Read Ice Station for Free Online Page B

the divers down, and that was when Austin saw the
     spacecraft. And that was when all the divers disappeared.”
    Schofield said, “So what does all this have to do with Bernard
     Olson's death?”
    Sarah said, "Olson was Renshaw's supervisor. He was always
     looking over Renshaw's shoulder while Renshaw was making these
     amazing discoveries. Renshaw started to get paranoid. He started
     saying that Bernie was stealing his research. That Bernie was using
     his findings to write a quick-fire article himself and beat
     Renshaw to the punch.
    “You see, Bernie had connections with the journals, knew some
     editors. He could get an article out within a month Renshaw, as an
     unknown Ph.D. student, would almost certainly take longer. He thought
     Bernie was trying to steal his pot of gold. And then when Renshaw
     discovered metal down in the cavern and he saw that Bernie
     was going to include that in his article, too, he
     flipped.”
    “And he killed him?”
    “He killed him. Last Friday night. Renshaw just went to
     Bernie's room and started yelling at him. We all heard it. Renshaw
     was angry and upset, but we'd heard it all before so we didn't
     think much of it. But this time, he killed him.”
    “How?” Schofield continued to stare at the locked door.
    “He—” Sarah hesitated. “He jabbed Bernie in the
     neck with a hypodermic needle and injected the contents.”
    “What was in the syringe?”
    “Industrial-strength drain-cleaning fluid.”
    “Charming,” Schofield said. He nodded at the door.
     “He's in here?”
    Sarah said, “He locked himself in after it happened. Took a
     week's worth of food in with him and said that if any of us tried
     to go in there after him he'd kill us, too. It was terrifying. He
     was crazy. So one night—the night before we sent the divers down
     to investigate the cave—the rest of us got together and bolted
     the door shut from the outside. Ben Austin fixed some runners to the
     wall on either side of the door while the rest of us slid the beam
     into place. Then Austin used a rivet gun to seal the door shut.”
    Schofield said, “Is he still alive?”
    “Yes. You can't hear him now, which means he's probably
     asleep. But when he's awake, believe me, you'll know it.”
    “Uh-huh.” Schofield examined the edges of the door, saw the
     rivets holding it to the frame. “Your friend did a good job with
     the door.” He turned around. “If he's locked inside.
     That's good enough for me, if you're sure there's
     no other way out of that room.”
    “This is the only entrance.”
    “Yeah, but is there any other way out of the room? Could he dig
     his way out, say, through the walls, or the ceiling?”
    “The ceilings and the floors are steel-lined, so he can't dig
     through them. And his room's at the end of the corridor, so there
     aren't any rooms on either side of it—the walls are solid
     ice,” Sarah Hensleigh gave Schofield a crooked smile. “I
     don't think there's any way out of there.”
    “Then we leave him in there,” Schofield said as he started
     walking back down the ice tunnel. “We've got other things to
     worry about. The first of which is finding out what happened to your
     divers down in that cave.”
    The sun shone brightly over Washington, D.C. The
     Capitol practically glowed white against the magnificent blue sky.
    In a lavish red-carpeted corner of the Capitol Building, the meeting
     broke for recess. Folders were closed. Chairs were pushed back. Some
     of the delegates took off their reading glasses and rubbed their eyes.
     As soon as the recess was called, small clusters of aides immediately
     rushed forward to their bosses' sides with cellular phones,
     folders, and faxes.
    “What are they up to?” the U.S. Permanent
     Representative, George Holmes, said to his aide as he watched the
     entire French delegation—all twelve of them—leave the
     negotiating room. “That's the fourth time they've called
     a recess today.”
    Holmes