and though Alex would tolerate him and follow his instructions as long as they coincided with his own brief, his men would not. HAWCs would obey the senior HAWC. If anything happened to Alex, then Johnson would lead. His men would ignore any orders from Dr. Silex and he hoped the scientist was wise enough to understand the limits of his jurisdiction and not to push his perceived command. With Alex’s men — if they just ignored him, then he reckoned the scientist got off lightly.
Seven
They sped through the half light of the morning in a swift military SeaHawk-S helicopter. It could take a dozen people and an additional 9,000 pounds of equipment, but as they had little more than slim backpacks for the short trip, they had squeezed the maximum bodies in, and by the look of it, a lot of extra fuel. There were twelve of them: the six HAWCs, Aimee, Silex, Matt, Monica and the two medical personnel.
It was becoming apparent to Aimee that Tom’s trip was a larger search and rescue mission with a scientist and a small security detail, whereas this seemed more a strike force with a science and medical appendage. Even the helicopter they rode in looked aggressive. Oscar Benson had delighted in describing the craft’s ordnance to her. It was armed to the teeth with a full armament of torpedoes, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, an M-60 machine gun, an M-240 machine gun, a GAU-16 machine gun and a GAU-17 minigun for good measure. The speed they were experiencing was delivered by two turbo shaft engines, each providing over 1,600 horsepower that gave the sleek beast a speed of nearly 200 miles per hour. Benson had smiled when he finished his description and said, “It can get in quick, deal death and be out before you even hear it approaching.” Shit, the lethal team, the armaments; Aimee suspected that the military thought that a little more than built-up gases had knocked the previous team out of action. My ass, they were not expecting any trouble, she thought.
The first leg to Macquarie Island, though the shortest, seemed to take forever. When the door of the helicopter finally slid back, a desolate granite landscape was revealed with a freezing wind that moaned its loneliness to a few wet-eyed seals lying at the grey water’s edge. They were meant to stretch their legs, but the cold made the very marrow in Aimee’s bones ache and she just pulled her parka hood further down over her face. Mercifully, the HAWCs managed to refuel in only thirty minutes and they shot up once again to complete their trip. No one spoke this time and most chose to simply doze or stare introspectively at their shoes. Even the HAWCs, now wrapped in their white snow coveralls, looked like hibernating polar bears, conserving their energy for the tasks ahead.
In Dante Alighieri’s vision of hell, the lowest circle of Hades appeared as a frozen lake that leached all warmth from the human body and spirit. His allegorical imagery of perpetual frozenness was thought by some to be a metaphor for distance from the grace of God’s warmth.
Aimee was reminded of those passages from Dante’s work as she looked at the flat stretches of white terrain covered by rolling, wind-driven waves of frozen snow and ice. The cold stung her nose and made her eyes water; even her teeth hurt. Before he left, Tom had told her it was the coldest place on earth, with vicious winds called katabatics that could reach 200 miles per hour and freeze-blacken the skin in seconds. Far from God’s warmth, Aimee thought again, and took a shuddering breath that seared the back of her throat.
They huddled just inside the doors of the helicopter as the HAWCs quickly unloaded the equipment. Apart from the soldiers, no one was desperately keen to jump out into a hostile environment that stung any exposed areas of the face and made the breath leave your body in white plumes like a flock of small ghosts.
First Lieutenant John Johnson appeared in the doorway and shouted over the top of the howling wind. “OK people, we’ve been given the all-clear on any gas traces, so no need for the breathing equipment. The drop lines are still in place from the previous mission team, so we’ll use those and have a first briefing on the cave floor. You’ll actually find it a lot more hospitable down there than up here.”
Aimee turned to wave to the helicopter pilot, before it immediately dusted off to the McMurdo American base for refuelling. The additional gusts from the rotor blades barely made any difference to the stinging winds swirling around them.
The team stopped and looked at the enormous hole before them. It dropped away to an inky blackness and no walls could be seen at or under the rim — that meant that where they were standing was probably hollow underneath. Aimee’s stomach gave a little flip, and for the first time she felt like refusing to go any further. She steeled herself and tried to bolster her spirits with a little “come on, girl, you’re tougher than this” speech. Waiting for her turn at the edge of the giant black hole, it seemed to make little difference today.
