Godzilla at World's End

PROLOGUE

Wednesday, January 29, 1992, 2:55 A.M.
75°15' south latitude, 113°10' east longitude
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica

Dead eyes stared at her.

The girl jumped back, away from the broken body sprawled on the bottom of the pit in the ancient ice. She blinked twice, then her green eyes widened in astonishment. Under the thick wool scarf, her mouth - smeared with petroleum jelly to prevent dryness in the harsh, arid climate - opened in an oval of surprise.

Her first thought was This is not possible.

But she knew it was. Her eyes told her so. Though only fifteen, Zoe Kemmering had already seen enough of the world to trust her five senses more than her emotions. And she'd also seen enough of death in her young life to recognize the signs of its presence.

Zoe stared down at the man whose violent end left her completely alone in the middle of the frozen Antarctic waste. His blank eyes stared back at her, already frozen in the dry, sub-zero temperatures. Gone from them were the dreams of discovery that brought the man here. His once sensitive eyes were nothing more than icy white orbs.

The only thing she recognized about the broken corpse was the half-smile fixed on the bristly, bearded face. Zoe remembered that smile well, for she'd seen it every day of her life. Sometimes the dead man's enemies referred to that expression as a smirk, but Zoe knew that this kind and brilliant man had been incapable of smirking at anyone. That half-smile had sprung from the man's belief that life was a mystery that could never be solved.

In her whole life, Zoe had seen that smile disappear only once. The day her mother died. Zoe Kemmering blinked back tears, realizing only then that she was an orphan.

Fighting back the grief that threatened to overwhelm her, she bent over her father's corpse. Reaching out with her gloved hand, Zoe gently closed his eyes. As she did, her foot brushed against the shattered remains of the dogsled her father had ridden to his death at the bottom of this pit. The battered corpses of the dog team lay scattered among the shattered pieces of the sled and most of their supplies. Among the wreckage was a smashed satellite radio - Zoe's only link to the outside world.

After the accident that had claimed her father's life, it had taken the girl three hours to climb down into this crevasse. The pit had opened as if by magic or malevolent force, for it had not even existed mere moments before it swallowed her father's dogsled. The fracture in the ice had actually seemed to open up directly in front of them, as if intent on gulping both father and daughter.

It was only the skill and control of Zoe's lead sled dog that had saved her from the same fate that befell her father. Her dog team had swerved at the last moment, barely avoiding certain death.

Her father was not so lucky. But then, be never was, Zoe recalled bitterly. Her father had given up so much to prove his scientific theories.

And now, so close to the final revelation, he's dead. "Why?" Zoe moaned bitterly.

Her only answer was the howl of polar winds.

Casting aside her emotions, Zoe scanned her surroundings. The icy walls of the crevasse surrounded and towered over her. They seemed to press in on her, and Zoe realized that the rift in the ancient ice could close just as suddenly as it had opened.

It was a mistake to climb down here, she realized. I knew my father was dead. My coming down here only endangered the quest. Now I have to get out - fast ...

For a moment, Zoe began to tremble. Then she recalled her father's words, repeated often in the weeks and months after her mother's death: "Think like a scientist, Zoe, not like a frightened little girl." She always tried to obey him, but sometimes it was so hard.

Especially now ...

With an effort of will, the girl forgot her fears and her past and focused on the problem at hand.

The seismic activity that had caused the crevasse to open up was extremely odd for this part of the Antarctic - a phenomenon so violent it had probably been noticed at relatively nearby bases like McMurdo and Scott. The seismic activity was very unusual, but it certainly verified one key aspect of her father's theory. And if the rest of her father's theory was correct, Zoe was close to her dead father's intended destination. Very close.

Maybe less than a kilometer.

Zoe knew she had a decision to make, a decision regarding her very survival. No one knew she and her father were here - no one who could help, anyway. Her uncle Jack had the bulk of her father's scientific journals and knew the route they'd planned to take. But Uncle Jack had sworn an oath to her father that he would not tell anyone where they were going - and there was no way that Jack could mount an expedition to the Antarctic to save them if they got into trouble, anyway.

Zoe could abandon the quest and try to make it to a research station or settlement on the Antarctic coast of the Ross Sea. Though she was pretty sure she was still in the part of Antarctica claimed by Australia, the U.S. base at McMurdo or New Zealand's Scott base were only a few days' travel from her present position.

But finding either base was nearly impossible, given her lack of supplies and navigational instruments, or even satellite communications to signal for help.

The other option was to go forward into the unknown.

No, Zoe suddenly corrected herself. Not the unknown. I know exactly what I will find there. All the evidence points to the fact that my father's theories are correct!

Which meant that, in mere hours, an undiscovered and long-sought-after polar passage would open for the first time in eons. For a few days, humans would be able to enter the underground world hidden in the very center of the Earth.

For the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, humans would be able to return to their one true home in the universe. A place that might have been the very cradle of humanity. A world known by many names. The ancient Greeks called it Hades, the land ruled by the god of the same name. Medieval alchemist Giacomo Casanova called it Icosameron, and dubbed it a veritable paradise. In 1692, astronomer Edmund Halley postulated that the Earth was hollow and filled with concentric spheres. In 1820, John Cleves Symmes, an American researcher, named the world at the center of the Earth Symmeszonia. Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs explored it in fiction. Burroughs called his prehistoric land Pellucidar.

Many theories. Many names. But only one true name.

The Garden of Eden.

Zoe's thoughts were interrupted by a curious sound. On the cliffs high above her, she could hear her sled dogs whimpering anxiously. She looked up, scanning the edge of the ice cliffs. But from her vantage point, Zoe could not see the animals.

Then she peered into the sky. It almost never got dark in Antarctica at this time of year, a time of almost perpetual sunlight. But it was getting dark now.

A storm was brewing. A big one.

In the middle of the Antarctic's spring season. That was almost unheard of, and further proof that her father's theories were correct. Something strange was indeed happening in this part of the Antarctic continent.

The polar gate was opening.

Zoe knew she had to hurry. She again turned her attention to the dead man at her feet. Zoe bent low, reaching into her father's parka. Her hand fumbled inside his coat until it gripped the plastic-coated map he always carried with him. She found it, as well as the crumpled pages that made up the final volume of her father's scientific journals.

Slowly, almost reverently, she drew out the precious documents. Now Zoe had everything she needed to finish the quest. She told herself that she didn't need the satellite equipment, because there was no turning back now. Without a second glance at the corpse of Dr. Alexander Kemmering, Zoe rose and began searching through the shattered wreckage of the dogsled for any supplies she might be able to salvage. She quickly gathered what she could and wrapped it in a blanket.

For a moment she thought about bringing along the corpse of one of her father's dogs for food, but decided against it.

If Zoe didn't find the polar entrance to the Garden in the next few hours, her life would be meaningless. Food wouldn't matter.

But Zoe believed that she would find the entrance to the Garden. In a few hours, she would cross through the frozen gate that led to a paradise undreamed of by mankind. Zoe would survive, and she'd prove to a doubting world that her father's theories were correct.

Or perhaps she would dwell alone in Eden forever. Zoe could enjoy a peace she had never found in her short life. She could be happy while the rest of mankind lived in the violent, destructive, and dangerous world they created for themselves.

It would be a fitting revenge for the ridicule the public heaped on her parents for their unorthodox beliefs. And the punishment would be all the more ironic because the world would be ignorant of its exile from Paradise.

Only she would know. Zoe smiled.

The notion pleased her.

All doubts banished from her mind, she was ready to proceed. The bag of salvaged supplies was not heavy. All she had to do was tie it to her body and begin the arduous task of climbing out of the crevasse.

But at that moment the dogs, which had been quiet after their initial burst of anxious whimpering, began to bark frantically. The barking grew more frenzied, then turned into frightful howls in a matter of seconds.

Zoe stood stock-still, listening to the dogs' desperate yowls.

What could be frightening them? she wondered.

Suddenly, Zoe heard a crash. Then a dog yelped in pain as another began to growl. Soon all the dogs began to snarl and growl. Dusty ice began to rain down from the edge of the crevasse, as if some struggle were taking place far above.

Finally, Zoe heard another sound, an unearthly, high-pitched bleating filled the air. The noise was so loud that it nearly stopped her heart. The eerie wail increased in intensity until it was deafening, drowning out even the death howls of the terrified dogs.

Zoe dropped the bag of supplies and clutched her ears with both gloved hands. She doubled over and shut her green eyes as more ice particles rained down on her.

Curled in a tight ball at the bottom of the crevasse, Zoe waited for the struggle to end. Still, the mysterious wail continued on for many minutes. Then it simply ceased.

Cautiously, Zoe opened her eyes and took the gloves from her ears.

Silence. Except that Zoe's eardrums were still ringing from the noise. She rose to her feet. Her parka was covered with ice particles, and she brushed them away, shaking her head in a futile attempt to clear her ears. But just as her breathing returned to normal Zoe detected sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. A shadow fell over her.

Zoe looked up, then opened her mouth and screamed.

A gaping green maw filled with thorny woodlike teeth yawned within an arm's length of her face. The thing wavered on the end of a thick, snakelike green trunk covered with rough bark and sharp thorns. The sound of Zoe's wail caught the thing's attention, and the appendage reared backward, its gaping mouth snapping shut.

Zoe jumped backward, too, until she was pressing against the icy wall of the crevasse. The pod, which was mostly mouth, seemed to slaver with a greenish sap. Another shadow crossed her, and Zoe lifted her eyes to the edge of the pit. Three more pods were bobbing on the ends of other thick vines, far above her.

Zoe's eyes quickly returned to the pod down in the pit with her. It seemed frozen, as if wary. With her eyes, Zoe followed the vine up the side of the crevasse, where it disappeared from sight.

For what seemed like an eternity, Zoe remained absolutely still. The thing obviously had no eyes. Zoe reasoned that the sound she made must have attracted its attention. She was determined not to make another, and to outwait the thing, no matter how long it took.

Twenty minutes later, as Zoe tried to suppress the shivers of cold that ran through her body, the ground began to shake. With the first hint of seismic activity, the thing in the pit snapped its mouth shut and pulled itself out of the crevasse.

Zoe moved away from the walls as large chunks of ice began to rain down around her once more. The ice beneath her feet seemed to turn to jelly. Helpless in the grip of the quake, Zoe again rolled into a defensive ball. The bottom of the crevasse, solid mere seconds ago, began to liquefy.

Suddenly, Zoe was sinking. She reached out instinctively, vainly clutching for the nearest solid object. Her fingers closed on cold, dead flesh. Clutching her father's battered body to her breast as the ground swallowed her brought the teenager some degree of comfort.

Finally, Zoe Kemmering and the corpse of her father both vanished beneath the quaking ground and were sucked into the very center of the Earth ...

1
TEEN BEAT

Saturday, November 11, 2000, 7:59 P.M.
Independent News Network, Studio B
World Trade Center Tower
New York, New York

"One minute!"

The electronic voice from the glass booth sounded hollow in the huge television sound stage. Robin Halliday knew it was the voice of the director, now in position for the live broadcast.

Robin blinked and stared intensely into the camera lens as the technicians and camera crew worked out the mechanics of the live show's opening shot.

"Camera one, go to a medium shot," the electronically transmitted voice of the director commanded. Robin shifted her eyes to a monitor near the floor. The picture on the screen changed from a close-up of Robin's face to a medium, full-body shot of her sitting in the host's chair - the Teen Beat logo now clearly visible behind her.

The makeup artist used the change of camera angles as an opportunity to touch up Robin's face. She dabbed some violet wet-look lipstick on the teenager's pouty lips while the hairdresser combed and separated the unruly bangs that brushed Robin's forehead.

"Robin," the director said from the booth, with a touch of sarcasm that was audible despite the electronic distortion. "Can we have a little modesty, please? This is supposed to be a family show."

Robin pursed her lips and rolled her eyes as she grabbed the material of her dress, pulling the provocative slit in her retro-1980s ankle-length Betsey Johnson skirt closed to cover her shapely legs. Robin then adjusted her tailored jacket - also a Betsey Johnson - while trying not to jar the microphone hidden inside her clothes.

When the makeup woman vanished, and the hairdresser stepped out of camera range, Robin checked herself on the monitor one last time.

She was fashion-conscious enough to wear retro-1980s styles on the show. Her hairstyle, too, remained true to the trends of the twenty-first century. Her once-auburn locks were now colored a deep, rich, inky black - mimicking the look made famous by MTV's "Prophetess of Doom."

Dark hair had become de rigueur among fashionable young women of the 2000s - blondes were definitely out. Fortunately, Robin's naturally pale skin and emerald eyes contrasted nicely with the ebony hair. The result, especially on camera, was striking.

Which was just the way Robin wanted it.

Still clutching the hem of her full-length skirt, Robin composed herself and scanned the notes she held in her hand. The list was short and simple - it contained only the names of her guests and the locations of some of the remote feeds she would have on today's show.

Robin never used a TelePrompTer. She'd never needed one. She always had something to say - to her guests, to her producers, even to the director on occasion. In fact, Robin was the only writer on Teen Beat these days, and she was the one who selected the guests as well.

It was Robin's show now, even though she had almost nothing to do with its creation, its corny name, the stodgy news network that broadcast it, or any of the other negative baggage that went with it.

Against all odds, Robin had returned from her first big assignment - chasing the monster Varan in Mexico - to make Teen Beat one of INN's top-rated broadcasts. Before Robin, Teen Beat was a bust. But from the moment she was hired to replace Maria Kenni-Fuego - the show's original host - and began doing things her way, Teen Beat really took off. Two weeks ago, it was the number-one program in its time slot. Last week, it slipped a little, but it was still a solid second. Robin knew she'd just have to work a little harder. One of her new chores was a special Sunday edition of the show, to air tomorrow.

Thankfully, much of that show was already in the can. The rest wouldn't be any more tiring than doing a regular episode.

But Robin knew she couldn't rest on her laurels. She had to keep the show - and herself - in the public eye. Things were tough out there. And getting tougher all the time.

So far the producers hadn't screamed about Robin's changes - much! They saw how the ratings had climbed and let Robin have her way most of the time. As far as they were concerned, Teen Beat was a rousing success. And that was right in line with Robin Halliday's plan.

She saw the show only as a minor stepping stone to even bigger and better things.

