Dr. Nyet

CHAPTER SEVEN

Was Olga really Dr. Nyet? How could I find out for sure without giving my hand away? If she was, just how much control over her secret anti-birth control pill formula had she already turned over to S.M.U.T.?

These were the problems I pondered while drifting off to sleep that first night on the boat. When I awoke the next morning, the ship was already under way and I had no choice but to be carried along and hope for developments to provide some of the answers.

The captain and crew were Norwegian. As far as I could tell, there were no Chinese aboard. Not wanting to arouse Olga's suspicions by asking questions, I nosed around among the crew to see if I could find out our destination.

As far as they knew, we were heading for the fishing grounds just north of the Isle of Edge, a Norwegian possession well within the Arctic Circle. By the second day out there were murmurings among these experienced seamen about the change in our course which they had detected. They knew it had something to do with Olga's and my being aboard as passengers. They hadn't guessed any more than that. But by the third day our destination had become obvious to most of them. By then we had crossed into the Arctic Ocean and the only thing between us and the North Pole was Franz Josef Land.

The crew was both angry and frightened when they realized this, and with justification. Franz Josef Land is an arctic archipelago located well beyond the point where the Barents Sea turns into the Arctic Ocean. It is ringed with icebergs and frequently the ocean access to it is frozen over solid. While our ship had some ice-cutting equipment, it wasn't fully fitted out as an ice-cutter, and venturing into such waters was dangerous. That was one reason for the crew's resentment. The second reason was that Franz Josef Land is Russian territory.

The Russians use it for weather observation and other scientific surveys. The suspicion is that they may be using it as a secret atomic testing ground, but this is unproven. On occasion they have fired on Norwegian fishing vessels which have strayed in sight of their shore settlement. This has happened perhaps half a dozen times over the years since the end of World War Two, when they threw out the score of Norse trappers in Franz Josef Land and set up an official government outpost.

Our ship, however, wasn't fired upon. We gave a wide berth to the official Russian settlement and approached the archipelago from the northwest. A boat was lowered, and Olga and I and the package containing the jeweled phallus were rowed ashore. Watching it row away, I had the feeling we had been abandoned on a deserted iceberg.

But such wasn't the case. Behind us there was movement under what looked like a pile of snow, and a man appeared. As he came up to greet us, I saw that he was an Eskimo. Odd! Franz Josef Land has no native population. That much I knew about it both from casual reading and from my conversations with the crew aboard the boat. The nomadic drift of the Eskimos across the centuries had never taken them this far east.

He and Olga spoke in a language I couldn't understand. Then we followed him back toward the snowbank from which he'd emerged. There was a snow-covered wooden trapdoor in it, and he led the way underground. Here we found a fairly comfortable setup with walls of wood and utilitarian furnishings. It was as far advanced over the typical Eskimo igloo as a palace is over a stable. I wondered at that, too.

Once inside, he said something to Olga and she turned to translate it for me. "He says that he was told to expect only one person," she explained. "And he apologizes for the meagerness of his hospitality. If he had known you were coming, he would have tried to arrange a more sumptuous welcome."

I grinned at the Eskimo. "Tell him it's all right and I appreciate his accepting me as a guest at all," I instructed Olga.

After she'd translated, he returned my grin and came directly in front of me. "Ungilak." He pointed at his chest and repeated it: "Ungilak."

I caught on and pointed at my own chest. "Steve," I told him. "Steve."

"Steve." He leveled his finger at me and his grin widened. "Steve." Then he turned back to Olga and spoke for a few moments in his native tongue.

"He says we should wait until morning to start for the S.M.U.T. settlement," she told me, taking it for granted that I knew all about the settlement. "He thinks we should eat and sleep first."

As I was nodding agreement to this, an Eskimo girl appeared. She was quite lovely, with exotic features and one of the most genuine and pleasant smiles I've ever seen. There was more finger-pointing, and I gathered her name was Poli. Olga explained that she was Ungilak's wife.

Dinner, it seemed, was to be a special treat. Ungilak had slain a polar bear in preparation for Olga's arrival, and now we were to have polar bear steaks. Poli went to prepare them. Note that I say "prepare," and not "cook." What she did was season the meat with some sort of fish oil, and then serve it to us raw. But polar bear meat is kind of tough, and it's Eskimo etiquette for the Eskimo wife to pre- chew it for her husband and guests. Politely, Poli served me first.

By the time she got through softening it up for me, I'd hate to tell you what that polar bear steak looked like. Somehow, I managed to keep from gagging, swallowed some of it, and nodded my head that it was good. Then Poli masticated Ungilak's meat and passed it to him. He tore into it with gusto. Being a woman, Olga was served last, but being a guest, she too had her meat pre-chewed by Poli. She evidently had some prior knowledge of what was coming, for she didn't flinch and managed to get a good part of her steak down. When Poli had finished her own piece, she hospitably offered us seconds. But we both declined.

