Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [3]
In the diving bell, they would have been breathing ‘free’ air – the diving bell’s own supply of heliox – so that didn’t count. It was only when they left the diving bell and started using tank air that the clock began to run.
Four hours, then.
The two divers had been living off tank air for four hours.
The problem was their tanks contained only three hours’ worth of breathing time.
And for Austin that had meant a delicate balancing act.
The last words he and the others had heard from the two divers – before their radio signal had abruptly cut to static – had been some anxious chatter about strange whistling noises.
On the one hand, the whistling could have been anything: blues, minkes, or any other kind of harmless baleen whale. And the radio cut-out could easily have been the result of interference caused by nearly half a kilometre of ice and water. For all Austin knew, the two divers had turned around immediately and begun the hour-long trip back to the diving bell. To pull it up prematurely would be to leave them stranded on the bottom, out of time and out of air.
On the other hand, if the divers actually had met with trouble – killers, leopard seals – then naturally Austin would have wanted to yank up the diving bell as quickly as possible and send others down to help.
In the end, he decided that any help he could send – after hauling up the diving bell and sending it back down again – would be too late anyway. If Price and Davis were going to survive, the best bet was to leave the diving bell down there.
That was three hours ago – and that was as much time as Austin had been willing to give them. And so he’d pulled up the diving bell, and now a second team was preparing to go down –
‘Hey.’
Austin turned. Sarah Hensleigh, one of the palaeontologists, came up alongside him.
Austin liked Hensleigh. She was intelligent, while at the same time practical and tough; not afraid to get her hands dirty. It came as no surprise to him that she was also a mother. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Kirsty, had been visiting the station for the past week.
‘What is it?’ Austin said.
‘The topside antenna’s taking a beating. The signal isn’t getting through,’ Hensleigh said. ‘It also looks like there’s a solar flare coming in.’
‘Oh shit. . .’
‘For what it’s worth, I’ve got Abby scanning all the military frequencies, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.’
‘What about outside?’
‘Pretty bad. We’ve got eighty-footers breaking on the cliffs and a hundred-knot wind on the surface. If we have casualties, we won’t be getting them out of here by ourselves.’
Austin turned to stare at the diving bell. ‘And Renshaw?’
‘He’s still shut up in his room.’ Hensleigh looked up nervously toward B-deck.
Austin said, ‘We can’t wait any longer. We have to go down.’
Hensleigh just watched him.
‘Ben –’ she began.
‘Don’t even think about it, Sarah.’ Austin began walking away from her, toward the water’s edge. ‘I need you up here. So does your kid. You just get that signal out. We’ll get the others.’
‘Coming to three thousand feet,’ Austin’s voice crackled out from the wall-mounted speakers. Sarah Hensleigh was sitting inside the darkened radio room of Wilkes Ice Station. ‘Roger that, Mawson,’ she said into the microphone in front of her.
‘There doesn’t appear to be any activity outside, Control. The coast is clear. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’re stopping the winch. Preparing to leave the diving bell.’
One kilometre below sea level, the diving bell jolted to a halt.
Inside, Austin keyed the intercom. ‘Control, confirm time at 2132 hours, please.’
The seven divers sitting inside the cramped confines of the Douglas Mawson looked tensely at each other.
Hensleigh’s voice came over the speaker. ‘I copy, Mawson. Time confirmed at 2132 hours.’
‘Control, mark that we are turning over to self-contained air supply at 2132 hours.’
‘Marked.’
The seven divers reached up for their heavy face masks,