Just as Battra was about to deal the Destiny Explorer a mortal blow, the monstrous creature was attacked from an unexpected quarter.

Rodan, who still circled the airship, flew at the insect creature like a bird of prey. With wings beating and claws flashing, the prehistoric flying kaiju streaked out of the sky and struck the insect monster.

Johnny Rocco, on the hull, fired a second Stinger missile at Battra, but didn't stay to see the result. He ducked down inside the hatch as Rodan sank his claws into Battra's flesh. The creatures rushed toward the Earth. As they twisted and turned through the air, one of them swiped the Destiny Explorer.

A rush of green blood spurted out of Battra and splashed across the airship's hull, covering some of the observation windows. Still twisting in the air, Battra broke free. Rodan, streaming blood, circled the creature once, then attacked again. This time Rodan plunged his pointed beak into one of Battra's red, slitted eyes.

In the c.o.c.kpit, Captain Dolan saw his chance. He pushed the throttle forward, and the airship pulled away from the t.i.tanic struggle beneath them, but still high over the Pacific. Slowly, inexorably, the Destiny Explorer moved away from the battling aerial behemoths.

Streaming smoke from its shattered engine, the airship flew into miles of high, billowing clouds and was gone from sight as the monsters continued their battle to the death ...

Midnight in Osaka ...

The battle between G.o.dzilla and the creature made of sludge had been going on for many hours. Night fell over the city, which was still without power. Much of Osaka was in ruins, and more was threatened. But nothing human could stop the monsters.

Though G.o.dzilla towered over the toxic creature, each time the King of the Monsters grappled with Hedorah, the sludge creature melted out of his claws - only to re-form a few seconds later.

Try as he might, G.o.dzilla could not prevail against a creature as mutable as water and as dangerous as poison. G.o.dzilla's fiery breath had some effect, but the rain, which still poured out of the sky, seemed to shield the creature from serious harm. When the radioactive blast struck Hedorah, hunks of the creature were boiled or blasted away. But in the rain, that dust quickly turned to mud and flowed back into the sludge creature's body.

Now, as G.o.dzilla stood in the center of a pile of rubble that had once been the Nissei Baseball Stadium, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Hedorah stood in the middle of Osaka Castle Park, its huge eyes blinking. The two creatures eyed each other warily.

Then, with a frustrated bellow of pure hatred, G.o.dzilla attacked his formless foe once again. The ground shook as the King of the Monsters trampled over parkland and through small stone structures in his rush to get to his enemy.

G.o.dzilla slammed over 60,000 tons of animalistic fury against a monster almost half his size and two-thirds his weight. The sludge monster flew backward, stunned.

Hedorah splattered against the facade of Osaka Castle like a ripe fruit. The castle, an Asian fortress made of concrete and wood, was a reproduction of the original sixteenth-century castle, which had burned down in 1868. The new Osaka Castle, built in 1931, was one of the most famous landmarks in j.a.pan.

Now it was reduced to rubble.

As Hedorah was splattered against its walls, the building crumbled. Then G.o.dzilla, continuing his headlong rush, crashed down on top of the castle's remains. As the building collapsed under them, G.o.dzilla tore at the body of the sludge creature with fang and claw.

Chunks of the sludge monster were ripped loose. As he grappled with the flowing, mutating creature, G.o.dzilla opened his jaws and let loose with a blast of radioactive fire.

And Hedorah began to burn.

Still G.o.dzilla poured more and more fire on the sludge monster, which squirmed helplessly under the destructive torrent.

With a shrill cry of unearthly pain, Hedorah began to break apart. Its huge eyes popped and sizzled. Chunks of its body broke away as the fire from G.o.dzilla's maw consumed it.

Then G.o.dzilla closed his mouth and stared down at the creature. Hedorah's arms and legs were flailing blindly as it struggled to rise. G.o.dzilla blinked and snarled; blue lightning danced across his three rows of dorsal spines. A blast of withering energy burst from G.o.dzilla's throat.

