meant. But in the rush to entomb themselves, he had decided not to press it. Whether ‘they’ were tigers, wolves or soldiers didn’t matter. He entrusted his safety and his life to Talia’s plan. He hoped she was right.

Encased in a frosty cocoon, they sat quiet and motionless. Talia had demanded that they not speak or make any noise for the entire night. To Nick, it was a blessing in disguise. The way things were going, he was afraid of what he might say anyway.

17

             
In the dark of night, Tobolisk left the tool shed and stumbled across the compound. Humming his favorite song,
Kalinka,
he trudged toward a concrete block that encased one of the support beams of Yenisey’s main radar dish, unzipped his pants and spelled his name in the snow. The post-urination chill shook his body as he squeezed out the last few drops, then zipped back up. Looking down at the yellow scrawl, he chuckled as he realized he had forgotten the “L” in his name.

“
Tobo Isk,” he said, then chuckled again. With the stomp of his boot, he obliterated his name, then turned back to the tool shed.

The air was frosty, the sky black and full of stars. There was no moon to speak of. Not that Tobolisk had even noticed. It was likely that he hadn’t seen any stars, other than those induced by Barkov’s beatings, for years. Tobolisk wasn’t a man who noticed too many things. He spent his life wandering through a very narrow tunnel of ignorance, a tunnel that blocked out everything but what was right in front of him. He was, of course, unaware of the tunnel, for years of drinking had rendered his level of consciousness just above that of the concrete block he had just pissed next to. By accident, he was transferred to Yenisey. Yet the installation was a fitting partner to Tobolisk’s lack of consciousness. Here, there was nothing to see. Even if there had been, he wouldn’t have see it. Above, shooting stars and the Big Dipper sparkled like no where else on Earth. If he was aware that they were there, Tobolisk never looked at them. Not once.

Considering his lack of awareness to everything around him, it was surprising that he noticed the smell. At the tool shed, he stopped and turned, sniffed the air. And gagged. Hacking the scent from his throat, Tobolisk reached into his coat pocket for his flask, unscrewed the cap and took a swig. It helped, but not much. He took another swig. The odor cut into his nostrils and throat, a sickening sensation. He had never smelled anything like it; it was 10 times worse than a latrine on a humid summer day. Looking back toward the main building, he had a sudden if not strange sensation.

Like he was being watched.

But there was no one outside. No one but him.

What was that smell?

Tobolisk turned toward the main building and the radar control room. There were no windows, so he couldn’t tell if Kurskin was inside. He thought he was. Kurskin was always in the radar room. He ate in the radar room. He slept in the radar room. And since Tobolisk never saw him use the commode, he must somehow be able to shit in the radar room.

As far as Mierkin and Warnikov, he didn’t know where they were either. Maybe screwing each other, for all Tobolisk cared. He didn’t think much of the men stationed there, and it was pretty clear that most of them didn’t think much of him.

Vukarin was the exception. Kurskin, too. They were okay.

The odor caught up to him again and Tobolisk gagged and hacked and spat. He covered his face, hoping to filter out the smell. Was it coming from inside the tool shed? He didn’t think that was possible. He had spent the better part of the day in there, drinking in isolation and very happy to be away from prying eyes and smirks.

No, it wasn’t coming from the tool shed.

Studying the ground, his own personal tunnel began to expand. Something resembling foot prints circled the little cinder block structure. Shaking his head, Tobolisk decided that yes, they were footprints. But not human. Definitely not human. Though he had never seen one before, Tobolisk thought the prints were from a bear. They were large and deep and in no way conceivably made by a human being.

Yes, a bear then.

He followed the foot prints around to the far end of the tool shed, and it was there that the odor became strongest. It was unbearable, and had he not been drunk, he would have run in the opposite direction, searching for clear air. But he
was
drunk, and because of that fact, he wasn’t able to run. He was barely able to stand.

Still covering his mouth, he looked at the cinder block wall of the tool shed and saw a frozen slick four feet off the ground. Though the wall was a uniform gray, the sodium vapor lights of the installation turned it a sour yellow. Even without the visual prodding, he would have guessed that something had taken a piss right there on his tool shed. On his sanctuary. Why he hadn’t smelled it before, he didn’t know. Perhaps the wind was blowing in a different direction.

