The Ice Limit

"Nothing that the bilge pumps can't handle, Captain. As long as we have auxiliary power."

"And how long is that?"

"By shutting down all but essential systems, with the emergency diesel, more than twenty-five hours."

"Splendid!" Lloyd said. "We're in fine shape. We'll repair the engines and be on our way." He beamed at Glinn and then Britton, and then faltered a little. He wondered why they looked so grim. "Is there a problem?"

"We're DIW, Mr. Lloyd," said Britton. "The current's moving us back into the storm."

"DIW?"

"Dead in the water."

"We've weathered it so far. It can't get any worse than this. Can it?"

No one answered his question.

Britton spoke to Howell. "Give me status on our communications."

"All long-range and satellite communications down."

"Issue an SOS. Raise South Georgia on the emergency channel sixteen."

Lloyd felt a sudden chill. "What's this about an SOS?"

Again no one answered. Britton said, "Mr. Howell, what is the status on engine damage?"

After a moment Howell reported back. "Both turbines beyond repair, ma'am."

"Prepare for possible evacuation of the ship."

Lloyd could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Just what the hell are you talking about? Is the ship sinking?"

Britton turned a pair of cool green eyes on him. "That's my meteorite down there. I'm not leaving this ship."

"Nobody's leaving the ship, Mr. Lloyd. We'll only abandon ship as a last resort. Putting lifeboats out into this storm would probably be suicide anyway."

"For God's sake, then, let's not overreact. We can weather the storm and get a tow to the Falklands. Things aren't that bad."

"We have no steerage, no headway. Once we drift back into that storm, we'll have eighty-knot winds, a hundred-foot sea, and a six-knot current all pushing us in one direction, toward the Bransfield Strait. That's Antarctica, Mr. Lloyd. Things are that bad."

Lloyd felt stunned. Already, he could feel a swell rolling the ship. A gust of air came into the bridge.

"Listen to me," he said in a low voice. "I don't care what you have to do, or how you do it, but don't you lose my meteorite. Is that understood?"

Britton gave him a steady, hostile look. "Mr. Lloyd, right now I couldn't give a shit about your meteorite. My sole concern is my ship and crew. Is that understood?"

Lloyd turned to Glinn, looking for support. But Glinn had remained perfectly silent and still, his face its usual mask.

"When can we get a tow?"

"Most of our electronics are down, but we're trying to raise South Georgia. It all depends on the storm."

Lloyd broke away impatiently and turned to Glinn. "What's happening in the holding tank?"

"Garza is reinforcing the web with fresh welds."

"And how long will that take?"

Glinn did not answer. He did not need to; because now Lloyd could feel it, too. The motion of the ship was growing worse — ghastly, slow rolls that took forever to complete. And at the top of each roll, the Rolvaag cried in pain: a deep groaning that was half sound and half vibration. It was the dead hand of the meteorite.

Rolvaag,

5:45 P.M.

HOWELL EMERGED from the radio room and spoke to Britton. "We've got South Georgia, ma'am," he said.

"Very good. Put them on voice, please."

The bridge intercom came to life. "South Georgia to tanker Rolvaag, acknowledged." The voice was tinny and faint, and Britton could recognize a Home Counties accent barely recognizable through the static.

She picked up a transmitter and opened the channel. "South Georgia, this is an emergency. We are severely damaged, without propulsion, repeat, without propulsion. We're drifting south-southeastward at a rate of nine knots."

"Acknowledged, Rolvaag. State your position."

"Our position is 61°15'12" South, 60°5'33" West."

"Advise as to your cargo. In ballast or oil?"

Glinn glanced up at her, a sharp look. Britton closed the channel.

"From this point on," Glinn said, "we begin telling the truth. Our truth."

Britton turned back to the transmitter. "South Georgia, we're converted to an ore carrier. We're fully loaded with, ah, a meteorite, mined on the Cape Horn islands."

There was another silence.

"Did not copy, Rolvaag. Did you say meteorite?"

"Affirmative. Our cargo is a twenty-five-thousand-ton meteorite."

"A meteorite of twenty-five thousand tons," the voice repeated impassively. "Rolvaag, please advise as to your intended destination."

Britton knew this was a subtle way of asking, What the hell are you doing down here?

"We're headed for Port Elizabeth, New Jersey."

There was another silence. Britton waited, wincing inwardly. Any knowledgeable mariner would know there was something very wrong with this story. Here they were, two hundred miles off the Bransfield Straits, well into a major storm. And yet this was their first distress call.

"Er, Rolvaag, may I ask if you have the latest weather report?"

"Yes, we do." But she knew he would give it to her anyway.

"Winds increasing to a hundred knots by midnight, seas topping forty meters, all of Drake Passage under a Force 15 storm warning."

"It's almost Force 13 now," she replied.

"Understood. Please describe the nature of your damage."

Make it good, Glinn murmured.

"South Georgia, we were attacked without warning by a Chilean warship in international waters. Shells struck our engine room, forecastle, and maindeck. We have lost headway and steerage. We are DIW, repeat, Delta India Whiskey."

"Good Lord. Are you still under attack?"

"The destroyer struck an iceberg and sank thirty minutes ago."

"This is extraordinary. Why...?"

This was not a proper question to ask during an emergency distress call. But again, this was a most unusual emergency. "We have no idea why. The Chilean captain seems to have been acting alone, without orders."

"Did you identify the warship?"

"The Almirante Ramirez, Emiliano Vallenar, CO."

"Are you taking in water?"

"Nothing our bilge pumps can't handle."

"Are you in imminent danger?"

"Yes. Our cargo could shift at any moment and the ship might founder."

"Rolvaag, please stand by."

There was a sixty-second silence.

"Rolvaag, we fully appreciate your situation. We have SAR assets standing by here and at the Falklands. But we cannot, I repeat, we cannot undertake a search and rescue until the storm abates to Force 10 or less. Do you have satellite communications?"

"No. Most of our electronics are down."

"We will advise your government of your status. Is there anything else we can do?"

"Just a tow, as soon as possible. Before we end up on the Bransfield reefs."

There was a whisper of static. Then the voice returned. "Good luck, Rolvaag. God bless."

"Thank you, South Georgia."

Britton replaced the transmitter, leaned on the console, and stared out into the night.

Rolvaag,

6:40 P.M.

AS THE Rolvaag drifted out of the lee of the ice island, the wind caught it and shoved it brutally back into the storm. The wind gathered force, and in moments they were soaked again with freezing spray. Sally Britton could feel that the ship, with no headway left, was completely at the mercy of the storm. It was a repulsive, helpless feeling.

The storm began to strengthen with a clockwork regularity. Britton watched it build, minute by minute, until it reached an intensity she barely believed possible. The moon had fallen behind thick clouds, and nothing could be seen beyond the bridge. The storm was there, inside the bridge, all around them: in the lashings of spray, in the bits of razorsharp ice whipping through, in the smell of death at sea crowding in. But it was the sound that unnerved her most: a continuous dull roar that seemed to come from all directions at once. The temperature on the bridge was nineteen degrees Fahrenheit and she could feel ice building in her hair.

She continued to receive regular reports of their status, but found herself issuing few orders. Without power or steerage there was little she could do but wait. The feeling of helplessness was nigh unbearable. Based on the motion of the ship, she estimated significant wave heights at well over one hundred feet, and they were moving as powerfully as a freight train. These were the waves that circled the globe, pushed by the winds, never hitting shore, building, ever building. These were the waves of the Screaming Sixties, the biggest seas on earth. Only the sheer size of the Rolvaag was saving it now. As the ship rose on each wave, the winds climbed to a gibbering wail. At the peak of the wave the whole superstructure would vibrate and hum, as if the winds were attempting to decapitate the ship. Then there would be a shudder, and the ship would heel, slowly, achingly. The wave-by-wave battle was recorded by the inclinometer: ten, twenty, twenty-five degrees. As the angle became critical, all eyes stared at this normally insignificant instrument. Then the crest of the wave would pass and Britton would wait for the ship to recover: the most terrible moment of all. But each time the ship did recover, first imperceptibly, then more quickly, gradually righting into an equally unnerving overcorrection, as its great inertia caused it to lean momentarily against the wave. It would slide into the next trough, shielded by the surrounding mountains of water, into an eerie stillness almost more frightening than the storm above. The process would repeat again, and again, in an endless, cruel cadence. Throughout all this, there was nothing she — or any of them — could do.

Britton turned on the forward superstructure spotlights to check the Rolvaag's maindeck. Most of the containers and several davits had been torn from their moorings and swept overboard, but the mechanical door and the tank hatches were solid. The vessel was still taking in water from the shell hole near the king posts, but the bilge pumps were compensating. The Rolvaag was a well-built, seaworthy vessel; it would be weathering the storm nicely — were it not for the monstrous weight in her belly.

By seven, the storm had reached Force 15, with gusts up to one hundred knots. When the ship topped a wave, the force of the wind coming through the bridge threatened to suck them out into the darkness. No storm could keep up this kind of violence for long. Soon, Britton hoped, it would begin to break. It had to.

She kept checking the surface scopes, irrationally, looking for a contact that might indicate a rescue. But they were streaked with grass, giving mostly sea return. At the crest of each wave, they cleared long enough to show a growler field — small bergs — about eight miles ahead. Between the ship and the growler field lay a single ice island, smaller than those they had passed but several miles long nevertheless. As the ship was pushed deeper into the ice, the waves would mitigate; but, of course, then there would be more ice to deal with.

The GPS, at least, was steady and clear. They were about one hundred and fifty miles northwest of the South Shetland Islands, an uninhabited row of fanglike mountains sticking up from the Antarctic seas, surrounded by reefs and ripping currents. Beyond lay the Bransfield Strait, and, beyond that, pack ice and the brutal coast of Antarctica. As they drew closer to the coast, the seas would drop but the currents would get worse. One hundred and fifty miles... if South Georgia could launch a rescue at 6 A.M.... It all depended on that thing down in the hold.

