Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [126]
And then abruptly the gunfire ceased and the doors of the dumb waiter closed and all of a sudden there was silence again and for the first time in three whole minutes, Mother let out a breath.
Schofield and Renshaw plummeted down the face of the cliff and plunged into the ocean.
The cold hit them like an anvil, but Schofield didn’t care. His adrenalin was pumping and his body heat was already high. Most experts would give you about eight minutes to live in the freezing Antarctic waters. But with his thermal wetsuit on and his adrenalin pumping, Schofield gave himself at least thirty.
He swam upward, searching for air, and then suddenly he broke the surface and the first thing he saw was the largest wave he had ever seen in his life bearing down upon him. The wave crashed down against him and drove him – slammed him – back against the base of the ice cliff.
The impact knocked the wind out of him and Schofield’s lungs clawed for air.
Suddenly the wave subsided and Schofield felt himself get sucked down into a trough between two waves. He let himself float in the water for a few seconds while he got his breath and his bearings.
The sea around him was absolutely mountainous. Forty-foot waves surrounded him. A mammoth wave smashed into the cliffs twenty yards to his right. Icebergs – some as tall and as wide as New York skyscrapers; others as long and flat as football fields – hovered a hundred yards off the coast, silent sentries guarding the ice cliffs.
Suddenly Renshaw burst up out of the water right next to Schofield. The short scientist immediately began gulping in air in hoarse, heaving breaths. For an instant, Schofield worried about how Renshaw would cope with the extreme cold of the water, but then he remembered Renshaw’s neoprene bodysuit. Hell, Renshaw was probably warmer than he was.
At that moment Schofield saw another towering wave coming toward them.
‘Go under!’ he yelled.
Schofield took a deep breath and dived, and suddenly the world went eerily silent.
He swam downwards; saw Renshaw swimming alongside him, hovering in the water.
And then Schofield saw an explosion of white foam fan out above their heads as the wave on the surface crashed with all its might against the cliff.
Schofield and Renshaw surfaced again.
As he bobbed and swayed in the water, Schofield saw the entire side door of a hovercraft float past him in the water.
‘We have to get further out,’ Schofield said. ‘If we stay here any longer, we’re gonna get pulverised against these cliffs.’
‘Where to?’ Renshaw said.
‘Okay,’ Schofield said. ‘See that iceberg out there?’ He pointed at a large berg that looked like a grand piano on its side, about two hundred yards out from the cliffs.
‘I see it.’
‘That’s where we’re going,’ Schofield said.
‘All right.’
‘Okay, then. On three. One. Two. Three.’
On three, both men drew deep breaths and went under. They kicked off the cliff and breaststroked their way through the clear Antarctic water. Explosions of white foam flared out above their heads as they made their way through the water.
Ten yards. Twenty.
Renshaw ran out of breath, surfaced, took a quick gulp of air and then went under again. Schofield did the same, clenching his teeth as he too ducked beneath the waves again. His newly broken rib burned with pain.
Fifty yards out and the two men broke the surface again. They were beyond the breaking waves now, so they stretched out into freestyle, powering over the vertiginous peaks of the towering forty-foot waves.
At last, they came to the base of the iceberg. It loomed above them, a wall of white, sheer in some places, beautifully curved and grooved in others. Magnificent vaulted tunnels disappeared into the virgin ice.
The big berg levelled off at one point, descending to the ocean where it formed a kind of ledge. Schofield and Renshaw made for the ledge.
When they got there, they saw that the ledge was actually poised about three feet above the water.
‘Push off my shoulder,’ Schofield said.
Renshaw obeyed, and quickly