G.o.dzilla dug in his hind legs, fighting the recoil of his own blasting stream of unimaginable energy. The sludge creature sputtered and sizzled. The ruins of the castle began to burn, too, with Hedorah trapped in the center of the firestorm.

With no rain to protect it or help it to re-form, the monster made of sludge and industrial waste bubbled away. Osaka Castle and the land around it continued to burn, serving as a funeral pyre for the dying monster.

Finally, G.o.dzilla closed his jaws. His eyes blinked, and he stood watching the flames for many minutes, staring as if hypnotized. Then, without a sound, G.o.dzilla turned away and trudged slowly toward the ocean once again, as if guided by an errant instinct.

Minutes later, as G.o.dzilla waded into the Pacific Ocean, the j.a.panese submarine Takashio took up position behind the King of the Monsters.

To the surprise of Captain Sendai and his crew, G.o.dzilla swam quickly away from the j.a.panese mainland. He was headed due south ...

15.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.

Monday, January 22, 2001, 4:15 A.M.

75 15' south lat.i.tude, 113 10' east longitude.

Wilkes Land, East Antarctica.

Though the Destiny Explorer had not been attacked by any more giant monsters, it was a harrowing voyage to Antarctica and beyond. From the moment the airship and its crew and pa.s.sengers crossed the Strait of Magellan and entered Drake's Pa.s.sage, the weather seemed to fight them for every mile of progress they made.

The loss of the starboard engine conspired with the weather to slow their progress. They finally managed to compensate for the loss by reprogramming the computers that controlled all the engines. Though Sh.e.l.ly understood the basics, it was Michael Sullivan who performed the task.

And as they approached the Shetland Islands, freak storms blew up constantly. The settlements on the chain of islands were either destroyed or abandoned. Sometimes a village remained fairly intact, but there was no sign of life.

Once they saw a ship off the coast of Palmer Land, but when they flew closer it was apparent that the vessel had been wrecked on the ice for many days, or even weeks. The frozen bodies of the men who were trapped in the wreckage could be seen on her decks.

As the Destiny Explorer floated over the ghost ship, the winds howled mournfully outside the observation windows.

Despite the disaster to humanity, Antarctic wildlife seemed to have been relatively unaffected. From the observation decks, they saw emperor penguins and hundreds of thousands of seals. Whatever the threat was, it seemed to target only humans and their civilization - at least so far.

Katabatic winds blasted the airship, and temperatures were well below zero, even though this was supposed to be the most temperate time of the year - the beginning of the continent's long summer of eternal day.

But not this year. As the new century truly began, even the world's climates seemed to have changed quickly and drastically. Ned Landson and Peter Blackwater, both natural scientists, realized that the cataclysm originating here in the Antarctic would have far-reaching effects on the planet. Those effects would be felt even if the catastrophic events ended tomorrow, as suddenly and mysteriously as they began.

Each day storms kicked up, and on three separate occasions they'd been blown miles out of their way. On one of those unwanted detours, they spotted the wreckage of an airplane. It was Captain Dolan who recognized the type of aircraft by its long, narrow wings and black fuselage.

"It's a spy plane," he announced from the helm. Gazing down at the wreckage, Sean Brennan swore he saw something crawling away from the aircraft - something not human. But when he blinked and rubbed his eyes, the vision was gone.

He soon forgot the incident.

When the airship tried to cross the Ronne Ice Shelf, the katabatic winds were so powerful that they sucked an engineer out of the hangar bay window to his death. Sh.e.l.ly, already upset over the death of Gil Givers in Battra's attack, became distraught when she heard the news.

Corporal Sean Brennan tried to comfort her, but he wasn't much help. Brennan was painfully aware that he would soon lead his meager forces in a battle against an unknown enemy. He, too, could die, or worse - lose the men under his command. He and Sh.e.l.ly Townsend shared a bond that only two people who are responsible for the lives of others could comprehend.