She thought of asking Glinn for a progress report. But then she realized she did not want a report. Glinn had been as silent as she, and she wondered just what was going through his mind. She, at least, could read the movement of the ship. For the others it must be simple, sheer terror.

The ship rolled; a frightening roll. But as the roll approached the apex, she felt an odd hitch, a catch, to it. At the same time, Glinn raised his radio to his ear, listening intently. He saw her look.

"It's Garza," he said. "I can't hear him over the storm."

She turned to Howell. "Patch him through. Maximum gain."

Suddenly Garza's voice boomed through the bridge. "Eli!" he was calling. The amplification gave the panic in his voice a ragged, desperate edge. In the background, Britton could hear the groan and screech of tortured metal.

"Here."

"We're losing the primary crosspieces!"

"Stick with it."

Britton wondered at Glinn's calm, steady voice.

The ship began to heel again.

"Eli, the whole thing's unraveling faster than we can keep up with —" The ship heeled farther, and another scream of metal drowned out Garza's voice.

"Manuel," said Glinn. "Rochefort knew what he was doing when he designed that web. It's much stronger than you think. Take it one step at a time."

Still the ship slanted.

"Eli, the rock — It's moving! I can't —" The radio went dead.

The ship paused, shuddered throughout its frame, then slowly began to right itself. Britton felt that little hitch again, like a pause, almost as if the ship had caught on something for a moment.

Glinn kept his eyes to the speaker. After a moment, it crackled once again. Garza's voice came back on. "Eli? Are you there?"

"Yes."

"I think the thing shifted slightly, but it came back into place."

Glinn almost smiled. "Manuel, do you see how you're overreacting? Don't panic. Focus on the critical points and let the others go. Triage the situation. There's a tremendous amount of redundancy built into that web. Double overage. Remember that."

"Yes, sir."

The ship began another roll; a slow, screeching, agonizing motion. Again she felt the pause, and then she felt something new, different in the motion... Something ugly. Britton looked at Glinn, then at Lloyd. She could see that they hadn't noticed. When the meteorite had moved, she could feel how it affected the entire ship. The massive Rolvaag had almost pivoted on the crest of that last wave. She wondered if it was her imagination. She waited while the ship sank down into the unnatural peace of the trough, then began to rise again. She turned on the maindeck lights and sealights: she wanted to see the conformation of the ship on the water. It was rising, shuddering as if to shake off its burden, the heavy black water surging off its sides and out the scuppers. As they came up the thing in the hold began to groan again; slowly, the ship reared up the long face of the wave, shivering as it rose into the wind. The bow broke through the topmost comb of water, and the groaning became a shriek of protesting metal and timber, echoing through the bones of the ship. There it was: the Rolvaag made that same ugly motion at the top, a yaw that almost became a pivot, then a lying back down in the water. There was a hesitation before it recovered — and that was the worst of all.

Once, on a terrible storm off the Grand Banks, she had seen a ship break its back. The hull had come apart with a horrific noise; black water had boiled in, instantly flooding the ship's deepest compartments. Nobody had a chance to get off: all were sucked down into the deep. It was a sight that still disturbed her sleep to this day.

She glanced at Howell. He had noticed the slow recovery, too: he was staring at her, frame rigid, round eyes white in a deathly pale face. She had never seen him so frightened. "Captain..." he began, his voice breaking.

She gestured him silent. She knew what he was going to say. It was her duty to say it.

She glanced at Glinn. His face remained strangely confident and serene. She had to look away. For all his knowledge, the man did not know the feel of a ship.

The Rolvaag was on the verge of breaking up.

They began to subside into another trough, the wind abruptly dropping to zero. She took the opportunity to look around the bridge: Lloyd, McFarlane, Amira, Glinn, Howell, Banks, the other officers of the watch. All silent. All watching her. All waiting for her to do something, to keep them alive.

"Mr. Lloyd," she said.

"Yes?" He stepped over, eager to help.

This was going to be hard.

A hideous shudder rattled the consoles and windows as the ship took a major cross-swell. When the sound eased as the ship slipped back down, Britton could breathe again.

"Mr. Lloyd," she said again. "The meteorite must go."

Rolvaag,

7:00 P.M.

ON THESE words, McFarlane felt a queer feeling in his gut. A galvanic charge seemed to spread through his body. Never. It was impossible. He tried to shake off the seasickness and fear of the last harrowing minutes.

"Absolutely not," he heard Lloyd say. The words were quiet, barely audible above the roar of the sea. Nevertheless, they carried a tremendous force of conviction. A hush fell on the bridge as the ship went deeper into the preternatural calm of the trough.

"I am the captain of this ship," Britton said quietly. "The lives of my crew depend on it. Mr. Glinn, I order you to trigger the dead man's switch. I order it."

After the briefest of hesitations, Glinn turned toward the EES console.

"No!" screamed Lloyd, seizing Glinn's arm in a powerful grip. "You touch that computer and I'll kill you with my bare hands."

With a short, sharp motion, Glinn twisted out of the grip, throwing Lloyd off balance. The big man stumbled, then drew himself up, panting. The ship slanted again and a metallic groan ran through the length of the hull. All movement stopped as everyone clung to the nearest handhold.

"You hear that, Mr. Lloyd?" Britton cried over the sound of protesting metal. "That son of a bitch down there is killing my ship!"

"Glinn, stay away from that keyboard."

"The captain has given an order," Howell shouted, his voice high.

"No! Only Glinn has the key, and he won't do it! He can't, not without my permission! Eli, do you hear me? I order you not to initiate the dead man's switch." Lloyd moved suddenly to the EES computer, blocking it with his body.

Howell turned. "Security! Seize this man and remove him from the bridge."

But Britton held up a hand. "Mr. Lloyd, step away from the computer. Mr. Glinn, execute my command." The vessel had begun to heel still farther, and a terrifying crackle shot through the ship's steel, rising in pitch to a muffled howl of tearing metal, abruptly cut off as they began to right.

Lloyd gripped the computer, his eyes wild. "Sam!" he cried, his wild eyes seizing on McFarlane.

McFarlane had been watching, dumbstruck, almost paralyzed with conflicting emotions: terror for his life, desire for the rock and its boundless mysteries. He would rather go down with it than give it up now. Almost.

"Sam!" Lloyd was almost pleading now. "You're the scientist here. Tell them about all the research you did, the island of stability, the new element..." He was becoming incoherent. "Tell them why it's so important. Tell them why they can't dump the rock!"

McFarlane felt his throat constrict — and realized, for the first time, how utterly irresponsible it had been to take the rock to sea. If it sank now, it would drive itself deep into the abyssal mud of the ocean bottom, two miles down, never to be seen again. The loss to science would be catastrophic. It was unthinkable.

He found his voice. "Lloyd's right. It might be the most important scientific discovery ever made. You can't let it go."

Britton turned to him. "We no longer have a choice. The meteorite is going to the bottom — no matter what we do. So that leaves us with only one question. Are we going to let it take us with it?"

Rolvaag,

7:10 P.M.

MCFARLANE LOOKED at the faces around him: Lloyd, tense and expectant; Glinn, veiled and unreadable; Rachel, clearly as conflicted as he was; Britton, an expression of utter conviction on her face. It was a haggard group, ice crystallizing in their hair, faces raw and bleeding with the cuts of the flying ice.

"We can abandon ship instead," Lloyd said, his voice panicky. "Hell, let the ship drift without us. It's drifting anyway. Maybe it'll survive on its own. We don't have to jettison the rock."

"It's close to suicide to launch lifeboats in this sea," Britton replied. "It's below zero out there, for God's sake." "We can't just drop it," Lloyd continued, desperate now. "It would be a crime against science. This is all an overreaction. We've already been through so much. Glinn, for God's sake, tell her she's overreacting."

But Glinn said nothing.

"I know my ship," was all Britton said.

Lloyd veered wildly between threats and pleas. Now he turned back to McFarlane. "There must be something. Some way, Sam! Tell them again about the value to science, about the irreplaceable..."

McFarlane looked at Lloyd's face. It was ghastly in the orange emergency lights. He struggled against his own nausea, fear, and cold. They couldn't let it go. He seemed suspended: he thought of Nestor, and what it meant to die, and he thought of sinking in the cold dark bottomless water — and suddenly he was very, very afraid of death. The fear surged over him, temporarily usurping the intellectual functioning of his brain.

"Sam! Jesus Christ, tell them!"

McFarlane tried to speak, but the wind had risen and his words were lost in the howl.

"What?" Lloyd cried. "Everyone, listen to Sam! Sam —"

"Let it go," McFarlane said.

An incredulous look filled Lloyd's face, and he was temporarily speechless.

"You heard her," McFarlane said. "It's going to the bottom regardless. The fight's over." A feeling of hopelessness swept over him. He felt a warmth at the corners of his eyes and realized it was tears. Such a waste, such a waste...

Abruptly, Lloyd turned, abandoning McFarlane for Glinn. "Eli? Eli! You've never failed me before, there's always been something in that bag of tricks. Help me here, I beg you. Don't let them drop the rock."

His voice had taken on a pathetic, beseeching tone. The man was unraveling before their eyes.

Glinn said nothing as the ship began to roll again. McFarlane followed Britton's eyes to the inclinometer. All talk ceased as the wind shrieked through the broken bridge windows. Then the terrible sound began again. The Rolvaag hesitated, thirty degrees on its side, everyone clinging desperately, the vessel wallowing broadside to. McFarlane gripped a bulkhead rail. The terror he felt was now helping to clear his mind, sweeping away his regret. All he wanted to do was get rid of it.

"Recover," he heard Britton murmur. "Recover."

The ship remained heeled stubbornly to port. The bridge hung so far out over the side of the ship that McFarlane could see nothing but black water below the windows. He was swept with a feeling of vertigo. And then, with an immense shudder, it gradually began to right.

As soon as the deck leveled, Lloyd let go of the computer, his face torn with a mixture of horror, rage, and frustration. McFarlane could see the same terror working in him, clearing his mind as well, illuminating the sole rational course left them.

