The Thing Itself Read Online Free PDF Page A

Q-B4 ch! or Kn-R7 or something, and that could mean nothing at all to Roy. Or it could have been a letter from Professor Addlestone of Reading University, blathering on about something. Or it could have been , the thing was all around me now, or all within me, or otherwise pressing very imminently upon my consciousness. Or it could have been from Lezlie. But then, what? It was full of the usual blandishments? In which case Roy’s hoarding of it is creepy but, in the larger scheme of things, unimportant. That’s not what I’m afraid of though, is it? I felt sick and I was sick and it froze on my chin. I’m afraid the letter says: I’m leaving you, I’ve found someone else. But but but, if it is, then I’ll find out eventually – won’t I. I just need to be patient. I’ll find out in time. Assuming I have time —
    Cold.
    That was the thing.
    That was what had crept up on me. That’s what’s behind the veil. Endless, implacable, killing cold. Even the most cursory examination of the cosmos confirms this.
    I sat up.
    I was outside, in the darkness, in my indoor clothes. Scalded with the cold. My whole body shook with a Parkinsonian tremor. I angled my head back and the stars were all there, the Southern Fish, the Centaur and the Dove; the Southern Cross itself; Orion and Hydra low in the sky; Scorpion and Sagittarius high up. Hydra and Pegasus. I breathed in fire and burned my throat and lungs. It was cold enough to shear metal. It was cold enough to freeze petrol.
    I got to my feet. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. My hands felt as though they had been dipped in acid, and then that sensation stopped and I was more scared than before. There was nothing at the end of my arms at all. I tried rubbing my hands together, but the leprous lack of sensation and the darkness and my general sluggishness meant I could not coordinate the action. My hands bounced numbly off one another. I became terrified of the idea that I would perhaps knock one or more fingers clean off. It looks ridiculous as I write it down, but there, in the dark, in the cold, the thought of it gripped my soul horribly.
    I had to get inside, to get warm. I had to get back to the base. I was shuddering so hard I was scared I might actually lose balance with the shivering and fall down – in which case I might not be able to get back up again. Ghastly darkness all about. Cold beyond the power of words to express.
    I turned about, and about again. Starlight is the faintest of lights. I could see my breath coming out only because of the vast ostrich-feature-shaped blot that twisted in my field of vision, blocking out the stars. I needed to pick a direction and go. But I couldn’t see any lights to orient me. What if I stumbled off in the wrong direction? I could easily stagger off into the wilderness, miss the base altogether. I’d be dead in minutes.
    I addressed myself: take hold of yourself. You were dragged here. Roy dragged you here. Runty Roy; he couldn’t have removed me very far from the base. Presumably he figured I wouldn’t wake up. That I’d just die there in the dark.
    ‘OK,’ I said, and took another breath – knives going down my throat. I had to move. I started off, and stumbled over the black ground through the black air. I began to fall forward – my thigh muscles were cramping – and picked up my pace to stop myself pitching on to my face. My inner ear still told me I was falling, so I ran faster. Soon I was sprinting . It’s possible the fluids in my inner ear had frozen, or glued up with the cold, I don’t know. It felt as if I were falling, but my feet were still pounding over the ice, invisible below me. I felt like a diver, tumbling from the top board.
    And then I saw the sea—
    —I was at the coast. Obviously I wasn’t at the coast because that was hundreds of miles from the base. But there it was, visible. There was a settlement on the shore, a mile below me, with yellow lights throwing shimmery ovals over the water.