Suddenly, the television host's musings were interrupted by the first notes of this week's theme. Robin varied the songs that began the show, choosing from a range of current contemporary hits. She liked to surprise her audience every way she could. It kept the show fresh and new.

Robin watched as the credits appeared on the monitor.

"Ten seconds," the floor director announced.

Robin cleared her throat and gazed into the camera.

"Five ... four ... three ..."

At the "two" count, Robin opened her hand and released the section of her skirt she'd been clutching. The long slit in the side fell open again, revealing most of her shapely legs to her adoring public. Robin's smile brightened. She could imagine the director pulling out his hair inside the control booth.

Deal with it! she mentally told him. I've got to get more young men watching the show. She'd seen the demographics on her audience and noticed that ESPN's football show was still holding its own with men eighteen to twenty-five.

Well, we'll just see about that!

Robin smiled provocatively as the camera light went on, signaling that she was on the air.

"Hi, and welcome to Teen Beat," Robin said cheerfully. "I'm Robin Halliday, and you were just listening to the electrifying hit single from the hot new group Such a Pretty Bird ... We'll be talking with the members of this Irish musical phenomenon a little later.

"We'll also talk with Crockett and Tubbs, that new bubble-pop ratpack band from Miami, and we'll get a report from our own Fellow Traveler, INN's Backpack Adventurer Craig Weedie. This week, Craig's on the shores of the Caspian Sea, searching for the whereabouts of a recently reported sea monster ..."

Robin's voice, which had taken on a sinister, ominous tone, suddenly brightened again.

"Hey, I ought to know all about sea monsters!" she quipped.

Robin stole a breath and glanced at her notes.

"I want to remind everyone that tomorrow is a special day for Teen Beat - I'll be hosting the first in a series of Sunday editions ... Tomorrow, we'll take a tour of the many Rebuild America projects under way around the country in an effort to restore our nation after the Disaster.

"And tomorrow we'll also be getting a report from correspondent Kim Lo about the recent rash of Godzilla sightings in the Sea of Okhotsk."

Suddenly, the director switched cameras, and Robin quickly shifted in her seat. She checked herself on the second monitor. Looking good, Robin crowed to herself as she gazed into the lens of camera two.

"You don't want to miss that!" she cooed.

"When we get back from our break, we'll be meeting some of the winners of INN's Young Scientist competition ... You won't believe what some of these kids have accomplished.

"So don't go away ..."

The camera moved past Robin's shoulder and panned slowly in on the garish colors of the Teen Beat logo. Robin kept intimate eye contact with the lens as long as she could. The effect on her audience was calculated.

Guaranteed, she hoped, to bring the public back for more.

"Okay," Robin called to the director as the commercials began to roll. "Are all the remotes ready to go? I want to jump to each one as quickly as possible."

"Affirmative," the director replied. Robin nodded, confident that if the technicians kept things running smoothly, she could handle the next segment easily and quickly. Robin was well aware that most of her teenage audience wasn't interested in geeky science nerds, nor did they care about Rebuild America or about Godzilla - but Robin wanted a number of hard news stories on her shows each week. Along with the Sunday special tomorrow. That should raise a few eyebrows in the News Division, Robin thought.

And a good thing, too, Robin reminded herself. After all, I can't trade on my looks or my youth forever. I'm almost eighteen. Soon I'll be too old to host a teen show, and it will be time to move on to serious journalism.

Robin wanted to have her video resume ready. Tomorrow's episode was an important part of that resume.

"Two minutes," the floor director announced. Robin gazed into the camera and composed herself. She stole another look at the monitor.

Perfect ...

***

Thousands of miles away, on the opposite end of the American continent, a single camera was focused on a young man who felt a lot less comfortable about being on live television than Robin Halliday did. As a technician shoved a light meter in his face, the youth began shifting self-consciously in his oversized parka and boots.

Off-camera, among a knot of onlookers, an older youth snickered at the boy's discomfort. A woman in a long white coat poked the older teen hard, and he stopped laughing.

"Don't move, son," the director insisted. "You'll be on the air in less than a minute."

Peter Blackwater's pulse quickened with anxiety, but he still managed to stare daggers at his older brother Matthew's smirking face.

When puzzling noises suddenly came from Peter's earphones, the sound man nodded to him.

"Everything working?" the technician asked. Peter nodded, though he was confused by what he was hearing. Then he realized it was the end of a car commercial he'd seen a hundred times before, on the channel out of Nome, Alaska.

Finally Peter heard the familiar voice of Teen Beat's host, Robin Halliday.

Panic welled up inside of Peter as the director raised his hand, his fingers counting down the seconds. Then the voice in Peter's ear introduced him to a nationwide audience.

"Our first guest is Peter Blackwater," Robin announced. "Peter is a Native American member of the Inuit people, a tribe of Eskimos who originally lived on the Bering Sea. Peter still lives in Alaska, where he made an astounding breakthrough in botany and agricultural production ...

"Peter, can you hear me?"

The director's hand dropped, and Peter Blackwater was on live television. He felt his knees get weak.

"Uh ... Yeah, I can hear you ... uh, Ms. Halliday," Peter stammered.

"Oh, Peter," she replied smoothly. "Call me Robin! Now, can you tell us about your discovery?"

Robin's voice seemed to purr in his ear. It was all Peter could do to stop blushing. At fourteen, he wasn't used to girls talking to him. And none of them were as glamorous as Robin Halliday.

Peter swallowed hard and tried to reply.

"Well, it's not really a discovery ... really," he stammered on. "It's a hybrid ... a plant I grew. A new type of wheat, actually ..."

"Really?" Robin interjected, hoping to calm the nervous youth. "What is a hybrid?"

Peter swallowed again, brushing his long straight black hair away from his dark eyes.

"I, uh, combined wheat with another plant - a weed was best, they're hardy. Anyway, the result was a strain of high-protein wheat that can grow in harsher climates ... with a much shorter growing season."

"Is that a sample of the wheat behind you?" Robin asked.

Peter quickly nodded, stepping out of camera range. The second unit director groaned, but the cameraman managed to keep his lens focused on the boy's face.

"I grew the first batch of wheat in this patch of dirt right here," Peter replied, pointing proudly to tall stalks of wheat that literally towered over him. "This is a new crop, of course ..."

"So you can grow this wheat in Alaska!" Robin exclaimed.

Peter nodded. "Yeah," he answered. "You can grow it almost anywhere, I think - as long as there is enough water. This crop is only five weeks old, and it's already full grown and ready for harvest."

"That's incredible, Peter," Robin gushed sincerely. Peter blushed with pride, even though he heard his older brother snicker again.

"Thanks," Peter replied.

"Is it true that the Archer Daniels Midland Company has asked you to come work for them?" Robin probed.

Peter blinked in obvious surprise. He didn't think anyone but his parents knew about that.

"I ... ah, I'm too young to go to work," Peter replied when he regained his composure.

Robin quickly closed the segment with a final question.

"Well, Peter Blackwater, you've certainly earned that berth on the Destiny Explorer's Antarctic expedition next month," she exclaimed. "Are you excited about your trip?"

The youth nodded. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I'm going to try growing my wheat in Antarctica ... If it can grow there, it can grow anywhere."

"Well, your hybrid is incredible, and it should do much to solve the current food problems we're having in the United States and all over the world," Robin stated. "Good luck on your voyage."

"Thanks," Peter mumbled, but his microphone was already turned off. Then the earphones went silent, just as Robin was introducing the next Young Scientist competition winner.

***

"Next we'll jump from Alaska to a garage in Oxnard, California," Robin Halliday informed her viewers.

"We're going to pay a visit to Leena Sims, a fifteen-year-old inventor of a brand-new, superfast microchip."

The small round face of an intense, dark-haired young beauty with striking gray eyes filled the screen. The teenager calmly gazed into the lens. All around her were banks of computers and color monitors.

"Hello, Robin," Leena Sims said guardedly. She blinked uncertainly into the camera. Though it might have appeared to viewers that this young woman was nervous, nothing could be further from the truth.

To Leena, public appearances were nothing special, though she didn't particularly enjoy going on television, because the cameras seemed to invade her life - as they did now, by taping in her garage laboratory. But facing the public was easy for a teenager who'd coolly and professionally presented an oral pitch for her new microchip process - patent pending - to the boards of Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Intel.

"I'm no genius at understanding how computers work," Robin confessed. "But I'm told that you have accomplished something in that garage lab of yours that no one else has been able to do anywhere else.

"Is that correct?"

Leena nodded and reached down to touch a control on her desk. A color monitor at the girl's side sprang to life. A technical schematic filled the screen.

"About seven years ago, researchers found a way to bond copper wire to microchips," Leena explained, pointing to the monitor.

"Before that, aluminum wire had to be used, which was much less efficient. Bonding copper wire made the microchips much faster and more powerful, as you know."

The teenager leaned forward and touched the control again. The schematic on the monitor changed, illustrating her new process.

"What I've done is found a relatively easy and inexpensive way to bond two or more chips together with a thin layer of copper. Kind of like a copper sandwich."

"And what does this accomplish?" Robin Halliday asked from her New York studio. Leena smiled.

"This process can make microchips a hundred times more powerful and faster than ever before. With microchips like that, a personal computer could be designed to fit into your pocket!"

Leena's eyes were bright with enthusiasm, but suddenly she frowned. "If it's done right," she added.

"Still having some difficulties?" Robin asked with genuine sympathy in her voice.

Leena nodded. "There are a few bugs to be worked out in the production stage ... but I'm working on it," she added quickly with a guarded smile.

"Is it true that your father was a computer genius, too?" Robin asked pertly.

Leena's face clouded. "Yes," she muttered. "He ... he taught me a lot ..."

"I understand that he passed away recently," Robin probed.

Leena nodded, her pretty face etched with sadness. "Yes," she whispered softly.

"Well, I'm sure he would have been proud of you!" Robin chirped. "Congratulations on earning a berth aboard the Destiny Explorer with your fellow winners ... and best of luck in perfecting your invention."

Leena was smiling uncertainly as her picture faded from the screen.

***

"From sunny California we'll jump to tropical Florida," Robin announced, smiling into camera one. "That's where we'll talk to our next winner."

Ned Landson felt an annoying itch under his brightly colored wetsuit. But just as he was about to scratch it, the director cued him that he was about to go on television ... live.

Ned tried to reach the itch, but the director stopped him with a gesture. I wished I'd worn my old, familiar black wetsuit, he thought. But unfortunately, Ned had to wear the wetsuit that itched him so. It was part of the product endorsement deal he'd signed last week. Winning the contest had made Ned Landson famous. He intended to cash in on that fame, for as long as it lasted.

With his beach-boy good looks, Ned had easily clinched a lucrative deal with a deep-sea sporting goods company - a deal that included television commercials, print ads, even billboards. Ned smiled at the thought.

"Get ready," the director commanded.

Ned looked into the lens and waited. The youth stood on a wooden dock in the Florida Keys, his sandy hair blowing in the tropical breeze. His teeth were shiny white against his deep tan.

With the trendy wetsuit, the tan, the handsome, sun-bronzed features, and the even teeth, the look was perfect. Ned Landson was almost a cliche. His smile widened when he heard Robin Halliday's voice over his earphones.

"Welcome to Teen Beat, Ned Landson," she greeted him.

"Thanks," Ned replied, his left hand inching toward the persistent itch in his rubber suit.

"I'm told that you actually discovered a group of previously unknown ocean species in the Florida Keys. Is that correct?"

Ned Landson nodded.

"Actually, Robin, I discovered a whole range of animals, from a new species of tiny fish to several microscopic marine plankton, which oceanographers had previously overlooked."

"Wow!" Robin marveled. "How did other scientists miss discovering them before you came along?"

"Well," Ned replied, his left hand finally scratching the offending itch, "the species of fish I discovered was almost identical to a previously recorded species - but only on the outside. Inside, the species are very different."

Robin nodded. "And where did you find these fish?"

"In an area of the ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle," Ned answered blandly.

"You mean that spooky place where airplanes and ships supposedly vanish?" Robin replied.

Ned chuckled in reply.

"That's the place," he said. "But those stories about airplanes vanishing and stuff are just nonsense. My dad used to work on deep salvage operations, and now he's a deep-sea fisherman. We've both been into the Triangle hundreds of times. There's nothing there but swarms of sea life, blue skies, and waves of green.

"And it's all perfectly normal sea life," Ned added hastily.

"So you say!" Robin quipped. "And what are your plans for the Antarctic, aboard the Destiny Explorer?"

Ned thought about it for a moment. "I guess I'll get to study some of the Antarctic life firsthand ... But I doubt scientists have left very much undiscovered down there!"

Robin laughed, obviously charmed by her guest. "Thank you, Ned, and good luck. Now let's turn our attention to someone you may have read about in the newspapers.

"Michael Sullivan is a computer hacker from Queens, New York," Robin continued. "You might remember him from the news several months ago ... Michael was the young man who single-handedly exposed a band of cyber-hackers who were ripping off people on-line.

"Can you tell us about it, Michael?"

***

In Woodside, Queens, a remote cameraman and a director were crammed into a tiny run-down apartment in a seedy brownstone near the elevated Number Seven line subway station.

A young man with a shock of bright apple-red hair was sitting in an electronic wheelchair. The youth turned and faced the camera with a smile. His hair and freckles seemed to glow red on the television screen.

Michael Sullivan took a deep breath and sat back in his wheelchair. As he began to speak, the sound technician prayed that no trains would roll by outside the second-floor window.

"I've been a hacker since I was a little kid," Michael answered carefully. "But a little while back, I ordered a lot of stuff off the Internet for my mother. We got the stuff all right, but our credit card was billed twice for the electronic transaction."

Back in Studio B, Robin nodded, hoping against hope that her audience was still with her and following this young man's explanation.

"It took a couple of months for the on-line store to credit us for the double billing," Michael continued. "When a customer service representative told my mom that she didn't know how it happened, I decided to hack into the files and look into the double billing myself."

"Wow," Robin gasped, trying to sound enthusiastic. "What did you discover?"

"I found out that double billing was happening all over the Net, with a whole bunch of different mail order companies. It was obvious to me then that pirates were electronically pulling the second transaction into their own on-line site and downloading the credit into their own account."

"So they were stealing the money!" Robin exclaimed.

"Not technically," Michael corrected her. "After a couple of weeks, the thieves would slip back into the system, take the money out of their account, and electronically transfer it back to the credit card company they cheated."

