Ice Station

bedside. He had only come up to the bridge when Walsh had called for him.

When he'd got there, Walsh had told him that the Wasp had just received a call from McMurdo Station. Apparently, a battered Marine hovercraft had just arrived at McMurdo. In it were five people?one Marine and four scientists?claiming that they had come from Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield shook his head and smiled. Rebound had made it to McMurdo.

It was then that Walsh demanded a rundown of the events of the preceding twenty-four hours. Schofield told him everything?about the French and the British, the ICG, and the Silhouette. He even told Walsh about the help he had received from a dead Marine named Andrew Trent.

When Schofield had finished recounting his story, Walsh just stood there for a moment in stunned silence. Schofield took another sip from his mug and looked aft, through the slanted panoramic windows of the bridge. He saw the gaping hole at the stern end of the flight deck where the missile had hit the Silhouette. Jagged lengths of metal stuck out into the hole; wires and cables hung loosely from it.

Of course, Walsh had accepted Schofield's apology for the damage to the deck. He hadn't much liked Admiral Clayton anyway; the asshole had assumed command of Walsh's ship, and no skipper appreciated that. And then when Walsh heard about Schofield's experiences with the ICG down at Wilkes Ice Station, he had no pity for Clayton and his ICG men at all.

As he stood there gazing down at the hole in the flight deck, Schofield began to think about the mission again, in particular about the Marines he had lost, the friends he had lost, on this foolish crusade.

'Uh, Captain,' a young Ensign said. Walsh and Schofield turned together. The young Ensign was sitting at an illuminated table inside the communications room that adjoined the bridge. 'I'm picking up something very peculiar here....'

'What is it?' Walsh said. He and Schofield came over.

The Ensign said, 'It appears to be some kind of GPS transponder signal, coming from just off the coast of Antarctica. It's emitting a valid Marine code signal.'

Schofield peered at the illuminated table in front of the Ensign. It had a computer-generated map drawn on it. Down on the coast of Antarctica?just off the coast, actually?there was a small, blinking red dot, with a blinking red number alongside it: 05.

Schofield frowned. He remembered pressing his own Navistar Global Positioning System transponder when he and Renshaw had been marooned on the iceberg. His GPS transponder code was '01' since he was the unit commander. Snake was 02; Book was 03. The numbers then ascended in order of seniority.

Schofield tried to remember who '05' was.

'Holy shit,' he said, realizing. 'It's Mother!'

The Wasp sailed toward the rising sun.

As soon as Schofield realized who the GPS signal represented, Jack Walsh had sent a call to McMurdo. The Marines there?trusted Marines?sent a patrol boat out along the coast to pick up Mother.

A whole day later, as the Wasp entered the Pacific Ocean, Schofield got a call from the patrol boat. It had found Mother, on an iceberg just off the destroyed coastline. Apparently, the crew of the patrol boat?all of them dressed in airtight radiation suits?had found her inside an old station of some sort, a station buried within the iceberg.

The skipper of the patrol boat said that Mother was suffering from severe hypothermia and radiation sickness from the fallout and that they were about to put her under sedation.

It was then that Schofield heard a voice at the other end of the line. A woman's voice, shouting wildly, 'Is that him? Is that Scarecrow?'

Mother came on the line.

After some obscene pleasantries, she told Schofield how she had hidden inside the elevator shaft and how she had lapsed into unconsciousness. Then she told him how she had been woken by the sound of the Navy SEALs' gunfire as they had entered Wilkes Ice Station. Minutes later, she had heard every word of Schofield's conversation with Romeo, heard about the nuclear-tipped cruise missile heading toward Wilkes.

And so she had crawled out of the dumbwaiter shaft? while the SEALs were still in the station?and headed for the pool deck, grabbing a couple of fluid bags from the storeroom on the way. When she got to the pool deck, she saw Renshaw's thirty-year-old scuba gear, lying on the deck, with a cable attached to it.

A steel cable that had led?with the help of the last remaining British sea sled?all the way back to Little America IV, one mile off the coast.

Schofield was amazed. He congratulated Mother and said his good-byes, said he would see her back at Pearl. And as they took Mother away at the other end to sedate her, Schofield heard her shout, 'And I remember you kissed me! You hot dog!'

Schofield just laughed.

Five days later, the USS Wasp sailed into Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

A cluster of TV cameras was waiting on the dock when it arrived. Two days earlier, a charter plane flying over the South Pacific had spotted the Wasp and seen its damaged flight deck. One of the pilots had captured the damage on video camera. The TV news stations had eaten it up, and now they were keen to find out what had happened to the great ship.

At the top of the gangway, Schofield watched as two midshipmen carried Gant off the ship on a stretcher. She was still in a coma. They were taking her to the nearby military hospital.

Renshaw and Kirsty met Schofield at the top of the gangway.

'Hey there,' Schofield said.

'Hi,' Kirsty said. She was holding onto Renshaw's hand.

Renshaw put on a bad Marlon Brando accent. 'Who'd have thought it? I'm the Godfather.'

Schofield laughed.

Kirsty spun around. 'Say, where's?'

At that moment, Wendy slid out from a nearby doorway. She loped straight up to Schofield and began nuzzling his hand. From tip to tail, the little fur seal was dripping wet.

'She's, ah, taken a bit of a liking to the ship's dive preparation pool,' Renshaw said.

'So I see,' Schofield said as he gave Wendy a gentle pat behind the ears. Wendy preened; then she dropped to the deck and rolled onto her back. Schofield shook his head as he dropped to his haunches and gave her a quick pat on her belly.

'The captain even said she could stay here until we found somewhere else for her to live,' Kirsty said.

'Good,' Schofield said. 'I think it's the least we can do.' He gave Wendy a final pat and the little seal leaped to her feet and dashed away, heading back downstairs toward her favorite pool.

Schofield stood up again and turned to face Renshaw. 'Mr. Renshaw, I have a question for you.'

'What?'

'What time did the people from your station dive down to the cave?'

'What time?'

'Yes, the time,' Schofield said. 'Was it day or night?'

'Uh,' Renshaw said. 'Night, I believe. I think it was somewhere around nine o'clock.'

Schofield began to nod to himself.

'Why?' Renshaw said.

'I think I know why the elephant seals attacked us.'

'Why?'

'Remember I said that the only group of divers to have approached that cave unharmed was Gant's group?'

'Yeah.'

'And I said that it was because her group had used low-audibility breathing gear.'

Renshaw said, 'Yeah. So did we. And as I recall it, the seals attacked us anyway.'