Then it was time to turn in. The underground hut was partitioned off, and Olga and I were each given cubicles to ourselves. But I wasn't by myself for long.

Just after I turned in, Ungilak appeared in the entryway to my cubicle. He was holding an oil-lamp – another jarring note beyond the Eskimo culture – and leading Poli by the hand. There was a polar bearskin loosely draped around Poli, and from the glimpses of flesh I caught, I guessed she wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Those glimpses also told me that she'd anointed her flesh with seal oil, the Chanel Number 5 of Eskimo women which to a non-Eskimo nose smells as rancid and erotically unstimulating as it sounds. She giggled as Ungilak pushed her into the room.

I knew enough about Eskimos to realize what was afoot. It's an integral part of their concept of hospitality to offer their wives to a visitor for the night. The visitor's carnal use of the wife is tacitly understood. And to refuse such an offer is a great insult to the host, an insult so great indeed that the Eskimo is quite likely to kill the guest who spurns such an offer.

It would have been easy not to spurn Poli if it hadn't been for my fear that Olga might find out about my sleeping with the Eskimo girl. I had my reputation as a sex-forsaking member of S.M.U.T. to think of, after all. I couldn't have Olga thinking that I fell prey to lust so easily. I knew there was no chance that Poli might in turn lend Ungilak to Olga for the night. Eskimos strictly observe a double standard all their own in such matters.

Despite my concern about Olga, I decided to chance it. I liked Ungilak too much to risk insulting him. So I smiled up at the pair of them and spread the skins upon which I was sleeping to indicate that I was prepared to accept their hospitality. Ungilak rubbed noses fondly with Poli then – an Eskimo kiss – and left us alone, handing the lantern to her as he departed.

She set it down and came closer to me. The bearskin dropped from her shoulders, and she stood naked in the flickering lamplight. Her body was good, slender and full-breasted, with ample hips and sturdy legs. It glistened with the seal oil and seemed to quiver with the anticipation of extending the hospitality of her husband's home.

Now she knelt beside me and gently began to rub her nose against mine. To be honest, it didn't do a thing for me. But from her sighs, there could be no doubt that it was erotically meaningful to her. So I rubbed back, and this prompted her to take my hand and place it against the fullness of her swaying breast. I reached around her with my other hand and started to tug at her long black hair gently to draw her down beside me.

My hand skidded off her tresses before I could get a grip. They were thick with bear grease – another Eskimo custom the woman observes in preparing for love- making. Talk about that greasy kid stuff!

But I didn't let it throw me. I kept right on rubbing noses and trying to hold onto her breast, which was almost as slippery from the seal oil as her hair was from the bear grease. She giggled each time I lost my grip. By her standards, I guess I was somewhat inept as a lover.

Eskimo love-making was turning out to be a slippery business, but with Poli to inspire me, I lost none of my enthusiasm to learn. She slid down beside me under the skins, and while her naked body may have been hard to hold onto, it was still exciting, and very, very warm. Despite their customary climate, Eskimo women are anything but cold. Indeed, if Poli was any example, they more than overcompensate for the freezing temperatures with the warmth of their flesh and the heat of their passions.

"Oggledywoggledyglup."

Well, that's what it sounded like, anyway. I looked at Poli questioningly.

"Oggledywoggledyglup." She repeated it, a hint of annoyance in her voice at my obtusity.

I spread my hands to show her that I didn't dig. She took my hands, pressed the lower part of her body against mine, and pulled them around her so that each palm rested on one of her plump rear checks. Of course they promptly slid off. With a sigh that said she was losing patience, Poli reached around to my backside to demonstrate. She parted the cheeks and deftly slipped her small hand around. And how!

"Oggledywoggledyglup," she explained.

"Kay-rist!" I reacted, jumping halfway to the ceiling.

This seemed to agitate her. She rubbed her hands together and blew on them and shivered and blew on them again, and then reached behind her to insert one of her hands in the cleft of her own rosy buttocks. "Oggledywoggledyglup!" she told me again in the tone one uses to a child in explaining something that should really be crystal clear. "Oggledywoggledyglup!"

I got it then. Poli was trying to show me the Eskimo ritual by which lovers warm each other's hands so that they will not be a jarringly cold note when the actual love-making begins. She was obviously disappointed that I'd been too tense to allow it. Now she tried again more gently, and I followed her example.

"Whoops!" I found myself giggling like a schoolboy. Although she was restraining herself, Poli's probings were making me more nervous than passionate. I was very glad I hadn't eaten too much of that polar bear steak.

