"Because where we are going it's spring now and will soon be summer," Peter Blackwater replied helpfully. He meant to be informative, but he could see by Leena's sharp look that he'd stepped over the line with the touchy young computer genius. Once again.

"Yeah," Michael Sullivan announced, ignoring Leena's withering stare. "But you have to admit that summer in the Antarctic is a relative thing."

Peter could hear the high-pitched whine of Michael's wheelchair over the noise of the crowd. The chair rolled to a halt at Peter's side.

"But then I guess you'd know all about that, eh, Peter?" Michael added, smiling up at the Native American.

"Don't worry about Peter; worry about the rest of us!" Ned Landson added, with his all-American smile. "Antarctica should be a snap for him, after those long Alaskan winters!"

Ned, Peter, and Michael laughed nervously. The group had met only two night ago, at a dinner in a fancy restaurant with Mr. Endicott, the sponsor of the contest they'd all won. After that meal, they had been so busy with interviews and media events that they hadn't gotten the chance to know one another, not yet, anyway. Michael Sullivan, especially, was looking forward to that. The handicapped boy had few friends outside his immediate family and the folks he regularly chatted with on the Internet.

"When are those hangar doors going to open?" Leena asked angrily, ignoring the others. "This operation is run worse than CorTell Computers!"

Michael frowned. He still hadn't gotten over the shock of hearing about CorTell's bankruptcy the day before. The computer firm's demise had shaken people's faith in the United States economy even further - and added to a feeling that the whole country seemed to be falling apart.

Michael wondered if other Silicon Valley computer firms would follow. Things were indeed bad today, but even after the destruction caused by G.o.dzilla's pa.s.sing, Michael thought that people would always need computers.

Michael couldn't imagine his world without them.

The others in the group simply ignored Leena Sims's tactless remark, as she had ignored their comments. Despite their relative unfamiliarity, the others had already learned to avoid the temperamental inventor when she acted like this.

Michael, of course, didn't have that luxury. Because her computer expertise coincided with his own, Michael found himself teamed up with Leena in the Destiny Explorer's computer lab. He also found himself teamed with her on a number of experiments to be conducted once they reached the south polar region.

Michael didn't know what her problem was, but he hoped that things would get better between Leena and the rest of the compet.i.tion winners once the voyage got under way.

A few yards away from the cl.u.s.ter of young geniuses, Nick Gordon stamped his feet to get some feeling back into them. He feared that his toes had already frozen. Then he saw a flash of light reflected off metal, and he forgot his discomfort - he thought he'd detected some movement near the ma.s.sive doors of the Max Hulse Hangar. With a surge of excitement and antic.i.p.ation, Nick squinted into the sun, straining for another hint of motion.

Finally, he saw that the hangar doors were beginning to open.

The bra.s.s band down on the tarmac played on, but a hush of antic.i.p.ation fell over the spectators. You could almost feel the tension of the crowd.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick spotted one of the kids - Ned Landson - point excitedly toward the hangar. The others turned and faced the ma.s.sive structure.

A moment later, the doors had moved completely aside. The interior of the hangar was still in shadow, and all the onlookers held their breath.

A burst of laughter followed when, instead of an impressive airship, a diminutive maintenance truck drove out onto the tarmac. But then people noticed that a long steel cable was attached to that truck. The cable stretched taut at a ninety-degree angle, and it was soon obvious that the truck was towing the airship out of the hangar.

Again the crowd grew quiet, and seconds later the sleek, pointed nose of the Destiny Explorer edged out of the shadows of the hangar and into the brilliant sunlight.

"Here it comes!" Ned Landson cried excitedly, pointing to the doors. But instead of the Destiny Explorer, a truck pulling a tow cable rolled out of the hangar. All the teens laughed, even Leena Sims.

She found laughter easy whenever she looked at the handsome, tanned features of Ned Landson. If Leena hadn't known better, she would have taken him for an empty-headed jock. But she knew that he was as brilliant at oceanographic biology as she was at designing new types of microchips.

