Free The Thing by Alan Dean Foster

sheet.
    "Fuchs, leave the slides for a minute and give me a hand here. Let's switch these around."
    "You're getting healthy enough to make a nuisance of yourself, boy," Clark told the husky as he led it through the long, cold tunnel leading to the kennel. After removing him from the rec room the handler had carefully placed a new bandage and dressing on the animal's injured hip.
    "You've got to understand, to most of the guys you're just another piece of camp machinery. Machinery ain't allowed to intervene in camp activity, especially card playing." He ruffled the dog's head between the ears. It licked his hand appreciatively.
    "You're okay in my book, though. Maybe we can get you assigned here permanently. I don't think the Norwegian government would object. You'll have to learn to stick with your buddies, though." He unlatched the kennel door and walked the husky inside.
    The kennel was a metal box some twenty feet long and five wide. It was not well lit and smelled powerfully despite the presence of the dog door at the far end, which gave access to a ramp leading outside. The dogs used it, but the box still smelled. The canine miasma didn't trouble the handler, however. He was used to it.
    Some of the sled dogs were sleeping, curled up against each other for extra warmth. The kennel was heated, but not to the extent the rest of the outpost was. Too much heat would have been unhealthy for the animals.
    Two of them lapped at the section of metal drum that served as a watering trough. Another was nibbling at the pile of dried food the handler had dumped into the kennel earlier. Others rose at his entrance, stretched lazily and rubbed against his legs. Two sniffed curiously at their new companion.
    Clark patted the husky, and greeted several of the other dogs. "Nanook, Archangel, meet . . . well, we'll find a name for you one of these days, fella." He urged the new dog forward. "Now you make friends." He addressed the others as they all slowly began to gather around.
    "Lobo, Buck . . . the rest of you make our visitor feel at home, you hear?"
    He gave the newcomer a last, reassuring pat, then turned and left, latching the door behind him. He stood there, listening. No growls or snarls sounded from the other side of the door. Then he left, satisfied that the new animal would adapt successfully to his new surroundings and they to him. Sled dogs were very adaptable.
    Childs lay in bed in his room, staring at the color portable screwed to the wall. On the screen a housewife was trying to guess the price of a new washer/dryer combo. The announcer and audience combined to make it seem like a matter of life and death instead of ring-around-the-collar.
    Childs didn't give a damn for game shows, but this one was different. Each man could put in requests for videotapes, going down the list that the regular supply flights could bring down from the States. Most of the men requested football games, new movies, situation comedies. Childs always asked for this particular game show, to the consternation of the supply clerk at Wellington. But he got his tapes.
    Everyone at the base assumed this preference had something to do with nostalgia and, in truth, Childs had religiously watched this particular game show back in Detroit. He watched because whoever selected the contestants from the audience always managed to choose a steady stream of dynamite-looking ladies.
    Childs got more pleasure from watching them win stereos and cameras and trips to Bermuda than he did the tired actresses who populated the porn tapes that were also available. These were real women, and they weren't acting. He enjoyed watching the pretty women from Phoenix and New York and Muncie bounce gleefully around the stage in genuine delight far more than he did the moans and groans of thirty-year-old blondes trying to act eighteen.
    The lady currently on screen won the washer/dryer, and jiggled delightedly across the stage to claim her prize. Childs raised himself up and