"What did that accomplish?" Robin asked, obviously puzzled.

"They kept the money in a bank account long enough to collect a month's interest on it."

"Gee, that sounds pretty complicated," Robin continued.

"Not really," Michael replied. "They were using the Net to grab illegal loans, essentially. After a month they returned the money but kept the interest they'd accrued - and on thousands of transactions a day, that was a lot of interest. More than a million dollars a year!"

Robin laughed. "Now you knew what was going on. So, what did you do next?"

"I hacked into the pirates' system, downloaded their records, and turned them over to the New York State Attorney General," Michael replied proudly.

"And made the headlines, too," Robin interjected. Michael nodded and brushed the red hair off his forehead.

"So I guess Internet pirates should beware, as long as Michael Sullivan is there!"

"They should," Michael agreed, doing a victory circle in his wheelchair.

"Good luck on your trip to Antarctica, Michael," Robin concluded. Then she turned and looked into camera one.

"We're going to have to break for commercials now," Robin announced. "But when we get back, we'll have an intimate chat with the Irish band Such a Pretty Bird ...

"And don't forget that tomorrow we have a special Sunday edition of Teen Beat, where we take an uncompromising look at the ups and downs of the faltering Rebuild America program."

Robin smiled. It was an expression calculated to tantalize her viewers - a smile that seemed to hold both a secret and a promise.

"You won't want to miss that," she concluded.

2
REBUILD AMERICA

Saturday, November 11, 2000, 8:17 P.M.
Independent News Network executive offices
92nd floor, World Trade Center Tower
New York, New York

As the prerecorded rough cut of the Sunday show ended, the elderly, balding man in an impeccably tailored Brooks Brothers suit leaned forward in his leather executive's chair and switched off the monitor. As soon as the screen went blank, a device silently lowered the monitor into its resting place within an elegant, highly polished walnut desk.

During the screening, the illumination in the office had been dimmed so low that the twinkling lights from the Manhattan skyline were clearly visible through the windows. Now the room grew steadily brighter. Out of the dark shadows in the corner of the room there appeared the silhouette of a second man.

With a sigh, Mycroft E. Endicott - the principal owner, CEO, and president of the Independent News Network - faced his young guest. The other man, seated in a soft leather chair, was also impeccably dressed. But unlike the older executive's placid, almost bored expression, this man's look was of indignation mingled with undisguised horror.

"You simply must see the administration's point of view in this matter, Mr. Endicott," the younger man said insistently. "You ... you can't air that show tomorrow. It would have a negative impact on your viewers. It would warp their perceptions of what the government is trying to accomplish."

As he spoke, the man held out his right hand, his thumb clenched by his fingers. His eyes were wide, as if he were trying hard to project honesty and sincerity.

"Can't you see that this program is dangerous and could have a demoralizing effect on the American people in this time of national emergency?" the younger man continued, using his clenched hand to punctuate his words.

"The truth has always been dangerous, son," the older man replied evenly.

"The truth! You call that the truth? It's quite clear to me, Mr. Endicott," the young man continued excitedly. "That show is a pack of lies and ill-conceived innuendo. Why, there are so many inaccuracies that I lost count ... which makes me wonder whether this special Sunday edition of Teen Beat is really up to the journalistic standards formerly adhered to by your Independent News Network."

The younger man paused, challenging the older man with his stare. But Mycroft E. Endicott remained silent.

"Do you really believe that this show you plan to air tomorrow is fair and balanced?" the younger man prompted. "Let me point out that your anchor for that program is quite young and -"

As the government man continued to speak, Mycroft E. Endicott observed his guest, who was "quite young" himself. Endicott noted that while the young man's voice and manner were brimming with calculated sincerity, they also carried more than a trace of arrogance - a trait that was typical of the current administration's White House staff.

As well as of the administration itself, Mycroft E. Endicott realized, though he kept that particular observation to himself. Instead, he decided to calmly answer the man's charges.

"Yes," the older man replied. "Frankly, I would call tomorrow's episode of Teen Beat fair and balanced. Robin Halliday is young, but she's also one of my best broadcast journalists. I pay her a lot of money, and I have big plans for her future."

The executive sat forward in his chair, until he seemed to be leaning over his desk.

"But even if she were the lowliest copywriter in the backwaters of our meteorological division, it wouldn't matter one whit!"

Endicott's voice rose a decibel, and he spoke a little faster. As a seasoned businessman, he didn't want to tip his hand by showing his emotions. But he had taken a deep dislike to the young man sitting opposite him, and he couldn't help showing it.

"I want both you and your president to know one thing, son - all my news people are fair and balanced, and I defend their judgment one hundred percent!" Endicott concluded.

"But Ms. Halliday's segments on the Gary, Indiana, and Syracuse, New York, reconstruction projects are so negative, and so full of unsubstantiated rumor, scandalmongering, and misrepresentations, that it's almost slanderous!" the younger man challenged.

"Sorry, son," Mycroft E. Endicott replied. The communications executive was a large and imposing man, and his natural forcefulness of character seemed to fill the huge office. "You must not be a lawyer, or you would know that a news story isn't slanderous if it's true," Endicott stated. "As I see it, Ms. Halliday's report is right on the money. Her sources are rock solid, and INN's legal department has approved the report."

Endicott began to stab the air with his index finger to punctuate his point.

"The president - that's your boss - wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Not once, but twice. First by rebuilding the industrial sites in too big a hurry. Then - at the instigation of his inept, ecology-obsessed vice president - by enacting environmental control laws that made those brand-new factories inoperable ... unless, of course, billions more tax dollars are wasted on further renovations ..."

Mycroft E. Endicott sighed again and sat back in his chair.

"What the administration has done is madness," Endicott said in a softer voice, but with no less emotion. "And I'm damned proud that one of my reporters had the guts to actually tell the American people the truth!"

Despite having his say, Mycroft E. Endicott was still gripped by anger, though he did his best to maintain control in front of this government man. The emotion he felt was a natural one, considering the events of the past months. And his feelings were shared by millions of Americans.

Nearly a year after the passing of Godzilla through the very heartland of America, basic services in the areas affected by the monster's rampage were still not restored. Factories and businesses from California to Indiana to New York City had not yet restarted. They lacked electricity, water, telephone communications, and reliable distribution of raw materials, manufactured goods, and vital services.

Worse still, the destruction wrought by Godzilla acted like a cancer. It was spreading. Now many parts of the country that had in no way been directly affected by Godzilla, King Ghidorah, or Rodan were currently suffering from power and communications failures as well.

Even more shocking than that, the United States had been forced to import basic foodstuffs for the first time in its history. The rich farmlands of the Midwest had not yet recovered from the ravages of Kamacuras. The farming problem also seemed to be spreading, and the more the government tried to help, the more vital crops failed and the more farmers lost their land and their livelihoods.

In the last few years of his second term, the sitting president had used his power to coerce Americans into adopting stringent new rules and regulations that affected nearly all aspects of their everyday lives. Gasoline and electricity were rationed. Imports were restricted. Food might be rationed next. Fuel and food prices were so high now that most people couldn't afford even the basics anymore.

Oil prices were rising, too, as tension that had been building in the Middle East for decades finally exploded. Iran and Iraq were at war with each other again. Egypt and Libya had been sucked into the combat, too. The Iraqis were using their minuscule navy to blockade Persian Gulf oil ports.

Oil exports from that region were effectively stopped, and a worldwide economic recession soon followed. The U.S. stock market was in downward spiral, with the Dow Jones industrial average bottoming out last week below 4,000.

The U.S. president, instead of dealing with the international economic threat, had announced a series of big-government domestic social programs. It was to be the capstone of the president's undistinguished administration - his "visionary" Rebuild America program.

The president promised that he would end America's dependence on imported oil, even as his vice president promised that - to ensure environmental safety and deter global warming - no new nuclear power plants would be constructed in America.

But you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Without oil imports or nuclear power to fill America's energy needs, nothing in the private sector was working. And government wasn't doing much better, despite all the power it grabbed for itself.

It would be a cold winter in the United States, with heating oil stores depleted and no more being imported.

The administration followed its misguided social programs with massive tax hikes to pay for them. The president promised to use the money for the "common good." Instead, billions and billions of dollars were being squandered because of bureaucratic boondoggles, union corruption, and the criminal negligence of petty "public servants" at every level of government.

Congress was no better. The individual representatives were scrambling to grab as many tax dollars as possible for their own regions - whether their states were affected by Godzilla's passing or not.

Almost nothing that was destroyed by the monsters had been rebuilt - save for an Oakland, California, reconstruction project that was one of the first begun and the most thoroughly supervised. Now America was almost broke, unemployment was higher than twenty percent, and social safety nets were stretched to the breaking point.

The slogan Let's all pitch in and Rebuild America! - the product of a Madison Avenue advertising agency - rang more and more hollow every day. Americans were indeed pitching in, but nothing was being accomplished. Morale in the nation was worse than it had been during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and there seemed to be no way out of the economic or social doldrums for the foreseeable future.

The military, which was supposed to be prepared for war, was mobilized domestically to deal with the continuing crisis. Soldiers ran subways and railroads, delivered mail, and built dams and electrical towers, but they did not hone their skills in the art of war. Endicott doubted that the combined might of all the armed services in America today could deal with an actual military threat if one should materialize.

The space program was in shambles as well - and not just due to the destruction of the space station Mir and the shuttle Atlantis by King Ghidorah, either. Without adequate supervision, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had fallen apart. No shuttle had been launched in nine months, and the next scheduled launching had just been delayed for the fifth time.

The satellite system, vital for communications and weather forecasting, was quickly decaying, and few new satellites were being launched to replace those dying of old age in orbit. Mycroft E. Endicott discovered that unless he was willing to wait, he would have to pay the French government to launch his new communications satellite on an Ariane rocket. NASA was so far behind that the agency couldn't fit it into their shuttle schedule before 2015!

Worse than anything else was an announcement that had stunned the country two weeks ago. On a Friday afternoon, after the stock market had closed and most reporters had gone home for the weekend, the president signed an executive order that declared a continuing state of emergency and effectively put the nation under martial law. He even suspended the upcoming presidential election, which was to be held in November 2000, for "at least" three months.

Congress, controlled by the opposition party, began to complain and was still complaining. But the president was careful to cover his tracks with an army of constitutional lawyers - and he was the commander in chief of the military. It all seemed legal, so far.

But Americans were grumbling. Soon they might do more than grumble ...

If only the government left the private sector and the common people alone to deal with the problems, Endicott thought bitterly. People know what is best for them - government does not. Instead, the administration grabbed more power than it deserved and much more than it could handle ... And just look at the result!

Businessmen like Mycroft E. Endicott had to tread lightly these days. So far the government had left him - and the notion of freedom of speech - alone. At least they had until this little visit from a policy-wonk messenger boy for the president.

"You can certainly see the president's point of view, Mr. Endicott," the young man said, interrupting Endicott's painful musings. "The president has everyone's best interest at heart. He simply wants to assure the American people that the twenty-first century will be a time of peace and prosperity."

"I don't see much prosperity these days," Endicott retorted. "Just a lot of overtaxed people trying to get by.... And you'll have peace only so long as one of those monsters doesn't show up to make trouble again."

"Don't worry about monsters," the young man insisted. "The navy and the coast guard are keeping tabs on Godzilla's activities. Kaijuologists conjecture that Varan is probably dead, King Ghidorah has been kicked off the planet, and Rodan is nesting somewhere in the North Pole."

"That still doesn't explain the lack of prosperity," Endicott remarked, but the young man ignored him.

"So what is your answer?" the man demanded, the arrogance returning to his voice.

Mycroft E. Endicott met the young man's stare with a stare of his own - a stare that soon withered the other man's.

"My answer is this," Endicott said, sitting up straight. "The United States of America is still a free country, with a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech.

"To put it plainly, that means that the show in question airs tomorrow - as is - whether the president likes it or not."

"If that is your final decision ..." the young man said, an annoying squint accompanying his dramatic look of profound disappointment.

"It is," Endicott replied coolly.

The younger man nodded and rose from his chair. He picked up the briefcase at his feet and, without another word, walked to the door. But when his hand touched the doorknob, he paused and turned to the older man again.

"The prosperity will come," the young man stated imperiously. "The president you are so quick to criticize has just worked out a deal with South America that will double the amount of oil the country can import - and will more than make up for losses from the Middle East oil producers."

The young man nodded with self-importance before continuing. "As long as the oil flows, the Rebuild America project will go on."

The man turned the doorknob, then paused again and smiled haughtily. "And we're not going to let any monsters stop us this time, Mr. Endicott!"

Saturday, November 11, 2000, 8:37 P.M.
INN's Maxwell Hulse Memorial Hangar
Hulse Science Complex
Lakehurst, New Jersey

There was no way that Shelly Townsend could hear the private phone ring over the ear-shattering whine of the unshielded turbofan engine. The machine was mounted on a huge metal framework in one corner of the enormous hangar. Its deafening howl filled the cavernous building. Fortunately, Shelly did notice the light blinking on the telephone at her father's side. She tapped his shoulder and pointed to the device.

Her father wiped his hands on his white lab coat and cursed. Shelly couldn't hear him, either, but she could read lips well enough to understand what he said.

Simon Townsend rose from the chair, his eyes fixed on the throbbing engine. Despite the massive amount of thrust it expended, the turbofan was still bolted to its framework, not fifty feet away. The walls of the hangar shuddered from the sheer force being generated.

Finally, the man tore his eyes away from the engine and signaled his daughter, raising his right hand and flashing four fingers.

"Four more minutes," the man mouthed.

Shelly nodded, and the aeronautical engineer disappeared into the soundproof booth to answer the call of his sponsor.

The teenager glanced at the control board in front of her, then at the engine itself. So far the engine test looked good, but Shelly knew that something could go wrong at any moment.

She also knew from experience that engine number six was quirky. It had failed a number of times during in-flight testing, and it overheated for the third time yesterday, for no apparent reason.

That incident had prompted this last-minute engine test, which involved removing the engine from the airship, mounting it on the frame, and running it until it overheated again. The maintenance crew grumbled, of course, but thanks to the seemingly bottomless pit of wealth coming from the Independent News Network, everybody would get overtime pay.

Everybody but Shelly Townsend and her father.