When our hands were warmed to her satisfaction, she started the nose-rubbing bit again. I was getting the hang of keeping my grip on her slippery skin now, and my caresses grew more intimate. With each new thrill they provided, she laughed louder. At first this nettled me, but after awhile I realized it was her Eskimo way of paying me a compliment. Civilized women may sob, groan, or cry out during sex, but to the Eskirno girl it is sheer pleasure and to be appreciated with laughter. Why, after all, should one sob, groan or cry when the emotion one is feeling is joy?

The peaks of her breasts had grown long and fiery under my touch, and now I bent to kiss them. When I raised my head, I saw that she was looking at me with astonishment. I remembered then that Eskimos rarely use their mouths in love- making. I was about to try to apologize with sign language, but Poli's astonishment turned out to be by no means censure. On the contrary, she pushed my head back down and laughed excitedly as my lips fastened once again.

Her excitement excited me in turn. I forgot myself for the moment and my lips traveled down her belly in a series of small, passionate kisses. When they reached the mouth of her lust, she instinctively clasped her hands over the back of my neck and pressed me to her, prolonging the kiss. The laugh she unloosed then was a veritable roar of appreciation.

I tried to raise my head, but she wouldn't let me. She didn't want to relinquish this new thrill to which I'd introduced her. Which would have been all right with me except for one thing: Poli had gone a bit overboard with her seal-oil perfume in this particular area. I was damn near asphyxiated before her body was finally seized by a long, drawn-out tremor which ended with the heartiest laugh yet.

Then she let go and held her arms open. Her eyes were shining with wonder as I came into them. We made love more conventionally, and she enjoyed that, too. But when it was over, she kept sliding my head down her belly again until I obliged her and repeated the first act.

And so the long arctic night passed, alternating between one form of love- making and the other. In the morning, Ungilak came to wake us. When he had done so, he conveyed to me by gestures his concern as to whether his poor excuse for a wife had given me any satisfaction. I gestured back with great enthusiasm, and he nodded, pleased that this humble offering had met with my approval. He patted Poli on the head to show his praise for her having done well.

Poli had something she wanted to show him, too. She pulled him down beside her excitedly, and drew his head to her breast. He pulled away, puzzled. She raised the pelts covering his chest, and then chattered some words to explain the kiss she bestowed there. Ungilak shrugged and pressed his lips to her breast. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and she giggled approval. Then she pulled the skins from her legs and pushed his head farther down. She pointed at me and chattered some other words. Ungilak raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips where she indicated. She held him there and soon her laugh sounded out once again. Only then did she release him.

Poli turned to me as Ungilak got to his feet, and I gathered she was thanking me for enlarging her erotic horizons. She tugged at Ungilak and said something to him. Then he too thanked me politely. But I could see his heart wasn't in it. He tried to hide it, but he obviously thought I was some kind of nut or something. Why else would I humor a woman with an orifice meant to consume polar bear steak and other arctic goodies? Surely, the look he was trying to hide seemed to say, it was foolish to make her laugh in this way when a man could laugh along with her while making love more conventionally. But I guessed that Poli would find a way of overcoming his skepticism.

There wasn't time for her to try that morning, though. Ungilak was kept too busy preparing for the journey ahead. At first I tried to help him load up the dogsled, but I could soon see I was more in the way than being helpful. So I strolled down to the shoreline, where I found Olga.

She was staring out toward the sea. I followed her glance and saw a ship which seemed to be lying at anchor quite far out. "I thought they left yesterday," I remarked.

"That's not our ship," Olga replied.

I took another look and saw that she was right. "Who is it, then?" I asked.

"I wish I knew. All I know is that it's not ours, and that means it's probably dangerous to us."

I was still mulling this over a while later when Ungilak came to tell us he was ready to shove off. Olga and I bundled up in the sled while he harnessed the dogs to it. Then he kissed Poli and we waved goodbye to her as Ungilak hopped on the back runners and cracked his whip over the sled dogs.

The thing about sled dogs is that the lead dog is the only one who ever gets a change of scenery. Not that there is much in the way of scenery in Franz Josef Land. Pack ice, an occasional glimpse of moss or lichen, the knowledge that there are fox and polar bear farther inland, and the sea stretching out to the horizon – that sums up the view. Which is one reason why the ship paralleling our dogsled course along the coastline was the most interesting thing in sight.

The other reason was our wonder at why it was following us. The question became academic when Ungilak made close to a right-angle turn and headed inland. The ship couldn't follow that course.

Still, Olga and I kept looking back over our shoulders at it. The coastline was almost out of sight when we saw two longboats from the ship reach the shore. Olga had Ungilak stop a moment and pointed out to him what we had seen. His keen eyes studied the activity of the dots back at the shore, and then he commented to Olga.