"All right," Lloyd finally said. "Let it go." He buried his face in his hands.

Britton spoke to Glinn. "You heard him. Get rid of it, now." Relief sounded clearly through the tension in her voice.

Slowly, almost mechanically, Glinn sat down at the EES console. He placed his fingers on the keyboard. Then he glanced at McFarlane. "Tell me, Sam. If the meteorite reacts to salinity, what will happen when it hits the open ocean underneath the ship?"

McFarlane started. In all the mayhem, he had not stopped to consider this. He thought quickly.

"Seawater is a conductor," he replied. "The meteorite's discharge will be attenuated through it."

"Are you sure it won't blow up the ship?"

McFarlane hesitated. "No."

Glinn nodded. "I see."

They waited. There was no sound of typing. Glinn sat hunched over the keyboard, motionless.

Silence fell again as the ship subsided into another trough.

Glinn half turned his head, fingers still poised over the keys. "This is an unnecessary step," he said quietly. "And it is also too dangerous."

His long white hands fell away from the keys, and he stood up slowly to face them. "The ship will survive. Rochefort's work has never failed. There is no need to use the dead man's switch. In this instance, I am in agreement with Mr. Lloyd."

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"When the meteorite comes into contact with seawater, the explosion could sink the ship," Glinn went on.

"I told you, the charge will be dispersed through the seawater," said McFarlane.

Glinn pursed his lips. "So you think. We can't risk damaging the jettison doors. If they can't be closed, the tank will flood."

Britton spoke: "What's certain is that if the meteorite isn't jettisoned, the Rolvaag will go down. Eli, don't you understand? We aren't going to last a dozen more rolls."

The ship began to rise on the next wave.

"Sally, you're the last person I'd expect to panic." Glinn's voice was calm, confident. "We can ride this out."

Britton took an audible breath. "Eli, I know my ship. It's over, for God's sake. Can't you see that?"

"Not at all," said Glinn. "The worst has passed. Trust me."

The word trust hung in the air as the ship rolled farther and farther. The bridge seemed to have been shocked into paralysis, every eye on Glinn. And still the ship rolled.

Garza's voice came on the speaker, faint now, fading in and out "Eli! The web is failing! Did you hear me? Failing!"

Glinn wheeled toward the microphone. "Stay with it, man. I'll be down there in a moment."

"Eli, the foundation of the cradle is being rocked to pieces. There's metal everywhere. I've got to get the men out of here. "

"Mr. Garza!" Britton spoke into the ship's intercom. "This is the captain speaking. Are you familiar with the dead man's switch?"

"I built it."

"Then trigger it."

Glinn stood, impassive. McFarlane watched him, trying to understand this sudden change. Was Glinn right? Could the ship — the meteorite — survive? Then he glanced at the faces of the officers. The abject terror in their eyes told him a different story. The ship poised at the crest of the wave, twisted, groaned, sank back again.

"The dead man's switch must be initiated from the EES computer on the bridge," said Garza. "Eli has the codes.."

"Can you do it manually?" Britton asked.

"No. Eli! For God's sake, hurry. We don't have much time before this thing rolls right through the side of the ship."

'Mr. Garza," Britton said. "Order your men to their abandon stations."

Glinn spoke: "Garza, I contravene that order. We won't fail. Stay at your work."

"No way, sir. We're evacuating." The radio went dead.

Glinn looked pale. He glanced around the bridge. The ship subsided into a trough, and silence fell.

Britton stepped toward Glinn and put her hand lightly on his shoulder. "Eli," she said. "I know you have it in you to admit failure. I know you've got courage enough to do that. Right now you're the only one with the power to save us and this ship. Execute the dead man's switch, please."

McFarlane watched as she stretched out her other hand and clasped Glinn's. He seemed to waver.

Suddenly, silently, Puppup returned to the bridge. He was streaming wet, dressed once again in his old rags. There was a strange excitement in his face, an expectancy, that chilled McFarlane.

Glinn smiled and squeezed Britton's hand. "What nonsense. Sally, I really expected more of you. Don't you see we can't fail? We've planned far too carefully for that. There's no need to invoke the dead man's switch. In fact, under the circumstances, it would be dangerous to do so." He looked around. "I don't blame any of you. This is a complex situation, and fear is an understandable reaction. But you have to consider what I've just brought you through, virtually single-handedly. I can promise you, the web will hold, and the ship will weather the storm. We're certainly not going to end it here — not because of a regrettable failure of nerve."

McFarlane wavered, feeling a surge of hope. Maybe Glinn was right. The man was so persuasive, so confident. He had succeeded under the most unlikely circumstances. He saw that Lloyd, too, looked eager, wanting to be convinced.

The ship rose. It heeled. All talk ceased as everyone clung for their lives to whatever handholds they could find. The screeching chorus of warping, tearing metal began anew, rising in volume until it drowned out even the rage of the storm. At that moment, McFarlane realized, utterly and completely, just how wrong Glinn was. At the crest, the ship shook as if it were in an earthquake; the emergency lights flickered.

After an agonizing moment, the ship righted itself and fell over the crest of the wave. The wind howled once about the bridge and was cut off.

"You're wrong this time, Glinn, you son of a bitch," said Lloyd, terror back in full force. "Throw the switch."

Glinn smiled, almost to the point of sneering. "Sorry, Mr. Lloyd. I'm the only one who has the codes, and once again I will save your meteorite for you, despite yourself."

Suddenly Lloyd rushed at Glinn, a strangled cry rising in his throat. Glinn sidestepped him lightly, and with the briefest flick of the heel of one hand sent Lloyd crashing to the deck, gasping heavily.

McFarlane took a step toward Glinn. The man turned on him lightly, poised. His eyes remained as impenetrable, as opaque, as ever. McFarlane realized that Glinn wasn't going to change his mind. He was a man who couldn't fail, and he would die proving it.

Britton glanced toward the chief mate. One look at her face told McFarlane she had reached the same decision.

"Mr. Howell," she said. "All hands to abandon stations. We will abandon ship."

Glinn's eyes narrowed slightly in surprise, but he remained silent.

Howell turned to Glinn. "You're giving us a death sentence, forcing us out in that storm in lifeboats, you crazy bastard."

"I may be the only sane one left on the bridge."

Lloyd pulled himself painfully from the deck as the ship struggled once again to rise. He did not look at Glinn. Glinn turned and, without another word, left the slanting bridge.

"Mr. Howell," Britton said. "Initiate a 406 MHz beacon, and get all hands to the boats. If I'm not back in five minutes, you will assume the duties of master."

Then she, too, turned and vanished.

Rolvaag,

7:35 P.M.

ELI GLINN stood on the iron catwalk above number three center tank. He heard a clanging noise as Puppup dogged the hatch of the access corridor shut. He felt a small twinge of gratitude for the Indian. He had been loyal to the last, when everyone else — even Sally — had failed him.

The hysteria he had witnessed on the bridge was very disturbing. He had succeeded at every turn, and they should have trusted him. A claxon horn was blowing in some faraway, echoing space: an eerie, unpleasant noise. In the coming hours, many would die in the rough seas. It was all so unnecessary. The great Rolvaag would survive; of that he was sure. It would survive, with its cargo, and those who remained with it. And at dawn, with the storm just a memory, they would be met by the towships from South Georgia. The Rolvaag would return to New York with the meteorite. It was a pity that so many others would not.

He thought of Britton again. A magnificent woman. He felt a great sadness when he reflected on her unwillingness to trust him at the end. He would never find another like her; that he knew. He would save her ship for her, but any question of a personal relationship was now dead. He leaned against the longitudinal bulkhead, distantly surprised at how long it was taking to regain his breath. He clung as the ship heeled; an alarming angle, admittedly, but still beneath the critical limit of thirty-five degrees. He could hear the slippage of chains, the protests of metal, below his feet. At last, the ship began to right itself with a groan. A tragedy, that after all he had done — the quite extraordinary successes he had engineered — they were not willing to trust him this one last time. All but Puppup. He glanced toward the old man.

"Heading down there, guv?"

Glinn nodded. "I'll need your help."

"'At's what I'm here for."

They stepped to the edge of the catwalk. There below sat the rock, the top of its surrounding web swathed in plastic tarps. The emergency lights bathed it in a dim light. The tank was still holding nicely, staying dry. It was a superb ship. The triple hulling made all the difference. Even covered with tarps the rock looked magnificent, the epicenter of their terrors and hopes. It was resting in its cradle, just as he knew it would be.

Then his eyes flickered down to the struts and braces. There was, it had to be admitted, a great deal of damage: bent spars, compression fractures, sheared metal. The transverse web brackets along the bottom of the tank were littered with broken rivets, snapped chains, and splintered wood. He could hear a residual creaking and groaning. But the web was still essentially intact.

The elevator was broken, however. He began climbing down.

The ship rose, heeling again.

Glinn steadied himself, then continued descending. It took longer than he thought it would, and by the time he had reached the bottom he felt more horizontal than vertical — splayed upon, rather than clinging to, the ladder. Hooking an elbow to it, he braced himself, waiting it out. Now he could see, under the tarps, the red flank of the rock. The sounds in the hold were growing, like some infernal symphony of metal, but they signified nothing. Toward the top of the roll he slipped out his pocket watch and held it at arm's length, dangling it from its chain, estimating the roll. Twenty-five degrees: well below critical value.

He heard a sudden muttering, groaning noise, and the massive crimson curve of the meteorite seemed to stir. The ship heeled farther, the meteorite moved with it, until Glinn was not sure whether the ship was shifting the meteorite or vice versa. The meteorite now seemed poised at the edge of its cradle, ready to tip out. There was a crackling, splintering sound. Twenty-seven degrees. Twentyeight.

The ship shuddered, paused, then began to right itself. Glinn eased out a breath. Twenty-eight degrees. Well within tolerances. The meteorite shifted back into its cradle with a monstrous shudder. Abruptly, the screech of metal stopped. The screaming of the wind and water outside the hull abated as the ship sank down.

