“Wait for Danzig and the dogs to get there,” he said before signing off.
By the time the ice block was safely stowed on the back of a sledge, Danzig and his dog team had pulled to a stop fifty yards off. The huskies lay down on the snow and ice and watched the proceedings warily.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Danzig said, striding up to the sledge and marveling openly at the thing—the frozen woman—contained in the ice. He paced slowly around the ponderous block, and Michael could tell he was already making some quick calculations about how best to transport it.
“That there, mates,” Calloway said, “is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen come up, and let me tell you, I’ve seen plenty of weird stuff.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Franklin, who’d been assisting on the dive.
Michael could barely believe they’d done it. He had hastily taken off his diving gear, wrapped himself in more layers of dry clothing than ever before, and was sipping from a thermos of hot tea; still, he had the occasional shiver, and he knew he was suffering from a touch of the predictable hypothermia.
Lawson asked Danzig if they should call for a Spryte, or if he thought his dogs could pull the block back to camp.
Danzig, who always wore a good-luck charm of walrus teeth around his neck, laid one huge hand on the ice and with the other rubbed his chin. “Once we get it started, we can do it,” he declared. There was little that Danzig thought his dogs couldn’t do, and he was always looking for ways to prove that modern technology had nothing on the reliable, old-fashioned methods that had been good enough for Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott.
While Danzig took care of unhooking his dogs from the one sledge and attaching them to the other, Michael rubbed his wrist, where the dry-suit seal had leaked. It ached the way a bad sprain would. Franklin and Calloway were still gawking at the woman in the ice—and when one of them laughed, and made some coarse joke about waking Sleeping Beauty with a kiss she’d never forget—Michael took a tarp from the dogsled and threw it over the ice. Franklin looked at him oddly for stopping the show, but as Michael secured the tarp with a couple of pitons, Danzig glanced at him knowingly, and asked, “Did the chief tell you anything about where he wanted to put her?” He sounded vaguely like a funeral director asking a family member about the recently deceased.
“Not a word.” For Michael, it was strange even to be asked. He wasn’t a scientist, and he wasn’t even one of the grunts. He occupied some middle ground, some ill-defined territory, and yet he had already come to be regarded as the rightful advocate for the woman retrieved from the deep.
“Well, she shouldn’t be moved directly inside,” Danzig said, thinking out loud, “because if the thaw was too rapid, it might do some damage.”
Yes, Michael could see the wisdom of that.
“So it might be a good idea to keep her in the core bin, behind the glaciology lab. Betty and Tina could even use some of their tools to cut away the excess ice.”
“Sure,” Michael said, “that sounds fine.” He was glad to have someone there who was thinking more clearly than he was.
There was a commotion among the dogs, and Danzig hollered, “Hey!” and moved off to put a stop to it. The huskies were a rambunctious lot—Michael had already seen them in action more than once—but usually they obeyed any command as soon as it was given. Only this time, several of them were struggling at their leads, backing away from the block of ice, and their pack leader, Kodiak—a massive dog with eyes like big blue marbles—was actually barking and snarling. Danzig was using a firm but even voice, coupled with hand signals, to quiet the dogs down, but even he looked surprised at the rebellion.
“Kodiak!” Danzig finally shouted, repeatedly shaking the dog’s lead. “Down!”
The dog stayed on his feet, barking madly.
“Down! Kodiak—down!”
Danzig had to put a hand on the dog’s squirming neck and press him toward the ice. Once down, he held him there, impressing his authority. The other dogs, though still whining, gradually took the cue and quieted down. Danzig unsnarled some of the harnesses and leads, then stepped onto the back of the sledge, and shouted, “Hike!”
The dogs jerked forward to get the sledge sliding, but not with their customary exuberance, and the sledge hardly budged. Two or three of them were still trying to look behind them, as if afraid of something coming up close behind, and Danzig had to snap the reins and shout his orders again and again.
Michael wondered if the load was simply too great.
“Hike! Hike!” Danzig shouted, and the dogs again leapt forward, this time getting the runners sliding on the ice. As the sledge gained momentum, it went more smoothly, until the dozen huskies were racing in unison, and the slab of ice, with its frozen cargo, was on its way back toward the base. While Calloway closed up the dive hut, Michael hitched a ride on Franklin’s snowmobile, and they followed the barking dogs back to camp.