Ice Station

Sarah Hensleigh was sitting inside the darkened radio room of Wilkes Ice Station. 'Roger that, Mawson,' she said into the microphone in front of her.

'There doesn't appear to be any activity outside, Control. The coast is clear. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we 're stopping the winch. Preparing to leave the diving bell.'

 One kilometer below sea level, the diving bell jolted to a halt.

Inside, Austin keyed the intercom. 'Control, confirm time at 2132 hours, please.'

The seven divers sitting inside the cramped confines of the Douglas Mawson looked tensely at one another.

Hensleigh's voice came over the speaker. 'I copy, Mawson. Time confirmed at 2132 hours.'

'Control, mark that we are turning over to self-contained air supply at 2132 hours.'

'Marked.'

 The seven divers reached up for their heavy face masks, brought them down off their hooks, clamped them to the circular buckles on the collarbones of their suits.

'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. 'OK, 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 dive light above the water's surface. The exposed halogen bulb cast a wide flood pattern over the area around him, illuminating it to its farthest 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.

He turned in a complete circle, observing, one after another, 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, was a set of expanding ripples, the remnants, it seemed, of an object that had fallen into the water....

'What was that?' Austin said. 'Hanson?'

'Ben, I don't know what it was, but something just went past my?'

Austin watched as, without warning, Hanson was wrenched underwater.

'Hanson!'

And then there was another scream. Harry Cox.

Austin turned, just in time to see the slicked back of a large animal rise above the surface and plow at tremendous speed into Cox's chest, driving him underwater.

Austin began to swim frantically for the water's edge. As he swam, his head dipped below the surface and suddenly his ears were assaulted by a cacophony of sound?loud, shrill whistles and hoarse, desperate barks.

The next time his head surfaced, he caught a glimpse of the ice walls surrounding the pool of water. He saw large holes set into the ice, just above the surface. They were exactly the same as the ones he'd seen down in the ice tunnel before.

Then Austin saw something come out of one of the holes.

'Holy Christ,' he breathed.

Hideous screams burst across the intercom.

In the radio room of the ice station, Hensleigh stared in stunned silence at the blinking console in front of her. Beside her, Abby had her hand across her mouth. Terrified shouts rang out from the wall-mounted speakers:

'Raymonds! '

 'He's gone!'

 'Oh, shit, no?'

'Jesus, the walls! They're coming out of the fucking walls!'