His eyes scanned the tank. What was necessary here was to tighten the chains closest to the meteorite. They had been designed so that one person could do it, using a motor-assisted "come-along" anchored to each tightening point. He was surprised Garza hadn't done this already.

Quickly, he scrambled to the main tightening point and switched on the key motor-assist. It lit up — in perfect working order, of course.

The ship continued to subside into the oncoming trough, giving him some peace and stability in which to work.

Glinn pulled the forward lever on the motor-assist; and was pleased to see the big rubber-coated chains that had come loose in the rocking of the meteorite tighten again. Why hadn't Garza done this? The reason was clear: he had panicked. Glinn felt a momentary disappointment at his trusted construction manager. This wasn't like Garza; not like him at all. So many had failed him; but at least he had failed no one.

The chains were tightening nicely, and he turned to Puppup. "Take this toolbox," he said, indicating a box left in Garza's retreat.

The ship rose; the roll began; the chains began to strain. And then, with a sharp ratcheting noise, the chains loosened. Glinn peered closely in the dim light. He saw that, in fact, Garza had already tried it. The gears on the motor-assist had been stripped, and the four-inch steel ratchet head had sheared off. The assist was useless.

The ship began to rise. And then he heard a voice from above. He ducked out from the web and glanced up. Sally Britton was stepping through the hatchway onto the catwalk. She carried herself with the same natural dignity that had struck him so forcefully the first time he had seen her, coming down those sun-drenched steps, ages and ages ago. His heart gave an unexpected lurch. She had changed her mind: she would stay with the ship.

Britton had to pause during the long, screeching roll. They stared at each other while the meteorite rocked in its cradle and the ship screamed its pain. When it was over she called out again. "Eli! The ship's about to break up!"

Glinn felt sharp disappointment: there had been no change in her thinking after all. But all this was a distraction. He focused his attention on the cradle again. Now he saw it: the way to lock down the rock was to tighten the topchain bolt at the summit of the meteorite. It would mean cutting through the tarp. It was a simple matter, requiring no more than six inches of hand tightening. He began climbing up the nearest chain.

"Eli, please! There's an extra lifeboat in reserve for us. Leave this thing and come with me!"

Glinn pulled himself up, Puppup following with the toolbox. He needed to focus his mind on the objective, not suffer distractions.

Reaching the crown of the meteorite, he found to his surprise a small flap already cut in the tarp. Beneath, the topchain bolt was loose, as he expected. As the ship rose out of the trough and began to heel yet again, he fitted the wrench around the nut, anchored the bolt with a second wrench, and began to tighten.

Nothing moved. He had not comprehended — could not comprehend — what tremendous, what unimaginable pressure the bolt was under.

"Hold this wrench," he said. Puppup obliged, grabbing it with his sinewy arms.

The ship canted farther.

"Come back to the bridge with me, Eli," Britton said. "There may still be time to trigger the switch. Both of us might yet live."

Glinn glanced up for an instant from his struggle with the bolt. There was no pleading in her voice — that was not Sally Britton's way. He heard patience, reason, and utter conviction. It made him sad. "Sally," he said, "the only people who are going to die are the foolish ones in the lifeboats. If you stay here, you'll survive."

"I know my ship, Eli," was all she said.

Kneeling, hunched over the topchain bolt, he struggled with the nut. Someone else had tried this before him: there were fresh marks on the metal. As the ship heeled, he felt the meteorite shift, and he anchored himself more firmly, both feet braced against the links. He strained to the limits of extremity, but it did not move. Gasping, he refitted the wrench.

Still the ship heeled.

Britton spoke out of the darkness above, her voice rising above the sound. "Eli, I would like to have that dinner with you. I don't know much about poetry, but what I know I could share with you. I would like to share it with you."

The meteorite shuddered, and Glinn found himself gripping with both hands as the meteorite tipped with the ship. There were ropes up here, fastened to the frame plates of the tank, and he quickly lashed one around his waist to keep his position. He returned to the wrench. A quarter turn, that was all he needed. The yawing of the ship slowed and he once again grasped the handle of the wrench.

"And I could love you. Eli..."

Glinn stopped suddenly and stared up at Britton. She tried to speak again, but her voice was drowned out by the rising shriek of tortured metal, echoing madly in the vast space. All he could see was her small figure on the catwalk above. Her golden hair had become unpinned and lay wildly across her shoulders, glowing even in the dim light.

As he stared, he became dimly aware that the ship was not leveling out. He looked away from her, first at the bolt, then at Puppup. The man was grinning, his long thin mustaches dripping water. Glinn felt a surge of anger at himself for not focusing on the problem at hand.

"The wrench!" he called to Puppup over the screaming of metal.

The ship was very far over, the sounds of metal deafening. With a hand he wished was steadier, Glinn took out his pocket watch to once again calculate the inclination; he held it up but it swung back and forth. As he tried to steady it, the watch slipped through his fingers and shattered against the flank of the rock; he saw little glints of gold and glass skittering along the red surface and disappearing into the depths.

The yawing seemed to accelerate with a brutal suddenness. Or was it his imagination? Surely none of this could be real. Double overage had been brought to bear, the calculations run and rerun, every possible path to failure accounted for.

And then he felt the meteorite begin to move beneath him, and there was a tearing sound as the tarps rent and the web unraveled, the sudden red of the meteorite filling his field of vision like the opening of a great wound, the rock crisscrossed by tangled ropes and cables, rivets shooting and ricocheting past him. Still the ship yawed on its side, steeper and steeper. He scrambled desperately, trying to untie the rope from his waist, but the knot was so tight, so tight...

There was a sound beyond all description, as if the heavens and the gulfs below had opened up at once. The tank tore apart in a terrific shower of sparks, and the meteorite rolled into the darkness — a monstrous shambling like some deliberate beast — taking him with it. Instantly all was dark, and he felt a rush of chill air...

There was the faint tinkle of glasses, the murmur of voices. L'Ambroisie was busy on this balmy Thursday night, filled with art fanciers and wealthy Parisians. Beyond the restaurant's discreet front, the smoky autumn moon lent the Marais district a delicate shimmer. Glinn smiled at Sally Britton, who was seated across the fine white damask. "Try this," he said as the waiter uncorked a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and tipped a chilly stream into their glasses. He grasped his glass and raised it. She smiled and spoke:

...how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure

An important failure...

As his mood turned to puzzlement, the recitation was drowned by a hideous laugh from Puppup. And then the scene vaporized in a pure flash of brilliant, beautiful light.

Drake Passage,

7:55 P.M.

MCFARLANE CLUTCHED desperately at the lifeboat's safety loops, riding it through the great peaks and valleys of a confused sea, Rachel clinging tightly to his arm. The last twenty minutes had passed in a terrifying confusion: Britton's sudden departure from the bridge; Howell's taking command and ordering them to abandon ship; the muster at the lifeboat stations and the harrowing launching of the boats into the raging seas. After the tense hours of the chase, the struggle against the storm and the meteorite, this ultimate calamity had happened so quickly that it seemed unreal. He looked around the inner walls of the lifeboat for the first time. With its single-piece hull, tiny entrance port, and tinier windows, it looked like an oversize torpedo. Howell was at the helm, guiding the inboard; Lloyd and some twenty in all were inside, including half a dozen whose own lifeboat had been torn from its davits during launch and who had to be plucked from the freezing waves.

He tightened his grip as the boat dropped in free fall, crashed, and was abruptly driven upward. Instead of plowing through like the Rolvaag, the sixty-foot craft bobbed like a woodchip. The staggering falls, the wrenching climbs up the cliffs of water, were exhausting and terrifying. They were drenched in ice water, and some who had been in the sea, McFarlane could see, were unconscious. Brambell was there, thank God, attending to them as best he could.

An officer in the bow of the boat was securing the provisions and security gear. Debris was wallowing and rolling in the water beneath their feet. They were all sick, and some were retching uncontrollably. None of the crew spoke, going silently through their duties. The tightly enclosed hull of the lifeboat sheltered them from the elements. But McFarlane could feel the terrible seas were battering the boat mercilessly.

Howell finally spoke, his voice hoarse over the sound of wind and water. He was holding a radio to his mouth, but he spoke so that everyone in the boat could hear.

"All boats, listen up! Our only chance is to head for an ice island to the southeast, and ride out the storm in its lee. Maintain a heading of one two zero at ten knots and keep in visual contact at all times. Keep channel three open. Activate emergency beacons."

It was hard to tell they were going anywhere, but the moon had come back out — and now and then, through the narrow oblong windows, McFarlane caught the faint lights of the other two lifeboats driving down the foam-webbed seas, struggling to keep in sight. At the heights of the terrible waves, he could still make out the Rolvaag, half a mile back, wallowing back and forth as if in slow motion, its emergency lights winking on and off. No more boats had been launched since their pack of three started out minutes before. He could not take his eyes from the sight of the gigantic vessel, held in the death grip of the storm.

A fresh roller tried to raise the tanker, but this time the Rolvaag hung back, almost as if it was tethered from below. It leaned farther and farther from the face of the wave, and as the crest boiled over the ship it slowly lay down on its side. McFarlane glanced over at Lloyd. The man's haggard face was turned away from McFarlane and the Rolvaag both.

Another bob; the seas completely submerged the lifeboat; then they struggled upward again. Although he too wanted nothing more than to avert his eyes, McFarlane found his gaze drawn once again to the great ship. It still hung sideways, motionless. Even after the crest of the wave had passed over, it sagged, dragged lower and lower by the ineluctable weight. Its stern began to peer through the retreating wave, dead screws exposed. A distant shriek, almost feminine, cut through the howl of the storm. And then, both bow and stern jerked apart and rose from the seas in a boil of white. There was a deep, intense blue light in the center of the cataclysm, so bright it seemed to light up the sea from underneath, sending an unearthly hue through the water. A huge gout of steam ripped through the surface and mushroomed upward, blanketing the doomed ship, while lightning flickered within it, breaking out its top in forks that stabbed into the night. At that moment the lifeboat sank back into a welter of water, obscuring the terrible sight. When it emerged, the seas were empty and dark. The ship was gone.