On the way to the Antarctic, Sean, Jack Dolan, and Sh.e.l.ly argued the merits of searching for survivors on the bleak, hostile continent of Antarctica. There were many bases from many nations, and Sean felt that someone who'd been on the continent when the disasters began might be able to shed some light on the subject.

Sh.e.l.ly simply felt that it was their duty to humanity to rescue anyone trapped on the inhospitable continent.

But the point became moot. There were no survivors. Sometimes, when they pa.s.sed over a ruined station, it was obvious that the katabatic winds had swept away all life. At other times, when they reached the exact coordinates of a settlement or scientific outpost, it was just gone - vanished, as if it had never existed.

To get to Wilkes Land, the Destiny Explorer had to fly over the South Pole. As they approached the bottom of the world, the storms grew more intense.

During the final leg of the voyage, Nick Gordon and Robin Halliday seemed to spend more and more time together. Though she would have preferred otherwise, Robin spent much of that time taking care of Nick. Even with his medicine, the violent flight over Antarctica had taken its toll. Nick's motion sickness returned.

Peter Blackwater and Ned Landson spent time in the lab studying the blood found on the hull after the battle between Battra and Rodan. They discovered that Battra's DNA was not so unearthly after all. It proved Ned Landson's theory that Megalon, Battra, and probably the other monsters were of terrestrial origin.

Or at least they were mutated from earthly life-forms.

Leena Sims continued to spend most of her time in her stateroom. Robin Halliday finally relented and had a girl-to-girl talk with Leena about her fear of flying. To Robin's surprise, Leena didn't lie or try to hide her fear. Robin thought she acted as if she suddenly had other things to worry about - or as if she had an even more terrible secret she was now trying to hide.

Robin, in a sense, was correct. Leena had never shared her powerful dream with the others. She kept Mothra's message to herself.

It wasn't because she didn't care or wouldn't try to do her best when the time came. It was just that Leena felt that she'd learned a lot about herself on this journey of discovery. One thing she came to understand was the unnatural hold her dead father still had on her life. She realized that everything she did - from inventing a new microchip process to taking this trip - was done because it was part of her father's grand design for her life, not hers.

Leena decided that if she survived this voyage, she would live her own life, not the one her father planned for her, no matter how much she loved him and cherished his memory.

And now, just freed of one ghostly master, Leena didn't want another. She wasn't going to let Mothra control her or tell her what to do, either.

The Destiny Explorer crossed the South Pole on January 2, but no one was in any mood to celebrate. Most of the crew was exhausted. They had to constantly repair wind damage and engines that froze in the cold. The living conditions were uncomfortable. The heating aboard the ship was not sufficient, and even on the warmest deck the temperature was hardly above fifty degrees.

The fresh food was all but gone, and everyone was surviving on army-issue MREs. Surviving was the word: the meals kept you alive but didn't exactly excite the palate. One night Michael Sullivan dreamed of a Big Mac.

Finally, the airship swerved away from the pole and flew parallel to the Transarctic Mountains. As the Destiny Explorer approached Wilkes Land, the peaks of Mount Erebus appeared in the distance on her starboard side. The cone of the volcano was smoking, and lava rolled down the icy slopes.

It was obvious that Erebus had erupted in recent weeks.

Finally, the airship entered Wilkes Land, and everyone grew tense, wondering just what they would find when they reached the place where all the horrors of the past few weeks had originated.

Captain Dolan focused on the distant horizon, where a thin black line seemed to stretch from one end to the other, as far as his eyes could see.

Is it an optical illusion? he wondered. Or am I going snow-blind?

The winds had been strangely calm in the past few hours, and he'd relieved Sh.e.l.ly at the helm at 2:00 A.M., antic.i.p.ating that bad weather would strike at any moment.