Leena Sims had secretly been longing to meet Landson since she saw him on a commercial for beachwear. That, too, impressed her. Ned was more than a brilliant scientist. He, like her, also knew that it was important to market one's skills - all of them - to their best advantage. It didn't bother Leena that Ned was trading on his good looks to get a commercial contract.

Whatever it takes was Leena's motto ...

"Here it comes!" Michael Sullivan cried as the sleek tip of the airship - painted in black antiglare paint - began to edge out of the hangar. Leena studied the vehicle that would carry her to the South Pole and, she hoped, make her even more famous than she was now.

The crowd below her collectively gasped as the mighty airship was towed out of the building in which it had been constructed. The Destiny Explorer was, Leena recalled from the material she'd been given, almost 900 feet long.

It occurred to Leena now that she'd never really understood how long 900 feet really was!

"Whooo-eee!" Nick Gordon whistled as the airship emerged from the hangar. "I guess size does matter!"

Robin Halliday nodded dumbly, clearly impressed.

Indeed, the Destiny Explorer was impressive. From its dull black nose to the huge tail fins - emblazoned with the familiar blue INN "eye in the sky" logo - the Explorer came in at a length of just over 890 feet. That made this airship one of the largest flying machines ever built. It was literally the size of an ocean liner.

In fact, the Destiny Explorer was ten feet longer than the legendary t.i.tanic, and almost as long as the Eiffel Tower is high.

Was high, Nick corrected himself. The Eiffel Tower was another casualty of King Ghidorah's reign of terror and destruction last year.

Nick strained to make out the details of the airship. He noticed the traditional bridge structure and observation decks on the forward belly. But this structure was much larger than a blimp's. It ran almost the entire length of the ship to the tail and was completely lined with clear Plexiglas. Nick imagined that the view from inside was magnificent.

Or, in my case, terrifying ...

Nick could not see the other open observation decks recessed into the airship's sides. He guessed that they were closed for the launch. But he did spot the recessed turbofan engines on blisters along the airship's gray-blue fuselage. He remembered from his briefing that the Destiny Explorer had twelve engines - including one huge turbofan built inside the center of the ship itself. He strained his ears and thought he heard several of the engines whining above the rising noise of the spectators.

Unlike previous airship power plants, the computer-controlled engines of the Explorer were engineered to keep the ship on an even keel and on course in even the roughest weather. The engines' computers constantly measured air pressure, lift, wind speed, and other factors on a second-by-second basis and adjusted the engines automatically to compensate for changes.

The center engine was a true design innovation. It gave the Destiny Explorer an airspeed undreamed of by designers of zeppelins in the 1920s and '30s. The exotic-looking ring that joined all the tail fins gave the Explorer a futuristic look, like some comic-book artist's idea of a rocket-ship tail. The design was actually an aerodynamic improvement over the conventional stabilizer fins on most airships, and the cigar-shaped craft was sleeker than in previous generations.

"I hope it doesn't spring a leak," Robin said. "I'd hate to have that thing collapse all around me like a deflated balloon!"

Nick gave his younger colleague a tolerant smile. "Airships come in two varieties, Robin, rigid and nonrigid. Blimps, like the ones over football stadiums all over America, are nonrigid, so when the gas is taken out of them, they deflate like a balloon."

"And this is different?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," Nick answered. "The Destiny Explorer is a rigid airship. Its aluminum hull has living s.p.a.ce for pa.s.sengers and crew, along with hundreds of gas cells filled with nonflammable helium - if the gas gets out, the Explorer will retain its shape."

Nick paused dramatically. "It will crash, of course, but it will still retain its shape."

"Crash ..." mumbled Robin, her perpetually happy face falling a fraction. "But it can't blow up like that other airship ... the Hindenburg." Her pensive eyes found Nick's. "Can it?"

"No," Nick replied. "Hydrogen was the culprit in the Hindenburg disaster. Helium is much safer to use."