They were working because they believed in their work, not because they wanted the money.

With less than a minute to go, the temperature gauge on Shelly's control board began to creep up. Not too much, but enough to force her to keep an eye on the flashing digital display.

With less than thirty seconds to go, the engine temperature began climbing again - at least it did according to the turbofan's internal sensors. Shelly checked the fuel readout. There was plenty of gas left in the engine. She reached out and readjusted the timer, extending the engine test another five minutes. Then she settled down to watch the temperature control.

Though she was only seventeen years old, Shelly Townsend knew the aircraft called the Destiny Explorer from stem to stern - almost as well as her father, the man who had designed and built it. Despite her lack of even a high school diploma - a situation that would be remedied in June - Shelly was as capable of carrying out this engine test as one of her father's top technicians.

And she was cheaper, too.

The techs were busy elsewhere, anyway, and Shelly was happy to help. Time was running out. With the official launch of the aircraft a week away, there were a hundred bugs to be found and eradicated. All the personnel at the huge hangar in Lakehurst were burning their candles at both ends.

Shelly noticed that the engine's temperature was increasing rapidly now. She checked a second set of heat sensors, placed in and around vital points of the engine for this test.

But all of those readouts were normal.

Her father was right. The engine was fine. The heat sensors inside it were not. They would have to be replaced - which meant that engine number six would have to be dismantled and rebuilt. Then it would have to be remounted on the Destiny Explorer.

Ten days' work ... by the book. But she was sure they could do it in five. Shelly knew that the people working on the Explorer were that good.

Well, she thought, sighing. At least it wasn't the engine itself. It would take weeks to build and test another one of those.

When the time clock hit fifteen minutes, engine number six automatically shut down. As the high-pitched whine slowly died, the noise seemed to echo through the vast structure. A few seconds later, the hangar fell completely silent. Shelly pulled off her ear protectors and shook out her hair when the door to the soundproof booth swung open.

Her father walked toward her. His helmet and ear protectors were off, and his steel-gray ponytail hung down his back.

"How did it go?" he asked, pointing at the engine.

Shelly brushed her own wheat-colored hair away from her face. "You were right, Dad," she replied. "The heat sensors inside the engine are defective, not the engine itself."

"Fine." Her father sighed. "That means only forty more hours of work for me, instead of a hundred ..."

Shelly could tell her father was agitated. But then, he usually was after a phone call from Mycroft E. Endicott.

"Trouble?" she probed gently.

Her father shook his head. "Mycroft Endicott is concerned that everything stay exactly on schedule. He heard about the engine test tonight and -"

"How did he hear about the engine test?" Shelly interrupted.

"Captain Dolan mentioned it," Simon Townsend replied. "Mycroft called him at home an hour ago and ... well, you know ..." The engineer's voice trailed off as he stared across the hangar at the massive aircraft shrouded in shadow. Even when it was invisible, the Destiny Explorer was so large he could feel its presence.

And why not, she thought. He's been living with his vision of this airship longer than any of us ...

Then Simon Townsend shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I guess the problem is that I wanted to do some good for the world. I tried to create a portable scientific-research platform that could bring all the benefits of the modern world to the most remote regions."

Shelly studied her father carefully. As he spoke, his eyes seemed to gaze into the future at something only he could see.

"Imagine bringing a fully equipped hospital and disease research laboratory to the middle of equatorial Africa in days, not months or even weeks. Imagine bringing a state-of-the-art laboratory to the scientist in the field."

Simon Townsend frowned and brushed his hands through his long hair, loosening the ponytail he'd worn since before Shelly was born. "Unfortunately, the man who paid to build my dream sees the whole project a little ... differently."

"What do you mean, Dad?" Shelly asked, knowing full well where this familiar conversation was leading.

"Mycroft Endicott doesn't care about scientific research or helping anybody. He wants to turn the maiden voyage of the Destiny Explorer into a giant publicity stunt," her father replied glumly. "He's got something to prove ... and he's got twenty million dollars and a whole lot of emotional baggage tied up in this ship."

"And you don't?" Shelly added slyly.

"Point taken, kiddo," her father replied. "I care about the Destiny Explorer and her mission. But I think that Mycroft Endicott is in this for the money, not for the good of humanity!"

"Are you so sure about him, Dad?" Shelly argued.

Her father sighed. "Mycroft E. Endicott was born rich and got richer. People that have everything think about nothing."

For a while Shelly remained silent, pondering her father's statement. But the more she thought about it, the more she believed that her father was wrong about Endicott's motives for building the Explorer.

Shelly had met Mr. Endicott only once, but her gut feelings told her that Mycroft E. Endicott was no ordinary businessman.

"Maybe you're not being fair, Dad," Shelly announced finally. "Maybe Endicott wants to do some good, too. Maybe he wants to show everyone in America that the future can still be bright, despite all the troubles in the world right now."

Shelly looked up and saw that her father was smiling down at her.

"You're so naive, kid," he quipped, smoothing his daughter's hair affectionately. "You're just like your mother," he said, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "She thought the best about everyone, too, and look what it got her."

"She found you, didn't she?" Shelly shot back with a laugh.

Her father laughed, too. "I was a loser in those days, Shelly - a crazy nut who wanted to build an airship like no one else had ever envisioned, let alone ever tried to build." Simon Townsend shook his head, remembering those times.

"Hell," he chuckled, remembering back. "Everyone thought I was nuts - everyone except maybe Jack Dolan. Only a woman as good as your mother could have loved me in those days."

"Well, look at you now, Dad," Shelly replied. "Mom wasn't wrong. Look at all you've accomplished since you left Virgin Lightships Company and went out on your own. You've created something incredible - a new wonder of the world - and it's the start of something good, too. You know it is."

Shelly paused.

"And I'll just bet that that's all Mr. Endicott wants to do," she concluded. "Create something good, I mean."

Simon Townsend was filled with pride, and his heart swelled with love for his daughter. He was suddenly sad, too, because his child so reminded him of her mother.

"I only wish that people were as good and kind as you think they are, Shelly," her father replied. "The world would certainly be a better place."

3
THE HUNT

Sunday, November 12, 2000, 11:05 A.M.
Bridge of the patrol ship Ordog
50° north latitude, 150° east longitude
Sea of Okhotsk

The sea was gray. So were the waves, the horizon, the sky, and the patrol ship itself. All was a flat slate gray.

Captain Yuri Korsov's narrow eyes scanned the murky horizon through German-made binoculars, searching for other signs of humanity in the vast expanse of water north of the Sea of Japan.

The flesh on the Russian captain's thin, skeletal face was weathered, and there were pronounced wrinkles around Korsov's eyes from hours of peering at distant ocean horizons just like this one.

There was nothing out there. No ships, military or commercial - though he didn't expect many of the latter. No sign of an airplane or helicopter, either. There was absolutely no sign of life at all.

Which was fine with Captain Yuri Korsov. He wanted this part of the world to himself for the hazardous work he had to perform on this day. If no one was around, there would be no awkward questions asked of him or his men.

Questions like, "Why was the Ordog here?" or "What was his business in this most inhospitable bit of the world?" Or, finally, "Why did the men of the Ordog need so many unorthodox and unusual weapons to hunt whales?"

These were all questions the captain of the Ordog couldn't answer ... not if he wanted to avoid an international incident. So it was best that Korsov's patrol craft steer clear of any other ships - Russian or Japanese - that happened to be cruising near the coasts of the hotly disputed Kuril Islands.

It was just simpler that way. Simpler for him, for his men, and for his employers.

The captain pulled the collar of his wool coat up around his ears. Though it was almost midday, the air was still cold and damp, and there was little heat reaching the Ordog's enclosed bridge.

In truth, Korsov did not much mind the cold. It made him suddenly nostalgic. It was more like the weather he had experienced decades before, on his tours of duty in the North Atlantic as chief political officer aboard a Soviet Typhoon-class nuclear submarine.

"Captain," First Mate Podynov announced, appearing unexpectedly at Korsov's elbow and interrupting his reminiscences.

"What is it?" Korsov demanded curtly.

"We have just activated the sonar," the man replied, ignoring his commander's glum mood. Captain Korsov lowered his binoculars and faced his second-in-command. As usual, the man was smiling. The dour Korsov did not trust men who smiled too much.

When Captain Korsov faced the first mate, he had to lower his eyes because Adrian Podynov was a short man. And a fat man, too. He was almost as wide as he was tall, in fact.

Korsov did not trust fat men, either.

Podynov, an affable Georgian, seemed not to notice his commander's distaste. Indeed, Podynov was not Korsov's choice for this post, or this mission. Unfortunately, the decision was not his to make. Years before, in the Soviet navy, Yuri Korsov had some control over the choice of men in his command.

Not anymore.

Now he had new masters - businessmen, Korsov thought with disgust - and they did not consult him before making decisions. It was a situation that bothered Captain Korsov very much, but he had to accept it.

Things were very different in Mother Russia these days.

"Anything on the sonar yet, Podynov?" the captain asked gruffly, forgetting his misgivings for a moment.

"Not yet, sir," Podynov replied, still grinning. Korsov returned to his task of scanning the horizon. He noted that the seas were getting rougher, and recalled the weather reports he'd picked up from a remote Russian military outpost on the Kuril Islands.

A better-than-even chance for a major storm ...

"The sea is getting rougher, sir," Podynov observed, as if reading his commander's mind. Korsov grunted, but said nothing.

"I'm not worried," Podynov continued to prattle. "The Ordog is a good ship. It will hold together and bring us the prize we seek."

It had better, Korsov thought, because we have more than a storm at sea to worry about on this particular day.

Suddenly, for the hundredth time, Korsov bemoaned his fate - a fate that had taken him from his post as an officer aboard a nuclear submarine to his current command - as captain of nothing more than a high-speed, high-tech fishing boat!

Then Korsov recalled the dangerous prey they hunted this day, and a trace of a smile touched his thin lips.

If we are successful, we will make history, he mused. And I will end up a very rich man ...

***

Forty minutes later, the sonar technician spotted something.

Captain Korsov grunted when Podynov delivered the news, then followed the portly man to the cramped sonar room. Korsov studied the blip on the screen for a moment. Then he took the headphones from the sonar technician and placed them over his ears.

For three minutes he strained his highly trained ears, listening to the sound made by the mysterious blip on the sonar screen. Then he pulled off the headphones and handed them back to the young man at the sonar station.

Korsov faced Podynov, a grim realization written on his thin face.

"We have company," the captain announced. "A Japanese Yuushio-class submarine ... Curious about us, no doubt."

Korsov was not happy about their visitor, but he was pleased to see the grin disappear from Podynov's chubby face.

"Do you think the Japanese suspect something?" the first mate asked fearfully.

"Of course they do," Korsov replied with a thin smile.

"Captain!" the sonar operator cried excitedly. "The Japanese submarine is leaving the area."

Korsov leaned over the man's shoulder and watched the blip slowly withdraw to the east - toward Onekotan Island. Finally, after an eternity, the submarine moved out of the range of their sonar.

Korsov grunted and stood erect. "Continue to scan the area for our prey," he commanded. "I will be in my quarters."

Without another word, Captain Korsov departed. Podynov and the young sonar technician exchanged uneasy glances.

"Do you think we will find it?" the youth asked.

"Of course," Podynov replied, smiling wanly. But the first mate's answer was no comfort.

***

On the bridge of the SS-597 Japanese Yuushio-class submarine Takashio, Captain Sendai was bent over an illuminated map table. As he plotted a course toward the Kuril Islands, Sendai wondered once again about the strange ship he had spotted earlier.

Because of his extensive training in vessel recognition, the captain of the Takashio knew that the type of ship was familiar, but try as he might, he could not place it. Sendai would have preferred to pace the ship and spy on its activities awhile, but it was not to be. He was ordered to meet a supply ship in three hours, and he had already tarried long enough in these waters. Unless he met his resupply ship soon, Sendai's diesel-electric submarine would be out of fuel.

But he could not forget the familiar outlines of the ship he'd seen earlier. And then it hit him. Crossing the bridge, the captain pulled down a volume of ship recognition patterns - specifically, the volume that included Russian patrol ships. He leafed through the pages quickly, until he discovered a match.

Captain Sendai cursed softly. It was a Russian ship ...

In fact, the vessel he had spotted was a Stenka-class fast patrol craft. Sendai had not recognized it before now because this type of ship usually only patrolled waters around Russian ports. According to the vessel recognition book, the Stenka-class ships were operated almost exclusively by the Maritime Border Directorate of the KGB - in the bad old days before the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the disbanding of the Russian intelligence community, including the KGB.

Sendai closed the volume and stared into space.

He doubted that the ship was operated by a Russian intelligence agency now - though it was possible. But such ships were easily purchased from the cash-starved Russian government these days. A private business consortium might own it. Or just an individual entrepreneur. The ship might not even be manned by Russians, but Sendai's well-honed instincts told him it was.

Captain Sendai approached the video monitor. With the flick of a switch he pulled up the images he had taken of the ship a few hours before. He studied the outline, noting that the forward thirty-millimeter twin antiaircraft guns had been replaced by a single-tube weapon of uncertain origin. He increased the magnification ... The weapon looked like a harpoon gun.

Is it possible that the patrol ship was modified to serve as a whaler? Sendai wondered for a moment before quickly dismissing the notion. There was no place to cook or store whale blubber on such a small craft.

Sendai increased the magnification once again. Suddenly, the Cyrillic script on the side of the vessel became clear. Sendai could read Russian - he had learned while patrolling the Kuril Islands, which both Japan and Russia claimed as their own.

"Ordog," he muttered aloud - the Russian word for "devil."

Well, Captain Sendai thought. Something is very wrong with this ship, but there is nothing I can do about it now. After the submarine is refueled and resupplied, I will go hunting for it again, however.

Sendai was suddenly certain that the patrol vessel was looking for Godzilla. The creature had been spotted in these waters in the last several weeks, which explained why this part of the sea was all but deserted.

But what do the Russians want with Godzilla? the Japanese captain wondered. Whatever the reason, Captain Sendai was certain that the crew of that ship was up to no good ...

***

"Captain Korsov! Captain Korsov!" Podynov cried frantically through the thin wooden door of the captain's quarters. "We have located the creature."

The door flew open. "Are you sure?" Korsov demanded. The first mate nodded.

"It is too big to be anything else," he replied.