By now all the equipment had been lowered into the cavern and two of the HAWCs had dropped over the edge. Another of the soldiers, who had to be Tank given his size, grabbed Monica and Matt Kerns and harnessed them into a drop cradle. The carriage itself was little more than a seat made of straps attached to a winch device bolted to the ice. Tank walked the strapped-in team members towards the edge, briefly held his hand up to his ear to receive some form of communication from the cave floor, nodded to the passengers and then pushed them gently out into the abyss.
When it was Aimee’s turn to be lowered into the pit, Tank grabbed her by the harness and gently walked her to the edge. She was thankful for the large man pulling her forward as her legs would have flatly refused her own command to move. The butterflies that had previously tickled her insides had now churned her entire diaphragm into a whirlwind of giddiness that threatened to spill up over her lips. She looked down at her feet, now on the very lip of the black hole, and flashes started to go off in her head. Just as unconsciousness threatened to take her she heard Tank’s deep voice close to her ear. “Dr. Weir, don’t close your eyes, don’t look down; just stay focused on me or the rope.” She smiled at him, but was glad he didn’t see her expression as she suspected it looked more like a frightened rictus. Tank finally pushed her and she spun down into the darkness. Her mouth filled with saliva and she swallowed hard while concentrating on the rope in front of her; never had rope fibres fascinated her so much.
The relay continued for twenty minutes as the HAWCs rushed to get everyone out of the elements as quickly as possible. When Aimee touched down on the cave floor what immediately struck her was the sheer size of the cavern. Equipment had been unpacked and lights constructed facing primarily outward from their camp, set up just under the southern lip of the ceiling drop area. Truck-sized boulders were heaped towards the centre among some airplane debris; however the rest of the cave was surprisingly bare. It was definitely warmer out of the Antarctic wind; in fact, much warmer than it should have been. The team had removed their bulky snow clothes and now just wore their heated cave suits. As yet, no one needed to turn their helmet lights on as they were still close to the giant column of light that poured into the cave through the ceiling.
Within minutes of hitting the ground Aimee felt the final effects of vertigo leave her muscles, and with her vision cleared she quickly looked about the cavern floor for traces of Tom’s party or anything to give a clue to his whereabouts. She could feel a trickle of perspiration under her helmet and as she pulled off her bulky parka, Silex appeared beside her. She turned to him and asked, “It shouldn’t be so warm; volcanic activity, you think?”
Silex nodded. “Hmm, it’s got to be twenty degrees warmer down here than up there — above freezing easily. It does all make sense, though. The Antarctic is still quite geologically active. We surface dwellers just don’t know about it as most of it happens under the ice. In fact, Mt. Erebus is erupting constantly.”
“You’re probably right. That would account for the ice cap being so thin here, allowing the plane to break through, and also why this cave system isn’t totally iced up.” Aimee drew in a breath and wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell that? Strange — sharp and acrid, a bit like ammonia.”
Silex moved in closer to her. “Sub-surface oils can contain all sorts of natural contaminants — paraffins, cycloparaffins, aromatic hydrocarbons. Hell, I’ve smelt deep pumped oil that smelled of roses one moment and rotten eggs the next. Every time it’s different,” Silex tried to look rakish, but ended up just leering. “I love being out in the field.”
Aimee didn’t like the way he was peering into her face as he spoke. “Aimee, I know you miss Tom and I know you don’t want my sympathy, but we’ll find out what happened to him. I really hope we can work together and learn from each other. I can help you a lot with your career. In fact, I think you should head up your own company; you know you’re good enough. It would be my pleasure to help in any way I can.” His head was bobbing up and down slightly, like a heron scanning for tadpoles. He reached out to grasp her upper arm. Aimee smoothly intercepted it with her own hand and turned it into a friendly handshake.
“That’s very kind of you, Dr. Silex, thank you.” Maybe she had been overly sensitive. Maybe he just has a very