"He says," she translated for me, "that there are four men with a sled, dogs and supplies. It will take them about half an hour to get loaded, hitch up the dogs, and start out to follow our trail. That will put them about two hours behind us. Ungilak thinks we'll be able to lose them when we go through the glaciers." Olga pointed to a low ridge of ice mountains.

We started moving toward them now, with Ungilak riding the runners behind us and lightly flicking his whip over our heads at the dogs pulling the sled. It was cramped, bundled up in the sled that way, but we didn't feel the cold too much with those heavy bear pelts covering us. It was dull, too, and it was as much from boredom as anything else that I decided this might be a good time to try to pump some information out of Olga. I figured if I could keep her talking, she might drop some clue to prove that she was really Dr. Nyet.

"How did you happen to join S.M.U.T. in the first place?" I asked for openers.

"My mother was a whore," Olga told me simply.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"That's all right. I don't mind talking about it. I was born in a brothel in Paris. I was named by a white Russian, a steady customer of Mama's who may or may not have been my father. I grew up in the brothel. I ran away when I was thirteen. That was the day Mama tried to put me to work. But I'd made up my mind a long time before that never to be a whore like Mama. I'd seen what it did to her and to the other women there. Old before their time, too jaded to enjoy sex or anything else – I wasn't going to let that happen to me. So I ran away."

"Where did you go?"

"Not very far. I stayed in Paris. I lied about my age and got a job. It was as a clerk in an office. I went to school nights and studied shorthand and typing. By the time I was sixteen – they thought I was twenty-one, of course – I was secretary to one of the senior executives in the firm. It was an import-export outfit, and there were promotions availabe to girls who could speak the Scandinavian languages and qualify as translators. So I went back to school again and took language courses. I found I had a real knack for languages; they came very easily to me. By the time I was really twenty-one, I was the top translator in the company and they were sending me on assignments all over the world. They imported furs, and one of these assignments took me into the interior of Greenland to deal with the Eskimo fur-trappers. That's where I picked up their language. The tongue Ungilak speaks is just an offshoot dialect of what I picked up there."

"You still haven't told me how you came to join S.M.U.T.," I reminded her.

"Shortly after I came back from Greenland, the company opened a new office in New York. A large staff of translators was to operate out of that office. I was put in charge of them, and so I located more or less permanently in New York. But I didn't know a soul there outside of the people with whom I worked, and my position sort of set me apart from them. I was lonely, and I had nothing to do with my spare time. Then one day I read an article on S.M.U.T. in one of the Sunday supplements."

"And so you joined."

"Yes. I still remembered Mama, you see. And all those other poor unfortunates who sold themselves. I knew the harm that sex could do. S.M.U.T. was doing something about curtailing that harm. So I volunteered my services to them."

"They must have put a very high value on them, considering how much they trust you," I observed.

"They do now, yes. But not at first. In my early days with S.M.U.T., my value to them was pretty much restricted to translating. I was given foreign language books which are circulated in the U.S. to check for pornographic content."

"And did you find much?"

"I'm afraid so," Olga said with the true zeal of the believer in censorship. "Particularly in books from my native land. With such reading material available to them, it's no wonder so many French girls end up like Mama!"

I could have taken issue with that. My O.R.G.Y. experience has indicated that most girls who read such things didn't end up like Olga's mother. And most girls who landed in brothels didn't have time to read such things en route.

But I was supposed to be as fanatic about the rightness of S.M.U.T.'s cause as Olga, and so I only nodded understanding and prompted her to continue. "How did you happen to be assigned to that brothel?" I asked her.

"Mr. Crampdick knew about my background – having grown up in a place like that, I mean. He asked me to volunteer, and I did. I guess he thought I'd be more able to cope with it and not lose my faith in the rightness of S.M.U.T. than some of the other girls who volunteered."

"Didn't it bother you? Feeling about sex and brothels the way you do, I mean?"

"Yes. It bothered me. But it was worth it if I could be instrumental in closing down such an establishment. Besides, Crampdick provided me with the means of making it sufferable."

"What do you mean?"

"He gave me a hypodermic and some drugs. It was a local anesthetic. I gave myself an injection in the loins before going to bed with a customer. So you see, I never had to feel a thing. There was nothing sexual about it for me. I was simply performing a mechanical act for S.M.U.T. Even the first time, the night I lost my virginity, I didn't feel a thing. It was only a technicality, and as far as I'm concerned, I still am a virgin."

"Of course you are," I assured her. "And was it Crampdick who sent you to Hammerfest after the fiasco at the bordello?" I asked.

"Why, no," She looked at me curiously. "Mr. Highman sent me. I thought you knew that."

"I wasn't sure whether he did it directly or through Crampdick," I told her smoothly.