"Put the ship on red alert!" Korsov ordered. A moment later, alarms echoed throughout the Ordog as the eighteen-man crew took up battle stations.

A moment after he entered the bridge, Korsov had assessed the situation. The blip on the sonar was unmistakable, and the Geiger counters also indicated an unnaturally high level of radiation emanating from the shape ahead of them.

Korsov scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The surface of the sea did not hint at what swam beneath it.

Silently, a huge man in a sealskin parka approached the captain. His bronze skin gleamed in the red lights of the bridge. The man's head was shaved, and he wore a whalebone loop in his nose. Korsov turned and faced the man.

"Take over the harpoon," Korsov commanded. The man nodded once and quickly left the bridge. Silently, he moved out onto the bow, toward the huge harpoon gun mounted there.

"Where is the creature?" Korsov demanded of his sonar man.

"Five hundred meters ahead of us," the young technician replied. "And twenty meters down."

"We'll bring him to the surface soon enough," Korsov stated. Turning to his first mate, he gave the command to launch depth charges.

***

With the impact of the first explosion, Godzilla opened his huge maw and roared angrily. Bubbles burst from the creature's mouth, churning the sea around him into a froth.

A second and third explosion quickly followed. None of them were near enough to harm the monster, but Godzilla became as curious as he was annoyed.

The creature raised his reptilian eyes and headed for the ocean surface ...

***

"There he is!" Podynov cried, stepping away from the depth charge launcher even as another explosive metal cylinder rolled onto the launch cradle.

All heads on the Ordog turned as Godzilla's three rows of dorsal spikes broke the surface. The sea seemed to roil, bulging into a huge dome right before the monster's head rose above the white-tipped waves.

Godzilla scanned the horizon, his feral eyes narrowing when he spotted the gray ship floating in the distance.

But to the crew's surprise, Godzilla was not up for a fight that day. Instead of approaching the Ordog, Godzilla turned and swam in the opposite direction.

"Full speed ahead!" Korsov commanded, his narrow, predatory smile looking like a scar on his skull-like face.

Everyone on the bridge felt the tension emanating from Captain Korsov as the chase began. They knew their commander was a warrior, a hunter. This was his element.

"Harpooner? Can you hear me?" Korsov demanded over the ship's radio.

The bald man gripping the gunstock on the bow of the bobbing ship turned, tapped his headphones, and nodded to Korsov through the bridge windows. Then he turned back to face the prey that swam before him.

Slowly, inexorably, the Ordog was gaining on Godzilla. And only now did the utter insanity of his mission occur to Captain Korsov. All this for a few gallons of blood and tissue samples, he thought.

Of course he understood why his shadowy employers wanted the material. Godzilla's flesh was an enigma. Its properties of instantaneous regeneration were well known, but not fully understood. So far, only the Japanese and the Americans had supplies of Godzilla's DNA to study, and they weren't sharing them with anybody.

But the European pharmaceutical company that was paying Korsov's employers wanted their own supply of Godzilla cells, and were willing to pay a lot of rubles to get it. Korsov's employers convinced the pharmaceutical company that the Ordog's special equipment was perfect for the task.

So who was Korsov to question his bosses, as long as they were paying him so well?

"We are almost in range, Captain!" Podynov cried as the Ordog approached Godzilla. The ship was leaping out of the water now as it slammed into the creature's wake at a speed of nearly forty knots. The crew on the bridge had to hang on or risk being dashed to the deck. The man at the wheel, a seasoned veteran of the sea, hung on with white knuckles but pushed grimly onward.

Suddenly, Godzilla's tail thrashed out of the water on the Ordog's starboard side. The tail towered over the ship, then crashed into the waves only a moment later. The resulting spray battered the ship, almost capsizing the Ordog.

"Man overboard!" Podynov cried. Korsov turned. He saw a flurry of activity on the deck. One of the men had been swept into the sea. Korsov could see that the man was quickly disappearing in the distance behind them.

"Captain, we have to turn back!" Podynov cried.

"No!" Korsov commanded. "Our goal is worth the sacrifice. We go forward!"

The men on the bridge exchanged apprehensive glances, but they obeyed their captain.

Korsov clutched the bridge control panel and gazed through the windows. Godzilla raised his head out of the water and bellowed. The roar seemed to vibrate through the ship and shook the crew's courage.

"Prepare to fire the harpoon!" Korsov cried into the radio.

On the bow of the ship, the harpooner pulled the parka's hood off his shaven head and peered through the gun sight. His captain's voice crackled through his headphones.

"Aim for the neck," Korsov directed.

The silent man at the gun squinted into the sight, focusing the crosshairs on a portion of Godzilla's throat right below the pointed ears. The charcoal gray flesh rippled.

The harpooner held his breath as he squeezed the trigger. With a whoosh of escaping gases, the harpoon leaped out of the tube and shot across the waves, dragging a thick line behind it. The harpoon struck Godzilla exactly where the harpooner had aimed.

As the point of the harpoon embedded itself in Godzilla's thick hide, secondary hooks emerged from the main bolt, digging deeper into the monster's flesh and anchoring the harpoon in place. The clear hollow plastic tube that was embedded in the center of the harpoon's long steel connecting cable soon filled with greenish fluid as the ship's pump began its work.

On the bridge, Podynov looked at Captain Korsov. "The pumps are on-line!" the first mate announced. He checked the gauge on the control board in front of him. "The tanks are beginning to fill with the monster's blood."

Godzilla suddenly dipped his massive head, pulling the harpoon's line taut and dragging the Ordog's bow down into the waves. With a scream of surprise, the harpooner lost his grip on the gun-stock and was swept into the sea.

This time no one bothered to cry "man overboard." They knew that Korsov would not endanger the mission to save a man's life - any man's.

"The first tank is full," Podynov cried, switching over to the second of three 150-gallon tanks in the hold of the fast patrol ship. Godzilla continued to surge forward, dragging the ship behind him like a child tugging on a bathtub toy.

Two minutes later, Podynov switched to the third and final tank. Godzilla had not slowed his forward momentum. Indeed, the creature seemed oblivious to the tiny ship he was dragging behind him through the increasingly rough surf.

Korsov peered over the first mate's shoulder, wondering how long the hull of the Stenka-class ship could withstand such a buffeting. The gauge on the control panel indicated that the third tank was nearly full.

"Prepare to cut the cable loose," Korsov announced with a note of triumph. Podynov lifted the plastic cover on the detonator that would set off the explosive bolts to sever the nearly indestructible steel cable.

"Now!" Korsov cried. Podynov's chubby finger stabbed the detonator button, but nothing happened. He turned to Korsov with an expression of obvious panic etched on his face.

"The bolts did not detonate, Captain!" he cried.

"I know that, you fool," Korsov cried, pushing the man aside and checking the control panel's connections. Everything seemed to be in order.

Suddenly, the Ordog dipped again as Godzilla lowered his reptilian head and pulled the cable taut. The patrol ship was almost swamped, and a powerful wave washed over the bow and slammed into the bridge, shattering a window.

"Captain!" Podynov cried, fear in his voice. His face was bleeding where he had been struck by a shard of window glass. "What do we do?" he whined.

"Get out there and cut the cable!" Korsov commanded, thrusting an ax from the emergency stores into the startled first mate's hands.

"But the cable is made of titanium steel," Podynov continued to whine. "It is indestructible!"

"Do it!" Korsov shouted forcefully, pushing the man off the bridge and out onto the deck. The first mate was followed by three other sailors, all clutching axes. The men stumbled to the harpoon gun, clutching safety handles along the way. As soon as they arrived, they began hacking on the cable, sending sparks into the gray twilight.

But after a minute of hacking, Podynov's ax shattered in his hand. The first mate dropped the broken handle and stared forward.

"Oh, no," he muttered, his eyes widening in horror.

Godzilla dived beneath the waves.

As the monster's head dipped beneath the surface, the cable went taut, pulling the Ordog into the crashing waves. A huge fountain of spray shot into the air as the tortured hull of the Ordog literally broke apart. Men and chunks of metal flew through the air like falling leaves.

In a moment the ship was swamped, and the crew of the Ordog was drowned or torn apart by the force of the ship's destruction.

As Godzilla disappeared beneath the surface of the Sea of Okhotsk, he dragged the ragged remains of the Ordog and its doomed crew with him.

Minutes later, deep under water, the explosive bolts that held the ship fastened to Godzilla finally blew up, as they were programmed to do by the owners of the ship.

Three giant bags inflated around the tanks full of Godzilla's blood and tissue as another hatch blew open, throwing the tanks free of the sinking hull.

Slowly, the three tanks floated to the surface. A powerful radio beacon began to broadcast the tank's location on a special frequency, and a bright signal light on top of the tanks began to flash intermittently.

Thirty minutes later, as the sun set, a helicopter appeared on the darkening horizon. The aircraft ignored the debris and corpses floating in the area and flew directly toward the tanks. In another minute, the chopper's crew lowered a retrieval hook.

As soon as the tanks were pulled from the waves, the helicopter circled the area once again, then flew toward the Russian coast with its precious cargo - a cargo that was worth the sacrifice of many lives to obtain, as Captain Korsov of the ill-fated Ordog had insisted.

Even his.

4
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT

Monday, November 13, 2000, 0900 hours
Joint Headquarters, 82nd Airborne Division
U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps
Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Private First Class Sean Brennan's heart raced as he approached the regimental headquarters building. For the hundredth time in an hour, he wondered why he'd been summoned here in such an unorthodox manner.

He feared he knew the answer and secretly dreaded that today would be the day the truth came out.

I must have been crazy to think I could get away with it, he thought glumly. He removed his cap and rubbed his hand over the military stubble on his head - a nervous habit he'd had since he was a kid back in Massachusetts.

As Private Brennan approached the structure - which looked more like a big colonial house than the military command center for one of the busiest regiments of the U.S. Army - he felt a sense of awe mingled with rising fear and apprehension. He had never been this close to officer country before. Yet the building itself was deceptively innocuous-looking. Only the cluster of satellite dishes on the roof and a much larger array of microwave towers nearby hinted that it was anything more than the home of a wealthy civilian.

Before entering the headquarters' main security area, Private Brennan checked himself to see if his uniform would pass muster. He felt some comfort in knowing he was well turned out. He knew his shoes were shiny and his uniform immaculate, and every button and ribbon was in its proper place - not that there were many of the latter. Brennan had been in the army only ten months, after all.

But he wore his wings proudly over his heart. That simple insignia marked him as one of the select few who had completed the five weeks of arduous and punishing paratrooper training at Fort Benning before being assigned to Airborne - the toughest and most distinguished unit in the United States Army.

And I'm about to lose it all, Sean Brennan thought with mounting dismay. He felt more nervous than he had before his first parachute jump - and, later, his first night jump.

Taking a deep breath, the soldier pushed through the main doors and presented his written orders - delivered that morning by messenger - to the officer at the desk, just as he had been commanded to do. After returning Brennan's crisp salute, the lieutenant took his orders and scanned them.

Private Brennan's eyes nervously searched the room, finally settling on the huge coat of arms on the wall. It was a portrait of a striking blue dragon on a stark white background - the insignia of the 82nd Airborne. When he saw the image, Brennan's heart swelled with pride.

Even if I lose it all today, he thought, at least I'll know that I made it this far.

"Follow me," the officer announced blandly after stamping the papers and handing them back to him.

Sean Brennan's heart began to race again. They must have found out! he screamed to himself.

If they did, then Sean Brennan's - no, Patrick Brennan's - military days were over. Even if he avoided jail for enlisting under a false identity, he would probably have to return to Boston.

He preferred prison to the shame of facing his mother.

If only I'd waited a year or so, he thought. I could have enlisted legally.

But seventeen-year-old Patrick Brennan knew there'd really been no other choice for him. He had to do what he did, when he did it.

The trouble began in the late 1980s, when Patrick's father died, leaving Patrick's mother to bring up him and his older brother. Things were tight, but tolerable. At least they were for a while.

Then, in 1999, Ellen Brennan had suffered her first heart attack. It was followed by more medical complications. She recovered eventually, but could no longer work. Without a salary, Ellen Brennan was forced to live off what was left of the Social Security system in the twenty-first century. Suddenly, there was not enough money - or enough of anything - for Ellen and her two sons.

So Patrick's older brother announced that he was leaving - going to Australia with a stolen passport he purchased on the black market. There were jobs there, or so everyone on the street said. That was more than could be said about Boston - or anywhere else in America, for that matter.

In the ugly post-kaiju days, things were falling apart fast. It was really tough to survive even if you had a job. It was nearly impossible if you did not.

Sean left home in the summer of 1999, and neither Patrick nor his mother had heard a word from him since. For all they knew, Sean was in an Australian prison.

With his brother gone, Patrick felt lost, lonely, and guilt-ridden. He knew his mother could live better without having to support a teenage son. But try as he might, there was simply no way Patrick could earn any money to help out - not unless he joined one of the criminal gangs that were springing up everywhere.

But Patrick Brennan was a good kid at heart. He didn't want a future selling drugs or black market goods - or worse.

Then one day, about a year ago, he saw a commercial on television. Join the army, and be all that you can be. He'd seen the soldiers in town - most American cities were full of soldiers now, since martial law had been declared. The men in uniform all looked trim, confident, and most importantly, well fed.

Patrick looked in the mirror. He was a big kid, he was athletic, and he looked old for his age. But he was only sixteen years old, too young for the military. And he made lousy grades in school - unlike his older brother, who had been almost an honor student when he graduated from high school.

Patrick realized that his older brother could have joined the military easily, if he had wanted to. And then it hit him.

Why not become Sean?

His older brother had left behind all of his identification - including his birth certificate, driver's license, diploma ...

The next morning, Patrick left his mother a note and went down to the enlistment office. Sixteen-year-old Patrick Brennan became eighteen-year-old Sean Brennan that day. He never looked back. Basic training was a snap. After basic, Sean volunteered for Airborne. He found that easy, too.

Just yesterday, his sergeant told him that he had a bright future in the 82nd ... but today ... what would he say today?

"In there," said an unsmiling lieutenant, pointing to a door with a number etched on it. Sean Brennan froze and brushed his hand through his short brown stubble.

"Just go in," the lieutenant ordered.

