Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [62]
After the battle with the French had concluded, the remaining scientists from Wilkes – there were five of them, three men and two women – had retired to their living quarters on B-deck. Schofield was heading for those living quarters now. He was hoping to find among those scientists a doctor who might be able to help Samurai.
Schofield continued to walk around the curved outer tunnel. His clothes were still wet, but he didn’t care. Like all of the other Marines in his unit, he was wearing a thermal wetsuit under his fatigues. It was practically standard attire for Recon units working in arctic conditions. Wetsuits were warmer than long-johns and they didn’t get heavy if they got wet. And by wearing one’s wetsuit instead of carrying it, a Recon Marine lightened his load, something very important for a rapid-response unit.
Just then, a door to Schofield’s right opened and a cloud of steam wafted out into the corridor. A sleek black object slid out of the haze and into the corridor in front of Schofield.
Wendy.
She was dripping with water. She looked up at Schofield with a goofy seal grin.
Kirsty emerged from the steamy haze. The shower room. She saw Schofield instantly and she smiled.
‘Hi,’ she said. She was wearing a new set of dry clothes, and her hair was tousled, wet. Schofield guessed that Kirsty had just had the hottest shower of her life.
‘Hey, there,’ Schofield said.
‘Wendy loves the shower room,’ Kirsty said, nodding at Wendy. ‘She likes to slide through the steam.’
Schofield suppressed a laugh and looked down at the little black fur seal at his feet. She was cute, very cute. She had also saved his life. Her soft brown eyes glistened with intelligence.
Schofield looked at Kirsty. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Warm now,’ she said.
Schofield nodded. From the look of her, Kirsty seemed to have bounced back well from her ordeal in the pool. Kids were good like that, resilient. Schofield wondered what sort of therapy an adult would need after falling into a pool filled with ferocious killer whales.
Schofield gave a lot of the credit to Buck Riley. Riley had been up on C-deck when Kirsty had been whizzed up there on Schofield’s Maghook, and for the remainder of the battle, Riley had kept Kirsty by his side, safe and sound.
‘Good,’ Schofield said. ‘You’re one tough kid, you know that? You ought to be a Marine.’
Kirsty beamed. Schofield nodded down the tunnel. ‘You going my way?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, falling into step beside him as he began walking down the tunnel. Wendy loped down the corridor behind them.
‘Where are you going?’ Kirsty asked.
‘I’m looking for your mom.’
‘Oh,’ Kirsty said, a little softly.
It was a strange response, and, through his reflective silver glasses, Schofield cast a sideways glance at Kirsty. She just stared at the floor as she walked. Schofield wondered what it meant.
There was an awkward silence and Schofield searched for something to say. ‘So, uh, how old did you say you were? Twelve, right?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What is that, seventh grade?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Seventh grade,’ Schofield mused. He was at a total loss for something to say now, so he just said, ‘I guess you must be starting to think about a career, then.’
Kirsty seemed to perk up at the question. She looked across at Schofield as they walked.
‘Yeah,’ she said seriously, as though career thoughts had been weighing heavily on her twelve-year-old mind lately.
‘So what do you want to do when you leave school?’
‘I want to be a teacher,’ Kirsty said. ‘Like my dad.’
‘What does your dad teach?’
‘He taught geology at a big college in Boston,’ Kirsty said. ‘Harvard,’ she added importantly.
‘And what do you want to teach?’ Schofield asked.
‘Math.’
‘Math?’
‘I’m good at math,’ Kirsty said, shrugging self-consciously, embarrassed and proud at the same time.
‘My dad used to help me with my homework,’ she went on. ‘He said I was much better at math than most other kids my age, so sometimes he would teach me stuff that the other kids didn’t know. Interesting