Ice Station

mammals, and hence the rise of human life on Earth. The right distance from the sun, the right temperature, the right atmosphere, the right oxygen levels in the atmosphere, and, of course, the extinction of the dinosaurs. We all know about the Alvarez theory, how an asteroid slammed into the Earth and killed all the dinosaurs and how the mammals rose out of the darkness and took their place as the rulers of the world. What if I was to tell you that there is evidence that there were at least four other such asteroid impacts on this planet in the last seven hundred million years.'

'Asteroid impacts,' Schofield said.

'Yes. Sir Edmund Halley once suggested that the entire Caspian Sea was created by an asteroid collision hundreds of millions of years ago. Alexander Bickerton, the famous New Zealand physicist who taught Rutherford, hypothesized that the seabed of the entire South Atlantic Ocean?between South Africa and South America?was one great big bowl-shaped crater, caused by a massive asteroid impact over three hundred million years ago.

'Now, if we assume?as we so readily do in the case of the dinosaurs?that every time one of these cataclysmic asteroids hit the Earth a civilization died, we can only ask, what other kinds of civilizations, like that of the dinosaurs, have also been destroyed? What several academics have suggested in recent years?Joseph Sorenson from Stanford is the most well known?is that one of these civilizations may have been human.'

Schofield looked at the other Marines on the deck around him. They were all listening to Sarah intensely, rapt in her story.

Sarah went on. 'You see, on average, the Earth tilts on its vertical axis half a degree every twenty-two thousand years. What Sorenson postulated was that about four hundred million years ago the Earth was tilted at an angle not unlike the angle it's tilted on today. It was also no farther from the sun than it is now, so it had similar mean temperatures. Ice core samples, like the ones we get from this station, have shown that the air was a mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, in quantities very similar to that of our own atmosphere today. Don't you see it? The matrix was the same then as it is now.'

Schofield was slowly beginning to believe what Sarah was saying.

Sarah said, 'That cavern down there is fifteen hundred feet below sea level; that's two-and-a-half thousand feet below the average land level of Antarctica. The ice down there is easily four hundred million years old. If it's upthrusted ice from deeper down?ice that was raised by an earthquake or something?then it could be a lot, lot older.

'I think that whatever is down there is something that was frozen a long time ago. A long time ago. It could be alien; it could be human, from human life that existed on this planet millions of years ago. Either way, Lieutenant, it'll be the greatest paleontological discovery this world has ever known and I want to see it.'

Sarah stopped, took a deep breath.

Schofield just stood there, silent.

Sarah spoke softly. 'Lieutenant, this is my life. This is my whole life. Whatever's down there is perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. I've been studying my whole life for this?'

Schofield looked curiously at her, and she cut herself off, sensing that he was about to speak.

'What about your daughter?' he said.

Sarah cocked her head. She hadn't expected him to ask that.

Schofield said, 'You're willing to leave her up here alone?'

'She'll be safe,' Sarah said evenly. Then she smiled. 'She'll be up here with you.'

Schofield hadn't seen Sarah Hensleigh smile before. It illuminated her face, lit up the whole room.

Sarah said, 'I'll also be able to identify our divers who went down to that cave before, which might be?'

Schofield held up his hand. 'It's all right; you convinced me. You can go. But you use our scuba gear. I don't know what happened to your people down there before, but I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever's down there heard the noise of their breathing gear and I don't want the same thing to happen to us.'

'Thank you, Lieutenant,' Sarah said seriously. 'Thank you.' Then she took off the glistening silver locket that she wore around her neck and offered it to Schofield. 'I'd better not dive with this on. Can you keep it for me until I get back?'

Schofield took the locket, put it in his pocket. 'Sure.'

Just then, there came a sudden groaning sound from the pool to his left.

Schofield spun, just in time to see an enormous black shadow rise to the surface of the pool amid a cloud of frothing white bubbles.

At first he thought the black shadow was one of the killer whales, returning to the pool in search of more food. But whatever it was, it wasn't swimming. It was just floating, rising up and up toward the surface.

And then the enormous black object breached the surface with a loud shooshing sound. Waves and bubbles shot out from every side of it. White froth expanded all around it. Narrow rivulets of blood snaked their way through the froth. The massive black object bobbed on the surface. Everyone on the deck took a step forward.

Schofield stared at the black object in awe.

It was a killer whale.

But it was dead. Well and truly dead. The huge black-and-white carcass just floated limply in the water, alongside the deck. It was one of the larger ones, too, possibly even the male of the pack. It must have been at least thirty feet long. Seven tons in weight.

At first Schofield thought it must have been the killer whale that Mother had shot in the head during the battle? since that was the only whale that he knew for sure was dead. He quickly changed his mind.

This dead whale had no visible wound in its head. The one Mother had shot would have had a hole the size of a basketball in its skull. This one's forehead was unmarked.

And there was another thing.

This one had floated to the surface.

An animal killed in water will initially float, until its body fills with water. Only then will it sink. The killer whale that Mother had killed would have long since sunk to the bottom. This whale, on the other hand, had been killed recently.

The dead carcass rolled slowly in the water. Schofield and the other Marines on the deck just stared at it, entranced.

And then, slowly, it rolled belly-up and Schofield saw the great whale's white underbelly and his jaw dropped.

Two long bloody gashes ran down the length of the big whale's underbelly.

They ran in parallel. Two jagged uneven slashes that ran all the way up the center of the whale's body, from its mid-section to its throat. Sections of the big whale's intestines had fallen out through the gashes?long, ugly cream-colored coils that were as thick as a man's arm.

They weren't clean cuts either, Schofield saw. Each gash was a tear, a rip. Something had punctured the whale's belly and then ripped up the entire length of its body, tearing the skin apart.

Everyone on the deck stared at the bloody carcass, the understanding visible on their faces.

There was something down in that water.

 Something that had killed a killer whale.

Schofield took a deep breath and turned to face Sarah. 'Want to reconsider?' he said.

Sarah stared at the dead killer whale for a few seconds. Then she looked back at Schofield.

'No,' she said. 'No way.'

Schofield paced nervously around the pool deck, alone.

He watched as in the middle of the pool the winch's cable plunged into the water. At the end of that cable was the diving bell, and inside the diving bell were three of his Marines plus Sarah Hensleigh. The cable entered the water at a steady speed, as fast as it could go.

The winch had been lowering the diving bell into the water for almost an hour now. Three thousand feet was