Swallowing hard, and figuring his military career was over, Private Brennan pushed the door open. But instead of a phalanx of officers with court-martial papers clutched in their hands - as he had imagined - he found nine more privates sitting around a table.

Like him, these men were all fresh out of jump school and fairly new to the 82nd. And, like him, they all looked pretty nervous. As Private Brennan found an empty chair, he scanned the other faces in the conference room. Though he didn't know anyone well, he recognized some of them. He spotted lanky Jim Cirelli, a former rock 'n' roller, and a big, powerful soldier named Johnny Rocco. He also recognized someone who lived in the same barracks - a little, quiet guy named Bob Bodusky. Sean remembered seeing another man in the room at the PX - a skinny private named Tucker Guyson - but he had never talked to Guyson before.

He didn't recognize anyone else.

Sean was barely seated when a sergeant burst into the room and cried "Ten-HUT!"

All the privates jumped to their feet as General Akworth, the new commander of the 82nd Airborne, entered the room.

"At ease, men," the general announced. "Be seated."

As they sat down, Sean Brennan's heart began to slow down for the first time that morning.

My secret is still safe! he wanted to cry out.

Private Brennan could barely suppress the smile that threatened to burst forth at any moment. But with an effort of will, he forced his face to remain passive, as he chanted his personal mantra in his head. I'm Sean Brennan ... I'm Sean Brennan ... I'm SEAN ... SEAN ...

Monday, November 13, 2000, 11:06 A.M.
Independent News Network headquarters
World Trade Center Tower
New York, New York

"You have a message, Ms. Halliday," Robin's assistant said, handing her a pink slip with a name and number scrawled across it.

At first Robin barely glanced at the message as she dashed to her office to check her e-mail. Then she took another look at the piece of paper in her hand and collapsed into her chair.

Mycroft E. Endicott wants to see me! she realized, suddenly breathless. Then she almost screamed aloud.

At eleven-thirty!

Robin Halliday leaped to her feet, bumping her denim-clad knee on the edge of her desk. I have twenty-five minutes to get ready for an executive meeting! she realized with horror. And I pick today to come to work in my ripped Gitanos!

As she rushed off to her dressing room for something more appropriate to the occasion, Robin wondered just what this meeting was going to be about.

Thirty minutes later, Robin arrived at the CEO's outer office wearing a tasteful, conservative suit-dress. She had to admit that she looked stunning, and perfectly costumed for the executive-suite setting.

Robin was greeted by Endicott's businesslike secretary, who promptly led her into the CEO's inner sanctum.

"This way, Ms. Halliday," the prim woman said, ushering her into the enormous corner office. "Mr. Endicott will be with you shortly."

When she entered, Robin was surprised to see her former boss, Nick Gordon, staring out the window at the skyline of the city. She observed that he looked as dashing as ever. She also noticed that there was no one else in the spacious office.

What's he doing here? Robin wondered suspiciously. Does he know what this meeting is all about?

Robin realized she would have to find out before the boss showed up. She had to be ready for anything.

"Hello, Nick," Robin purred, rushing to give him a hug.

"Hey! Robin," Nick replied, flashing her a toothy smile, making him all the more attractive.

Too bad he's always been married to his work, thought Robin with regret.

"How goes it on Teen Beat?" Nick asked as they broke the embrace. He punctuated her show's title with an arch of his eyebrow and a sardonic tone.

As they sat down in plush office chairs, Robin measured Nick's question. She wondered if there was a note of condescension in it, but recalled that Nick condescended to practically everyone. His reaction to her was probably not personal.

Another reason this hunk is still available, Robin realized sadly. Well, I can play that game, too, Nick Gordon!

"I hope you saw my special yesterday," she said innocently, fighting the urge to bat her eyelashes. She knew full well that he had seen it. After all, she had scooped one of his own feature stories, scheduled for Nick's Science Sunday broadcast - next week. Her scoop sent Gordon and his people scrambling for a new angle - or a new story - for their next episode.

Robin smiled to herself and decided to be magnanimous to her old boss. "Sorry about the Gary, Indiana, story," she began, sounding sincere. "I didn't mean to scoop you, you know! And anyway, the stuff about the unsound construction on those apartment buildings was just one aspect of my overall story - not the whole thing."

Nick couldn't miss her hidden message. My story was better than yours. And it was the truth, too. At least it was the truth according to Robin Halliday.

"Well, your scoop really hit us pretty hard, Robin," Nick lied with a poker face. "We're still scrambling for a replacement feature, and nothing has come up yet.

"But I have got to admit," he continued with exaggerated awe in his voice, "your story was great, and we couldn't have done better ourselves."

Huh? Robin thought. This was not the reaction she was expecting. It's not like Nick to be generous. He must have found some other hot news story I'm probably missing! Robin decided to get her people on it - whatever it was - as soon as this meeting was over.

Before she could say anything more, a panel on the far wall moved aside, and Mycroft E. Endicott stepped into the office. Both Robin and Nick rose to greet their boss.

Nick had met the chairman and CEO of INN only once before, shortly after his award-winning reports of Godzilla's destruction, when he came back from Tokyo.

Robin had met Mycroft E. Endicott a few times, mostly at company functions that Nick Gordon always seemed to avoid. But she had never been this close to him before.

"Sit down, sit down!" Endicott insisted graciously as he settled into the massive leather chair behind his expansive desk. For a moment, the three of them sat in uneasy silence. Then the executive spoke his mind. And his words did not put his employees at ease.

"My father used to say that if you have bad news, you should get right to the point," the CEO announced. "And I'm afraid I have something to say today that I know both of you will take as bad news ..."

Robin choked back her tension. Nick seemed more relaxed, at least on the outside.

"As you know, next week this company's airship, the Destiny Explorer, is departing for an extended voyage that will end in the Antarctic," Endicott continued. "The airship is going to make its maiden voyage with its crew and the winners of the Young Scientist competition, sponsored by this very organization."

Mycroft E. Endicott paused, then dropped the other shoe. "I want both of you on that ship," he announced.

"What! But what about -" Robin cried in disbelief.

"You can't mean -" Nick said, choking.

"I know what you're going to say," Endicott cried, cutting them off in mid-sentence. "Both of you are going to say that you are working on big, vital stories about important things, and that you simply can't leave the country right now."

"Well, yeah!" Nick cried.

"Well, you can go, and you will - if you want to remain employees of INN!" Endicott commanded.

Nick's mouth snapped shut.

Mycroft leaned forward, meeting their shocked stares.

"Look," he said, his tone gentler. "Things are getting uglier in the good ol' U.S. of A. I know that, and you know that. And guess what? The man in the street ... John Q Public ... the little guy - whatever you want to call him - he knows it, too.

"You're not helping anyone by exposing another government boondoggle. I have other reporters who can do that."

Endicott paused for a moment, as if he were composing his thoughts. Robin shifted uneasily in her chair. Nick simply stared at his boss.

"Look," Endicott continued. "I know you think that your stories are real important, but they are not. Not in the great scheme of things.

"What is important is showing the people of this nation that they don't need their government to help them. Too many people are waiting for the National Guard to collect their garbage - they've gotten too lazy to empty it themselves!

"I've got a big floating laboratory filled with teenage geniuses that can demonstrate to this country that people - average people - can take care of themselves, and maybe accomplish something good for humanity in the process."

Mycroft E. Endicott's vision seemed to sweep Nick up. He began to understand how the smallest news network in the United States was fast becoming the most influential. Mycroft E. Endicott was no mere businessman.

He had a vision.

"The Destiny Explorer is more than a publicity stunt," Endicott explained. "It's a symbol of America's future. I took a bunch of young geniuses who accomplished something on their own, without the help of anyone, and I rewarded them with the chance to join a real expedition to Antarctica. It's meant to be the adventure of their lives!

"But it is also meant to be an adventure that all of America can share!"

Mycroft E. Endicott met his reporters' skeptical eyes.

"I want both of you to chronicle that journey and all it represents. You are both young and talented - the best INN has to offer. You are this network's future. Prove to everyone that America has a future, too!"

"So you want us to change the course of history?" Nick asked archly.

"Exactly!" Endicott cried. "Every day, on every one of our news broadcasts! Both of you will do reports that will electrify America and capture people's hearts."

"How much raw material will we actually have?" Nick asked, wondering how much of a story there really was in this overhyped expedition.

"The airship is going to make dozens of stops in Mexico and Central and South America," Endicott replied. "If necessary, do travelogues! But I know both of you, and I know I can trust you to deliver good, solid, compelling, and positive news stories."

Endicott stared at the two reporters. After a moment, they both nodded. But it was Robin who spoke first.

"I'm honored by this assignment, sir," she said sincerely.

Nick was about to say something equally inane when the realization hit him.

Oh, no! he thought, with a sickening feeling. I'll be riding on an airship!

I hate flying!

Monday, November 13, 2000, 1201 hours
Outside Joint Headquarters
82nd Airborne Division
U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps
Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Sean Brennan slapped the lanky Jim Cirelli on the back, while having his own back slapped - considerably harder - by an enthusiastic Johnny Rocco. Even the quiet Bob Bodusky and the shy Tucker Guyson joined them in their rough horseplay outside of 82nd Airborne headquarters.

All the youths could barely contain the exhilaration they felt. These soldiers knew they had just been handed a plum assignment - and a better-than-even shot at practicing what they were trained to do.

"Temporary assignment ... overseas!" Johnny Rocco whooped. "I can't believe it. No disaster relief for us!"

"Yeah! No fixing telephone poles or cleaning out sewers in Gary, either," Jim Cirelli added smugly.

"Or delivering mail in Syracuse," Bob Bodusky quipped.

"Yeah," Tucker Guyson chimed in. "In the radioactive zone!"

"No way!" Rocco cried at the top of his lungs. "No slop jobs for us, boys. Not for these new members of the proud Eighty-second!"

Rocco paused, his voice growing solemn.

"We, my friends, are Airborne!"

"And we are going to South America," Sean Brennan finally added. The men exchanged proud glances. Then, as one, they slapped their hands together in the air and gave their common battle cry with all the enthusiasm and camaraderie of men who have shared the same grueling training and who anticipate the same hardships and rewards.

"HOOOOO-AAAHHHH!"

5
THE LAUNCH

Tuesday, November 21, 2000, 12:30 P.M.
Outside Maxwell Hulse Memorial Hangar
Hulse Science Complex
Lakehurst, New Jersey

Down on the tarmac, surrounded by thousands of spectators, a local New Jersey high school band played a raucous version of a song that was almost half a century old. Robin Halliday wondered where she'd managed to pick up the lyrics and the name of the tune. She hadn't a clue why or how, but they were locked in the depths of her memory.

And so, as she watched the crowd swell, the words for "Up, Up, and Away" echoed through her head. She even remembered the name of the group who had first recorded the song: The Fifth Dimension.

It must be my nerves giving me flashbacks to those trips I took to Grandma's house, she decided, recalling her grandparents' collection of big flat black vinyl dishes wrapped in cardboard that Grandma called "record albums."

But it wasn't a nostalgia flashback that was bothering Robin. It was the fact that on this day and date she was completely out of her element.

I'm just not accustomed to being on this side of a story, she thought ruefully.

Robin was used to reporting news, not being news. But here she was, standing on the raised podium with Nick Gordon fidgeting next to her, while thousands of people filled the temporary bleachers. Row upon row of bleachers almost completely surrounded her, creating the effect of a small arena built in the middle of the concrete runway.

While she waited for her turn at the microphone, Robin couldn't help but imagine that all eyes were watching her - she realized with a start that she had a bad case of stage fright. Robin could seduce a camera with ease but now discovered that she found live events rather overwhelming.

This event certainly was.

Mycroft E. Endicott had pulled out all the stops for the launching of his super airship, the Destiny Explorer. Ten mayors - from New York City's to Hoboken's - and two governors, along with the speaker of the House of Representatives, were present. Unfortunately, a few of them were scheduled to speak.

Robin knew it was going to be a long, boring day.

But at least it was a beautiful one. The sky was bright and clear, and the temperature cool and quite blustery, especially here on the flatlands of New Jersey.

No surprise for November in the Northeast, and not unlike the weather in her hometown outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Robin scanned the crowd. It seemed to be getting bigger. Although she knew the guest list and the schedule of events by heart, Robin was stunned by the sheer magnitude of this event.

All this for a great big balloon, she thought. Of course Robin knew that the Destiny Explorer was much more than that, but it was tough not to get cynical about the whole crazy idea. Despite Endicott's flowery speech, which Robin had to admit touched her at the time, she was now having second thoughts about this assignment.

Not that she had a choice. But if this voyage were to end in disaster, or end up as the butt of tasteless jokes on the Tonight Show, Robin knew her journalism career would be over. And there were a lot of people out there who would like to see Robin go down. She peered into the wings of the makeshift arena and saw that the media sharks were already gathering.

Robin recognized cameras from the competition. All the major networks were here, along with CNN, Fox News, and the Microsoft Network.

As usual, all the camera teams were jockeying for the best vantage point from which to shoot their highly paid reporters, while still getting a shot of the podium.

Robin tried to ignore the lenses pointed at her and stared off into the distance. She noticed a lot more cameras on the towers near the huge hangar, which was so massive it dwarfed even the NASA complex at Kennedy Space Center. Part of the building was the remains of the original airship hangar, which had been built sixty years before - though much had been added on to the older structure.

The original hangar had served other purposes after the airships were retired. When INN purchased the building, it was being used as a warehouse.

Mycroft E. Endicott had had the hangar completely retooled and refurbished, christening the entire complex the Hulse Science Center, after Maxwell Hulse, the legendary INN science correspondent who had died along with his production staff when Godzilla destroyed Tokyo Tower in 1998. The memorial complex was built around the huge hangar and featured a museum, a science and learning center, and a broadcast and recording studio.

The Maxwell Hulse Memorial Hangar was by far the largest structure, and it housed INN's airship itself. The entire complex had been an attraction for local high schools and colleges since it opened its doors nine months before.

In a few minutes, the gargantuan hangar doors would open to reveal Mycroft E. Endicott's pet project - the INN airship Destiny Explorer.

***

Nick Gordon stole a glance at Robin Halliday. She looked relaxed and composed, as usual. Nick wished he felt so calm. He glanced at his watch, surprised that it was already after two o'clock. Then he turned back toward the temporary arena and scanned the crowds that continued to fill the bleachers and swarm at the base of the raised stage.

