“Like bullshit it is.” Bentley’s eyes narrowed. “No American spook is going to march in here and say, how are you? By the way, I’m taking over your project because we pissed off the Chinese.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not going near our probe.”
Alex looked along the faces, speaking now through clenched teeth. “Do you really think I care about your fucking probe?” He took a step towards Arkson Bentley, feeling a knot of fury start in his belly. The man went pale behind his beard. Alex’s eyes blazed, and without even realizing it, the hand he held up had curled into a fist. “I need to get down there, fast. Your probe is the only chance I have to do that.”
Alex waited, but most of the men had stopped looking at him, not wanting to meet his eyes. Only Cate was still staring, and her gaze was quizzical. Alex shrugged at her. “All I can promise is, I’ll do my best to protect your probe.” He scoffed. “And stay alive.”
Silence hung in the small room for a few more moments before Schmidt held up a hand.
“Ah, Mr. Hawk, protecting the probe is not the issue. It is certainly possible you can fit yourself into the capsule, we have left the rear mostly vacated for cushioning and to act as a buoyancy tank for when the drill canister is in the water. It must be suspended nose down for smooth release of the probe. But…”
“But…” Bentley spoke without looking away from the floor. “On the way down, there will be enormous changes in temperature. To begin with, it will be well below freezing, as it drills into the top layers of snow and ice. But once it strikes the hard ice, the dark ice, the heating units are designed to kick in to soften it. The exterior of the probe will rise to four hundred degrees, and the interior, we estimate, will be near two hundred. You will not survive. All we will succeed in doing is depositing a broiled body, in a dark sea, several miles down.”
“Your concern is touching.” Alex never blinked. “You just concentrate on getting the probe down there, I’ll worry about my comfort level.”
Cate snapped her fingers. “Hey Sulley, we have thermal sheets that are temperature controlled. They could help.”
Alex shook his head. “Like I said, you let me worry about my own safety.” Alex lifted his kit and dropped it on a table. He unzipped the bag, revealing several sets of goggles, fins, and a single slim backpack, which he looped over his shoulders.
Cate peered into the bag and reached for one of the other sets of goggles, turning it over in her hands.
“How long will it take… until I make the water surface?” Alex asked.
“The entire penetration?” Schmidt shrugged. “Test sinkings have taken up to seven hours. But we have increased both the power of the drill and the thermal displacement unit. Our estimates are a drop of sixty-seven minutes of high speed ice coring, and then a slower descent through the granite mantle. There’s about a hundred feet of dense, orbicular granite. Going to be one bloody rough ride.”
“And getting there isn’t the only danger.” Cate’s brows were drawn together. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” She crossed to one of the computer screens and flicked it on. She opened a file, and started the video footage, and then turned the screen towards him.
“There’s life down there, you know, and not just blind shrimp, or bacterial clumps. There are predators — huge, we think.” She stopped the film at an immense eye filling the screen. It was lidless, round and white-rimmed, and its pupil was a goat-like slit.
The eye seemed to stare into Alex’s soul. He was momentarily transfixed, and felt his mouth go dry. “Yes.” He found it hard to look away, as monstrous memories came rushing back. “I know what to expect.” He tried to smile at her, but felt his mouth fail to fully comply. “Unfortunately, I’ve been there before.”
Bentley scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
Cate stared at him for several more moments, but there was something in her expression that was more assessing than disbelieving.
Bentley’s grin split his face, rising on both sides of his long nose. “Like I said, if the heat doesn’t kill you, the vibrations will certainly loosen your teeth… and then you wait until you meet whatever it was that took Flipper out.” He finished with a snigger.
“Let’s get started,” Alex said.
Cate folded her arms. “Listen, Mr. Hawk, or whatever your real name is, I don’t care who you think you are, or how many politicians’ arms you twisted to get here. Without my approval, you’re not going anywhere.” She paused, her gaze direct. “Unless.”
Alex waited, seeing something building behind her eyes.
“One condition.” She held up a finger. “You take me with you.”
Bentley spluttered. “Are you crazy?”
Her team crowded around, and even though she was a tall woman, the men seemed to stand over her, their faces twisted in either disbelief or anger.
She folded her arms. “I’m going. I’ve waited my whole life to get a glimpse of what’s down there. I thought that we wouldn’t send anything biological until we knew what the contamination risk profile looked like… well, seems that assessment protocol has been overridden by our clever benefactors.” She turned, looking at each of them. “I’m not sitting around up here, when I could be down there.” She nodded towards Alex. “Besides, I’ll have John Carter of Mars with me.” She turned back to Alex. “Deal?”
“No.” Alex continued to get ready.
Cate’s folded arms seemed to tighten across her chest. “You weren’t listening. One word from me, and no one is going… and you can’t launch by yourself, tough guy.” She smiled. “Besides you’re going to need me — as well as being an evolutionary biologist, and the closest thing to a primordial environment expert you got, I’ve also had medical training. If you get injured, I can help.”
Alex continued to work on his pack, and she stepped towards him, wrenching his arm. “I’ve spent my whole life studying this potential landscape. You’ll need me. I’m an asset.”
Alex looked up slowly. “Dr. Canning, you’ve spent your life studying fossilized landscapes or things compressed in shale that have been dead for millions of years; they’re nothing like they are in real life.” He stared hard at her. “Down there is not our world. Down there, human beings don’t belong.”
Cate’s teeth were gritting, as she wrenched his arm. “But you’ve got a free pass, huh?”
“Not because I want to go.” Alex went back to his pack. “And I don’t take sightseers.”
“Then all I can lend you is a fucking shovel, mister. You can dig your way down.” She turned away. “Have your president call our prime minster. I’m sure they can sort something out in a week or two.”
Alex stared at the back of her head with such ferocity, his vision almost blurred. After a moment he exhaled. Why should he care if this woman was determined to kill herself?
“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you,” Alex said evenly. “If you get injured, or in any way become incapacitated, I’ll leave you without blinking. That’s the way it is.” Alex stared at the woman. “Understood?”
Cate didn’t flinch. “HUA!’
They remained locked together, staring at each other for several more moments, before she finally turned away, shouting over her shoulder, “Get me the thermal sheeting, a dive suit, flashlight, flares, and survival pack. Launching Orca in ten minutes, people.”
CHAPTER 16
The wind screamed and the Ellsworth team braced themselves against the furious cold, as they gathered around the silo shaped structure. A door, or rather, a panel, had been lifted free, revealing a dark space inside. Alex stuck his head in — it was like a cross between a cylindrical steel telephone booth and giant vitamin capsule. There was not a lot of space even though Bentley and the other scientists had removed some of the compression packing.