Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [170]
‘Here, swallow these,’ Schofield said as he handed a blue capsule to each of them. They were N-67D anti-nitrogen capsules. The same pills that Schofield had given to Gant and the others when they had gone down to the cavern earlier. They all quickly swallowed the pills.
Schofield discarded his fatigues and put his body armour and gunbelt back on over his wetsuit. As he went through the pockets of his fatigues he found, among other things, a nitrogen charge and Sarah Hensleigh’s silver locket. Schofield transferred both items to pockets in his wetsuit. Then he quickly began to put on one of the scuba tanks.
There were three tanks in all, all of them filled with four hours’ worth of a saturated helium-oxygen mix: 98% helium, 2% oxygen. They were the auxiliary tanks that Schofield had got Gant to prepare before she had gone down to the cave earlier.
As he put his own LABA gear on, Renshaw helped Kirsty get into hers.
Schofield got his tanks on first. When he was ready, he immediately began searching the deck around him for something heavy – something very heavy – since they would need a good weight to take them down fast.
He found what he was looking for.
A length of the B-deck catwalk that had fallen down to E-deck back when the whole of B-deck had gone up in flames earlier. The length of metal catwalk was about ten feet long, and made of solid steel. It even had a section of its handrail still attached to it.
When Renshaw was also ready, Schofield got him to help drag it to the edge of the pool. The big length of metal catwalk screeched loudly as they dragged it across the deck.
As they worked, Wendy hopped up and down beside them, like a dog begging to go for a walk.
‘Is Wendy coming with us?’ Kirsty asked.
Schofield said, ‘I hope so. I was hoping she would show us the way.’
At that, Kirsty leapt to her feet and hurried over to the wall by the side of the pool. She grabbed a harness from a hook and brought it back to the edge of the pool. Then she began to strap the harness around Wendy’s mid-section.
‘What’s that?’ Schofield asked.
‘Don’t worry. It’ll help.’
‘Fine, whatever. Just stay close,’ Schofield said as he and Renshaw positioned the length of catwalk on the edge of the deck, so that it was all-but-ready to fall off.
‘All right,’ Schofield said. ‘Everybody in the water.’
The three of them jumped into the water and swam back underneath the length of catwalk. Wendy happily leapt into the water after them.
‘All right, get a grip on the catwalk,’ Schofield’s voice said over their underwater headsets.
They all grabbed hold of the length of catwalk. They looked like a set of Olympic swimmers preparing to swim a backstroke race.
Schofield placed his hand over Kirsty’s, to make sure she didn’t lose her hold on the catwalk as it sank through the water.
‘Okay, Mr Renshaw,’ Schofield said. ‘Pull!’
At that moment, Schofield and Renshaw heaved on the catwalk, and suddenly the length of heavy catwalk tipped off the edge of the deck and fell into the water with a massive splash.
The metal catwalk sank through the water fast.
The three small figures of Schofield, Renshaw and Kirsty clung grimly to it as it fell. They were all pointing downwards, their feet flailing above them. Wendy swam quickly down through the water behind them.
Schofield looked at the depth gauge on his wrist.
Ten feet.
Twenty feet.
Thirty feet.
Down they went, falling fast, through the magnificent white underwater world.
As they fell, Schofield tried to keep one eye on the white ice wall to his left. He searched for a hole in it, searched for the entrance to the short-cut tunnel that led to the underwater ice tunnel.
They hit a hundred feet. Without the pills, the nitrogen in their blood would have killed them by now.
Two hundred feet.
Three hundred.
They flew downwards through the water. It became darker, harder to see.
Four hundred, five hundred.
They were falling so quickly.