Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [85]
‘Sixty-five minutes,’ Schofield said. ‘How long will it last?’
Abby shrugged. ‘Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Long enough to get a signal through.’
Schofield bit his lip as he took all of this in. He had been hoping to get a window in the solar flare a lot sooner than that. He desperately needed to get in contact with McMurdo Station to tell them about the French warship that was sailing off the coast of Antarctica aiming a battery of missiles at Wilkes Ice Station.
Schofield asked, ‘Will there be any more breaks coming over the station?’
Abby smiled. ‘I thought you’d ask that, so I checked it out. There will be two more breaks in the flare after the first one, but there’s a long wait for them. Okay. The time is now 2:46 p.m. so the first window period won’t be until 3:51 p.m., sixty-five minutes from now. The other two will be a lot later, at approximately 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. tonight.’
Schofield sighed. This wasn’t good at all.
‘Good work, Abby,’ he said. ‘Good work. Thank you. If you want something else to do, I was hoping you might like to man the radio room while my men fix your antenna outside. Just in case anything comes through.’
Abby nodded. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Good,’ Schofield said. Abby wanted something to do, needed something to do. The events of the previous few hours had hit her hard, but once she had something to occupy her, she seemed to be okay.
Schofield smiled at her and headed for the rung-ladder.
Mother was sitting on the floor with her back up against the cold ice wall when Schofield entered the storeroom on E-deck. Her eyes were closed. She appeared to be sleeping.
‘Hey there,’ she said, without opening her eyes.
Schofield smiled as he came over and crouched beside her. ‘How you feeling?’ he asked.
Mother still didn’t open her eyes. ‘Methadone’s good.’
Schofield looked down at what was left of Mother’s left leg. Book had bandaged up the jagged protrusion at her knee quite well. The bandages, however, were soaked through with blood.
‘Guess I won’t be playing football anymore,’ Mother said.
Schofield looked at her face and he saw her open her eyes.
‘That fucking fish took my leg,’ she said indignantly.
‘I noticed. Could have been worse, though.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Mother snorted.
Schofield laughed.
Mother looked him over as he laughed. ‘Scarecrow. Have I ever told you that you are one damn fine-lookin’ man?’
Schofield said, ‘I think that’s the methadone talking.’
‘I know a good man when I see one.’ Mother said as she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes slowly.
Schofield spoke softly, ‘I’m not certain of many things, Mother, but one thing I am certain of is that I am not much to look at.’
Schofield began to think about the two scars that cut down across his eyes and how hideous they were. People instinctively winced when they saw them. When he was back home, Schofield almost always wore sunglasses.
As he thought about his eyes, Schofield must have looked away from Mother for an instant, because when he looked back at her he found that she was staring at him. Her eyes were hard and sharp, not glazed or drugged out. They bored right through his reflective silver glasses.
‘Any woman who won’t have you ’cause of your eyes doesn’t deserve you, Scarecrow.’
Schofield said nothing. Mother let it go.
‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘Now that we got all these pleasantries out of the way,’ she raised her eyebrows suggestively, ‘what brings you down to my neck of these woods? I’m hoping it wasn’t just to check up on my health.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘Well . . . ?’
‘Samurai’s dead.’
‘What?’ Mother said seriously. ‘They told me he was stable.’
‘He was murdered.’
‘By the French?’
‘No, later. Much later. The French were all dead when he was killed.’
‘It wasn’t one of their scientists?’
‘Accounted for.’
Mother spoke evenly, ‘One of our scientists?’
‘If it was, I can’t figure out why,’ Schofield said.
There was a short silence.
Then Mother said, ‘What about the one that was shut up in his room