McFarlane sat back, shaking and nauseated. He did not dare look at Lloyd. Glinn, Britton, the three dozen crewmen, EES staffers, and Lloyd Industries workers who had gone down with the ship... the meteorite, plunging to the bottom, two miles below... He closed his eyes, tightening his grip on the shivering Rachel. He had never been so cold, so sick, so frightened in his life.

She murmured something unintelligible and he leaned close. "What's that?"

She was pressing something toward him. "Take it," she said. "Take it."

In her hands was her CD-ROM, containing the test data on the meteorite.

"Why?" he asked.

"I want you to keep it. Keep it always. The answers are there, Sam. Promise me you'll find them."

He slipped the disk into his pocket. It was all they had left: a few hundred megabytes of data. The meteorite was forever lost to the world; it had already buried itself deep in the abyssal silt of the ocean floor.

"Promise," Rachel said again. Her voice sounded slurred, drugged.

"I promise." And he hugged her closer to him, feeling the warm trickle of her tears upon his hands. The meteorite was gone. So many others were gone. But the two of them remained, would always remain.

"We'll find the answers together," he said.

A breaking crest slammed into the lifeboat, driving it sideways. They were thrown to the deck of the boat. McFarlane could hear Howell shouting commands as another breaking wave slammed the boat and pushed it sideways, almost flipping it over. It dropped back with a crash. "My arm!" a man cried. "I've broken my arm!"

McFarlane helped Rachel back onto the padded seat, helped her arms into the loops. The seas were roaring all around them, burying them in water, sometimes forcing the entire closed boat beneath the surface.

"How much farther?" someone shouted.

"Two miles," Howell replied, struggling to keep the boat on course. "Give or take."

Heavy water rinsed down the portholes, allowing only occasional glimpses of the black night beyond. McFarlane's elbows, knees, and shoulders grew sore from being battered against the sides and roof of the small vessel. He felt like a ping-pong ball tumbling inside a washing machine. It was so cold that he had lost all feeling in his feet. Reality began to recede. He remembered a summer spent on a lake in Michigan. He would sit on the beach for hours, bottom in the sand, feet in the shallows. But the water had never been this cold... He realized that frigid seawater was rising in the bottom of the boat. The punishing gale was pulling the lifeboat apart at the seams.

He stared out the little window. A few hundred yards away, he could see the lights of the other two boats, bucking and bouncing in the sea. A great wave would descend upon them, and they would struggle through it, corkscrewing wildly as the pilots worked to keep them from rolling over, the propellers whining madly as they rose out of the water. He stared, stupefied with exhaustion and fear, at the wildly gyrating antennas, the semi-circles of ten-gallon water tanks knocking crazily around the sterns.

And then one of the boats vanished. One moment it was there, running lights winking, diving into yet another wave; and then it was gone, buried, its lights cut out as abruptly as if shut off with a switch.

"We've lost the beacon on number three boat, sir," said the man in the bow.

McFarlane let his head sink toward his chest. Who had been in that boat? Garza? Stonecipher? His mind did not work anymore. A part of him now hoped they too would go down as swiftly; he longed for a quick ending to this agony. The water in the bottom of the boat was getting deeper. He realized, vaguely, that they were sinking.

And then the seas began to quiet. The craft was still pitching and bobbing in ferocious chop, but the endless procession of watery mountains beneath them ceased, and the wind fell.

"We're in the lee," said Howell. His hair was matted and lank, the uniform beneath the foul-weather gear soaked. Blood mingled with water in pink rivulets that ran down his face. And yet when he spoke, his hoarse voice was steady. Again he had the radio.

"I need your attention! Both boats are taking on water, fast. They won't stay afloat much longer. We've got only one choice — to transfer ourselves and as many provisions as we can carry to the ice island. Understood?"

Very few in the boat looked up; they seemed beyond caring. The feeble beacon on their boat swept the flank of ice. "There's a small ice ledge up ahead. We'll run the boats right up on it. Lewis in the bow will pass out supplies to each of you and take you out two at a time, fast. If you fall in the water, get the hell out — it'll kill you in five minutes. Now buddy up."

McFarlane drew Rachel protectively toward him, then turned to look at Lloyd. The man stared back this time, his eyes dark, hollow, haunted.

"What have I done?" he whispered hoarsely. "Oh my God, what have I done?"

Drake Passage,

July 26, 11:00 A.M.

DAWN ROSE over the ice island.

McFarlane, who had passed in and out of a fitful doze, was slow in waking. At last he raised his head, the ice crackling off his coat as he did so. Around him, a small group of survivors had huddled together for warmth. Some lay on their backs, their faces coated with ice, their eyes open, frosted over. Others were half upright, on their knees, unmoving. They must be dead, McFarlane thought in a dreamy sort of way. A hundred had begun the voyage. And now he could see barely two dozen.

Rachel lay before him, her eyes closed. He struggled to a sitting position, snow sliding from his limbs. The wind was gone, and a deathly stillness surrounded them, underlined by the thunder of surf below them, worrying the margins of the ice island.

Before him stretched a tableland of turquoise ice, cut with rivulets that deepened into canyons as they snaked off to the edges of the island. A red line, like a streak of blood, tinted the eastern horizon, dribbling color across the heaving seas. In the distance, the horizon was dotted with blue and green icebergs: hundreds of them, like jewels, stationary in the swell, their tops glistening in the morning light. It was an unending landscape of water and ice.

He felt terribly sleepy. Odd that he was no longer cold. He struggled to bring himself awake. Now, slowly, it came back to him: the landing, climbing a crevasse to the top in the blackness, the wretched attempts to light a fire, the slow slide into lethargy. There was the time before, too — before all this — but he did not want to think of that right now. Right now, his world had shrunk to the edges of this strange island.

Here, on its top, there was no feeling of motion. It was as solid as land. The great procession of rollers continued eastward, smoother now. After the black of the night and the gray of the storm, everything seemed tinted in pastels; the blue ice, the pink sea, the red-and-peach sky. It was beautiful, strange, otherworldly.

He tried to stand, but his legs ignored the command and he only rose to one knee before falling back. He felt an exhaustion so profound it took a supreme effort of will not to sink back to the ground. A dim part of his mind realized it was more than exhaustion — it was hypothermia.

They had to get up, move. He had to rouse them.

He turned to Rachel and shook her roughly. Her lidded eyes swiveled around to him. Her lips were blue and ice clung to her black hair.

"Rachel," he croaked. "Rachel, get up, please."

Her lips moved and spoke, but it was a hiss of air, without sound.

"Rachel?" He bent down. He could hear her words now, sibilant, ghostly.

"The meteorite..." she murmured.

"It went to the bottom," McFarlane said. "Don't think about it now. It's over."

She shook her head faintly. "No... not what you think..."

She closed her eyes, and he shook her again. "So sleepy..."

"Rachel. Don't go to sleep. What were you saying?" She was rambling, delusional, but he realized it was important to keep her talking and awake. He shook her again. "The meteorite, Rachel. What about it?" Her eyes half opened, and she glanced downward. McFarlane followed her gaze; there was nothing. Her hand stirred slightly.

"There..." she said, looking down.

McFarlane took her hand. He pulled off the sodden, halffrozen gloves. Her hand was freezing; her fingertips white. Now he understood: her fingers were frostbitten. He tried to massage the fingers and the hand relaxed. She was holding a peanut.

"Are you hungry?" McFarlane asked as the nut rolled away into the snow. Rachel closed her eyes again. He tried to rouse her and could not. He pressed himself against her, and her body was heavy and cold. He turned for help and found Lloyd, lying on the ice beside them.

"Lloyd?" he whispered.

"Yes," came the faint, gravelly voice.

"We've got to move." McFarlane found himself growing short of breath.

"Not interested."

McFarlane turned back to shake Rachel again, but he could hardly move his own arm now, let alone apply force to her. She was inert. The loss seemed more than he could fathom. He looked out over the huddled, unmoving shapes, glistening under their thin coatings of ice. There was Brambell, the doctor, with a book crooked incongruously under his arm. There was Garza, the white of his bandaged head rimed in frost. There was Howell. Two, maybe three dozen others. No one was moving. Suddenly he found he cared; cared very much. He wanted to yell, to get up and start kicking and punching people to their feet, but he couldn't even find the energy to speak. There were too many of them; he couldn't warm them all. He couldn't even warm himself.

His head swam as a strange, inky sensation overcame him. Apathy came creeping. We're all going to die here, he thought, but it's okay. He looked over at Rachel, trying to shake the inkiness off. Her eyes were half open now, rolled up, just the whites showing. Her face was gray. He would go where she had gone. It was okay. A single snowflake drifted out of the sky and touched her lips. It took a long time to melt.

The inkiness returned, and this time it was good, like sleeping in his mother's arms once again, and he gave in to it. As he drifted off into delicious sleep, Rachel's voice kept going through his mind: Not what you think. Not what you think.

And then the voice changed: louder, more metallic. "South Georgia Bravo... In sight... Approaching for a high-line pickup..."

A light appeared overhead. There was a clattering, a rhythmic beating. Voices, a radio. He struggled against it all. No, no, let me sleep! Leave me be!

And then the pain began.

South Georgia Island,

July 29, 12:20 P.M.

PALMER LLOYD lay in a plywood bunk bed in the infirmary hut of the British scientific station. He stared at the plywood ceiling: endless loops of dark and light wood, patterns his eyes had traced a thousand times over the recent days. He smelled the stale food that had been sitting by his bed since lunchtime. He heard the sound of wind outside the tiny window that peeked out over the blue snowfields, blue mountains, and blue glaciers of the island.

