“Jeanne?”
“No.”
His annoyance deepening, he half turned to her. “No, what?”
“No, I’m not going down there.”
He jerked his gun toward the dark morass under the ice arch. “What the hell is wrong with you?” A tinge of embarrassment in his voice. “Get the fuck down there.”
She stepped out of the shadow of the cairn. Moonlight cast a blue pall on her face; she looked oddly younger. “This is your game, Wyatt.”
“My game?” He let the barrel of the gun drop. “There is no game. What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t need to go down there. They’re telling the truth.”
“How do you know?”
“？’Cause I do. And you should respect that.”
“Respect…” He shook his head. “What the Christ are you talking about?” Spittle flew from his mouth. “Go the fuck down this fucking hill, and see what’s down there!”
She was quiet, then said softly, “You heard me.”
“Jeanne, she tried to kill you.”
In the distance, miles deep, the dull white thunder of splitting ice. “Wyatt, why would she lie to you?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” he fumed. “How do you know it’s the eels, Jeanne? How are you so goddamned sure—”
“Because I know.”
He turned to her. Their forms nearly merged under the great stone legs. “You’ve been running your own trials, is that it? Is that what you’ve been doing all this time? Betraying me?”
“No, Wyatt,” she said, as if placating a child. “That’s not it—”
“You’ve known all along what it is! Goddammit, why didn’t I see this?” He smacked himself in the forehead, stomped a half circle in his heavy boots. “You in the Shed day and night with your endless repairs, your silly projects. Of course! I should have known.”
“I wasn’t running my own trials.” She drew in a long breath, let it out slowly. “I was only… screwing up yours. Every single one of them,” she added with a touch of pride. “I guess you call them double-blind, isn’t that the scientific term?”
Wyatt hurled the gun on the ground; he was fairly dancing with rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It was pretty easy. I’m not stupid, you know. It’s all just chemistry. It’s like baking. You add an extra egg, a few more tablespoons of butter, and you’ve changed your cake. Texture, taste, density. The entire experience. People don’t think about that.”
“Mother of God, you and your fucking cakes.”
“And Odin. You found him in the Dome after those other polar divers left. The ones before Nora and Raj. They brought up a ton of spec buckets. Dumped ’em out all over the place.” She puffed up a bit. “What do think that mouse was eating in there?”
“But you—you were sabotaging my work. How the fuck would I know…” He injected calm into his voice. “Look, I thought we were friends. I thought you liked it here. We work together, Jeanne, we’re a team. Why in fuck did you do this thing to me?”
Her voice turned breathy, reedy; I could barely make out her words over the walrus’s snorts and grunts. “Because… because I didn’t want you to—”
“What?”
“Leave this place. Leave me…”
Wyatt panted as if he’d been running. Tore off his skullcap and hurled it on the snow. “Oh no, please tell me no—”
“Those times we—I know. It was different for you, but I…” Her voice broke, and she became unintelligible.
His shoulders sagged. He gazed up at the answerless moon. “Oh, this is just: no. Somebody, please, please tell me this isn’t happening.” He spun around to face her. “So what did you actually learn? Something you can prove. Because I think that’s the very fucking least you owe me after all of this—”
She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and said, “Honestly, Wyatt? I think we’re even.”
I didn’t see it coming, what he did next. The explosion of sheer violence. He snatched up the gun by the muzzle, wound up hard, and whipped the butt across her face. Knocked sideways, she collapsed onto the ice, moaning as blood spurted from her nose and mouth.
“That’s just a taste,” Wyatt muttered, wiping the gore-stained gun on his thigh. “A tiny taste of what’s coming to you.”