Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [4]
‘Control, we are now leaving the diving bell.’
Austin stepped forward, pausing for a moment to look at the black pool of water lapping against the rim of the diving bell. Then he stepped off the deck and splashed into the darkness.
‘Divers. Time is now 2220 hours, dive-time is forty-eight minutes. Report,’ Hensleigh said into her mike.
Inside the radio room behind Sarah sat Abby Sinclair, the station’s resident meteorologist. For the past two hours, Abby had been manning the satellite radio console, trying without success to raise an outside frequency.
The intercom crackled. Austin’s voice answered. ‘Control, we are still proceeding up the ice tunnel. Nothing so far.’
‘Roger, divers,’ Hensleigh said. ‘Keep us informed.’
Behind her, Abby keyed her talk button again. ‘Calling all frequencies, this is station four-zero-niner, I repeat this is station four-zero-niner, requesting immediate assistance. We have two casualties, possibly fatalities, on hand and we are in need of immediate support. Please acknowledge.’ Abby released the button and said to herself, ‘Somebody, anybody.’
The ice tunnel was starting to widen.
As Austin and the other divers slowly made their way upward, they began to notice several strange holes set into the walls on either side of the underwater tunnel.
Each hole was perfectly round, at least ten feet in diameter. And they were all set on an incline so that they descended into the ice tunnel. One of the divers aimed his flashlight up into one of the holes, revealing only impenetrable, inky darkness.
Suddenly Austin’s voice cut across their intercoms. ‘Okay people, stay tight. I think I see the surface.’
Inside the radio room, Sarah Hensleigh leaned forward in her chair, listening to Austin’s voice over the intercom.
‘The surface appears calm. No sign of Price or Davis.’
Hensleigh and Abby exchanged a glance. Hensleigh keyed her intercom. ‘Divers. This is Control. What about the noises they mentioned? Do you hear anything? Any whale song?’
‘Nothing yet, Control. Hold on now, I’m coming to the surface.’
Austin’s helmet broke the glassy surface.
Icy water drained off his faceplate. Austin lifted his Princeton-Tec divelight above the water’s surface. The exposed halogen bulb cast a wide flood pattern over the area around him, illuminating it to its far-thest corners.
Slowly, Austin began to see where he was. He was hovering in the middle of a wide pool, which was itself situated at one end of a gigantic subterranean cavern.
Slowly, Austin turned in a complete circle, observing one after the other, the sheer vertical walls that lined every side of the cavern.
And then he saw the final wall.
His mouth fell open.
‘Control, you’re not going to believe this.’ Austin’s stunned voice broke over the intercom.
‘What is it, Ben?’ Hensleigh said into her mike.
‘I’m looking at a cavern of some sort. Walls are sheer-sided ice, probably the result of some kind of seismic activity. Area of the cavern is unknown, but it looks like it extends several hundred feet into the ice.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘There’s, ah . . . there’s something else down here, Sarah.’
Hensleigh looked at Abby and frowned. She keyed the intercom. ‘What is it, Ben?’
‘Sarah . . .’ There was a long pause. ‘Sarah, I think I’m looking at a spaceship.’
It was half-buried in the ice wall behind it.
Austin stared at it, entranced.
Completely black, it had a wingspan of about ninety feet. Two sleek, dorsal tail fins rose high into the air above the rear of the ship. Both fins, however, were completely embedded in the ice wall behind the ship – two shadowy blurs trapped within the clear, frozen wall. It stood on three powerful-looking landing struts and it looked magnificent – the aerodynamics sleek to the extreme, exuding a sense of raw power that was almost tangible –
There came a loud splash from behind him and Austin spun.
He saw the other divers, treading water behind him, staring up at the spaceship. Beyond them, however,