Instead, the sky seemed to grow more clear, and the headwinds actually abated. Now, as he commanded the bridge alone, the airship seemed to be cruising as easily and smoothly as it would if they were flying over the New Jersey flatlands where the Destiny Explorer was born.

Things were going amazingly well. And then that long, dark line appeared.

Placing the ship on autopilot, Dolan stepped up to the window and drew the binoculars from their sheath on the bulkhead. He focused the lenses on the horizon and squinted through the eyepiece for a few minutes. Then his thin mouth turned up in a smile of triumph.

He checked the time: 4:15 A.M. But in the eternal daylight of the Antarctic summer, there was enough light to know he was not mistaken.

Dolan stepped up to the intercom and tapped the b.u.t.ton.

"Sh.e.l.ly, Nick, Robin, and Corporal Brennan ... this is Captain Dolan. Could you come to the bridge, please? I think we have arrived."

A few minutes later, everyone was gathered on the bridge - even Sh.e.l.ly, who was wrapped in a blanket and rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

When Captain Dolan was finished speaking, Sean Brennan wasn't sure what he'd heard. Sean thought that when they reached the abyss, he and his men would have to climb down inside of it. Maybe parachute in, or fly the Messerschmitt-XYB down to the bottom.

He never imagined that they would be able to fly the airship right into the hole - yet that is exactly what Captain Dolan was saying they could do! Sh.e.l.ly and Nick Gordon grasped it immediately, but the others were having a hard time of it.

"That line on the horizon is the pit," the captain explained once again, so that Robin, Michael, and Sean could understand it. "It's like a double horizon. As we get closer, we will simply fly into the pit. It's certainly wide enough."

Dolan stepped up to the search radar and keyed the monitors. Nick studied the images on the screen. "That opening looks wide enough to fly through to me," the science correspondent said.

Realization suddenly dawned on Michael's face as he examined the radar images. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "The entrance to that tunnel is about five miles high!"

"And as wide as the horizon," Captain Dolan added. Nick Gordon whistled.

"When do we arrive?" Robin Halliday asked.

Captain Dolan looked at his watch. "Barring bad weather, in about five hours ..."

"I'm going to prepare my men," Corporal Brennan announced. "I suggest everyone get some sleep. We'll meet on the bridge in five hours."

Monday, January 22, 2001, 9:00 A.M.

The entrance to the Kemmering Pa.s.sage.

Wilkes Land, East Antarctica.

By 7:30 a.m., Sh.e.l.ly, Sean, Nick Gordon, and Robin Halliday had joined Captain Dolan and Michael Sullivan on the bridge. Despite the fact that Dolan had been on duty for hours, the excitement of the impending discovery kept him awake and alert.

By 8:00 A.M., the entrance to the Kemmering Pa.s.sage - as Jack Dolan had named it, in honor of its discoverer - yawned ahead of them.

As the Destiny Explorer approached the huge cavernous entrance, the people on the bridge peered ahead, attempting to pierce the darkness.

"A radar scan of the area suggests no obstacles to prevent our entry," Dolan declared. "About a mile inside, the floor of the tunnel begins to incline downward at a slight angle ... leading downward, I'd surmise, to the very center of the Earth itself."

"And the tunnel is miles wide," Michael added. "We can turn around and come back out if we reach a point at which we cannot proceed any further."

As the minutes ticked by, the airship warily approached the mouth of the pa.s.sage. The roof of the cavern loomed above them. From cameras mounted on the top hull, Ned and Peter scanned the ceiling of the cave. It was made mostly of ice, with huge stalact.i.tes hanging from the roof. The roof of the entrance was nearly two miles thick and consisted of both Antarctic ice and some of the continental crust itself. It was Peter who suggested that the top of the pa.s.sage was the natural landscape - it was the floor of the pa.s.sage that had actually receded into the Earth, inclining to provide the gentle descent.

"Here we go," Captain Dolan announced. "I'm slowing the ship to half speed."