Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [134]
Schofield stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ Renshaw said, not getting up. ‘You gonna walk home?’
‘We should keep moving,’ Schofield said. ‘Keep warm for as long as we can, and while we’re at it, see if there’s some way we can get back to the coast.’
Renshaw shook his head and reluctantly got to his feet and followed Schofield out across the uneven surface of the iceberg.
They trudged for almost twenty minutes before they realised they were going in the wrong direction.
The iceberg stopped abruptly and they saw nothing but sea stretching away to the west. The nearest iceberg in that direction was three miles away. Schofield had hoped they might be able to ‘iceberg-hop’ back to the coast. It wouldn’t happen in this direction.
They headed back the way they had come.
They made very slow going. Icicles began to form around Renshaw’s eyebrows and lips.
‘You know anything about icebergs?’ Schofield asked as they walked.
‘A little.’
‘Educate me.’
Renshaw said, ‘I read in a magazine once that the latest trend among assholes with too much money is “iceberg climbing”. Apparently it’s quite popular among mountaineer-types. The only problem is that eventually your mountain melts.’
‘I was thinking about something a little more scientific,’ Schofield said. ‘Like, do they ever float back in toward the coast?’
‘No,’ Renshaw said. ‘Ice in Antarctica moves from the middle out. Not the other way round. Icebergs like this one break off from coastal ice shelves. That’s why the cliffs are so sheer. The ice overhanging the ocean gets too heavy and it just breaks off, becoming,’ – Renshaw waved his hand at the iceberg around them – ‘an iceberg.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Schofield said, as he trudged across the ice.
‘You get some big ones, though. Really big ones. Icebergs bigger than whole countries. I mean, hell, take this baby. Look how big she is. Most large icebergs live for about ten or twelve years before they ultimately melt and die. But given the right weather conditions – and if the iceberg were big enough to begin with – an iceberg like this could float around the Antarctic for up to thirty years.’
‘Great,’ Schofield said dryly.
They came to the spot where Renshaw had hauled Schofield out of the water after Schofield had destroyed the French submarine.
‘Nice,’ Renshaw said. ‘Forty minutes of walking and we’re back where we started.’
They started up a small incline and came to the spot where the French submarine’s torpedo had hit the iceberg.
It looked like a giant had taken a huge bite out of the side of the iceberg.
The large landslide of ice that had just fallen away under the weight of the explosion had left a huge semi-circular hole in the side of the iceberg. Sheer, vertical walls stretched down to the water ten metres below.
Schofield looked down into the hole, saw the calm water lapping up against the edge of the enormous iceberg.
‘We’re gonna die out here, aren’t we?’ Renshaw said from behind him.
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re not?’
‘That’s my station and I’m gonna get it back.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Renshaw looked out to sea. ‘And do you have any idea as to exactly how you’re gonna do that?’
Schofield didn’t answer him.
Renshaw turned around. ‘I said, how in God’s name do you plan to get your station back when we’re stuck out here!’
But Schofield wasn’t listening.
He was crouched down on his haunches, looking down into the semi-circular hole the torpedo had carved into the iceberg.
Renshaw came over and stood behind him.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Salvation,’ Schofield said. ‘Maybe.’
Renshaw followed Schofield’s gaze down into the semi-circular hole in the iceberg and he saw it immediately.
There, embedded in the ice a couple of metres down the sheer, vertical cliff-face, Renshaw saw the distinctive square outline of a frozen glass window.
Schofield tied their two parkas together and using the two jackets as a rope, got Renshaw to lower him down to the window set into the ice cliff.
Schofield hung high above the water, in front of