"Oh. Well, he did it himself. Crampdick brought me to see him just after the night of the blackout. It was the first time I ever met him. He's such a self-effacing sort of man, Mr. Highman. All that time I was with S.M.U.T., and I never knew he was the one in charge. And I was impressed with the way he was so concerned about my safety with that awful vice gang after me. I was so grateful to him for making it possible for me to serve S.M.U.T. at the same time I was running away. But don't you think this is a strange part of the world for S.M.U.T. to have an outpost? I mean, there aren't any people here, so how can they carry on their campaign against libertinism?"

Was she putting me on? I couldn't tell. If she was Dr. Nyet, she couldn't be as innocent of S.M.U.T.'s real purposes as she seemed. But if she wasn't, she could be completely sincere and chances were Highman wouldn't have told her any more than he had to in order to use her. In which case she might just be following his instructions in all innocence.

"Did Highman tell you what was in the package you were sent here to pick up and deliver?" I asked.

"No. Do you know what it is?"

"Yes. But I guess he had good reasons for not telling you."

"Well, I'd certainly never question Mr. Highman's reasons. It must be awfully important if that man back on the boat was killed because of it."

"Must be." I figured I might as well let her go on thinking that was the reason for Vlankov's death. If she really didn't know any better, I could only hope that the lead Vlankov was following was valid and pointed toward Dr. Nyet.

"And that other ship following us must mean it's important, too," she added. "How do you suppose they managed it? I didn't see them while we were aboard our own ship."

"Radar, probably," I told her. "It wouldn't be hard."

Ungilak pulled the sled to a halt, ending the conversation. We were at the foot of the snow ridges, and the sky was turning to deep gray. It was time to make camp for the night.

Ungilak unhitched the dogs, unloaded the sled, and turned it over, angling it against the hillside for a makeshift lean-to. He indicated that Olga and I should crawl under it while he bedded down with the dogs a little distance away. Survival in the Arctic depended on those dogs, and although he was too polite to have ever put it into words, Ungilak's actions said that he was more concerned with their care than our comfort. He handed us large chunks of raw blubber for our dinner and indicated that we should cut it into chewable pieces with our knives. But he labored patiently at cutting the blubber up for the dogs, and it wasn't until they had been fed that he himself ate.

By that time we could no longer see him or the dogs across the blackness of the night. Olga and I crawled up under the sled – keeping a respectable distance between us – and went to sleep. When I woke up, it wasn't blackness but a dazzling whiteness that was just as impenetrable which greeted me. I blinked, but the whiteness remained. It had started to snow during the night and it was still snowing – an ivory powder pouring down from the sky, with no particular force, but steadily and unceasingly.

Olga was also awake. We discussed the snow, neither of us sure how it would affect our journey. After a while Ungilak crawled under the sled to join us and put an end to our speculations.

He told Olga how he evaluated the situation and she translated his words for me. We couldn't travel through the snowstorm. It would be too difficult for the dogs to pull a full sled. We would have to wait where we were until it ended. We would have to hope that no winds sprang up to turn it into a full-scale blizzard. And we would have to pray that it was over before we started running seriously short of food.

So it began. With a flurry of snow, not too heavy, but steady – steady! – a snowfall no worse than the average winter storm back in the U.S. That's how it started. Only such a snow back home lasts a day or two, maybe three, four at the most, and then it's over. But this snowfall didn't end. The days dragged by and still the snow fell. A week passed. More. We couldn't be sure. Olga and I lost track.

Ungilak stayed with the dogs, but came to us with food regularly. Hardtack and blubber – a monotonous diet, but it kept us alive. And then the day came when Ungilak brought us half the rations he normally doled out. He explained the situation to Olga.

"He says we have only enough rations left for a few days," she translated for me. "It has been one day since he fed the dogs. If he feeds them now, there will be no food left for us after tomorrow. So he intends to kill one of the dogs and let the others feed off the carcass."

"And then what?" I asked.

"He doesn't know. He says it is in the laps of his Eskimo gods."

Those gods must have been asleep on the job that night. I was asleep myself, and so was Olga, when starving terror stalked through the white hell of night and invaded our shelter. One of the sled dogs had chewed through the leather strap by which Ungilak had tethered him and now he came looking for food. Hunger pushed him toward the smell of warm, living flesh, and when the dog traced the scent to its source, he went berserk.

Olga's scream awoke me. Only that fact that she had huddled under the bearskins against the cold so that they completely covered her saved her from instant death. The dog was going at the skins claw and fang, bent on ripping out her throat.

Ungilak had left a flashlight with me and I'd carefully conserved the batteries. Now I reacted to that first scream by turning it on and shining the beam at Olga. Even in that brief moment, the beast had torn her coverings to tatters. His snarling jaws were inches from her face when I sighted my gun and fired three times in rapid succession.

