Read Online Time of the Great Freeze by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Silverberg
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minute. When they had traveled another twenty miles, the sun was nearly down, and it was time to halt for the night.
Jim, Carl, and Ted Callison broke out the tents. Chet and Roy lit a fire, feeding it with synthetic-fuel pellets. Dom Hannon and Dave Ellis began to open food containers for dinner, while Dr. Barnes patrolled the area, power torch in hand, as though he expected an attack any moment.
They ate in silence. The wind was biting now, and the temperature was getting near the zero mark, though it was still early in the evening. The moon was up, even bigger and more brilliant than the night before. In the unearthly silence of the ice field, where the only sounds were the howling of the wind and the crunch of a footfall against crisp snow, all the world seemed locked in an eternal freeze.
And then, across the flat wasteland, came the blood-chilling wails of hungry beasts.
"Listen," Jim whispered.
"It's the wind," Dave Ellis said.
"No. No, it's not!"
Ted Callison, whose eyes were the sharpest among them, had his field glasses out. As he had earlier that day, he spied animals coming toward them. But not grazing animals, this time.
"They look like dogs," he said. He hefted his power torch. "Big dogs. A whole pack of them!"
"Wolves," Chet muttered. "They've seen the fire, and they're coming to eat."
The pack was clearly visible in the moonlight now: fifteen, perhaps twenty long, lean shapes, pattering across the ice, baying as they came. Through his binoculars, Jim could see the curling pink tongues, the slavering jaws. Who said the glacier world was an empty one, he wondered? Moose-hunters-now a pack of hungry wolves…
"Push the sleds together!" Ted Callison yelled. "Make a barricade!"
They huddled behind the sleds. Jim, his father, Ted, and Roy held the four power torches, and crouched in readiness, while the other four men armed themselves with ice hatchets, knives, anything that might protect them in case the wolves burst through the barricade. The power torches had an effective range of only some twenty or thirty feet, which meant the wolves would have to be allowed to come quite close before firing.
Onward they came. But their steady lope broke into a suspicious slink as they came within close range of the camp. They had been running in tight formation; now they separated and fanned out over the ice.
"Ugly devils," Ted murmured.
Jim nodded, keeping his finger close to the stud of the torch. The wolves looked enormous, bigger than a man, their yellow eyes gleaming by the light of the fire, their sides hollow, their shanks flat. Snarling, growling, barking, they closed in on the encampment, wary but obviously unafraid.
Half a dozen of the brutes were within torch range now.
"Let 'em have it!" Dr. Barnes shouted.
Jim rammed the stud forward, and felt the blood surge in his veins as the beam of light blazed forth to envelop one fang-toothed attacker. He switched the torch off rapidly. The wolf was gone; two severed legs that had not been in the torch's blasting field lay horridly in a puddle of melted ice, and a smell of singed fur drifted through the air.
But there was no time now, for sensations of either triumph or revulsion. The wolves were charging desperately! Dr. Barnes brought down one, and Ted two with two quick blasts, but one of the others somehow sidestepped a destructive bolt and leaped with terrifying grace, arching upward and over the barrier. Roy swung his torch upward and fired while the wolf was still in mid-leap. The creature seemed to disintegrate as the bolt took it, and the air sizzled and crackled for a moment, eddying in ragged currents around the place where the wolf had been.
Jim's torch claimed a second victim, and a third, but then he saw two wolves come soaring over the barricade simultaneously, and there was no way to fire without blasting away half of one sled. The nearer of the snarling monsters came right at Jim; he smelled the wolf-stink of it, stared right into the
Jim, Carl, and Ted Callison broke out the tents. Chet and Roy lit a fire, feeding it with synthetic-fuel pellets. Dom Hannon and Dave Ellis began to open food containers for dinner, while Dr. Barnes patrolled the area, power torch in hand, as though he expected an attack any moment.
They ate in silence. The wind was biting now, and the temperature was getting near the zero mark, though it was still early in the evening. The moon was up, even bigger and more brilliant than the night before. In the unearthly silence of the ice field, where the only sounds were the howling of the wind and the crunch of a footfall against crisp snow, all the world seemed locked in an eternal freeze.
And then, across the flat wasteland, came the blood-chilling wails of hungry beasts.
"Listen," Jim whispered.
"It's the wind," Dave Ellis said.
"No. No, it's not!"
Ted Callison, whose eyes were the sharpest among them, had his field glasses out. As he had earlier that day, he spied animals coming toward them. But not grazing animals, this time.
"They look like dogs," he said. He hefted his power torch. "Big dogs. A whole pack of them!"
"Wolves," Chet muttered. "They've seen the fire, and they're coming to eat."
The pack was clearly visible in the moonlight now: fifteen, perhaps twenty long, lean shapes, pattering across the ice, baying as they came. Through his binoculars, Jim could see the curling pink tongues, the slavering jaws. Who said the glacier world was an empty one, he wondered? Moose-hunters-now a pack of hungry wolves…
"Push the sleds together!" Ted Callison yelled. "Make a barricade!"
They huddled behind the sleds. Jim, his father, Ted, and Roy held the four power torches, and crouched in readiness, while the other four men armed themselves with ice hatchets, knives, anything that might protect them in case the wolves burst through the barricade. The power torches had an effective range of only some twenty or thirty feet, which meant the wolves would have to be allowed to come quite close before firing.
Onward they came. But their steady lope broke into a suspicious slink as they came within close range of the camp. They had been running in tight formation; now they separated and fanned out over the ice.
"Ugly devils," Ted murmured.
Jim nodded, keeping his finger close to the stud of the torch. The wolves looked enormous, bigger than a man, their yellow eyes gleaming by the light of the fire, their sides hollow, their shanks flat. Snarling, growling, barking, they closed in on the encampment, wary but obviously unafraid.
Half a dozen of the brutes were within torch range now.
"Let 'em have it!" Dr. Barnes shouted.
Jim rammed the stud forward, and felt the blood surge in his veins as the beam of light blazed forth to envelop one fang-toothed attacker. He switched the torch off rapidly. The wolf was gone; two severed legs that had not been in the torch's blasting field lay horridly in a puddle of melted ice, and a smell of singed fur drifted through the air.
But there was no time now, for sensations of either triumph or revulsion. The wolves were charging desperately! Dr. Barnes brought down one, and Ted two with two quick blasts, but one of the others somehow sidestepped a destructive bolt and leaped with terrifying grace, arching upward and over the barrier. Roy swung his torch upward and fired while the wolf was still in mid-leap. The creature seemed to disintegrate as the bolt took it, and the air sizzled and crackled for a moment, eddying in ragged currents around the place where the wolf had been.
Jim's torch claimed a second victim, and a third, but then he saw two wolves come soaring over the barricade simultaneously, and there was no way to fire without blasting away half of one sled. The nearer of the snarling monsters came right at Jim; he smelled the wolf-stink of it, stared right into the
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