Not that it mattered. The cave would be accessible by the Torrox’s boat, and according to the radar, whatever lurked inside was not too deeply buried.

‘Okay, Al,’ said Vorster, ‘bring us in to five hundred metres, then heave to. We’ll get the boat ready.’

Tate nodded. ‘Who’s going with you?’

‘Imka, Professor Wilde and Mr Chase . . . and I think Mr Cheng is keen to set foot on something resembling dry land.’

‘It’s Mr Hui,’ Cheng corrected.

Vorster spoke over him. ‘Who’s your best man with experience on ice?’

‘Marc Naider,’ said Tate. ‘Good climber, knows his stuff.’

‘Great. Hopefully we’ll find the Dionysius – and everyone aboard it too,’ he added to Imka. ‘And Professor Wilde’s archaeological discovery, whatever it might be.’

They all started to file from the bridge. ‘Yeah, whatever it might be,’ Eddie echoed in a whisper to Nina as she fastened her hair into a ponytail. ‘You didn’t mention the whole spaceship thing to them?’

‘It won’t be a spaceship,’ was her taut reply. ‘Besides, if I’d told them that was what we were looking for, they probably wouldn’t have let me on the boat! As for what it actually is, well . . .’ A glance at the opening in the ice. ‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

The explorers donned cold-weather gear, loaded the Torrox’s boat, then set out towards their destination.

Imka sat at the bow, staring at the cave mouth with both hope and trepidation. Eddie and Nina were behind her. ‘Christ, it’s nippy,’ the Yorkshireman complained, pulling his woolly hat lower.

‘We’re near the South Pole,’ said Nina. ‘What did you expect?’

‘We’re not even that near,’ pointed out Vorster. ‘We’re only a few hundred kilometres closer to the pole than to the equator. Shows how bloody cold Antarctica is, hey?’

‘Between the pole and the equator, I know where I’d rather be,’ Eddie told him. He checked on Cheng, who was beside Vorster, clutching his backpack and looking extremely unhappy. ‘And I bet you’d rather be literally anywhere else right now.’

The RIB both pitched and rolled as it powered through the waves. ‘I really don’t like boats,’ moaned the young Chinese.

Naider slowed to guide the craft around some bobbing chunks of ice, then brought it into the cave mouth. The growl of the outboard echoed back at the group as the walls closed in. The ceiling was about fifteen feet above; high enough to stave off claustrophobia, but far too low to accommodate the Torrox. If its sister ship was inside, it would have been unable to sail back out.