The beast's head flew apart, and his blood spurted over Olga. The shots brought Ungilak on the run. Behind him the other dogs scented the fresh blood and set up an excited howling. Ungilak took one look at the dead animal and turned his attention back to the other dogs. But it was too late for him to try to cope with them. The starving animals had gone berserk, and now the pack of them had pulled free from where Ungilak had tethered them and was making for the scene, howling and slavering as they came.

Ungilak grabbed up Olga and motioned for me to follow quickly. We moved away from the sled lean-to as the pack descended on it. Ungilak said something to Olga, and she repeated it to me.

"They have gone wild now, and there is no bringing them back under control. If there had been time, he would have taken the body of the dead dog and cut it up and fed it to the others. That way they might not have turned into such mad beasts. But there will be no holding them now."

I shined the flashlight on the pack of dogs and saw just how horribly right Ungilak was. A couple of them had torn loose from the main pack, but the rest were still loosely tied together, and they kept getting tangled up with one another. They had thrown the sled over now and fallen on the carcass of the dead dog. They ripped out his insides and set about devouring him, flesh, bones, fur and all. Inevitably, two of the dogs got into a fight over a chunk of the carcass. Snarling, they attacked each other in a battle to the death. The other dogs circled them, watching warily. One of the fighting dogs managed to get a grip on the other's neck. The crunching of jaws was audible, and then he swung the victim around by his broken neck and flung him from him. When he landed, the other dogs descended on him and tore the body to pieces. Then they turned back to the winner of the fight. He was still weak from the battle, and they made short work of killing him.

With three carcasses to feast on, the pack became less savage toward each other. Olga and I both had to turn away from the awful spectacle of their cannibalism. Ungilak, however, seemed unaffected by it. He watched until they'd gorged themselves and then huddled together amongst the bearskin blankets we'd left behind to take advantage of each other's body warmth against the cold. When they were quiet, Ungilak spoke in a voice that was sad and very weary.

"He says now he must kill the dogs that are left," Olga told me.

"But why? How will we ever get out of here if he does that?"

Olga exchanged some more words with Ungilak and then got back to me. "He says it will be easier to kill them now than to wait until they become ravenous again. When that happens, he says, they will attack us with all their fury and it will be much harder to fight them off. They have had a taste of blood now, and they are no better than wolves. They won't hesitate to kill us after they have slept. So Ungilak must kill them first. After that, he will leave their bodies for food for us and go on by himself to the settlement to try to bring back help. He says the journey is too arduous for us while the storm continues – impossible without a sled and dogs. Our only chance of survival is for him to go for help."

There was fear in Olga's voice as she told me this. I didn't like it any better than she did, but I could see that we had no choice. We had to go along with Ungilak's judgment. He was the only one familiar with the techniques of survival in the Arctic, and so his was the only opinion which counted.

I shined the flashlight beam for him just above where the dogs were huddled and watched as he crept stealthily up to them with his spear at the ready. I had offered to help with my gun, but according to Olga he had advised me to conserve my bullets. Still, I had the safety off and my trigger finger was tensed in case he should suddenly need help.

Once he'd reached his objective, Ungilak moved very quickly and surely. He straightened up, poised for a split second with his spear over the neck of one of the sleeping dogs, then brought it down surely. Its deathpoint went in and out smoothly, and then he moved on to the next dog. And the next. And the next…

A yelp of pain aroused the last three left alive. One of them, Ungilak's target, sprang up before he could plunge the spear to its mark. He lunged for Ungilak, and the Eskimo quickly shoved the spear out in front of him to fend the beast off. Now the other two came at him and I sprang to my feet, looking for a chance to shoot.

But there was no chance. The dogs were too fast. Their furious attack was a blur in the beam of the flashlight. I couldn't fire for fear of hitting Ungilak. Fortunately, the Eskimo was even faster than they were.

Fending off one dog with the shaft of the spear, he brought the tip down so that it gashed the side of a second dog. As that one started yelping, Ungilak's foot shot out and connected with the throat of the third dog. It fell back, leaving him free to club the first beast. He hit it hard and accurately, and it collapsed on the snow, its brains oozing out of its skull. Ungilak quickly finished off the second dog by plunging the spear-point into its chest. The movement left him off balance as the last dog attacked again, and they went down together with the snarling beast trying to tear off his fur-covered arm.

I moved in closer, but I wasn't needed. Ungilak's knee slammed into the dog's belly with all his might, and his arm was released. He brought the spearhead up to where he'd kicked, and it went through the animal's stomach and out its back. Ungilak got up and finished it off by stamping on its head with both feet.

The excitement was over for the night. Ungilak arranged the carcasses so they were shielded against the storm and indicated that we should all get some sleep. The next morning he left us, promising to return with help as soon as possible.