It had been three days since their rescue. So many had died, on the ship, in the lifeboats, on the ice island. But one man of her crew alive, what put to sea with seventy-five... The old sea-ditty from Treasure Island ran through his head, as it had run, over and over and over, since he had first regained consciousness here in this bed.

He had survived. Tomorrow, a helicopter would take him to the Falklands. From there he would return to New York. Distantly, he wondered how the media was going to report this one. He found that he didn't care. So little seemed important anymore. He was finished: finished with the museum, finished with business, finished with science. All his dreams — they seemed so ancient now — had gone to the bottom with the rock. All he wanted to do was go to his farm in upstate New York, mix a stiff martini, sit in the rocking chair on the porch, and watch the deer eat apples in his orchard.

An orderly came in, removed the tray, and began to put down another.

Lloyd shook his head.

"It's my job, mate," the orderly said.

"Very well."

At that moment there was a knock on the door. McFarlane came in. His left hand and part of his face was bandaged, he was wearing dark glasses, and the man looked unsteady on his feet. In fact, he looked terrible. He sat down in the metal folding chair that occupied almost all the free space in the tiny room. The chair creaked.

Lloyd was surprised to see him. He hadn't seen McFarlane at all these past three days. He had just assumed McFarlane was through with him — as well he should be. Hardly anyone had spoken to him. His only visitor from the expedition, in fact, had been Howell, and that had been to sign some papers. They all hated him now.

Lloyd thought McFarlane was waiting to speak until the orderly left. But the door closed behind them, and still McFarlane remained silent. He did not say anything for a long time. And then at last he removed his dark glasses and leaned forward.

The change startled Lloyd. It was almost as if the man's eyes were on fire. They were red and raw, with dark circles beneath. He was dirty, unkempt. The loss of the meteorite, the death of Amira, had hit him hard.

"Listen," said McFarlane, his voice tight with tension. "I've got something to tell you."

Lloyd waited.

McFarlane bent even closer now, speaking directly into Lloyd's ear. "The Rolvaag went down at 61°32'14" South, 59°30'10" West."

"Please don't speak of this with me, Sam. Not now."

"Yes, now," said McFarlane with unexpected vehemence.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a compact disc. He held it up, winking its rainbow colors in the light.

"On this disc —"

Lloyd turned away and faced the plywood wall. "Sam, it's over. The meteorite's gone. Give it up."

"On this disc is the last batch of data we gathered on the meteorite. I made a promise. I've been... studying it."

Lloyd felt tired — so very, very tired. His eyes strayed out the little window to the mountains wreathed in glaciers, their icy tops piercing the clouds. He hated the sight of ice. He never wanted to see ice again, ever.

"Yesterday," McFarlane continued relentlessly, "one of the scientists at the station here told me they'd been recording some very unusual, shallow seaquakes. Dozens of them, all below 3 on the Richter scale."

Lloyd waited for McFarlane to continue. It was all so irrelevant.

"The epicenter of those quakes is at 61°32'14" South, 59°30'10" West."

Lloyd's eyes flickered. He slowly turned his head back to meet the young scientist's eyes.

"I've been analyzing this data," McFarlane continued. "It mostly has to do with the shape and internal structure of the meteorite. It's very unusual."

Lloyd did not answer, but he did not turn away either.

"It's layered. It's almost symmetrical. It's not natural."

Lloyd sat up. "Not natural?" He was beginning to feel alarmed. McFarlane had suffered a psychological break. He needed help.

"I said, layered. It has an outer shell, a thick inner layer, and a tiny round inclusion right in the center. This is not an accident. Think about it. What else is like this? It's very common. It must be a universal structure."

"Sam, you're tired. Let me call a nurse for you. She'll —" But McFarlane interrupted. "Amira figured it out. Right before she died. It was in her hand. Remember how she said we had to stop thinking from our perspective, start thinking from the meteorite's perspective? At the end, Amira knew. It reacted to salt water. It had been waiting for salt water. Waiting millions of years."

Lloyd looked for the emergency button near his bed. McFarlane was in much worse condition than he had initially thought.

McFarlane paused, his eyes glittering unnaturally. "You see, Lloyd, it wasn't a meteorite at all."

Lloyd felt a queer suspension, a stillness in the room. There was the button; if only he could press it casually, without exciting the man. McFarlane's face was flushed, sweaty, his breathing rapid and shallow. The loss of the rock, the sinking of the Rolvaag, the deaths in the water, on the ice — it must have broken him. Lloyd felt a fresh stab of guilt: even the survivors were damaged.

"Did you hear me, Lloyd? I said it's not a meteorite."

"What was it, then, Sam?" Lloyd managed to ask, keeping his voice calm, his hand casually moving toward the button.

"All those shallow earthquakes, right where the ship went down..."

"What about them?"

"Just this. Are you familiar with the Panspermia theory? That the earth was originally seeded with life from spores drifting through space?"

"Certainly, Sam, certainly," Lloyd said in a soothing voice. He pressed the button: once, twice, three times. The nurse would be there momentarily. McFarlane would get help.

"Well, this is Panspermia with a vengeance." The redrimmed eye bored into Lloyd's. "That thing we just planted at the bottom of the sea? I don't know what it was, not exactly. But I do know one thing."

"And what's that?" Lloyd tried to sound normal. Thank God, he could hear the hurried footsteps of the nurse in the corridor.

"It's sprouting."

Authors' Note

THE ICE Limit is, in part, inspired by a real scientific expedition. In 1906, Admiral Robert E. Peary discovered the world's largest meteorite, which he named the Ahnighito, in northern Greenland. He located it because Eskimos in the area were using cold-hammered iron spearpoints, which Peary analyzed and found to be meteoritic in origin. He ultimately recovered the Ahnighito, wrestling it to his ship only with tremendous difficulty. The mass of iron, when it was finally aboard, destroyed all the ship's compasses. He managed to bring it back to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where it is still on display in the Hall of Meteorites. He recounted the story in his book Northward over the Great Ice. "Never," Peary wrote, "have I had the terrific majesty of the force of gravity so powerfully brought home to me as in handling this mountain of iron." The Ahnighito is so heavy that it rests on six massive steel pillars that penetrate the floor of the museum's meteorite hall, pass through the basement, and are bolted into the very bedrock under the building.

Needless to say, while many of the locales mentioned in The Ice Limit actually exist, Lloyd Industries, Effective Engineering Solutions, and all of the characters and ships described in the novel, both American and Chilean, are entirely fictitious. In places, we have taken liberties with the design, construction, and characteristics of tankers to best suit the narrative. In addition, while an atlas will reveal a large island named Isla Desolación some three hundred fifty miles northwest of where much of The Ice Limit is set, our Desolation Island — its makeup, size, and location — is entirely our own invention.

DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD are coauthors of the bestselling novels Riptide, Thunderhead, The Relic, Mount Dragon, and Reliquary. Douglas Preston is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and National Geographic, and has ridden on horseback for thousands of miles across the American Southwest, retracing the routes of early explorers and conquistadors. Lincoln Child is a former book editor who has published numerous short-story anthologies. The authors welcome reader e-mail at prestonchild@prestonchild.com. Their next novel will appear in hardcover from Warner Books in early 2002.

IT'S SPROUTING?!?

In the months since the original publication of The Ice Limit, a number of enigmatic and violent disturbances have been recorded in the Antarctic Sea in the area where the Rolvaag went down.

As a service to our readers, we have collected a selection of news reports about the unfolding events. All this information can be found only at Time Warner Trade Publishing's new iPublish website:

www.iPublish.com

For readers who cannot access the internet, we will send you printed copies of the latest news reports. Please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the following address:

The Ice Limit News Reports

Warner Books, Rm. 9-53

1271 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

T H E I C E L I M I T

"W E B I L O G U E"

THE ICE LIMIT is copyright © 2000 by Lincoln Child and Splendide Mendax, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this text, or any portion thereof, in any form.

Warning! What follows is an epilogue to THE ICE LIMIT, which was originally available only on Warner's iPublish site. If you have not yet finished THE ICE LIMIT, reading this epilogue will spoil the book for you! You have been warned!

Dear Reader,

We have been asked to amplify certain details relating to the ending of The Ice Limit. In response, we have reproduced the following news stories, which we culled from issues of the New York Times, U. S. News and World Report, and the Washington Post during the period July 26 through September 1 of this year. We offer our thanks to the appropriate news organizations and wire services for giving permission to reproduce the stories here. Please note that these articles are copyrighted by their respective owners; reproduction, copying, storage, or retrieval of these articles in any form is strictly prohibited.

We present these items to you without editing and without further comment.

Sincerely,

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

[New York Times - page A12, International: single-column story, below the fold]

Tanker Sinks in South Atlantic

By Christopher Ohrlanger

SOUTH GEORGIA, July 26—The British Maritime Agency representative at this small island in the South Atlantic reported today that a Liberian-registered tanker, Rolvaag, sank yesterday in a severe storm north of the Bransfield Strait, about 200 miles off the coast of Antarctica. Survivors were reportedly rescued and taken to the British Scientific Station at South Georgia, where they are currently receiving medical attention. The extent of the loss of life is not yet determined. The Rolvaag, according to the Registry, was a converted tanker owned by an American mining company, Neptune Subterranean, and had been involved in a mining operation on an island off the coast of Chile.

[New York Times - page A10, International: 2-column boxed story, below the fold, with black-and-white locational map.]

Heavy Loss of Life Reported in Tanker Sinking

By Christopher Ohrlanger

SOUTH GEORGIA, July 27—The British Maritime Agency yesterday reported the sinking of the Rolvaag in a storm off the coast of Antarctica. The Rolvaag was a Liberian registered tanker, converted to an ore carrier, involved in mining operations off the southern coast of Chile.

Out of a crew and passenger roster of 128, only 20 reportedly survived. An unconfirmed report states that among the survivors was the billionaire industrialist Palmer Lloyd, Chief Executive Officer of Lloyd Holdings. The reason for his presence on the ship is unknown at this time. A spokesman for Lloyd Holdings declined to comment on the report.

