Ice Station ss-1

by Matthew Reilly

  "I'm sure my men will be safe from sudden upthrusts of rock, Dr. Hensleigh."

  "All right then. I can tell you what's down there," Sarah said.

  That got Schofield's attention. He turned to the three divers standing by the edge of the pool. "Montana, Gant, Cruz. Just hold on a minute, will you?" Schofield turned back to face Sarah Hensleigh, his eyes serious. "All right, Dr. Hensleigh, tell me what's down there?"

  "All right," Sarah said as she collected her thoughts. She'd obviously thought about this a lot, but now Schofield had put her on the spot.

  "Theory One," she said. "It's alien. It's a spacecraft from another planet, from another civilization. Now, that's not really my field?it's not really anyone's field. But if that thing is alien then I'd give my right arm to see it."

  "Mother already gave her left leg. What else?"

  "Theory Two," Sarah said, "it's not alien."

  "It's not alien?" Schofield raised an eyebrow. That's right," Sarah said. "It's not alien. Now this theory, this theory really is my field. This is pure paleontology. It's not a new theory by any means, but until now, no one's been able to find any evidence to prove it."

  "Prove what?"

  Sarah took a deep breath. "The theory goes that once, a long time ago, there was civilized life on Earth."

  She paused, not for effect, but rather to wait for Schofield's reaction.

  At first, Schofield didn't say anything, he just thought about it for a moment. Then he looked at her hard. "Go on."

  "I'm talking about a long time ago," Sarah said, gaining momentum. "I'm talking before the dinosaurs. I'm talking four hundred million years ago. Now, when you think about it... when you think about it in terms of human evolution, it's really very possible.

  "Human life as we know it has been on Earth for less than a million years, right? Historically speaking, that's not a long time. If the history of the Earth were the twenty-four hours in a day, then the period of modern human presence would amount to about three seconds. What we would call civilized human life?human life in its Homo sapiens form?has been here for an even shorter period of time, not even twenty thousand years. That's less than a second on the world's time clock."

  Schofield watched Sarah Hensleigh closely as she spoke. She was excited, speaking quickly. She was in her element.

  "What paleontologists usually say," she said, "is that a whole matrix of factors contributed to the rise of the mammals, and hence the rise of human life on Earth. The right distance from the sun, the right temperature, the right atmosphere, the right oxygen levels in the atmosphere, and, of course, the extinction of the dinosaurs. We all know about the Alvarez theory, how an asteroid slammed into the Earth and killed all the dinosaurs and how the mammals rose out of the darkness and took their place as the rulers of the world. What if I was to tell you that there is evidence that there were at least four other such asteroid impacts on this planet in the last seven hundred million years."

  "Asteroid impacts," Schofield said.

  "Yes. Sir Edmund Halley once suggested that the entire Caspian Sea was created by an asteroid collision hundreds of millions of years ago. Alexander Bickerton, the famous New Zealand physicist who taught Rutherford, hypothesized that the seabed of the entire South Atlantic Ocean?between South Africa and South America?was one great big bowl-shaped crater, caused by a massive asteroid impact over three hundred million years ago.

  "Now, if we assume?as we so readily do in the case of the dinosaurs?that every time one of these cataclysmic asteroids hit the Earth a civilization died, we can only ask, what other kinds of civilizations, like that of the dinosaurs, have also been destroyed? What several academics have suggested in recent years?Joseph Sorenson from Stanford is the most well known?is that one of these civilizations may have been human."

  Schofield looked at the other Marines on the deck around him. They were all listening to Sarah intensely, rapt in her story.

  Sarah went on. "You see, on average, the Earth tilts on its vertical axis half a degree every twenty-two thousand years. What Sorenson postulated was that about four hundred million years ago the Earth was tilted at an angle not unlike the angle it's tilted on today. It was also no farther from the sun than it is now, so it had similar mean temperatures. Ice core samples, like the ones we get from this station, have shown that the air was a mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, in quantities very similar to that of our own atmosphere today. Don't you see it? The matrix was the same then as it is now."

