Maynard looked at the ground, and wondered. It was cold--deathly
cold--in spite of the years of the barrier-input. Cold enough to give
him hope.
Guy set his crowbar into the grave and pried. The dirt came out in
lumps--the same lumps blasted long ago to create the shallow trench.
The white wrappings were not soiled; the ground was frozen hard enough
to prevent bits of grime from working their way into the soft cloth.
The body was stiff and utterly cold beneath the wrappings, and it was
more like carrying a log than a human being. But Guy took the exhumed
one to the _Loki_, removed the white wrappings, and snapped on the
battery of heat lamps.
Losses made the air grow unbearably hot in the little cabin, but Guy
worked woodenly and did not notice. He forced himself to this. The
handling of a corpse--for until it showed the sign of life it was a
corpse--made Guy's stomach crawl and made his hands feel as though they
never would be clean again. Time and again he looked away to keep from
screaming aloud.
And when it came time to insert the needle containing superenalin into
the body, Guy's fingers went cold and insensitive. The needle did not
slide in the way it should, it entered with that dead feeling similar
to cutting dead flesh with a dull knife. It sickened him, and after
emergence, when the tiny droplet of blood did not come, it brought on
that nausea again.
Massage! It was a gruesome thing, this fondling and stroking of cold,
stiff limbs. The heat seemed to be doing no good, for Guy could discern
no softening of the joints. They creaked and cracked as he moved the
arms and legs, and it worried him because he knew the brittleness of
frozen flesh. Was he breaking bone and flesh deep within this body?
More--was it worth it?
Guy's mind recoiled and rejected the horror that he felt. This body
was no stranger to him. Alive, physical contact would not have been
distasteful. Now that it was dead, why did he feel horror?
Alive, it might have fought him because of the liberties he was taking;
with no objections to his ministrations possible, why did he feel
horror and fear?
It struck Guy as insanely funny and he laughed uproariously. The cabin
rocked to the sound of his laughter, and as he stopped, the echo
reminded him of the cackle of an idiot. He stopped with indrawn breath,
shook his head, and returned to his task.
The body moved perceptibly, and Guy recoiled from the table with the
same feeling of horror and fear. This was too much like awakening the
dead.
A gasp of indrawn breath came, and the body choked on the volume of
air that entered the lungs. Color returned to the cheeks, and the eyes
opened, fluttered, and then looked at Guy full and open.
The lips parted.
"Guy!"
"Joan! You're all right?"
"Of course--shouldn't I be?"
"But--"
"That toroid in the sky--what was it?"
"It came from Mephisto."
"Then it is not dangerous?"
"Not when you understand it."