At least I can feel comfortable about that, Nick thought, trying not to show the ever-confident Robin Halliday his own fears of flying.

As he watched the activity below, Nick comforted himself with the background information he'd gathered for his science reports about the Destiny Explorer. According to what he'd read, the lightweight metal framework of the Explorer was covered with a new type of Mylar that worked like a two-way mirror. The material appeared to be blue-gray on the outside, but if strong lights were lit inside the hull, the skin became translucent. The ship would light up the night sky over the cities it visited - which was exactly what the engineers and designers of this magnificent airship had envisioned.

Nick's thoughts were interrupted by the deafening sound of rising applause as the spectators began to spontaneously react to the full magnitude of the ma.s.sive airship. Soon their applause grew into a roar, and even the band's amplified music was drowned out in a sea of rising sound.

Then, with clockwork precision, the Destiny Explorer's gondola linked with an elevator tower that rose 100 feet above the raised stage. As the ship docked, men in neat blue jumpsuits rushed out onto the tarmac and grabbed cables that dropped from the sides of the airship. In minutes these men secured the vessel.

Then, with a theatrical flourish that brought astonished laughter from the throng, Mycroft E. Endicott sauntered down the edge of the stage to the double metal doors built into the steel frame tower. For the sake of the millions watching the event at home, a man with a hand-held Steadicam followed Endicott across the stage. After Mycroft E. Endicott pushed a b.u.t.ton next to the doors, he put his hands behind his back, staring into the air and whistling as if he were waiting for the elevator at the World Trade Center Tower to take him to his 92nd floor office.

In a moment, the double doors slid apart, and Endicott stepped inside. The cameraman followed. The doors closed again, and the elevator car was visible as it rose up the steel framework of the tower. When the car reached the top, the double doors slid open again, and Mycroft E. Endicott and the cameraman stepped out onto a catwalk that led to the bridge of the Destiny Explorer. As everyone began cheering again, Nick finally understood why Mycroft E. Endicott had built the stage so much higher than the bleachers around it.

There was a crackle from the receiver hidden in Nick's ear. It was his director, instructing him to move to the podium and introduce the Young Scientists compet.i.tion winners.

Nick turned to Robin, who nodded back. She'd gotten the same message. Then Nick saw one of the stage crew corralling the kid geniuses into a circle and moving them to the front of the stage like thoroughbreds into a race track's winner's circle.

Before he moved forward to join them, Nick Gordon took one last, cautious look at the airship that hovered above them all.

Well, he had to admit. The Destiny Explorer is pretty spectacular.

And, to Nick's astonishment, for the first time since he got this a.s.signment, a bit of excitement and antic.i.p.ation managed to creep in past his trepidation.

6.

SEISMIC ACTIVITY.

Tuesday, November 28, 2000, 6:20 P.M.

William Dyer Geological Research Facility.

74 south lat.i.tude, 114 east longitude.

Wilkes Land, East Antarctica.

Dr. Stanley Wendell rubbed his thick beard as he double-checked the digital readout, just to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. But everything appeared correct, even the data he'd retrieved from the seismographic machine.

He immediately typed all the data into the computer. His gloved but still cold fingers moved with sluggish precision across the ergonomic computer keyboard.

When he was finished, the geologist saved the data onto the hard drive. The computer grumbled as it stored and sorted the vast amount of statistics. Dr. Wendell then keyed up his mathematical model and set the computer to work.

In a few moments, the computer produced a projection of the expected geologic outcome based on the information that had been entered.

A graph soon appeared on the monitor, with a jagged red line running through the middle of it. The red line rose steadily, then spiked dramatically. Dr. Wendell checked the chronology on the model. Then he sat back in his chair and blinked.

The results were no surprise to him, though the timing was. Indeed, he had antic.i.p.ated the same answer, even though he couldn't find a rational or scientific reason for it. But it was certain now that the event was happening at a much faster rate than he had previously suspected.