  Schofield was slowly beginning to believe what Sarah was saying.

  Sarah said, "That cavern down there is fifteen hundred feet below sea level; that's two-and-a-half thousand feet below the average land level of Antarctica. The ice down there is easily four hundred million years old. If it's upthrusted ice from deeper down?ice that was raised by an earthquake or something?then it could be a lot, lot older.

  "I think that whatever is down there is something that was frozen a long time ago. A long time ago. It could be alien; it could be human, from human life that existed on this planet millions of years ago. Either way, Lieutenant, it'll be the greatest paleontological discovery this world has ever known and I want to see it."

  Sarah stopped, took a deep breath.

  Schofield just stood there, silent.

  Sarah spoke softly. "Lieutenant, this is my life. This is my whole life. Whatever's down there is perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. I've been studying my whole life for this?"

  Schofield looked curiously at her, and she cut herself off, sensing that he was about to speak.

  "What about your daughter?" he said.

  Sarah cocked her head. She hadn't expected him to ask that.

  Schofield said, "You're willing to leave her up here alone?"

  "She'll be safe," Sarah said evenly. Then she smiled. "She'll be up here with you."

  Schofield hadn't seen Sarah Hensleigh smile before. It illuminated her face, lit up the whole room.

  Sarah said, "I'll also be able to identify our divers who went down to that cave before, which might be?"

  Schofield held up his hand. "It's all right; you convinced me. You can go. But you use our scuba gear. I don't know what happened to your people down there before, but I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever's down there heard the noise of their breathing gear and I don't want the same thing to happen to us."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant," Sarah said seriously. "Thank you." Then she took off the glistening silver locket that she wore around her neck and offered it to Schofield. "I'd better not dive with this on. Can you keep it for me until I get back?"

  Schofield took the locket, put it in his pocket. "Sure."

  Just then, there came a sudden groaning sound from the pool to his left.

  Schofield spun, just in time to see an enormous black shadow rise to the surface of the pool amid a cloud of frothing white bubbles.

  At first he thought the black shadow was one of the killer whales, returning to the pool in search of more food. But whatever it was, it wasn't swimming. It was just floating, rising up and up toward the surface.

  And then the enormous black object breached the surface with a loud shooshing sound. Waves and bubbles shot out from every side of it. White froth expanded all around it. Narrow rivulets of blood snaked their way through the froth. The massive black object bobbed on the surface. Everyone on the deck took a step forward.

  Schofield stared at the black object in awe.

  It was a killer whale.

  But it was dead. Well and truly dead. The huge black-and-white carcass just floated limply in the water, alongside the deck. It was one of the larger ones, too, possibly even the male of the pack. It must have been at least thirty feet long. Seven tons in weight.

  At first Schofield thought it must have been the killer whale that Mother had shot in the head during the battle? since that was the only whale that he knew for sure was dead. He quickly changed his mind.

  This dead whale had no visible wound in its
head. The one Mother had shot would have had a hole the size of a basketball in its skull. This one's forehead was unmarked.

  And there was another thing.

  This one had floated to the surface.

  An animal killed in water will initially float, until its body fills with water. Only then will it sink. The killer whale that Mother had killed would have long since sunk to the bottom. This whale, on the other hand, had been killed recently.

  The dead carcass rolled slowly in the water. Schofield and the other Marines on the deck just stared at it, entranced.

  And then, slowly, it rolled belly-up and Schofield saw the great whale's white underbelly and his jaw dropped.

  Two long bloody gashes ran down the length of the big whale's underbelly.

  They ran in parallel. Two jagged uneven slashes that ran all the way up the center of the whale's body, from its mid-section to its throat. Sections of the big whale's intestines had fallen out through the gashes?long, ugly cream-colored coils that were as thick as a man's arm.