Oh, the humanity ... Nick thought, with his own brand of irony.

In his career as a professional broadcast reporter - a career that began during Godzilla's destruction of Tokyo in 1998 - Nick had covered more than a few dangerous stories. As the premier investigative reporter on INN's Science Sunday, he'd been down the mouth of an active volcano, inside the hull of the sunken Titanic, and through the ruins of New York City's business center in the wake of Godzilla's battle with King Ghidorah.

But despite those hazardous assignments, Nick couldn't help remembering a story he'd missed because he hadn't even been born yet. Nick remembered the news reports he'd studied about the last time an airship docked here in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

It wasn't pretty.

It was May 6, 1937 ... and that airship was the doomed Hindenburg. The passenger-laden zeppelin's complete immolation on this very airfield was captured on film, as was an emotional eyewitness account by Chicago radio correspondent Herbert Morrison.

Ninety-seven people were aboard the Hindenburg; thirty-five of them died.

"Oh, the humanity," Herbert Morrison exclaimed tearfully as he watched the mighty German airship go down in flames. It was an on-the-scene news report that made history and is still heard today on documentaries about the disaster.

Of course, if the Destiny Explorer crashes and burns today, at least I won't have to get on it! Nick thought. But he immediately cursed himself for having such selfish thoughts. It wasn't that he had anything against airships in general - it was just that the idea of leaving the ground in a ship held aloft by helium wasn't exactly Nick's idea of a good time!

But at least Nick Gordon was enough of a science correspondent to study the vehicle in question. He had taken a secret tour of the hangar itself just a few hours ago. He understood all the science and engineering involved in the airship's construction, but it didn't help him feel more comfortable about riding in the thing.

The sad truth was that Nick Gordon had always had a fear of flying - and he hadn't beaten it yet.

Down on the main stage below where Nick waited, Mycroft E. Endicott was beginning the speech of his life. Most of the politicians' speeches had been mercifully brief this day, and the hangar doors were - Nick hoped! - just about ready to open.

As soon as his boss's speech ended, the huge aircraft would be wheeled out for everyone to "ooh" and "aah" over. Then it would be Nick and Robin's job to introduce the young geniuses who would soon board the Destiny Explorer on its maiden voyage.

Nick hoped that most of the crowd would depart once the Destiny Explorer was unveiled, so he and Robin could complete their part of this dog and pony show in a hurry.

After the ceremony was concluded, the airship would depart for the Southern Hemisphere - with an unwilling Nick Gordon as one of its passengers.

His knees suddenly turned to jelly, and Nick could already feel his gorge rise. He just hoped his employer had had the good sense to put a doctor on board.

***

"What idiot scheduled the launch of this thing in New Jersey in the middle of the winter, anyway?" the intense, dark-haired girl complained loudly. Despite her thick winter gear and her bulky gloves, Leena Sims - who was used to the weather in Southern California - was shivering in the icy winds that swept across the high stage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael couldn't imagine his world without them.

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

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

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

***

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

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

The brass band down on the tarmac played on, but a hush of anticipation fell over the spectators. You could almost feel the tension of the crowd.

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

Whatever it takes was Leena's motto ...

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

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

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

***

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

Robin Halliday nodded dumbly, clearly impressed.

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

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

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

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

Or, in my case, terrifying ...

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

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

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

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

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

"And this is different?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, to Nick's astonishment, for the first time since he got this assignment, a bit of excitement and anticipation managed to creep in past his trepidation.

6
SEISMIC ACTIVITY

Tuesday, November 28, 2000, 6:20 P.M.
William Dyer Geological Research Facility
74° south latitude, 114° east longitude
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But would it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The youth apologized again, this time less sincerely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The geologist noticed the graduate student curiously tapping one of the delicate thermometers that measured underground temperatures. Dr. Wendell cleared his throat loudly, and the youth quickly thrust his hands into the pockets of his heavy down parka.

"If you're going to stay here, please don't touch anything," Dr. Wendell explained to the student patiently. "And since you are supposed to monitor the seismograph, I want you to let me know immediately if there are any sudden changes in the readings."

The geologist motioned with his head toward the machine, which clicked in the corner of the long and narrow interior of the crowded hut. The machine was a smaller version of the massive seismographic machine back at the university. That machine measured seismological events all over New England and parts of Canada. This one covered a radius of only about five miles, but it worked on the same principles and was similarly constructed. Like larger seismograph machines, this one featured a long sheet of paper that slowly scrolled across a flat, horizontal surface while motion-sensitive arms drew jagged lines in ink on the clean white paper. The time and date were stamped on the edge of the paper each second.

The instrument measured vibrations in the Earth far below the ancient ice of the Antarctic. It had been doing that for months. Right next to the machine, rolls of previously used paper scrolls were stacked and hand-dated with a black Magic Marker in Dr. Wendell's crisp, precise script.

The geologist reminded the student how the machine worked and what unusual things to look for. The young grad student gritted his teeth at the unnecessary lecture. Then the older scientist zippered his coat and put thick gloves over the thin ones he was already wearing.

A moment later, the bearded scientist emerged from the plastic-and-metal-frame structure dubbed a "zucchini hut" because of its unconventional shape - like a long, bright red squash lying in the snow. Such structures were cheap and easy to put up and maintain, and could be found in research stations all over Antarctica.

A huddled cluster of these prefabricated buildings served as the laboratories and living spaces for the twenty-six men and three women who had been sent to Antarctica by the geology department of Miskatonic University. Their job was to study the unusual seismic activity detected in this area of Wilkes Land.

After the relative dimness of the hut's interior, the glare of Antarctica's endless daylight caused the scientist to don his sunglasses. It wouldn't do to become snow-blind. The expedition had already been forced to send one graduate student back on the monthly supply helicopter from Australia's station on Macquarie Island. The unfortunate woman had forgotten to wear sunglasses on a field expedition. Luckily for her, snow blindness is usually temporary.

As Dr. Wendell crossed the camp, a frigid katabatic wind sprang up. Tiny bits of ice blasted across the frozen plain as the gusts swirled around the sixteen huts that served as the group's sleeping quarters. The small, cramped structures were called "apple" huts because that's exactly what they looked like - a bunch of apples someone had dropped into the snow.

Like the longer zucchini huts, these buildings were bright red because the color stood out boldly against the snow and could be easily seen from the air, or in the haze of a sudden storm.

Well, at least there won't be any snowstorms coming along, Dr. Wendell thought. It's almost summer here. If only the gravity winds would die down ...

The temperature in Antarctica at this time of year was almost balmy - ranging from a high of zero degrees Fahrenheit to a low of minus twenty. But the katabatic winds, caused by shifts in gravity at the south polar region, could push the wind chill to minus fifty or even lower.

Dr. Wendell shivered. Even over the howl of the wind, he could hear the sound of the gasoline-powered electric generator cranking away, supplying power to the camp, the telephone and communications equipment, and all of the scientific instruments.

Without electricity, the people here at Dyer would freeze to death overnight.

On his way to Dr. Meyer's zucchini hut, Dr. Wendell checked the connections from the generator to his own research station. He also checked the phone lines, wondering why his phone wasn't working.

Everything looked normal. The problem with the phone must be coming from somewhere else. At least we didn't lose power, Dr. Wendell thought with some relief. It would be bad if we lost data because of an interruption in power.

The scientist knew this from experience. It had happened before.

As Dr. Wendell trudged across the ice field, he saw some men clustered around the two Norwegian-built Hagglunds tracked vehicles. The gaudy orange machines were little more than cabins set on tank tracks. The tops of the Hagglunds were covered by clusters of spotlights. The side doors on both vehicles had the Miskatonic crest painted on them. The brand-new machines, delivered just a month ago, were the pride of the base camp. Dr. Wendell hadn't yet had a chance to ride in one, but he knew they would both come in handy.

The vehicles could roll across country with ease, and had a range of more than 100 miles. They could also carry extra fuel, which could extend that range considerably.

He wondered what the men were doing with the ungainly vehicles. One was up and running, and a maintenance crew was working on the other. Dr. Wendell surmised that they were going out to hunt for the missing dogs.

As he neared the largest zucchini hut in the camp's cluster, the weary geologist wondered what the team leader wanted with him. He hoped it wasn't answers, because Dr. Stanley Wendell didn't have any.

***

"Come in," Dr. Hiram Meyer called out when he heard the knock on the door of his hut. Dr. Wendell entered, preceded by a blast of cold air.

The two scientists nodded to each other. Then Dr. Wendell closed the door behind him and approached the portable heater. He pulled off his gloves, unzipped his parka, and warmed his hands for a moment.

"Any sign of the missing dog team?" Dr. Wendell asked. His colleague shook his craggy head, a look of consternation on his sun-bronzed and wrinkled face.

"As far as Dr. Ronson could tell, the dogs just burst out of their shelter and ran off into the frozen plain," Dr. Meyer explained. "The loss of the dogs is a problem, but I think we have a more serious problem to worry about."

"What's up?" Dr. Wendell asked, wondering if he should inform his superior that they might be having an earthquake in the next week or so. No, he decided. I'll save that revelation for later, when I've had the chance to review the data more carefully.

Dr. Meyer frowned up at the bearded man from his wheeled office chair. "The phones are down," he announced.

Wendell shrugged. "So?"

His colleague's face held such a strange look that Dr. Wendell decided to hear it for himself. He reached for the phone on the desk and placed the receiver to his ear. What he heard surprised him.

Usually when the phones went dead up here, they were just that - dead. But this time Dr. Wendell heard a distinct electronic crackle, followed by a weird high-pitched whine that sounded oddly familiar.

"Do you know what that sounds like?" Dr. Wendell asked, holding the receiver out to Dr. Meyer. His superior stared back at him before speaking.

"Back in the navy, we called that sound electronic jamming," Dr. Meyer stated.

Dr. Wendell blinked. "That's what it sounds like to me, too," he replied, recalling his combat days as a radio communications specialist during the Persian Gulf War. "But who would be jamming us? And why?"

Dr. Meyer ignored the question. Instead, the heavyset man slid his chair over to the satellite radio equipment. One of the chair's plastic wheels squeaked loudly, the result of being exposed to the cold, dry air of the Antarctic summer.

The South Pole was drier than a desert. In fact, it was one of the driest places on Earth.

"I decided to call the U.S. base at McMurdo for some electronic repair advice," the man in the chair explained. Then he switched on the radio.

The same high-pitched whine, almost an electronic squawk, issued from those speakers.

"The satellite radio is being jammed, too," Dr. Meyer said gravely. "So is the shortwave radio, and even our short-range cell phones."

Dr. Wendell was silent a moment as the meaning of what he had been told sunk in. Then he looked again at his superior.

"So we're cut off," he whispered, fighting the sudden, paranoid urge to look over his shoulder.

Dr. Meyer nodded grimly. "From everyone."

"So that's why the men outside are prepping the two Hagglunds," Dr. Wendell said. It was a statement, not a question.

Again, Dr. Meyer nodded. "That's why I called you over," the portly man announced. "I want your opinion on where I should send the vehicles. Should I send them to Concorde Base, or to the Aussies at the temporary camp west of here? Or should I separate the two teams and send one vehicle to each camp?"

Dr. Wendell thought about it for a moment. "Well, I think it's too dangerous to separate the vehicles."

Dr. Meyer nodded in agreement as Dr. Wendell talked on.

"The Australian base is closer, and I'm sure they are still there," he said. "But the French base at Concorde should be hard-wired by now. If it is, then they will have a fiberoptic communications trunk line right to Dumont d'Urville Base on the coast."

Dr. Meyer nodded. "That's what I was thinking. If the jamming is widespread, then the Australians are probably being jammed, too."

"But a fiberoptic cable is impossible to jam," Dr. Wendell noted, finishing his superior's thought. Dr. Meyer nodded and explained the terrain and the distances involved.

As Meyer spoke, Dr. Wendell noticed that neither of them was disputing that the research facility was being jammed - whatever that meant. Both were thinking the same thing, though neither of them spoke the words aloud:

The jamming was deliberate.

"Are you sure the French are really hard-wired?" Dr. Wendell asked.

"Well, I'm not certain," Dr. Meyer replied cautiously. "Their cable was supposed to have been completed months ago, but with Greenpeace protests and all ..." Meyer's voice trailed off.

The French had had a lot of trouble with the environmental group called Greenpeace. Back in the 1980s, the French government had tried to construct an airfield at Dumont d'Urville. They dynamited several islands flat and killed a lot of Antarctic wildlife. Greenpeace managed to get some pictures of the slaughter and smeared the French in the court of public opinion. Nobody was in favor of killing penguins and wrecking the delicate Antarctic environment.

Though the French managed to complete their airfield and several support hangars around it, all of it was washed away in a glacial landslide and tidal wave less than a year later.

The airfield had yet to be rebuilt.

"Let us hope that, in the case of this phone line, the forces of progress won this round," Dr. Wendell suggested.

For a few minutes, both men continued to debate the relative distances and times involved in getting to either base. They knew that the trip would be dangerous no matter which destination was chosen.

If something were to go wrong with both of the Hagglunds, the passengers would be stranded with a jammed radio, miles from anywhere or anyone.

"Who are you sending?" Dr. Wendell asked curiously.

"Coselli volunteered to drive one vehicle," Dr. Meyer replied. "And Lansing and Dr. Ronson will take the other."

Dr. Wendell nodded. They were good teams. If anyone could lead the men to Concorde or to the Aussies, it was Coselli and Ronson.

In the end, after long debate, the two geologists felt it was best to try for Concorde Base. Though it was farther away, the terrain in that direction was easier to traverse, and the winds less severe.

It was the best choice. Even if the French were being jammed, too, they would still have active phone lines to the coast and the South Pacific.

"Come," Dr. Meyer announced when they had finished their discussion. "Help me gather up the maps and charts Coselli will need -"

But before he finished his sentence, the young graduate student Dr. Wendell had left behind to monitor the seismography machine burst into Dr. Meyer's hut.

Without knocking, Dr. Wendell noted ruefully.

"Dr. Wendell! Dr. Meyer! Come quick!" the youth cried with obvious excitement. Before the two men could get to the open door, the grad student dashed out into the daylight once again. Exchanging puzzled glances, Dr. Wendell and Dr. Meyer quickly bundled up and followed him.

