Hive

The visibility returned for a few fleeting moments and he could see the lights of the SnoCat bobbing through the dimness. Yeah, it was Gates, all right. Gates and his cargo of goodies that had the entire station on edge. He had radioed in three days before from the tent camp about what he had found up there, what he was cutting from the ice.

And now just about everyone was beside themselves with excitement, just waiting for Gates’ return like he was Jesus or Santa Claus.

But it was infectious.

Hayes had been seeing it for days now, that look of raw exhilaration and wonder on those usually dour, bored faces. The faces of children who were on the verge of some great discovery . . . wonder, awe, and something just beneath it akin to superstitious terror. Because it didn’t take too much to get the imagination rolling in that awful place and particularly when Gates promised he’d be rolling in with mummies from a pre-human civilization.

Jesus, the very idea was overwhelming.

“He’s bringing the ‘Cat over to Six,” Lind said, fists clenched at his sides, something in his throat bobbing up and down. “Shit, Hayes, we’re gonna be in the history books over this one. I was talking to Cutchen and Cutchen was saying that, come spring when they pull our asses out of here, we’re all going to be famous, you know? Famous for discovering those mummies . . . he said this discovery will shake the world to its knees.”

Hayes could just imagine Cutchen saying something like that. Cutchen’s only pastimes seemed to be sarcasm and toying with lesser minds.

“Cutchen’s full of shit,” Hayes said.

“I thought you two were friends?”

“We are. That’s why I know he’s full of shit.”

“Sure, but he’s right about us being famous.”

“Christ, Lind . . . listen to yourself. Gates is going to be famous. He’s the man who found all that stuff up there. And maybe a couple of the other eggheads like Holm and Bryer who helped him . . . but you? Or me? Hell no, we’re just contractors, were support personnel.”

But Lind just shook his head. “No, what they found up there . . . we’re part of it.”

“Jesus Christ, Lind, you’re a plumber. When the Discovery Channel or National Geographic start making their documentaries, they’re not going to want to know how you bravely handled the Station’s shit or heat-taped two-hundred feet of piss-pipe. They’ll be talking to the scientists, the techs, even that NSF hard-on LaHune. But not us. They’ll tell you to keep the water running and me to run a couple extra two-twenty lines for all their equipment.”

Of course, it was all lost on Lind.

He was so excited by it all he could barely contain himself. He was like a little kid waiting for trick-or-treating to start, tense and shaking, having a hell of a time just keeping his feet on the floor and not jumping for joy. And it was pretty funny to see, Hayes had to admit that. You took a guy like Lind — barely 5’5, just as round as a medicine ball and not much lighter, bad teeth, scraggly beard — and watched him hopping around like he was waiting for the candy store to open, it was absolutely priceless.

Damn, where was the camcorder when you needed it?

If Gates’ mummies had been female, they would’ve wanted to keep their legs crossed in Lind’s presence because he was that excited and that in love. Course, those mummies weren’t male or female from what Gates said over the set. In fact, he was having a hell of a time deciding whether they were animal or vegetable.

Lind said, “They’re unloading the sled now . . . must be bringing those mummies into the hut.” He shook his head. “And here I thought this winter was going to be a waste of time. How old he say those mummies were?”

“He’s guessing two- to three-hundred million years. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth.”

Lind clucked his tongue. “Imagine that. I didn’t even know there were mummies back then.”

Hayes just looked at him, shook his head. It was a good thing Lind was some kind of plumber, because when you came down to it, he wasn’t much smarter that most dingleballs hanging off a camel’s ass. A real natural with pipes and venting, but anything else? Forget it.

As Hayes watched, Lind began pulling on his fleece jacket and thermal pants, parka, boots, and wool mittens. “Well aren’t you coming, Hayes?”

But Hayes just shook his head. Already he could see people spilling out of shacks and buildings, some of them still pulling on their ECW’s even though the wind was shrieking and it was pushing seventy below out there.

“I’ll wait until the groupies thin,” he told Lind.

But Lind was already going out the door, the frigid breath of Antarctica blowing in until the heaters swallowed it.

Hayes sat down, lit a cigarette and sipped coffee, staring at the game of solitaire on his laptop. Yeah, it was going to be a long goddamn winter. The thought of that set on him wrong for reasons even he wasn’t sure of, made him feel like he was bleeding inside.

Outside the compound, the wind rose up, showing its teeth.

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