  They weren't clean cuts either, Schofield saw. Each gash was a tear, a rip. Something had punctured the whale's belly and then ripped up the entire length of its body, tearing the skin apart.

  Everyone on the deck stared at the bloody carcass, the understanding visible on their faces.

  There was something down in that water.

  Something that had killed a killer whale.

  Schofield took a deep breath and turned to face Sarah. "Want to reconsider?" he said.

  Sarah stared at the dead killer whale for a few seconds. Then she looked back at Schofield.

  "No," she said. "No way."

  Schofield paced nervously around the pool deck, alone.

  He watched as in the middle of the pool the winch's cable plunged into the water. At the end of that cable was the diving bell, and inside the diving bell were three of his Marines plus Sarah Hensleigh. The cable entered the water at a steady speed, as fast as it could go.

  The winch had been lowering the diving bell into the water for almost an hour now. Three thousand feet was a long way, almost a kilometer, and Schofield knew it would take some time before it reached that depth.

  Schofield stood on the deserted deck. Twenty minutes earlier, he had sent Book, Snake, and Rebound topside to try to raise McMurdo Station on the portable radio again?he had to know when a full-strength American force was going to arrive at Wilkes.

  Now he stood alone on E-deck, the station around him silent save for the rhythmic mechanical thumping of the winch mechanism up on C-deck. The repetitive thump-thump-thump of the winch had an almost soothing effect on him.

  Schofield pulled Sarah Hensleigh's silver locket out of his pocket. It glistened in the white fluorescent light of the station. He turned it over in his hand. There was some writing engraved on the back of it?

  And then suddenly there came a noise and Schofield's head snapped round. It had only lasted for an instant, but he had definitely heard it.

  It had been a voice. A male voice. But a voice that had been speaking in...

  .. . French.

  Schofield's eyes fell instantly upon the VLF transmitter that sat on the deck a few feet away from him.

  Suddenly the transmitter emitted a shrill whistling sound. And then the voice came again.

  "La hyène, c'est moi, le requin," the voice said. "La hyène, c'est moi, le requin. Présentez votre rapport. Je renouvele. Présentez votre rapport."

  Rebound, Schofield thought. Shit. I need Rebound. But he was outside with the others and Schofield needed a French speaker now.

  "Rebound," Schofield said into his helmet mike.

  The reply came back immediately. "Yes, sir?" Schofield could hear the swirling wind in the background.

  "Don't say a word, Rebound. Just listen, OK," Schofield said, pressing a button on his belt that kept his helmet microphone switched on. He leaned in close to the VLF transmitter so that his helmet mike was near the transmitter's speaker.

  The French voice came again.

  "La hyène. Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Je renouvele, Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Si vous ne le presentez pas lorsque I'heure nous serons contraint de lancer l'engine d'efface. Je renouvele. Si vous ne le présentez pas lorsque I'heure nous serons contraint de lancer l'engine d'efface. C'est moi, le requin. Finis."

  The signal cut off and there was silence. When he was sure that it was finished, Schofield said, "Did you get all that, Rebound?"

  "Most of it, sir."

  "What did they say?"

  "They said: Hyena. You have three hours to report. If you do not report by that time we will be compelled to launch the 'l'engine d'efface,' the erasing device."

  "The erasing device," Schofield said flatly. "Three hours. You sure about that, Rebound?"

  Schofield grabbed his wristwatch as he spoke. It was an old Casio digital. He started the stopwatch on it. The seconds began to tick upward.

  "Very sure, sir. They said it all twice," Rebound said.

  Schofield said, "Good work, Private. All right. Now all we have to do is figure out where these guys are?"

  "Uh, excuse me, sir?" It was Rebound again.

  "What is it?"

  "Sir, I think I have an idea where they might be."

  "Where?"

  "Sir, at the end of that transmission we just heard, they said 'c'est moi, le requin'. Now, I missed the start of the transmission. Did they say that at the very beginning? 'C'est moi, le requin'?"

