Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [63]
‘Yeah?’ Schofield said, genuinely interested. ‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Oh, you know. Polynomials. Number sequences. Some calculus.’
‘Calculus. Number sequences,’ Schofield repeated, amazed.
‘You know, like triangular numbers and Fibonacci numbers. That sort of stuff.’
Schofield shook his head in astonishment. This was impressive. Very impressive. Kirsty Hensleigh, twelve years old and a little short for her age, was apparently a very smart young lady. Schofield looked at her again. She seemed to walk on her toes, with a kind of spring in each step. She just looked like a regular kid.
Kirsty said, ‘We used to do a lot of stuff together. Softball, hiking, once he even took me scuba diving, even though I hadn’t done the course.’
Schofield said, ‘You make it sound like your dad doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore?’
There was a short silence. Then Kirsty said softly, ‘He doesn’t.’
‘What happened?’ Schofield asked gently. He was waiting to hear a tale about fighting parents and a divorce. It seemed to happen a lot these days.
‘My dad was killed in a car wreck last year,’ Kirsty said flatly.
Schofield stopped in mid-stride. He turned to look at Kirsty. The little girl was staring down at her shoelaces.
‘I’m sorry,’ Schofield said.
Kirsty cocked her head to one side. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, and then resumed walking.
They came to a door sunken into the outer tunnel and Schofield stopped in front of it. ‘Well, this is my stop.’
‘Mine, too,’ Kirsty said.
Schofield opened the door and let Kirsty and Wendy enter in front of him. He followed them inside.
It was a common room of some sort. Some ugly orange couches, a stereo, a television, a VCR. Schofield guessed that they didn’t get regular TV transmissions down here so they just watched videos on the television.
Sarah Hensleigh and Abby Sinclair sat on one of the orange couches. They were also now wearing dry clothes. The three other scientists from Wilkes – three men named Llewellyn, Harris and Robinson – were there, too. After seeing what the fragmentation grenades had done to Hollywood and one of their col-leagues they had spent the remainder of the battle holed up in their rooms. Now they looked tired and weary, afraid.
Kirsty went over and sat down on the couch next to Sarah Hensleigh. She sat down silently and didn’t say anything to her mother. Schofield remembered the first time he had seen Sarah and Kirsty together – back before the French had arrived at Wilkes. Kirsty hadn’t said much then either. Schofield hadn’t noticed any tension between them then, but he noticed it now. He put it out of his mind as he walked over to Sarah.
‘Is anyone here a medical doctor?’ Schofield asked her.
Sarah shook her head. ‘No. No, Ken Wishart was the only doctor at the station. But he –’ She cut herself off.
‘But he what?’
Sarah sighed. ‘But he was on board the hovercraft that was supposed to be heading back to d’Urville.’
Schofield shut his eyes, once again imagined the fate of the five scientists who had been on board the doomed hovercraft.
A voice crackled over his helmet intercom. ‘Scarecrow, this is Montana.’
‘What is it?’ Schofield said.
‘I’ve set up the rangefinders around the outer perimeter just like you wanted. You wanna come up and check it out?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Schofield said, ‘I’ll be up in a minute. Where are you?’
‘South-west corner.’
‘Wait for me,’ Schofield said. ‘Have you had any luck getting through to McMurdo?’
‘Not yet. There’s a shitstorm of interference on every frequency. I can’t get through.’
‘Keep trying,’ Schofield said. ‘Scarecrow, out.’
Schofield turned and was about to leave the common room when someone tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He turned. It was Sarah Hensleigh. She was smiling.
‘I just remembered,’ she said. ‘There is a medical doctor at this station after all.’
After the battle was over, the Marines had found the two French scientists, Luc Champion and Henri Rae, cowering in