With that, Nick raced across the crystal bridge again, clutching a fallen soldier's M-16. Robin watched him go, shaking her head.

"You magnificent idiot," she whispered.

Sean Brennan lay in a pool of his own blood. He knew he was dying, but he couldn't take his eyes off the tableau unfolding before him.

The Ancient Ones, trapped behind the translucent wall, were moving now. They glowed brightly and then began to throb. Soon the chamber was filled with a terrible whine, like a thousand bizarre and unearthly machines starting up at once.

Finally, the three creatures were awake. As one, they focused their unearthly eyes on the wounded soldier. Brennan sensed somehow that the Ancient Ones meant him no harm. He was sure it was they who had fried the Kamakites that were going to kill him. Even now the burned and smoldering bodies of the insect creatures lay sprawled on the floor in front of him. As another Kamakite burst into the room and approached him, another bolt of pure energy lanced out of the floor, burning it to cinders, too.

"Thanks," Sean muttered, realizing that his death was only postponed, not prevented. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Suddenly he felt very warm. Sean knew he was slipping into shock.

The end was near.

Then he felt someone tugging on his shoulders, shaking him awake. The corporal looked up and saw Nick Gordon standing over him.

"Let's go, soldier boy," Nick said as he slung the helpless and wounded man over his shoulder. As Nick turned and ran toward the exit, Sean Brennan took a last look at the Ancient Ones.

This time, they were looking back ...

Blue fire continued to stream from G.o.dzilla's open jaws. The King of the Monsters poured a steady flow of radioactive fire over the creature called Biollante. Tentacles burst into flames, but the plant creature quickly doused them in the rushing water.

The plant monster bellowed and opened its own maw wide. From the depths of the creature's throat, a flood of glowing, acidic sap spewed out, raining down on G.o.dzilla.

Where the drops touched, G.o.dzilla's hide sizzled and smoked.

The monster ceased his radioactive blast when the sap hit his eyes. Burning with rage and pain, G.o.dzilla bellowed and blindly charged ahead. The ma.s.sive jaws of the plant creature snapped shut like a steel trap on G.o.dzilla's upper body.

The King of the Monsters struggled helplessly, like a man whose head was trapped in the jaws of a crocodile. Biollante closed its jaws even tighter, squeezing the life out of G.o.dzilla. His tail lashed angrily and his legs kicked, but even as he hissed in rage, G.o.dzilla was powerless in Biollante's powerful grip ...

"Look!" Sh.e.l.ly cried from the helm, where she readied the airship for takeoff.

Captain Dolan, at the engineering control, looked up. Michael saw it, too, and gasped in surprise.

The crown on the ancient structure they had just fled was beginning to glow brightly in the cavern's gloom. The object began to throb, and a shrill, unnatural sound filled the city. The irregular arms that projected from the mushroom-shaped top of the building began to wave unnaturally.

Then the lower portion of the structure began to crack and split apart. Sh.e.l.ly looked at the crystal bridge, hoping to spot Nick and Sean coming across it, but the disintegrating span was empty.

She feared that they both were dead.

"Here they come!" Michael cried, pointing. Sh.e.l.ly gazed out the window and saw Nick Gordon carrying Sean Brennan as he raced across the crystal bridge, which crumbled beneath him. Pieces of the span seemed to fall away with each running step he took. At the airlock, Johnny Rocco threw open the door and ushered them in, just as the entire bridge fell away and shattered onto the plaza below.

Then the mooring tower shattered as well, and the airship was floating free.

"Right starboard rudder!" Dolan cried. Sh.e.l.ly turned the wheel, and the Destiny Explorer moved away from the plaza and toward the shattered iris.

Just then, the radio, which had long been dead, crackled to life. An eerie, inhuman voice issued from the speakers audible all over the ship from every intercom, on every deck.

Everyone listened intently as the Ancient Ones spoke to them.

"Do not fear, humans," the voice said. "This city is about to die, and the creatures who invaded your world are already gone. We will soon depart, as well ...

"Once this was our world ... now it is yours." The voice paused.

"Take care of it."

