Ice Station

 'I'm good at math,' Kirsty said, shrugging selfconsciously, 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 stuff, stuff that I wasn't supposed to learn until I was a senior. And sometimes he'd teach me stuff that they don't teach you at all in school.'

'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.'

'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 midstride. He turned to look at Kirsty. The little girl was staring down at her shoelaces.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

Kirsty cocked her head to one side. 'It's OK,' 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 colleagues 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 range finders 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?'

'Southwest 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 a cupboard in the dining room on A-deck.

They had not offered any resistance. Indeed, as they had been dragged unceremoniously out of the cupboard to face their conquerors the horror on their faces had said it all. They had backed the wrong side in this fight. The men they had deceived were now their captors. The price for their treachery would be high.

Both men had been taken down to E-deck, where they were handcuffed to a pole in plain view. Schofield's team had work to do, and Schofield didn't want to waste any of his manpower guarding the two French scientists. By cuffing the two Frenchmen to a pole out in the open the Marines down on E-deck could work as well as keep an eye on them.

Schofield stepped out onto the B-deck catwalk. He was about to speak into his helmet mike when Sarah Hensleigh came out onto the catwalk behind him.

'I have something I have to ask you,' she said. 'Something I couldn't ask you back in the common room.'

Schofield held up a hand, spoke into his helmet mike: 'Rebound. This is Scarecrow. How's Samurai?'

Rebound's voice came in over his earpiece. 'I've managed to stop the bleeding for the moment, sir, but he's still pretty bad.'

'Stable?'

'As stable as I'm gonna get him.'

 'All right, listen. I want you to go down to E-deck and grab that French scientist named Champion, Luc Champion,' Schofield said. He looked at Sarah as he spoke. 'I've just been informed that our good friend Monsieur Champion is a surgeon.'

'Yes, sir,' Rebound said eagerly. He seemed relieved that someone more qualified might be able to take over Samurai's care. But then he seemed to check himself. 'Uh, sir...'

'What is it?'

'Can we trust him?'

 'No,' Schofield said firmly as he began to climb up the rung-ladder toward A-deck. He motioned for Sarah to follow him up. 'Not a whit. Rebound, you just tell him that if Samurai dies, so does he.'

'Gotcha.'

 Schofield reached the top of the rung-ladder and stepped up onto the A-deck catwalk. He helped Sarah up behind him. Almost immediately, he saw Rebound emerge from the dining room doorway not far away and jog for the opposite rung-ladder. He was going down to E-deck to get Champion.

Schofield and Sarah headed for the main entrance to the station. As they walked along the catwalk, Schofield looked down at the station beneath him and thought about his people.

They were scattered everywhere.

Montana was outside. Riley and Gant were down on E-deck, getting the scuba gear ready for the dive to the cave. Snake was smack in the middle, in the alcove on C-deck, fixing the winch controls. And Santa Cruz was nowhere to be seen, since he was off conducting a search of the station for erasers.

Christ, Schofield thought, they were spread all over the place.

Schofield's helmet intercom crackled. It was Santa Cruz.