The Complete Predator Omnibus by Nathan Archer;Sandy Schofield;

Author:Nathan Archer;Sandy Schofield;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)

13

Galyshev had decided to pay another call on Sobchak, and was just stepping into the geologist’s workroom when the alarm sounded.

The superintendent looked up, startled.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded!

“An alarm,” Sobchak said.

“Why?” Galyshev asked sharply. “Something wrong with the pipeline?”

“Nothing that shows on my equipment,” Sobchak said, looking around at the ranked gauges. “But I’ve lost the feed from the sensors at the east door.”

“Something’s breaking in over there?” Galyshev demanded, tensing.

“I don’t know,” Sobchak said, staring at the meters. “I can’t tell.”

“Well, then I’ll find out for myself!” Galyshev turned and charged out of the room, heading for the passage back to the main part of the complex.

Sobchak watched Galyshev go, then looked at the equipment again.

He didn’t have any real surveillance equipment—this was science, not the KGB—but when this monitoring station had been set up they’d had the possibility of accidents, or sabotage, in mind. There were thermosensors and barometers and rem-counters and even microphones scattered through the entire complex, along with the seismic monitors. The theory had been that if the pipeline burst, or a fire started, the station’s scientists would be able to track the effects through heat, pressure, radiation, and sound.

Sobchak reached over and turned on all the interior monitors, one by one. Last of all he turned on the speaker for the microphones in the east corridor.

He immediately turned the volume down; the screams were deafening.

“My God,” he said. He looked at the other readings, trying to understand.

Sobchak judged that something big and hot had come in through the east door and was moving down the corridor, deeper into the station—the temperature and barometric pressure at the sensors nearest the door were dropping steadily, as if the door was open or even gone, but at the next set the temperature was higher than before.

And the radioactivity levels in the east corridor were running about twice what they should be—still harmless, but inexplicable.

The screams, too, were inexplicable—and terrifying.

Sobchak was a man of science. He didn’t believe in arctic ghosts. All the same, he got up and closed the door of his workroom, and locked it.

“To keep in the heat,” he told himself. “That’s all, to keep in the heat.”

He looked around and noticed that he’d left his coat and boots out in the anteroom—he didn’t like to have them in the workroom; the equipment was packed in so tightly that they got in the way. He didn’t open the door to retrieve them, though. They could wait out there.

In the main station there were men milling about in the common room, unsure what to do, as Galyshev burst from the tunnel.

“Sir, what’s going on?” someone called. “What’s happening? Why the alarm?”

“Something’s broken in the east door,” Galyshev called. “We’re going to find out who it is!”

The men glanced at one another uneasily.

“But, sir…”

“We’re not soldiers…”

“We’re still men, aren’t we?” Galyshev demanded. “And there are guns in the armory, aren’t there?”

“Armory?”

The glances the men exchanged now were considerably more hopeful.

“We may not be trained

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