RABBI SOLOMON JIAN stood at the pulpit, the groom and best-man to his left.

The music began.

As Maid of Honor, Lana walked down the aisle first, followed by Helen, a bridesmaid. Rabbi Jian's eyes widened as he witnessed a second bridesmaid stride down the aisle in pumps, her dress barely containing the female bodybuilder's two-hundred and thirty pound muscular frame.

Next up was the flower girl. An inebriated Carmella Cope puttered slowly down the aisle in her motorized wheelchair, dropping rose petals from a basket as she veered drunkenly from side to side, ramming guests and knocking over flower arrangements on both sides of the aisle.

Vinnie guided her into her parking s.p.a.ce in the first row, taking the keys.

The music changed, announcing the Bride. The crowd stood.

Nancy was escorted slowly down the aisle by Mr. Cabot, the old man's pants bulging on his left side from the fake colostomy bag.

Jacob leaned over to whisper in his brother's ear. "Vin, have you got the ring?"

"On the way."

Sam followed the bride down the aisle, carrying a pillow in his mouth, the ring held in place by a white ribbon.

"Nicely played, sir."

"Thank you. Have you have got your vows?"

Jacob's expression dropped. "Vows?"

The guests on the left side of the aisle shrieked as they were doused by a fountain of urine-Mr. Cabot's colostomy bag having sprung a leak.

From the front row, Carmella Cope eyeballed Truman like a bee to honey.

"Your wedding vows, Jacob! You and Nancy agreed to make up your own vows."

"Shh, it's okay. I'll just quote her some John Lennon. I'll open with, 'A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.' Then I'll hit her with, 'Love is like a flower; you've got to let it grow.' I'll end with, 'and we all shine on . . . like the moon and the stars and the sun.' or do you prefer, 'I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak.'"

"You are a freak." Vin searched his tuxedo jacket pocket and extracted a wedding card. Turning his back to the crowd, he tore open the envelope, pocketed the check, and then shoved the "sentiment" in Jacob's pants pocket without reading it.

"Wanda picked it out for me; I'm sure it's bleeding sentiment."

HAVING FINISHED HIS Rabbinical duties, Solomon Jian turned to the young couple. "And now Nancy and Jacob would like to exchange vows they've written especially for this blessed occasion. Nancy?"

Nancy removed a slip of paper from her cleavage. "To my best-friend and partner: Today we continue a journey that began only a short time ago. You are the man of my dreams, my one true soul mate. I eagerly antic.i.p.ate the chance for us to grow together, getting to know the husband you will become, falling in love a little bit more each and every day. You are the Y who empowers me."

"Lovely. Jacob?"

Jacob removed the wedding card his brother had slipped in his pocket fifteen minutes earlier. "Hickory d.i.c.kory Doc, we hope she likes your c.o.c.k. If she likes to screw, Congrats to you, Hickory d.i.c.kory Doc."

The Rabbi's jaw dropped.

Nancy smiled. "Well, I would have preferred a John Lennon quote, but I do like your c.o.c.k."

"That's what I told Vin but he insisted I take the card."

Helen shot her husband a look to kill.

Vinnie s.n.a.t.c.hed back the card. "Beautiful sentiment. Empowering, don't you think? Rabbi, you, uh, want to finish the ceremony."

"Uh, yes. I now p.r.o.nounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

THE GUESTS WERE seated at tables situated around a small dance floor. The band played a hokey rendition of Adele's, "Someone Like You," as Jacob and Nancy Cope took their first dance together as husband and wife.

Nancy glanced at the table on her left where Truman Cabot was seated next to her mother-in-law, the millionaire offering her a 'thumbs-up.' Spencer was seated at the next table over, he and Ruby holding hands.

"Jacob, I need to ask you a question. The whole time I was training Sam . . . did you know I was using the dog training techniques on you?"

"Not at first."

"When did you start to get suspicious? Was it the s.e.x? The walks in the park? The exercise routine?"

"I think it was just before you had Sam neutered; the time you hired the mobile dog groomer to come over and bathe the dog. For days my eyes were tearing at work; that's when I realized you paid them to fumigate my van for fleas."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"It needed it."

"I know."

"I'll blow you on the drive to the airport."

"Cool."