Search and rescue operations also recovered an engineer who had been stranded for three days on a small, makeshift raft of floating debris which had drifted 150 miles northward from the area of the accident. The engineer reportedly kept himself alive by building a fire and feeding it with pieces of the raft. By the time he was rescued the raft had been almost entirely consumed.

The captain of the Rolvaag, Sally Britton, and most of the crew are also believed to have perished in the disaster.

The Rolvaag had been leased from NorgeWerks of Oslo by Neptune Mining and was transporting iron ore from a mine on the Cape Horn Islands. An investigation is currently in progress.

[Washington Post - July 30, page A16, World News, under "The Americas" in "World in Brief" box]

Small Earthquakes Shake South Atlantic

SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND—The British Scientific Station at South Georgia Island has reported a series of shallow temblors with an epicenter lying 200 miles north of the Antarctic Peninsula. The small earthquakes have registered between 2.0 and 3.0 on the Richter scale. The temblors are too small and distant to be felt on land, but have been recorded at seismographic stations on South Georgia, Punta Arenas, the South Sandwich Islands, and the Falkland Islands.

[Washington Post - page A15, World News, single-column boxed story, below the fold]

Underwater Volcano Suspected in Series of Earthquakes

Unusual Readings in Antarctic Sea

By Emily Guest Washington Post Foreign Service

SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND, August 2—Geologists at the British Scientific Station here have reported that an undersea volcano is suspected to be the cause of a series of mysterious temblors in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Antarctica. The small earthquakes, some recently registering as high as 4.2 Mw on the Richter scale, have shaken the sea floor at a depth of over two miles, near what is called the "Ice Limit": the northernmost extension of pack ice surrounding Antarctica, where the South Atlantic Ocean converges with the Antarctic Sea. The seaquakes have been picked up by seismograph stations in the region. More than 250 small earthquakes have been registered, along with lower frequency vibrations which scientists believe are the result of the movement of magma deep under the earth's crust.

[U. S. News & World Report, week of August 5 - page 31, World Report: half-page article on bottom half of page with a photo of the Marylebone.]

Scientists Enthused at Prospect of New Undersea Volcano

Research Vessel Sent to Investigate

By Martin Kurtin

GRYTVIKEN, SOUTH GEORGIA—Seismologists and vulcanologists from the United States and Britain are growing increasingly excited by a new undersea volcano that may be erupting off the coast of Antarctica. A series of small earthquakes shook the region beginning last week, becoming gradually stronger and more widespread. Some of the latest quakes have registered close to 5.0 on the Richter scale, large enough to have been felt on nearby islands. The quakes are occurring in the abyssal plain of the Scotia Ridge, where the ocean is more than two miles deep.

"This is an unusual opportunity for vulcanologists to study an undersea volcano in the making," said Dr. Philip Hartley, a scientist with the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who flew to South Georgia two days ago to study the eruptions. "It is especially interesting because this is not an area previously known for vulcanism." Dr. Hartley said it was highly unlikely that the volcano would actually build enough of an undersea mount to break the surface and become a new island. The British research vessel, Marylebone, is deviating from its normal schedule and is being quickly re-equipped in order to leave for the remote site next week, taking advantage of a rare period of good weather.

The seas north of the Antarctic Peninsula are known to be the most dangerous on earth, with large storms, high winds, and immense waves that have been recorded at close to 200 feet high. The vessel will be employing a remote submersible, capable of diving the 2 miles necessary to view the volcano. The submersible, called the Nausicaa, is similar to the ones used to discover the Titanic almost twenty years ago.

"It will be a real challenge to study this eruption," said Dr. Hartley, "given the great depth, dangerous seas, and intense cold. August, of course, is wintertime down here."

[Washington Post - page A14, World News, single-column boxed story, below the fold]

Expedition Departs to Study Possible Undersea Volcano

Window of Good Weather Seized

By Emily Guest Washington Post Foreign Service

BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND, August 10—The British research vessel H.M.S. Marylebone set off today with a crew of 38, including a joint British-American team of 12 scientists, to study a mysterious undersea eruption taking place on the sea-bed about 200 miles north of the Antarctic coast. A rare period of good weather in this region known for severe storms and high seas allowed the expedition to proceed.

"We're incredibly lucky to have this weather," said Dr. Phillip Hartley, an undersea vulcanologist with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who is leading the American scientific team. "This volcano is getting very interesting, very quickly, and we're going to be able to study it under optimal conditions."

Scientists have recorded several strong earthquakes in the vicinity, some registering as high as 6.2 on the Richter scale, along with some very low frequency seismic waves that scientists have interpreted as being the movement of magma deep within the earth's crust.

"This is a big eruption," said Dr. Hartley. "Astonishing, really. We're very excited at the prospect of learning more."

Not all geologists are convinced the earthquakes mark the eruption of an underwater volcano. "If this is a volcano," said Dr. Elwyn Pandolfi of Harvard University's Department of Geophysical Sciences, "then it's the strangest volcano I've ever seen." He explained that the seismic disturbances have been too strong and too localized to be explained by an underwater eruption. And he notes that satellite photographs and aerial flyovers have not revealed any outgassing on the surface of the ocean where the volcano is believed to be erupting. A typical volcanic eruption, Dr. Pandolfi stated, would spew out millions of tons of gases such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, which under normal circumstances should be roiling the surface of the ocean.

Dr. Pandolfi did not have any alternative suggestions as to what the seismic disturbances might mean, but he hypothesized it might have something to do with plate tectonics—the spreading and malformation of the crust that is known to take place on the sea floor. "The sea floor is where the continents spread, where new crust is formed. I believe this has something to do with the forces that drive the continents—it's just too massive to be some little undersea volcano."

[New York Times - page A10, International: 2-column boxed story, above the fold, with photograph of Marylebone]

Contact Lost with Expedition to Study Undersea Volcano

By Erik Hutchins

GRYTVIKEN, SOUTH GEORGIA, August 21—Communications officers at the British Scientific Station on South Georgia Island today lost contact with the research vessel H.M.S. Marylebone, which had sailed last week to a remote part of the South Atlantic to study the eruption of a possible undersea volcano. The eruption is believed to be taking place on the abyssal plain near a deep sea landmark known as the Scotia Ridge, in water that is approximately two miles deep. Soon after contact was lost, South Georgia, the Falkland Islands, and the Cape Horn Islands were struck by two distinct series of tidal waves, fifteen minutes apart, with wave crests measuring up to seventy feet in height.

Dr. Dana Embledown, chief of the South Georgia station, doubted that there was a connection between the waves and the loss of contact with the Marylebone. "Normally," Dr. Embledown said, "a ship on the high seas is immune to the effects of a tidal wave." A tidal wave, he explained, can pass beneath a ship in the open ocean with a barely noticeable rise and fall. Tidal waves only become dangerous when they encounter shoaling water, which causes them to crest and break. "We believe the loss of radio contact is temporary," he said. "Probably a generator failure. The weather down here has been splendid—no storms, wind, or high seas. The Marylebone is one of the most advanced research vessels ever built. We have complete confidence in both ship and crew."

Dr. Embledown dismissed speculation that the undersea volcano might have damaged the ship. "There are two miles of water between the erupting volcano and the ship," he said. "There's no way the eruption could have affected the ship."

Dr. Embledown added that the two sets of tidal waves caused no damage to the scientific station at South Georgia, which has been built to weather the heavy seas and strong storms that periodically sweep that part of the South Atlantic. Minor damage was reported at Port Stephens on the south coast of West Falkland. The rest of the exposed coastal areas in the Cape Horn region are uninhabited, and no damage or loss of life was reported.

There is some contention in the scientific community at large, however, as to the fate of the H.M.S. Marylebone. Dr. Elwyn Pandolfi, director of Harvard's Department of Geology, said that a large release of gas by an underwater volcano or "some other" tectonic process could have sent a giant cascade of bubbles to the surface, possibly overturning the ship or suffocating those on board. "It troubles me that this was a spur-of-the-moment expedition, without advance planning, that headed south under the assumption they were to visit an underwater volcanic eruption. No eruption I've ever heard of generates earthquakes of this magnitude. Something else is going on here; something very big." Dr. Pandolfi refused to speculate further.

Tidal waves, scientists say, are often a byproduct of undersea earthquakes. It is believed that the quakes can trigger underwater landslides, which in turn can pull down part of the surface of the overlying ocean, triggering unnaturally large waves that spread out in all directions. Seismic stations around the world have continued to record increasingly strong earthquake activity in the area, with some registering up to 7.9 Mw on the Richter scale—almost as severe as the 8.25 earthquake that leveled San Francisco in 1906. These recent earthquakes have been strong enough to be felt in Punta Arenas, Chile, some 2,000 miles away.

[New York Times - page A5, International: 4-column story, top half of page]

Furor Erupts over Sinking of Rolvaag in South Atlantic

By Erik Hutchins

NEW YORK, August 23—A scientific furor erupted today when Dr. Samuel McFarlane, a planetary geologist with no academic affiliation, asserted on the Today Show that the earthquake activity in the South Atlantic is being caused by a meteorite of interstellar origin.

Dr. McFarlane claimed that he had been scientific director of a secret expedition to the Cape Horn islands to recover the world's largest meteorite for the collection of industrialist Palmer Lloyd. He maintained that the Rolvaag, which sank on July 25, was chartered by a dummy company set up by Lloyd Holdings, Inc., and that the ship carried not iron ore but a 25,000 ton meteorite that had been misappropriated from Chilean national territory. The Rolvaag, of Liberian registry, sank in a severe storm in the South Atlantic with the loss of 108 lives. The meteorite, he said, went to the bottom with the ship.