  Schofield didn't know; he didn't speak French. It had all sounded the same to him. He tried to replay the radio message in his head. "They may have," he said. "No, wait, yes. Yes, I think they did say that. Why?"

  Rebound said, "Sir, le requin is French for 'shark.' 'C'est moi le requin' means 'this is Shark.' You know, like a military code name. The French unit here at the station was called Hyena and that one we just heard was called Shark. You know what I'm thinking, sir?"

  "Oh, damn," Schofield said.

  "That's right. I'm thinking they're out on the water somewhere. Somewhere off the coast. I'll bet you a million bucks that Shark is a warship or something sailing off the coast of Antarctica."

  "Oh, damn," Schofield said again, this time with feeling.

  It made sense that whoever sent that message was a ship of some kind. And not just because of its code name. As Schofield knew, because of their extraordinarily long wavelengths, VLF transmissions were commonly used by surface vessels or submarines out in the middle of the ocean. That was why the French commandos had brought the VLF transmitter with them. To keep in contact with their warship off the coast.

  Schofield started to feel ill.

  The prospect of a frigate or a destroyer patrolling the ocean a hundred miles off the coast was bad. Very bad. Especially if it was aiming some kind of weapon?in all likelihood, a battery of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles?at Wilkes Ice Station.

  It had never occurred to him that the French might not bring an erasing device with them but would rather leave it with an outside agent?like a destroyer off the coast?with instructions to fire upon the station if that destroyer did not receive a report by a given time.

  Shit, Schofield thought. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  There were only two things in the world that could stop the launch of that erasing device. One, a report coming in from twelve dead Frenchmen sometime within the next three hours. That wasn't going to happen.

  Which meant the second option was the only option.

  Schofield had to get in contact with the U.S. forces at McMurdo Station. And not just to find out when American reinforcements would be arriving at Wilkes. No, now he had to tell the Marines at McMurdo about a French warship sailing somewhere off the coast with a phalanx of cruise missiles trained on Wilkes Ice Station. It would then be up to the people at McMurdo to take out that warship?within three hours.

  Schofield keyed his mike again. "Book, you hear all that?"

  "Yeah," Buck Riley's voi
ce said.

  "Any luck with McMurdo?"

  "Not yet."

  "Keep trying," Schofield said. "Over and over. Until you get them on the line. Gentlemen, the stakes in this game have just been raised. If we don't get through to McMurdo in less than three hours, we're all gonna be vaporized."

  "Scarecrow, this is Fox," Gant's voice said. "I repeat. Scarecrow, this is Fox. Hey, Scarecrow? Are you out there?"

  Schofield was out on the pool deck on E-deck, watching the cable descend into the pool, thinking about cruise missiles. It had been about ten minutes since he had heard the transmission from the French vessel, Shark. Book, Rebound, and Snake were all still outside trying to raise McMurdo.

  Schofield keyed his mike. "I hear you, Fox. How are you doing down there?"

  "We are coming to three thousand feet. Preparing to stop the cable."

  There was a short pause.

  "OK. We are stopping the cable... now."

  As Gant said the word "now," the cable plunging into the water suddenly jolted to a stop. She had stopped its descent from inside the diving bell.

  "Scarecrow, I have the time as 1410 hours," Gant said. "Please confirm."

  "I confirm the time as 1410 hours, Fox," Schofield said. It was standard deep-diving practice to confirm the time at which a dive was to start. Schofield didn't know that he was following exactly the same procedure that the scientists from Wilkes had followed only two-and-a-half days earlier.

  "Copy time at 1410 hours. Turning over to self-contained air. Preparing to leave the diving bell."

  Gant kept Schofield updated on the dive.

  The four divers?Gant, Montana, Santa Cruz, and Sarah Hensleigh?turned over to self-contained air without incident and left the diving bell. A few minutes later, Gant reported that they had found the entrance to the underwater ice tunnel and that they were beginning their ascent.