Eleanor shouted his name, but Sinclair warned her to stay in the sled. The dog started to come at him one way, but when he saw Sinclair retreat toward the rear of the pen, where the wooden stairs led to the loft, he changed his direction and ran around the other side. Sinclair was halfway up the steps when he felt the dog’s fangs digging into his boot, ripping at the leather—oh, how he wished he had his spurs on now—and as he struggled up the last few steps, he had the dog hanging off his leg. With his bare fingertips, he clawed at the floorboards while kicking out at the dangling animal.
When the dog abruptly lost its grip and fell, Sinclair stumbled up and into the loft. The rest of the team was barking below, and as Sinclair turned around and braced himself, he could hear the loose dog’s paws scraping for purchase on the narrow stairs; then he saw its huge head, eyes ablaze and jaws open, appearing at the top. He knew what he had to do, and as the dog hurled itself through the air at him, he drew his sword and met his enemy with the upturned blade. The dog yowled as its own weight and the force of its charge impaled it on the saber, pulling Sinclair’s arm down with it. He fell beside the writhing animal, his wrist pinned below its neck. He pushed himself back, drawing the saber out as he went, but the weapon had already done its work. The dog, blood spurting from its wound and clotting the white fur, lay twitching on the straw-covered floor. He pushed himself farther away, out of reach of any last lunge, and waited for his own breath to return. There was a gurgling sound from the dog’s throat, and now he could hear Eleanor’s anxious cries.
“Sinclair! Are you all right? Sinclair!”
“Yes,” he replied, trying to keep his own voice down. “I’m all right.”
He looked at his torn boot, where the dog’s spittle coated the leather, and he could feel his own blood seeping down his calf. The dog had bitten hard. He got to his feet and, stepping around the dying dog, went back down the stairs. The glaring white light, from some kind of globe he saw affixed to the ceiling, sent his own shadow lurching down before him. It was, most assuredly, a world of wonders—heat from smokeless grates, illumination from glass bowls, coats made of fabric he had never felt—but it was not altogether unrecognizable. No, he thought, as he wiped the scarlet stain from his hand, in its bloody essentials the world hadn’t changed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
December 13, 7:30 p.m.
THE MOMENT MICHAEL RETURNED TO CAMP, he hurried back to his room, switched some of his camera gear, and went looking for Darryl. He was on his way to the marine lab when he bumped into Charlotte on the snow-covered walkway.
“Welcome back,” she said. “Want to join me for dinner?”
“First things first,” he said, lifting the camera slung around his neck. “It’s been hours since I got a shot of the ice block.”
“Then one more won’t hurt,” she said, slinging an arm through his and dragging him in the opposite direction. “Besides, Darryl’s in the commons.”
“You sure?” Michael said, digging in his heels.
“Positive,” she assured him, “and you know he doesn’t like anyone in his lab when he’s not there.”
Michael did know that Darryl was very territorial, but he would still have been willing to risk it—if Charlotte hadn’t been clinging to his arm so insistently, and if he hadn’t actually worked up quite such an enormous appetite on his journey to the whaling station. He told himself that he’d make it quick, then haul Darryl straight back to the lab with him.
On the short trip to the commons, Charlotte told him that she’d just finished attending to Lawson, who’d dropped some ski gear on his foot, but Michael was still having a hard time focusing. He had that itchy feeling that he sometimes got, the sense that he was missing out on something, and every time the camera thumped on his chest it only got worse.
“But I’ll say this,” Charlotte confided, as they mounted the ramp to the commons. “I don’t have a single soul in the sick bay. If I can keep that up for the next six months, this won’t be such a bad deal, after all.”
In the commons, they ditched their coats and gear, then piled their plates high with beef stew, sticky rice, and sourdough rolls. In the Antarctic, salad just didn’t cut it. Beakers and grunts were coming and going, and even Ackerley—a.k.a. Spook—who usually just grabbed a milk carton and some small cereal boxes and took them back to his botany lab, was sitting at one of the picnic-style tables with some of his cronies. Even though there were no hard-and-fast dining hours at the Point—no one would be able to keep them—the kitchen staff, headed by a grizzled old Navy cook who insisted on being called Uncle Barney, always seemed to keep things coming. No one, not even Murphy O’Connor, knew quite how the trick was pulled off.
Michael spotted Darryl before Charlotte did, nearly hidden behind a pile of rice and string beans, with his nose buried in some lab reports. He plopped his tray down across the table and Charlotte slid in next to him.
Darryl glanced up while dabbing at his mouth with a paper napkin. “Such a handsome couple,” he said. Then he tapped the papers. “These are the readouts from the blood sample in the wine bottle.” He said it as if that was what they had been waiting for.