Nancy stopped dancing, her right shoe sliding in white icing. "Jacob, where's the dog?"

"The dog?" He searched the room, his eyes settling on the dessert spread-Sam's front paws on the table, the German Shepherd eating the wedding cake. "Aw, h.e.l.l, it's ruined. Vin's kids were supposed to be watching him."

"It's okay."

"Stupid dog's gonna s.h.i.t his brains out. Remind me to tell Vin to keep him chained outside tonight."

Nancy kissed her husband. "Don't tell him. He'll figure it out in the morning."

THE END.

Contact L. A. Knight by email at VOSTOK.

Part II of The LOCH by NY Times best-selling author STEVE ALTEN.

PROLOGUE.

Davis Station, East Antarctica Lat.i.tude 68 degrees 35'S, Longitude 77 degrees 58' E 2 March Thomas Nilsson definitely had his "monk-on."

"Monk-on" was Antarctic slang for being in a foul mood, and the fifty-one year old marine biologist's temperament fit the bill. His day if you could call four hours of sunlight a day had begun twenty hours and eighteen hundred miles ago back at McMurdo Station with a "Dear John" e-mail from his wife. Keira had begun the transmission with "You know how I've been telling you unhappy I've been," and ended with "I sold the house. Your belongings are in storage; I left the dog with your mother."

Twenty two years of marriage . . . deleted in an e-mail.

In Antarctica, they called it being "chinged" and it happened a lot among the scientists and support personnel stationed at McMurdo and the other thirty-seven international bases located around the continent. It wasn't enough to work in the coldest, driest, windiest, and most isolated environment on the planet . . . getting here was so difficult that accepting a research grant meant leaving your loved ones for a minimum of six months . . . or longer, if you were crazy enough to winter on the ice.

Like most of the four thousand visitors (there are no indigenous people in Antarctica) Thomas Nilsson's six months had begun at the start of summer, which ran from late September through February. In Antarctica, the difference between winter and summer was literally night and day. When the vernal equinox arrived on March 20, the sun would disappear, casting the continent into six months of frigid darkness, with temperatures plunging as low as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Nilsson was scheduled to fly out on one of the last C-130 transports and had been counting the hours until he would see his nineteen year old daughter again, could take his first hot shower of the new year, and made love to his wife.

Now he had to settle for two out of three.

For twenty minutes he stared at the laptop monitor, contemplating a response. For inspiration, he rolled up his left sleeve and glanced at the tattoo on his forearm. Contemptus mortis, pulchra vulnera amor laudis. Contempt for death, beautiful wounds, joy for victory.

Keira had just stabbed him in the heart; his only response was to find a way to make the wound beautiful. His base commander knocked and entered moments later. "Hey, Tom. Heard you're the newest member of the Ching Club. Been there twice myself. My condolences."

"You tell Shaffer the next time he hacks into my e-mail he'll wake up bound and gagged in his long johns out on the ice."

"It's a rough gig. The strong relationships survive; the weak crumble. I remember my first winter "

"Paul, another time, okay?"

"Right. I actually came by with an a.s.signment. Got a transmission this morning from the Aussies. They're in desperate need of a marine biologist out at Davis. You're one of the few remaining eggheads left on the ice. There's a cargo transport leaving in twenty minutes if you want the gig."

"Davis? On Prydz Bay? That's clear across the continent. And why the h.e.l.l do the Aussies need a marine biologist? I thought they're studying the Amery Ice Shelf."

"A Tasmanian team apparently discovered a fossil or something frozen in a fissure and needed an opinion."

"Field work? In this weather? It's gotta be fifty below outside. You know me, Paul, I'm a city mouse. Ask the Russians stationed at Progress or Vostok to send one of their beakers, those guys have anti-freeze in their veins."

"The Aussies don't want to involve the Russians on this one. You'd score me serious points with Scripps if you manned up and took the job. Won't cost you any time on your homeward bound; I'll have the Chalet director fly you out of Davis as soon as you're through."

THE FLIGHT HAD been a rough one. For four hours the C-130 transport had been buffeted by Katabatic head winds, along with its flight crew and lone pa.s.senger who was strapped in back with the cargo. Their trek had taken them east over the Trans-Antarctic mountains, then northeast over the East Antarctic dome circle the coldest, most desolate region on the planet until the plane had mercifully set down on an ice field along the coastline of Princess Elizabeth Land.