Dr. McFarlane advanced the theory that the meteorite was actually a large seed that had been drifting across interstellar space for millions, even billions of years. "This is the Panspermia Theory with a vengeance," he said in his surprise appearance on the Today Show. The Panspermia Theory refers to an idea promoted by the late Carl Sagan, in which life may have first reached earth through vast clouds of microscopic spores drifting through space. "This is a spore, a seed, only it isn't microscopic. It had been waiting for salt water to germinate. And now it's growing into God only knows what." He added that planetary geologists believe the galaxy is populated with planets and that many may have saltwater oceans. "We've already found another planet in our own Solar System with a vast saltwater ocean—Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. It shouldn't be a surprise that the seed was looking for salt water in which to germinate."

Dr. McFarlane offered as evidence for his theory a CD-ROM computer disk, which he claimed contained data collected on the meteorite before it was lost. He offered copies of the disk to any properly credentialed scientist who asked for it.

His assertions, however, were quickly disputed by scientists across the spectrum, who pointed to Dr. McFarlane's checkered career, which included a controversial stint at the New York Museum of Natural History and a period as a freelance meteorite hunter. "This theory is absurd," said Dr. Saul Blumenthal, director of the SETI project and an expert on extraterrestrial biology. "It's ridiculous. I have a copy of the so-called disk and I can assure you it is a fake, a crude fabrication. Why the press has given this asinine claim the slightest attention at all is the only mystery here that needs investigation. This is just one more chapter in Dr. McFarlane's effort to promote his crackpot theory of interstellar meteorites. There is no such thing."

The planetary geologist Hugo Breitling, a meteorite expert and adjunct professor with the California Institute of Technology, said he was "shocked" by Dr. McFarlane's "haggard" demeanor during his Today Show appearance and said he "was clearly in need of psychiatric treatment." He added: "I've known Sam McFarlane for a long time, and all I can say is, this is the culmination of a long and very sad decline."

Attempts to reach Palmer Lloyd, whom Dr. McFarlane claimed financed the expedition, were unavailing. A Lloyd Museum spokesperson, Cindi Jenkins, dismissed McFarlane's report as "an utter fabrication" and "libelous." She said that McFarlane had applied for, and been refused, a position at the new museum several months ago.

In a related story, repeated attempts to contact the research vessel H.M.S. Marylebone, which disappeared in the South Atlantic two days ago, continue to be unsuccessful. Aerial reconnaissance and satellite photography also failed to turn up any evidence of the ship, or even debris on the surface. Some maritime experts said that it would be unthinkable for a large research vessel such as the Marylebone to have remained incommunicado for such a period unless some disaster had occurred that either sank the ship or left it crippled beyond repair. Worsening weather cut short further air search and also prevented ships from entering the area, notorious for its high seas and violent storms.

[New York Times - front page: 1-column story, rightmost column]

Palmer Lloyd Asserts Ship Carried Meteorite

Says It Was a Seed from Interstellar Space

By Quentin Scott

NEW YORK, August 24—Palmer Lloyd, the controversial billionaire and director of the Lloyd Museum, emerged from seclusion to make an unexpected appearance on Larry King Live. He said he had been on the Rolvaag when it sank, and he confirmed that the ship was indeed carrying a meteorite recovered from Chilean territory. He also confirmed that Dr. Samuel McFarlane was the scientific director of the expedition. He stated that the controversial CD-ROM was genuine, and that he and Dr. McFarlane were sending copies to leading geology and biology departments across the country in hopes that the data could be studied as soon as possible.

In an interview with the Post following his appearance on Larry King Live, Lloyd told a harrowing story of the loss of the Rolvaag. Last year, he said, a scout for the Lloyd Museum had discovered the presence of the meteorite on Cape Horn Island, the southernmost Island in the Cape Horn group. The meteorite was to be the centerpiece of the new natural history museum he was building in Putnam County, along the upper Hudson River Valley. The expedition went down to Chile under the cover of a mining operation. Lloyd says he satisfied the letter of international law by acquiring mineral leases to the island in question and that the expedition broke no laws.

The meteorite was loaded on board the Rolvaag without undue difficulties, according to Lloyd, when their activities were discovered by the captain of a Chilean destroyer, the Almirante Ramirez. The destroyer chased the Rolvaag into international waters, fired on the tanker, and crippled it near the Ice Limit, the line demarcating where the Antarctic ice pack begins. The Almirante Ramirez subsequently sank in a strong storm that was battering the region. The Rolvaag, according to Lloyd, had been so badly damaged by the Chilean warship that the order was given to abandon ship. Many hands were lost launching the lifeboats in the violent seas, and the Rolvaag sank less than fifteen minutes after being abandoned, carrying its 25,000 ton cargo to the bottom. The captain of the Rolvaag, Master Sally Britton, went down with the ship. Lloyd stated that the sinking of the Rolvaag took place in precisely the place identified by seismologists as the epicenter of the recent earthquakes.

Maritime records back up Lloyd's assertions of where the Rolvaag sank, but the rest of his story could not be independently confirmed. The Chilean consulate in New York issued a strong denial that any of its naval ships had been involved in a confrontation with the Rolvaag or any other vessel. A naval expert with Jane's Defense Weekly did, however, confirm the existence of a destroyer in the Chilean fleet named the Almirante Ramirez, captained by a Comandante Emiliano Vallenar.

Lloyd also backed up Dr. McFarlane's theory that the meteorite was a giant seed that they had inadvertently planted at the bottom of the ocean. He ended his interview with a strong plea to the international community to unite and do whatever possible, as he put it, to "kill whatever it is that's growing down there, before it rips the planet apart." He said he was shutting down the Lloyd Museum and placing his entire fortune, estimated at $33 billion, at the disposal of "anyone with a good idea of how to exterminate" what he called a "very dangerous life form."

Mr. Lloyd's appearance was immediately greeted with a chorus of derision from the scientific community, which continued to assert the CD-ROM was a fake, and that Lloyd was, as one put it, "pulling a stunt that would shame even P. T. Barnum."

[New York Times - front page, 3-column banner story.]

Freakish Tidal Waves Rake South Atlantic Coast

By Sarah Twombley

BUENOS AIRES, august 26—Immense tidal waves reaching up to 200 feet high struck the coastlines of Antarctica, Tierra del Fuego, and the southern coastline of Chile at around 11:00 GMT. The waves even reached as far as the southwestern coastline of Africa. Tidal waves also raked the islands of South Georgia, South Shetland, South Orkney, and the Falkland island groups. Preliminary reports indicate heavy damage in Punta Arenas and the Falklands, with loss of life mounting into the hundreds, as well as devastating damage to the British Scientific Station on South Georgia Island. A general evacuation of low-lying coastal areas in the southern regions of South America has been ordered by Chile, Argentina, and Great Britain. The government of South Africa has issued a coastal advisory covering its west coast ports and cargo carriers using the international shipping route that rounds the Cape of Good Hope.

Scientists believe the tidal waves are connected with the intense seismic activity which gripped the Scotia Ridge area of the South Atlantic last month, but severe storms have prevented observation of the area since the research vessel, H.M.S. Marylebone, disappeared there on August 21. Seismic stations around the globe continue to record powerful earthquakes in the area, some registering as high as 9.3 Mw on the Richter scale, making them some of the highest-magnitude earthquakes recorded since the scale was invented in 1935. The earthquakes have already leveled the towns of Ushuaia and Puerto Williams and caused extensive landslides in the southern Cordillera of Chile. They have also caused severe damage in Punta Arenas, Stanley, and Rio Gallegos, and have been felt as far as Durban, South Africa.

Scientists initially believed the seaquakes were caused by an underwater volcanic eruption, but the increasing size of the quakes have made that theory less likely. "This is like nothing I've ever seen as a geologist," said Elwyn Pandolfi of Harvard University. "Some utterly new and previously unobserved geological process is taking place. I would guess it's related to plate tectonics in some way. It's certainly not a seed, as some absurd reports have suggested."

[Washington Post - page A14, World News, 4-column boxed story, above the fold]

Lloyd Announces Expedition to Destroy "Alien Plant"

Claims Future of Planet at Risk

By Tanisha HundtWashington Post Staff Writer

NEW YORK, August 27—Palmer Lloyd, who stunned the world last week with the announcement that the earthquakes and tidal waves in the South Atlantic were being caused by a germinating seed from outer space, said today that he was forming an emergency expedition to the South Atlantic to "exterminate the life form" that he says he is responsible for "planting." The expedition will be led by Dr. Samuel McFarlane, the former meteorite hunter and planetary geologist who, Lloyd claims, led the original expedition to Chile to recover the meteorite.

The announcement was, as usual, greeted with ridicule from the scientific community. "This is cynicism at a breathtaking level," said Elwyn Pandolfi of Harvard University. "It may be true that the Rolvaag sank with a great meteorite on board, but to turn that tragedy into this kind of promotional circus is unforgivable." Other scientists echoed Dr. Pandolfi's views and severely criticized the news media, particularly the Today Show, for giving the assertions any credence.

On the Today Show earlier in the week, Lloyd sent out a plea for scientists from around the world to band together in an effort to destroy "whatever it is that's growing down there." According to Lloyd spokesperson Cindi Jenkins, the response has been spectacular. "We will have our choice of the very best," she said. "The pay is excellent and while the danger is high, the stakes are higher. Our very survival as a species is threatened."

Later, cameramen photographed a slim man in a wheelchair, wearing a brown suit and dark glasses, his face, hands, and feet heavily bandaged, leaving the Lloyd Holdings headquarters on Park Avenue. The man was said to be an engineer who had survived the wreck of the Rolvaag, and who had been attempting to volunteer his services to design a weapon that would kill the "alien plant" Lloyd claims is growing in the South Atlantic. Later, in response to a press conference question, Lloyd stated he had rejected the man's offer of help. He refused to make the man's name available to the press, but stated that he had been the chief engineer on the original expedition to Chile, and had been on board the Rolvaag when it went down. Later, the Post was able to confirm the man's identity as Eli Glinn, president of an obscure New York City firm known as Effective Engineering Solutions. The Post was unable to obtain a telephone number or an address for the firm.According to Lloyd, if all goes as planned, the heavily armed expedition will leave New York Harbor on September 15, bound for the Ice Limit.