At least all doubts were banished, and his mind was clear about the event itself. The seismic activity under the Antarctic ice - which was first detected several weeks ago and which increased slowly and steadily up to now - was suddenly accelerating. Dr. Wendell realized with mounting anxiety that if his model was correct, there would be an earthquake - or something very much like an earthquake - very soon ... if the motion under the ice continued at its present phenomenal rate.

But would it?

As he gazed at the computer screen with increasing bewilderment, the door to the cramped hut he occupied opened behind him. The scientist tensed as a frigid blast of polar air washed over him.

"Don't you believe in knocking?" Dr. Wendell snapped without turning around.

"No, sir ... I mean yes, sir," a young graduate student stammered nervously, realizing his breach of etiquette. "Sorry, sir," he muttered finally. The young man's voice was m.u.f.fled by the scarf he wore around his mouth. He pulled the thick woolen cloth away to reveal a young, eager face flushed red from the cold.

Dr. Wendell shook his head. "Forget it," he replied tersely. "Just what do you want here?"

"Dr. Meyer wants to see you, sir ... in the big hut," the youth answered, pointing in the direction of the professor's hut on the other side of the camp.

"You don't have to point, son," Dr. Wendell observed. "I know where the big hut is."

The youth apologized again, this time less sincerely.

"He could have called me," Dr. Wendell finally said, pointing to the camp phone.

"The lines are down, sir," the grad student informed the older man. "I'm here to relieve you."

Dr. Wendell nodded, annoyed at the interruption and still angry at the young man for not knocking. Politeness has gone out of style with these kids today.

Then Dr. Wendell chided himself. He just realized that this particular student had arrived only a few days before - a replacement for another student sent home.

The kid doesn't yet know the unwritten rules about life here in the South Pole.

Dr. Wendell, on the other hand, had been here at Miskatonic University's Dyer base camp all winter and was now more than familiar with the social niceties of life in the remotest region of the world.

One of those niceties was respect for other people's privacy - or as much of it as there was here in this tiny, remote outpost.

Dr. Wendell tapped a key, and a screen protector - which featured shifting images of California's Northridge earthquake of the previous century - appeared on the monitor. The shifting pictures of the disaster hid from prying eyes the earthquake model the scientist had been working on.

The geologist decided he didn't want this young man or any of the other graduate students to see the data still scrolling up on his screen behind the protector.

Dr. Wendell knew that this geology major was smart, or the university wouldn't have sent him. He also knew that this kid could easily draw the wrong conclusions from what he saw on the instruments. That data might be grossly misunderstood or cause a panic in the camp if it was released too soon, or grossly misunderstood.

Not that I understand it, Dr. Wendell thought bitterly, wondering if he should order an evacuation.

The truth was that the geological activity occurring under the ice was a mystery to him, too. Because of the sheer weight of the ice crushing down on it, tectonic activity in the Earth's crust beneath the south polar regions was rare. The ice was so heavy that it pushed the land deep into the Earth's mantle. If that ice disappeared suddenly, the ground beneath it might rise a hundred feet or more above its current levels.

If the ice were melting for some reason, it might explain the geologic activity, Dr. Wendell thought. But there was no significant melting occurring this spring, as far as he could measure. That made the seismic activity far below their feet a mystery.

Dr. Wendell didn't like mysteries. Solving mysteries was one of the reasons he had become a scientist in the first place. The fact that he hadn't yet solved this one bothered him greatly.

And Dyer camp, already uneasy over the unexplained disappearance of the dog teams the night before, didn't need another mystery. People here were jumpy, and more questionable and conflicting geological data hinting at potential disaster was not what they needed to hear about right now.

Dr. Wendell typed in his personal code, locking anyone else out of his computer. Then, with a groan, the tall bearded man rose from the plastic camp chair and unkinked his back. His joints were stiff from sitting in front of the computer all morning and afternoon, as well as from the ever-present cold that seemed to seep into the prefabricated huts of the camp, no matter how high the electric heating units were set.