The throbbing crown of the huge central structure broke free from the rest of the building. The structure beneath it splintered. As the irregular crystal arms on the floating structure waved as if to say farewell, the object literally pa.s.sed through the stone roof of the cavern as if it were thin air.

Suddenly, the lights blinked inside the Destiny Explorer.

"Something's grabbed us," Captain Dolan said evenly.

Then the airship was dragged upward. No matter what they did, nothing could stop their ascent. Finally, Sh.e.l.ly released the control column.

If I'm going to die, I'll die with Sean, the woman decided.

Sh.e.l.ly rushed back to the stateroom, where Dr. Grace was fighting to save Sean Brennan's life.

When she reached the room, Sh.e.l.ly was told by the other Rangers that their commander was unconscious. The ship's doctor had patched Brennan up as well as she could. Dr. Grace couldn't promise that Sean would even survive the night.

Somehow, Sh.e.l.ly Townsend knew that he would.

On the observation deck, Ned Landson and Peter Blackwater observed the furious battle still raging below. As they watched, G.o.dzilla broke free of Biollante's jaws. Now the plant monster was burning from G.o.dzilla's fiery breath, but the tentacles still grabbed at the King of the Monsters, dragging him toward those terrible jaws once more.

"What about G.o.dzilla?" Ned cried. "We're leaving him behind. He'll be trapped at the center of the Earth forever!"

"Don't worry about him," Nick Gordon announced as he stepped onto the deck with Robin.

"It would be just fine for the human race if G.o.dzilla stayed right here, buried in the center of the Earth forever."

A haunted look crossed Nick's face, and Robin reached out and took his hand.

"G.o.dzilla might look like a hero now, boys. But I wasn't much older than both of you when I saw the terrible things he is capable of doing." Nick Gordon shook his head. "Believe me, the world is better off without G.o.dzilla."

Then the airship was dragged through the roof of the cavern by the weird vehicle of the Ancient Ones. The Explorer moved through the Earth as if it were water. During the pa.s.sage, the view from the windows went black for five whole minutes.

Then, suddenly, they were in the daylight, floating above the surface of the Antarctic. Beneath them the ground sagged, and the ancient ice shelf shattered and caved in. Tons of rocks and ice collapsed onto the underground city. The lost necropolis of the Ancient Ones was buried forever.

And so was G.o.dzilla ...

As the airship flew toward the coast, the skies cleared over the Antarctic for the first time in many weeks. As the clouds parted, Leena peered out of the window, suddenly unafraid.

In lazy circles, Mothra wheeled through the sky on colorful, gossamer wings. As Leena watched, the Protector of the Earth chirped once. Leena was certain that only she heard Mothra's cry.

"Thank you, Mothra," she whispered.

High above their heads, and above the sky where Mothra floated, the Ancient Ones and their mysterious ship disappeared into the depths of outer s.p.a.ce.

The human race held uneasy sway over the Earth once more ...

EPILOGUE.

A NEW WORLD.

All over the world ...

Hours after departing the necropolis of the Ancient Ones, the Destiny Explorer made radio contact with the outside world. With the exclusive use of one of the few remaining broadcast satellites in orbit, Robin Halliday and Nick Gordon told the dramatic story of the airship's voyage to the center of the Earth to an eager world.

The story they told posed more questions than it answered - but that was to be expected. The events were unprecedented in the history of mankind, and would no doubt be debated for generations to come.

In a ma.s.sive attack by the combined military forces of the United States and Peru, Megalon was driven into the depths of the Amazon jungle. Gigan, according to an eyewitness, had been dragged into the Caspian Sea, and to its apparent end, by the mysterious creature called Anguirus.

Battra was never seen again. Nor was Manda. And according to reports, G.o.dzilla was now trapped in the center of the world - perhaps forever.

The people of the world took a collective sigh of relief and went on to rebuild their nations.

Communications between towns, cities, countries, and continents were slowly restored in the hours, days, and weeks after the Ancient Ones departed Earth for parts unknown. The communications breakdown, which came to be known as the Babel Event - an allusion to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel - ceased as mysteriously as it began. But its effects continued to be felt for months.

The United States, Great Britain, France, j.a.pan, China, South Korea, and India were the first nations to restore social order. There was destruction and loss of life everywhere, but citizens of these and other nations agreed that it could have been much worse.

