Free Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean Page B

up, slowly, to control the speed of descent. On the screen, the cone of light thrown on to the underside of the ice by the floodlight grew fainter and larger as we dropped, then remained stationary, neither moving nor growing in size. We had stopped.
      "Now," said Swanson. "Before that current gets us again."
      There came the hissing roar of compressed air under high pressure entering the ballast tanks. The _Dolphin_ started to move sluggishly upward while we watched the cone of light on the ice slowly narrow and brighten.
      "More air," Swanson said.
      We were rising faster now, closing the gap to the ice all too quickly for my liking. Fifteen feet, twelve feet, ten feet.
      "More air," Swanson said.
      I braced myself, one hand on the plot, the other on an overhead grab bar. On the screen, the ice was rushing down to meet us. Suddenly the picture quivered and danced, the _Dolphin_ shuddered, jarred, and echoed hollowly along its length, more lights went out, the picture came back on the screen, the sail was still lodged below the ice, then the _Dolphin_ trembled and lurched and the deck pressed against our feet like an ascending elevator. The sail on the TV vanished, nothing but opaque white taking its place. The diving officer, his voice high with strain that had not yet found relief, called out, "Forty feet, forty feet." We had broken through.
      "There you are, now," Swanson said mildly. "All it needed was a little perseverance." I looked at the short, plump figure, the round, good-humored face, and wondered for the hundredth time why the nerveless iron men of this world so very seldom look the part.
      I let my pride have a holiday. I took my handkerchief from my pocket, wiped my face, and said to Swanson, "Does this sort of thing go on all the time?"
      "Fortunately, perhaps, no," he smiled. He turned to the diving officer. "We've got our foothold on this rock. Let's make sure we have a good belay."
      For a few seconds, more compressed air was bled into the tanks, then the diving officer said: "No chance of her dropping down now, Captain."
      "Up periscope."
      Again the long, gleaming silver tube hissed up from its well. Swanson didn't even bother folding down the hinged handles. He peered briefly into the eyepiece, then straightened. "Down periscope."
      "Pretty cold up top?" Hansen- asked.
      Swanson nodded. "Water on the lens must have frozen solid as soon as it hit that air. Can't see a thing." He turned to the diving officer. "Steady at forty?"
      "Guaranteed. And all the buoyancy we'll ever want."
      "Fair enough." Swanson looked at the quartermaster, who was shrugging his way into a heavy sheepskin coat. "How about a little fresh air, Ellis?"
      "Right away, sir." Ellis buttoned his coat and added: "Might take some time."
      "I don't think so," Swanson said. "You may find the bridge and hatchways jammed with broken ice but I doubt it. My guess is that that ice is so thick that it will have fractured into very large sections and fallen outside clear of the bridge."
      I felt my ears pop with the sudden pressure change as the hatch swung up and open and snapped back against its standing latch. Another, more distant sound as the second hatch cover locked open, and then we heard Ellis on the voice tube.
      "All clear up top."
      "Raise the antennae," Swanson said. "John, have them start transmitting and keep transmitting until their fingers fall off. Here we are and here we stay--until we raise Drift Ice Station Zebra."
      "If there's anyone left alive there," I said.
      "There's that, of course," Swanson said. He couldn't look at me. "There's always that."

4

      This, I thought, death's dreadful conception of a dreadful world, must have been what had chilled the hearts and souls of our far-off Nordic ancestors when life's