Chapter 13
689 Words
78
STARTLING STORIES
back in the twentieth century.”
“I’m not telepathic, either,” said Mac. “But the alien was.”
“Well, that proves it, then,” Stu said. “I feel much better now.”
“We’re not alien doppelgangers,” Mac said. “The expedition survivors destroyed the alien, its spaceship, and everyone it in-fected.”
“As far as you know,” said Stu. “Is this why you told everyone to wear a mask before our ship got anywhere near Antarctica?”
Mac laughed grimly. “I said we ought to wear masks for the obvious reason—earth’s already had three worldwide pandemics from diseases released by melting ice and permafrost, and we were heading straight for ground zero,” she said. “If I’d added, ‘There might be an alien down there, and its linger-ing cells will infect you with shape-shifting space madness,’ do you think I’d be wearing anything now besides a straitjacket?”
“No,” Stu said. “But few listened to your common-sense explanation.”
“You did,” Mac responded with a grin in her voice. “Which is why you’re still getting some, lover.”
He didn’t laugh. “You don’t believe your family story. Do you?”
“Believe an interstellar spaceship was buried in the ice since Antarctica first froze? And one of the passengers survived for mil-lions of years, and it could read earthly minds and imitate earthly life? Obviously, that was a complete fantasy, generated by the trauma of multiple deaths during a long dark polar winter with no hope of escape,” Mac said. “Or so I thought. But now, we’ve found the base—”
“I still don’t see how it could be true. I mean, if the imitations fooled everyone, how did anyone detect them?”
“According to my great-grandfather—”
“Places.” The shout came from the first assistant director, Cam Adebayo, a short, slight nonbinary in a brilliant red snow-suit.
Mac turned. She jerked in surprise. Then she said, “What the hell? Wait!”
“Now what?” said the first AD.
Mac said, “Chick’s pomsky—”
“His designer dog?” said the AD.
Stu pointed at Chick’s full-grown Pomer-anian/Siberian husky mix, which weighed seven pounds and looked like a miniature wolf. “Whobert’s dug something up.”
Mac said, “A disembodied human hand.”
“Dear God!” The AD raised their hands to their mouth and retched. “She’s eating a finger!”
“We can’t have the hand discovered by Whobert,” Chick snapped. “Mac, get her away from that hand and rebury it in the ice. That’s a perfect find for the outcasts!”
“Touching it is the last thing we should do,” Mac said.
“We’ve heard enough from you, gopher,” Chick told her. “Shut up and—”
Mac wheeled to face him, eyes narrowed. “You’re not my handler. I don’t take orders from you.”
As Chick’s red face went ice-white with rage, she turned her back on him.
“We need to quarantine Whobert and—”
* * * *
Whobert remained free. A security offi-cer escorted Mac to the shipping container which served as her work-s***h-living space and locked her inside.
Mac was alone. Security had taken her card key, walkie talkie, iPhone, and satellite phone. Some of her workstation software was operational, but full access to the local area network and any access to the internet were shut off. She didn’t have a window, un-less you counted the polycarbonate panel in her door. She couldn’t unlock the door.
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.”
She rarely smoked, and never while working, but she retrieved her electronic cigarette from the little ceramic plate on her nightstand, then withdrew several cartridges of THC oil from the drawer. She brought the items to her workstation and loaded one of the mini tanks in the pen. Bringing the mouthpiece to her lips, she inhaled, activat-
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