Davis Station was located on Vestfold Hills, an ice-free stretch of geology facing Prydz Bay located just south of the Amery Ice Field. Two other stations shared this gravel-covered rise; Progress Base, operated by the Russians and Zhongshan Station which was run by the Chinese. The Australian base functioned as both a scientific research center and a staging area; its primary focus to study the effects of global warming on the Amery Ice Field.

Thomas Nilsson disembarked from the rear of the ma.s.sive C-130 aircraft on wobbly legs, stepping from the relative warmth of the cargo hold into an ice box, the predawn temperature a snot-freezing minus forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. The scientist was bundled in loose-fitting multiple layers of clothing that covered every inch of his flesh, from his battery-heated thermal long-johns to his fleece trousers, sweater, jumpsuit, and parka. Two pairs of socks, two pairs of boots, a pair of skin-tight gloves covered in elbow-high mittens, scarves, head gear, and tinted goggles and still Thomas Nilsson felt the icy wind penetrating his bones.

It was just after seven in the morning, the night sky conceding a sliver of gray light on the cloud-dense eastern horizon. To the north, Prydz Bay remained frozen as far as the eye could see, its surface reflecting the emerald-green Aurora Australis that danced across the charged heavens like a slithering ethereal serpent.

The lights of Davis station beckoned to the west.

Nilsson slung his duffle bag over his right shoulder and double-timed it across the runway, targeting the nearest building. Like other Antarctic bases, Davis was a community of color-coated rectangular metal buildings linked by generator lines, antiquated sewage systems, and roads crushed into the snow by four-wheel drive vehicles the difference here being the snow had receded to a brown gravel-covered earth.

A relentless gale whipped across Prydz Bay, pelting the marine biologist with crawlies powdery snow particles. Snow blew across Antarctica far more than it fell from the sky, the frigid temperatures keeping it dry and loose, the wind moving it back and forth like a neurotic decorator. By the time Nilsson reached the drab olive building, every nook and cranny of his clothing was packed with the stuff, forcing him to degomble a term defined as the act of rigorously brushing off before entering a building, thus preventing a future meltdown and sorry mess inside.

Nilsson tugged open the door, pa.s.sed through an anteroom that helped prevent the loss of heat, then entered the facility. After stripping off his headgear, goggles, gloves and parka, he set out to locate his contact a Dr. Soto.

The research center appeared empty. With winter nearly upon them, Davis's population dropped from a hundred scientists and support personnel to about a dozen. Nilsson was about to give up his search and move on to the next building when he heard music coming from behind closed double doors situated at the end of a corridor.

A sign read: COLD LAB. KEEP DOORS CLOSED.

Nilsson entered a heavily air conditioned chamber connected to a freezer vault. There were four stations set up with long tables to accommodate ice cores, a cutting tool to shave samples, and a microscope. The lab was deserted, save for a female scientist in a white lab coat and gloves was reloading an ice core into a tubular plastic zip-lock bag.

When Thomas saw the woman, his first thought was that he had mistakenly crossed the wrong air field and wandered over to Zhongshan Station. She was Chinese and quite stunning a legitimate ten, not an Antarctic-10, which was really a five anywhere else in the world. She was in her late twenties, perhaps her early thirties it was hard to tell with Asians her long hair brown and wavy, her skin more tan than pale from having spent the summer months "bronzing" out on the ice.

"Dr. Soto?"

"Ming Soto, yes. You are the marine biologist?"

"Thomas Nilsson. What's the emergency? You find the Abominable Snowman or something?"

"Sorry. What is Abominable . . .?"

"The Yeti. It was a joke . . . never mind."

"Joke? Ah . . . very funny. No, not Yeti. Tell me Thomas Nilsson, what do you study in Antarctica?"

"Emperor penguins."

"I see. Nothing larger?"

"You mean like whales?"

"Yes, like whales."

"Sorry. Just the penguins."

"What about Loose Tooth? You know about this?"

"Your whale has a loose tooth?"

Her expression soured. "You make 'nother joke?"

"What? No "

"Loose Tooth is an ice rift." She shook her head repeatedly as if to erase the conversation from her brain. "We have a chopper waiting; I will explain on the way."