In retrospect, the days following Ungilak's departure are a hellish blur. I'm not sure whether it was two days or three when our food ran out and we had to start on the dead flesh of the dogs. I wasn't sure that either Olga or I could bring ourselves to eat it, but hunger finally drove us to it – although even then we ate sparingly.

It was right after that first reluctant meal that the storm changed into a blizzard. The wind became a howling knife cutting through the shelter provided by the sled. The cold was unbelievable now. It penetrated right through the furs we used for covering and it was with us all the time, growing steadily worse. Once every hour I insisted that Olga get up and join me in some exercises to stave off frostbite and keep our circulation going. I didn't tell her, but I had my doubts about how long this might work. Indeed, I had my doubts about whether we could survive at all, and they grew worse as the blizzard grew stronger and the cold increased.

Finally there was nothing to do but bundle together and share the mutual warmth of the furs. The cold still came right through them, though, and the only real source of warmth was our own flesh. Olga protested, the prissy S.M.U.T. fanatic to the bitter end, but I insisted that we take maximum advantage of this source of warmth. I forced her to lie naked with me under the pile of furs, and I kept agreeing to her demands that I wouldn't let anything of a sexual nature occur.

However, due to a defect in my character, or perhaps in my biological make-up – or maybe just because it's instinctive to do just about anything to keep alive – the night came when my body refused to keep the promises I'd made to Olga. By then the cold had grown so intense that it was necessary not only to wrap our bodies around one another, but also to keep up a constant rubbing of flesh against flesh, a life-saving friction, as it were. It was while this was going on that I noticed that a certain intimate portion of my anatomy had grown quite stiff. Half-crazed with cold and hunger as I was, I couldn't tell whether the member was frozen or merely taut with passion. But there seemed to be little feeling in it, and this panicked me. I had a sort of hysterical vision of it suddenly breaking off from its own weight like an icicle.

From this awful possibility, my mind jumped to a consideration of Olga. I remembered the first time Crampdick had pointed her out to me back in the brothel in New York. Was it a million years ago? More? No matter. Now I recalled how her pixie face and petite body had made me think she might be a gypsy girl. Little had I guessed that she'd turn out to be just the opposite of the uninhibited gypsy – a girl who'd rather die than part with a virginity she didn't even possess. I remembered how sharp and pointy her breasts had looked under her dress that day, and I marveled that while I'd judged their shape correctly, they felt marvelously soft – even warm – as they pressed against my chest now. I recalled how she'd looked later when I pulled her out of the brothel bed, and my sense of touch now confirmed the promise my sense of sight had made back then. That same sense of touch told me she moved marvelously well, moved with a naturally sexy rhythm that would have been perfect if only -

If only we'd been having sex!

I don't know how long my hallucinating mind dwelt on it, building the obsession. All I know is that finally I reached the point where I just couldn't take all this frenetic motion without following it through to its natural conclusion. Reaching down, I touched myself, and it seemed to me that there was less and less feeling in my rigid manhood., There was only one way to thaw it out, and I decided that it must be done immediately.

Still, even in my hallucinatory state, I remembered not to be a hypocrite about it. I pulled away for a moment and looked straight into Olga's deep blue eyes.

Forthrightly, I told her my intentions. "I'm going to rape you," I said.

"No!" she protested.

"Yes!" I insisted.

"Why?" she interrogated.

"So it won't fall off!" I indicated.

"You mean it's likely to-"

"Yes!"

"But then suppose it happens while you're-"

"That's a chance we'll have to take."

"Surely you're exaggerating," Olga pleaded.

"I am not. Remember the brass monkey."

"What brass monkey?"

"The one that froze its whatzis off."

"I don't care about any brass monkey. I'm not going to let you. Why, if anybody found out, I might be drummed out of S.M.U.T."

"S.M.U.T. will understand." I tried to reassure her. "It's necessary to stay alive."

"I'd rather die!" She crossed her arms dramatically over her breasts.

"I wouldn't. And stop hogging the bearskins." I cuddled closer to her again. "It's no use your protesting," I told her. "I'm going to rape you."

Over us the blizzard raged. The wind screamed its arctic wrath endlessly. The biting cold crawled under the bearskins and beneath our own skins – icy, probing fingers tipped with death. And yet, in my arms, this voluptuous French girl was struggling furiously against accepting the sex which might well be the difference between life and death to us.

She fought me every frozen inch of the way. Her nails raked my cheeks and dug into my neck. Her teeth clamped down on my arm, and I had to slap her to make her let go. Her knee connected with my crotch, and I held her pinned for a moment while I recovered from the pain.