Tobolisk soon forgot about wind direction, the tool shed and frozen urine. Not far from his position, he noticed a trail cut into the snow. Staining the trail were intermittent smudges, black in the yellow lights. Tobolisk followed the trail as it snaked its way across the yard toward the barracks. The bear tracks were shallow, as if something had followed it, a toboggan maybe, and covered them over. Had Kurskin or Warnikov or Mierkin chased the bear away? Why hadn’t he heard them? Also, how could a bear have gotten in? The gate was locked and the hole the American had made in the fence was now stitched up. As he followed the trail closer to the barracks, Tobolisk knew that even in an inebriated state, he was looking at blood.

His considerable stomach began filling with butterflies, and Tobolisk couldn’t be sure if it was the vodka or not. He saw more strangeness. The barracks door was open and creaking in the breeze. With growing concern, he went over and stuck his head in, but that’s as far as he went. It was dark; none of the lights were on except for a single flashlight laying on the floor.

A flashlight? Had there been a power outage? Wouldn’t someone have told him?

He contemplated going in. Fear took hold and slapped some sense into him. There was nobody inside. Nobody he could see, at least. He wanted to call out, but for some reason that didn’t seem like such a good idea.

His heart pumped faster as he stepped away from the doorway. An odd and most unwelcome sense of sobriety crept in, and he reached for his flask. Before he could even touch the cap, though, the feeling that he was being watched grew stronger.

He was being watched
. Studied. Sized up.

Tobolisk turned back toward the open doorway and realized that he had made a mistake. The barracks were not deserted. There was someone, or rather some
thing
inside. Had he not been drunk, he would have seen it, for it was unmistakably huge. Had he not been drunk he might have even had the sense to close the door, buying himself some time.

But he
was
drunk, and Tobolisk did none of those things. His face white with terror, he spun around in an attempt to run back to the tool shed. He wouldn’t make it.

The attack was swift and violent. Yuri Tobolisk was beheaded with the single swipe of a razor claw.

18

Nick opened his eyes to the warm orange glow of sunrise seeping into the igloo. He rubbed his face, warming it, then wet his whistle with a little snow. Through the small air hole, he could see daylight, and it pepped him up. He shook Talia.

             
“Rise and shine,” he whispered. Talia awoke with a start, disoriented and frightened. “Easy does it. Its morning.”

             
“Morning?” she said in groggy, hushed tones. “Already?” She stretched as much as she could in the confined space.

             
“Shall we?” Nick said.             

“
Wait.” She tunneled through the wall until she had created another peephole. Peering through, she saw daylight, and beyond, the Chukchi tents. “Check the other side, could you?”

             
Nick dug through and saw nothing but forest. “Looks clear.”

             
Talia stared at her companion. They had just spent their third night together. How was it that she felt completely comfortable, even safe with him? It bothered her and made her happy at the same time. She had been in the taiga for nine years, and fear was not an emotion she had felt very often. In fact, her first truly fearful moment in years occurred when she descended the tree hide to investigate the plane wreck. The moment she did that, her routine had been disrupted. The routine that lead her to tree hides five nights out of the week, 25 weeks out of the year.

             
Routine.

             
It was an ugly word to her now. Though the past few days were less than steller, and downright terrifying at times, they were most certainly not boring. And that is what Talia decided she liked about Nick. Through no effort of his own, he had injected excitement into her routine simply by virtue of his presence. Now Talia realized what she had been missing for too long: a more personal, even
tangible
reason to live. She had spent far too much time in her tree hides alone, observing, analyzing, studying, she had forgotten that people actually needed
excitement
in their lives.

             
She rolled the word around her mind a few times.
Excitement
. She tried to remember the last time she had been excited. About anything. The routine of her life in the taiga had been chosen through trial and error, through success and failure. Talia believed that routine was necessary when one lived in such a dangerous, inhospitible environment the Central Siberian Plateau represented. The kind of routine that kept a person doing the same thing, the same
safe
thing, day in and day out. She had to have a routine. It was probably the only thing that kept her alive all those years.