After a few minutes, Jane pointed out of the window. “Who’s that?”
Devonport’s gaze followed Jane’s outstretched arm. “The Russians.”
Jack looked at the men working on a small ledge of ice and a flat ship by a neat hole in the side of the ice wall. “It seems the Russians are carrying out a salvage operation of their own.”
“Rather them than me,” said Jane. “They are welcome to what they can get. The alien technology should be shared with everyone, not just those lucky to be first on the scene.”
Devonport’s eyebrows rose. “I wouldn’t let Admiral Thomson hear you say that. If it was up to him he would plant an American flag on the ice and blow anyone other than Americans who got too close out of the water. He can barely stand us British being involved, so you can understand his feelings towards the Russians.”
“I’m glad they are here,” Lucy said, defiantly.
Devonport smiled.
It took them two hours to circle the huge iceberg and arrive back at the ice tunnel. When Jane had noticed anything that caused her concern, the pilot had moved nearer so she could get a closer look. They had been lucky and witnessed a couple of incidents of ice calving from the ice walls. Though none had been of a size to affect its stability, yet, it was a sign the iceberg was deteriorating and the approaching storm they had been warned about would speed up the process when it arrived.
Jane and Jack looked down again at the activity around the ice tunnel as a large helicopter lowered a shipping container beside one already in position on the ice ledge.
“What are the containers for?” Jack asked.
“The aliens’ storage pods,” replied Northwood, glancing out the window.
“Where to now, Miss Harper?” enquired Devonport.
Jane turned to the pilot. “I want to check out that crack in the ice that has the Admiral and the others so worried.”
“Okay, on our way.” The pilot took a wide berth around the entrance so it didn’t interfere with the larger helicopters and flew over the top of the iceberg.
While they flew the length of the crack, Jane studied the satellite scan of the iceberg on the tablet she had borrowed and overlaid it onto the spaceship image. It was as she suspected―the crack stretched out from the front edge of the spaceship. The conflicting movement of ice and metal must have caused the fracture. Jane glanced at the pilot. “Can you set us down on the ice so I can take a closer look?”
Devonport nodded and turned the helicopter to search for a suitable landing zone. He found a level area about one hundred and fifty feet from the crack and set the helicopter gently down on the ice.
Jack, Jane and Lieutenant Northwood climbed out onto the wind sculptured surface and headed across the ice in places frozen into waves of glass-like hardness.
They halted at the edge of the two-yard-wide crack and stared into the void that was much deeper than Jane had expected. Jack shone his flashlight into its dark depths, but the beam failed to pick out the bottom.
Jane glanced each way along the crevice that almost stretched from one side of the iceberg to the other. “This isn’t good. I was hoping it was only a surface crack, but it’s too deep for that. The iceberg’s definitely breaking apart.”
“Any idea how long before that happens?” Jack asked, pulling the hood of his jacket over his head to keep out the chill.
Jane shrugged. “It could be a few days, a month or happen in the next five minutes. Predicting what the ice will do is like trying to predict next week’s lottery numbers. However, I think it will happen sooner rather than later now I’ve seen how deep it is.”
“So the iceberg breaks in two pieces―it’s so big I can’t see that matters an awful lot,” said Northwood. “I mean, look at the size of this thing. I’ve been on islands that were smaller.”
Jane looked at Northwood. “The problem is, Lieutenant, over two thirds of an iceberg is under water. When the ice below melts or breaks away, or large sections calve off from one side, it destabilizes its mass. If it becomes heavier on one side or becomes top-heavy it could roll on its side or flip completely over. The smaller the iceberg, the more likely this will happen. We also have an added unknown variable, the spaceship. It must weigh thousands or millions of tons, much heavier than the volume of ice it replaces.”
The soldier realized the danger. “And because it’s situated nearer to one side of the ice mass, its weight will increase the chances of the iceberg flipping over.”
“Exactly!” When Jane gazed along the crack and noticed something on the far side, she moved along to where a zigzag in the ice reduced the width of the opening and jumped across.
Jack shook his head in dismay as he eyed the edges of the crevasse that might be unstable and he promptly followed her across. He wished she wouldn’t take so many risks.
Jane dropped to one knee and examined something on the ice.
Jack halted beside her. “What is it?”
Jane’s eyes roamed the ice before pointing at something on the ground. “What do you think these marks are?”
Jack knelt and examined the lines of scrape-marks Jane’s finger pointed at. He saw nothing to distinguish them from the thousands of marks, grooves and scratches covering the weathered surface. “More to the point, what do you think they are?”
Jane glanced around as she stood. “I’m not sure, but something’s not right. Most of the marks are in straight lines, scoured by pellets of ice blown by the wind, but the way these tracks curve from side to side isn’t natural.”
Jack cast his gaze over the ice and followed the tracks that curved in an erratic winding path. If he didn’t know better, he would say they were animal tracks, but there weren’t any animals in Antarctica that could have made them.
Jane suddenly had a sickening thought and grabbed Jack’s arm. “What if we’re not the only ones on the iceberg?”
Jack knew exactly what she meant. “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
Their eyes followed the tracks that led to or from the crack out onto the ice.
Noticing their anxiousness, Northwood jumped across the crevice and approached. “What’s the problem?”
“We’re not sure,” Jack replied. He glanced at the soldier’s assault rifle. “Is that thing loaded?”
“It wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t.”
Jack took that as an affirmative. He followed the tracks over to the fissure twenty-five feet away, shone the flashlight into the void and moved the beam along the crack. Something glinted. He froze and stared at the two reflected points of light when they moved. Something rose into the circle of light. It was the head of a Hunter climbing up the ice wall. Jack moved the beam and counted six more.
Shocked by the sight, Jack was unable to move for a few moments until his brain had processed the terror. He stumbled back and turned to Jane. “Hunters!”
Screeches erupted from the dark crevice.
A fearful chill shivered through Jane’s body.
The soldier raised his rifle, aimed it nervously at the crack in the ice and fired at the first two to appear. Their dead carcasses toppled back into the crevasse.
Jack grabbed Jane’s hand and shouted, “Run! We have to get back to the helicopter.”
They sprinted across the ice and jumped across the crack.
Northwood quickly followed.
The Hunters emerged from the crevasse and rushed across the ice in pursuit.