Surprisingly, after only a few days of social chaos, order was restored in much of America, despite the communications blackout. Local authorities and the common people banded together to keep civilization going. In amazing ways, Americans were able to accomplish in mere weeks what their government could not in more than a year.

When satellite communications, telephone lines, television and radio stations, and computers and the Internet came back on-line, the people discovered that, by and large, they had done amazingly well - and they'd done it all by themselves, in their own communities.

In many ways, the United States was in better shape after the Babel Event than it was before. With the government out of the people's way, the task of keeping the country functioning and safe for the common man was accomplished by the common man.

On Tuesday, March 6, 2001, the long-delayed presidential election was held in the United States. The sitting president and his administration were defeated in a landslide. People who had lived without government for a few weeks discovered that they liked it. As bloated, inefficient government programs fell out of favor, so did the administration and its political party.

On Friday, March 30, 2001, the newly elected president was sworn in. Hours later the new commander in chief awarded the four soldiers who survived the a.s.sault inside the Ancient Ones' city with medals of valor in a White House ceremony.

Corporal Patrick Brennan was not with them. He had confessed to enlisting under false pretenses at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he was recovering from the serious wound he received during the a.s.sault. But as he would soon reach the age of eighteen - old enough to enlist in the military - Patrick Brennan was permitted to remain in the armed services.

In fact, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and given a command of his own.

With Sh.e.l.ly Townsend at his side, Brennan watched his friends get their medals on television from his hospital bed. He laughed out loud when he saw their shocked faces as they shook hands with the president himself.

Patrick Brennan was awarded a Purple Heart in a bedside ceremony hours later - and then he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony after he was finally deemed fit enough to return to active duty.

In April 2001, Patrick Brennan was reunited with his mother and his wayward older brother, Sean - who had been rescued by a South Korean ship two days after the Dingo's Luck was destroyed.

Sean Brennan gave an account of the plutonium smuggling incident to a panel of United Nations inspectors, and sanctions were immediately imposed on the Communist government of North Korea.

The Russian Federation, stunned by the destruction wrought by Gigan and the knowledge that they had their own homegrown kaiju - Anguirus - began a ma.s.sive program to create a weapon to battle giant monsters.

Though the Russian program was top-secret, the intelligence agencies in America and Western Europe soon heard rumors of a new biological agent or toxin - as well as a new weapons system to deliver that agent.

Secretly, j.a.pan and the United States began a joint venture of their own to create a similar weapon. Despite the fact that most experts felt that G.o.dzilla was no longer a threat, enough monsters had shown their ugly faces to make people wary.

Both expensive defense programs went forward.

Peter Blackwater returned to Alaska a local hero, but he didn't stay long. Instead, he attended an undisclosed university under an a.s.sumed name, far from the public eye.

Ned Landson gave up science completely and went on to star in a series of action-adventure films, the most successful of which was a big-screen version of the old television cla.s.sic Sea Hunt.

Sh.e.l.ly Townsend quit the airship business altogether and attended Brown University.

Nick Gordon returned to the Science Sunday show, and Robin Halliday moved on to INN's prime-time news program Independent Focus. Craig Weedie, the Fellow Traveler, got a show of his own.

Leena Sims patented her microchip manufacturing process, but did not accept any of the lucrative offers to join a computer manufacturing firm. Instead, she, like Peter Blackwater, retreated from public life.

And she still had dreams of Mothra.

Michael Sullivan joined the crew of the Destiny Explorer, a.s.suming Sh.e.l.ly Townsend's place on the bridge. It was Michael who contacted Leena Sims in early September, inviting her on a second voyage to Antarctica.

Leena accepted the invitation.

In a somber, private ceremony that took place on Tuesday, November 13, 2001, Michael Sullivan, Leena Sims, Simon Townsend, and Captain Jack D. Dolan dedicated a tombstone honoring Zoe Kemmering in Wilkes Land. The white marble stone was placed over the approximate location of the buried city of the Ancient Ones.

Etched into the stone was a quotation by the poet John Milton from Paradise Lost, which read: "And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the h.e.l.l I suffer seems a heaven."