As I was getting over it, I thought to myself that perhaps I really was being too abrupt, not tender enough. I decided to woo her more gently. So I bent and kissed her on the lips. The savage clamp of her teeth almost ripped my tongue from its roots. Her hand, flailing out behind me, fastened on the flashlight, and she cracked it against the side of my skull. At the same moment her other hand tangled in the beard I'd grown and tugged mightily.

I retreated for another breather. "It's easy to see you don't know anything about rape," I gasped. "Don't you know the victim is presumed always to have encouraged the attacker?"

"Men!" She spat the word out as if it was the filthiest of curses. "I'll bet some man thought that one up. Men only want one thing from a girl. Even when we're about to freeze to death, the only thing on your mind is sex."

"If you know another way to stay alive, then tell me."

She merely snorted with contempt and fell silent.

The howl of the wind grew louder. The cold it brought with it renewed my determination. I grabbed Olga again.

We wrestled. I wedged my knee against her tight-clenched thighs and bore down hard, slowly prying them apart. No gentleman resting on his elbows was I. My weight was necessary to keep her pinned, and my chest crushed those soft, heaving, pointed breasts beneath me. She fought hard, but the fight itself was a kind of perverse love-making. The way she thrashed around and pounded her fists against, my body was exciting. Even the tears of frustration which sprang to her eyes with the realization that she wasn't strong enough to hold me off were an added goad to my passion.

She kept struggling even after the rape was technically a fait accompli. But now her angry writhings took on a certain sexual rhythm despite herself. She kept beating at my spine with the heels of her feet, but the way things were, the tattoo only merged into the act of making love. It was the same with her bouncing efforts to pull free of my stabbing blade of passion. Each movement found it slammed back to the hilt.

Finally she cried out and lost control altogether. Her body took over, and she wasn't fighting me then. Her eyes closed, and she gave herself up to one tremor of release after another. She was thrusting against me now, digging her nails into my buttocks to hold me fast, no longer trying to push me away. Realizing this, I gave myself up to the sensation, and together we soared to the heights of passion.

When it was over, we clung together wearily for a moment. Then she pushed away, groping to regain her composure, seeking the proper tone of voice for a woman forcibly defiled, a woman raped against her will. But she was caught between wanting to come on this way and the vestiges of pleasure she was still feeling. The result was a tone that was shaky and words that equivocated.

"Well, at least," Olga said, "it didn't break off while you were -" She left it hanging.

So did I. I was satisfied – for the time being. We were alive, and the warm afterglow of love-making would keep up alive for a while.

But with the passing of another day, the feeling of satisfaction also passed. The cold gripped us again. And once again I raped Olga.

She didn't fight me quite as hard this time. And the next time she struggled even less strenuously. Soon she was putting up merely token resistance. She would have liked me to believe that this was because her strength was being sapped by our ordeal, but I suspected otherwise.

One night she woke me from a sound sleep and my suspicions were confirmed. "Aren't you going to rape me?" she asked.

"I'm tired," I told her. "Later."

"No. Now! I'm freezing!"

So I obliged. And when she started struggling as usual, I simply stopped and rolled away from her.

"What's the matter?" she panted.

"I'm too tired to fight with you."

"Oh." Olga thought a moment. "All right, then I won't fight," she decided.

The next morning the storm abated. The wind died down, and the snow flurried to a stop. For the first time in I don't know how long, we saw the sun again.

It gave our morale a boost. We were still dependent on Ungilak's return to save us, but our chances of freezing to death were lessened by the passing of the blizzard. We smiled encouragement at each other and speculated that Ungilak might reach us today, or surely tomorrow.

But it wasn't Ungilak who found us. It was mid-afternoon and we were dozing in the shadows of the shelter provided by the overturned sled when Olga's scream awoke me. She screamed only once, and I sat bolt upright with my pistol in my hand.

It was too late. There was a hatchet sticking out of Olga's naked breast. She was dead.

I snapped a shot at the figure standing over her. But I fired too fast, and I missed. I caught a glimpse of a face that was decidedly Chinese, and then he was gone.

I bolted after him, but he was too fast for me. His footsteps led to a narrow crevice running between two mountains of ice. It would have been foolhardy to try to follow him there. I'd have been a setup for an ambush.

He'd be back. I was sure of that. I guessed that it was really me he was after. He'd probably killed.Olga only because she'd seen him and screamed. Even now the Chinese might be cursing to himself over the chance that he might have killed Dr. Nyet herself.

So I settled back of the sled to wait for his return. I propped myself up on the package containing the jeweled phallus and concentrated on staying awake. I was alone now. Just me and the golden genitalia of a Nepalese god.

Death lurked in the ice mountains. Death would surely return. The only question was whether I might not freeze to death before the Chinese came back to kill me. If I did, that priceless phallus might make a worthy tombstone for the man from O.R.G.Y!