The kid was waiting for them outside. His excitement seemed contagious. The men circling the two Hagglunds watched the excited youth with rising curiosity.

As soon as Dr. Wendell emerged from the zucchini hut, the student began speaking rapidly. "The needle just started jumping, sir," the youth babbled. "The needle on the seismograph, I mean. It just started wiggling like crazy - like there was an earthquake under us... right under us!

"And there was this other noise, a weird noise ... It was coming from the sound buoys. I sort of listened on the headphones -"

Dr. Wendell cursed and was about to berate the student for using the sound device without asking permission first. Anticipating his colleague's territorial feelings about his equipment, Dr. Meyer raised his hand and silenced Dr. Wendell.

"What did you hear, son?" the portly scientist demanded. "Describe it to me exactly!"

The youth halted in his tracks and turned to face the two geologists. He thought about his answer for a heartbeat.

"It was a high-pitched whine," he replied, struggling for the right words to characterize the unearthly tone. "It sounded like ... like a giant buzz saw," the young man said, adding, "or maybe a giant chain saw ..."

"A buzz saw? A giant chain saw! That's ridiculous -" But Dr. Wendell never finished that thought. He and the others suddenly felt the ice quake beneath their insulated boots.

***

Bert Coselli was behind the wheel of the second heavy Hagglunds tracked vehicle when the quake began. His colleague, George Lansing, had started the first vehicle and gone for some coffee - giving the vehicle time to warm up.

Coselli had just turned over the cold engine on the second Hagglunds, and the noise was so intense that at first he didn't notice the movement of the ground beneath the vehicle. What finally alerted him to danger was the sight of the massive microwave antenna next to the communications hut swaying back and forth violently.

Then Coselli saw some of his comrades - mostly the geologists and grad students - drop to the ground and hug the ice. Others - maintenance and support crew mostly - remained on their feet, uncertain of what they should do.

As he watched in shocked silence, the cables securing the microwave tower snapped loose from their moorings in the ice. One steel cable whipped through the air forcefully, striking a member of the maintenance crew.

The stunned man's body flew backward like a football that had been kicked. His left arm flew in a completely different direction.

It was then that Coselli noticed the shaking ground. He clutched the wheel of the Hagglunds, knowing he should get out and hug the ground with the others. But he was paralyzed and too frightened to move.

As he continued to stare through the windshield in mute horror, the microwave antenna finally fell over. Coselli's eyes widened when he saw the heavy microwave transmitters land right on top of Dr. Ronson, who had dropped to the ground for safety.

Coselli saw Dr. Wendell and Dr. Meyer running toward the two vehicles. Dr. Wendell was dragging a young graduate student by the scruff of his neck. He pushed the youth into the idling Hagglunds and got behind the wheel.

Then, in the very center of the Dyer base camp, the Antarctic ice began to crumble underneath the buildings and their inhabitants. Like a shattered glass table, the ice broke and fell into the Earth.

With a deafening rumble, the ground itself split. One by one, the red huts began to drop into the abyss. Even over the noise of the destruction and the roar of the Hagglunds' engine, Coselli could hear the screams of his hapless comrades as the very ground dropped away beneath them.

Then an explosion ripped through the far side of the camp. The cookhouse kitchen was instantly consumed in a ball of fire. A few men stumbled out of the ruins.

They were burning, too!

Suddenly, in the midst of the destruction, a dark figure leapt onto the hull of the Hagglunds. Coselli turned as Dr. Hiram Meyer pulled the side door open and scrambled inside.

"Back up!" he cried, shaking the driver's shoulders. "Back up!"

Coselli snapped out of his shocked paralysis. With smooth and practiced motions, he threw the machine into reverse and stepped on the gas. With a sliding, jerking leap, the powerful tracked vehicle sprang to life.

Far behind him, Coselli saw the other Hagglunds drive away from the destruction with Dr. Wendell at the wheel. Then Coselli gunned the engine on his own vehicle. Driving in reverse, he deftly steered the Hagglunds around the maintenance hut and farther back, away from the abyss that was widening and spreading, swallowing the entire camp.

The treads bit into the ice as the vehicle lurched backward. Dr. Meyer, on the passenger side of the cabin, clutched the handrails. The portly scientist started in surprise as Coselli rolled the Hagglunds over a battery-charging unit in his haste to escape the yawning mouth of the pit.

But even as the Hagglunds began to outrun the widening abyss, the ground underneath its steel treads started to crumble. Coselli pushed harder on the gas pedal, until he was practically standing on it. The treads kicked up ice shards as they spun. But inch by inch, the vehicle and its passengers were slowly being sucked into the pit.

Then Dr. Meyer screamed.

Coselli saw why. There was something inside the pit - something moving ... something big.

Despite his fear, and the certainty that his own death was mere seconds away, Coselli gazed into the maw of the abyss with a fatal curiosity.

The first things he saw were long, curved metal claws thrashing in the air above the edge of the abyss. The silvery sheen of those massive, curved talons flashed in the brilliant Antarctic sun. The metal claws were digging at the pit wall, pulling chunks of ice away from the edge of the hole with each mighty gouge.

As the ground tilted and the Hagglunds slid inexorably toward the edge of the abyss, Coselli finally saw the whole creature - for creature it was.

Suddenly, Coselli heard Dr. Meyer scream again, and he felt a blast of icy air fill the cabin. In a desperate bid to escape, the scientist had pulled open the cabin door and jumped out of the Hagglunds. Coselli watched as the man tumbled, screaming, into the pit. A second later, a huge chunk of ice ripped the open door off its hinges. Coselli watched in fascination as it disappeared into the pit as well.

Then Coselli stared at the monster once again.

And it was looking back.

A single multifaceted red eye the size of a giant billboard seemed to lock with his own. With effort, Coselli tore his eyes away, trying to discern the nature of the beast he was facing.

The man couldn't believe that anything that big could be alive. With the crumbling ice falling all around it, details of the monster's form were difficult to make out, but Coselli saw blue and golden scales, snapping metal mandibles around a distinctive beak, and that single hypnotic red eye.

The curved metallic spikes on either side of the mouth opened, and so did the pointed beak. An unearthly electronic howl filled the man's ears. Coselli wanted to cover them, but couldn't let go of the steering wheel.

Then the red eye seemed to focus on the spinning treads of the Hagglunds. The silvery claws flashed once again, and the ground shuddered beneath the vehicle.

In a torrent of ice chunks the size of trucks, the Hagglunds dropped into the pit. Coselli's eyes were wide open as he plunged toward the waiting talons of the creature that had emerged from the very center of the Earth.

7
VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Friday, December 1, 2000, 4:05 P.M.
Bridge of the Destiny Explorer
2,700 feet over the Atlantic Ocean
Off the coast of Georgia

"Number One, take the helm," Captain Jack D. Dolan commanded, stepping away from the main control console in the front of the Plexiglas-lined high-tech bridge of the Destiny Explorer.

With an excited nod, Shelly Townsend stepped around Captain Dolan to take the steering wheel, which was mounted on the control column. With that single wheel, she now had the massive airship at her command.

"On station," she announced, gripping the steering wheel and scanning the instruments, mentally recording every aspect of the aircraft's present condition.

Then Shelly peered out of the huge windows at the horizon, one eye monitoring the ship's radar screen. Far ahead in the distance, a United Airlines jumbo jet took off from Savannah International Airport and headed out over the ocean. The plane's running lights were blinking, and as it gained height, rays from the setting sun flashed off its wings.

Cargo ships and pleasure craft dotted the blue-green waters far below. Though the day had been bright, the first shadows of early evening were already touching the ocean waves.

Sunset would come much later at 3,000 feet.

The Destiny Explorer had departed Savannah airspace and had just completed a wide turn around the tip of Tybee Island, a course that put the Georgia coast on their starboard and the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean to their port.

"Take her up to thirty-five hundred feet," Dolan commanded.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Shelly spread her legs wide and dug the heels of her boots into the rubber matting of the deck. She wiped her hands on her Levi's and took a second grip on the steering wheel. Then she slowly tested the control column, watching the altitude indicators on the heads-up display edge upward. The HUD was nothing more than a clear plastic screen mounted above the control column. Fiberoptic lights flashed stats on this screen. The information displayed there could be projected on several other computer monitors aboard the Explorer, including one in the captain's cabin.

The HUD also displayed the airship's precise latitude and longitude, a land map of the region, the wind direction - as well as the craft's lift, engine thrust, and angle of ascent.

Shelly was soon satisfied that everything looked good. It was a simple, textbook course and speed.

And I should know, Shelly thought with pride. I helped write that textbook.

When she was sure everything was ready, Shelly pulled back on the control column, raising the nose of the aircraft. Because of its size, the aircraft responded slowly, but soon it began to climb. The teenager could hear the whine of the Destiny Explorer's forward turbofan engines as they pulled the ship forward and upward.

To Shelly, their high-pitched throbbing sounded like music played on a finely tuned instrument.

"Thirty-five hundred feet," she announced a few minutes later. She leveled the ship smoothly and glanced at the navigational and meteorological readouts. Then Shelly informed her captain of the airship's present course and speed.

"Very well," Captain Dolan replied when she'd completed her report. He had studied the teenager's every move and was more than satisfied that she could handle the con.

"I'm heading for a shower and a meal," the captain announced, stretching his tired muscles.

"Aye, aye, sir!" Shelly replied. She punctuated her words with a crisp salute. "And might I add that you've earned them both, sir!"

Captain Dolan chuckled and stroked his curly beard with his hand. He knew Shelly Townsend meant no disrespect. She genuinely appreciated the difficulty he'd had, taking off in a stubborn headwind.

"Call me if anything goes wrong," Dolan said over his shoulder as he stepped through the hatch.

Then he was gone, and Shelly was alone on the bridge.

"At last!" she exclaimed.

For the first few days of the voyage, Shelly had practically been barred from the bridge. Her father had been on board, running constant tests on all the systems. He had important tasks for her all over the interior of the gigantic airship - but never on the bridge. She spent hours among the huge gas cells filled with helium. She spent more hours in the airship's hangar, prepping the Messerschmitt-XYB with Ned Landson - not to mention a whole evening working on the interior lights with the onboard electrician, Michael Sullivan, and the self-styled Queen of Computers, Leena Sims.

I shouldn't dislike the girl so much; I hardly know her, Shelly thought, recalling the thoroughly unpleasant evening when they had worked together.

Michael Sullivan is sweet, though, she remembered, realizing that the evening had not been all bad. And I like Peter, too, though he is very shy. Shelly was neutral about Ned Landson - the young oceanographer didn't impress her despite his discoveries.

Ned is too handsome to have much of a brain in his pretty little head, she concluded.

But despite the benefit of getting to know her passengers, Shelly longed to get up front, on the bridge itself.

Finally, this morning, she got lucky. At their last event - a public relations visit to Savannah - Simon Townsend received a message from his trouble-shooters. They needed the designer's personal help to supervise the construction of the landing tower at one of the airship's next destinations.

Because such lighter-than-air craft had not been in general use for more than fifty years - with the exception of a few advertising blimps featured at athletic events worldwide - even the most modern airports lacked the facilities to handle a massive airship like the Destiny Explorer.

A single hundred-foot mooring tower and one or two equally tall elevator towers for passenger access and supply were required to service the INN airship. Not to mention at least twenty skilled ground crewmen to help land and tie down the behemoth.

For that reason, Mycroft E. Endicott had three prefabricated mooring towers and six portable elevator towers designed and constructed. The docking systems could be transported by cargo aircraft or trucks and erected in a suitable landing field in less than three days.

These three mooring systems, and their highly trained construction and ground crews, hop-scotched down the eastern seaboard, erecting the mooring towers at each of the airship's scheduled stops.

Because the Explorer was so large, no functioning airport had yet given permission for the airship to dock inside its airspace - that would just be too disruptive to daily activity in a busy airport.

Savannah International was no exception. For the airship's visit to Georgia, the Explorer had docked at Hunter Army Airfield near Oglethorpe Mall and Savannah's Memorial Stadium - where a huge rally was held just this morning to welcome and cheer on the voyagers.

But while on the ground in Savannah, Simon Townsend had received word that the crewmen building the mooring tower in Mexico City were experiencing insurmountable technical problems. The problem was deemed so pressing that Mycroft E. Endicott had sent his personal Lear jet to the Hunter airfield to pick up the chief engineer and designer of the Explorer and take him ahead to Mexico.

Two hours before, as Shelly Townsend's father waved good-bye to her from the tarmac of Hunter Army Airfield, her heart was racing in anticipation of this moment.

Now, as the airship cruised high above Ossabaw Island, Shelly Townsend held the con. And she loved every minute of it ...

***

"It just shows that a hacker - no matter how good he thinks he is - isn't necessarily a computer expert," Leena Sims said cruelly.

Michael Sullivan, from his station on the opposite side of the computer lab, ignored her remark - at least outwardly.

Inwardly, he cringed. I never presented myself as anything more than a hacker, and I'm certainly not a computer expert. But his thoughts remained unspoken.

It was better that way, the youth thought. He'd already had one confrontation with Leena. He didn't want another. Michael had decided to steer clear of the hotheaded computer designer.

The trouble came to a head the other night while he and Leena were trying to get the interior floodlights on the airship to work.

Shelly Townsend had asked them to help get the lights integrated with an on-board computer. The computer was designed to operate the complex and sophisticated lighting system. With different settings, the ship could be lighted externally in a variety of colors, or internally with the lights that were installed in the center of the fuselage.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, only the normal running lights were working. The computer had not yet been hooked up. Shelly thought it might be a good project for him and Leena to tackle.

After hours of work, he and Leena thought they'd finally integrated the system. But when they turned on the exterior lights, only the port-side system was working. The starboard side remained dark. Michael ran a diagnostic test on the computer and announced that there was a faulty connection somewhere in the fuselage of the giant airship.

For the next two hours, Shelly, Leena, Peter, and even Ned climbed up maintenance ladders and crawled into access tunnels and along horizontal struts while the electrician checked the power generator.

They found nothing wrong.

Leena Sims announced that she would repeat the diagnostic test and discovered a critical error Michael had made the first time. The problem wasn't the hard-wiring - it was a software glitch. Everyone was polite about the mistake Michael had made - a mistake that had sent them all on a wild-goose chase.

Everyone, that is, but Leena.

She actually insulted him, in front of everyone. She accused him of being computer illiterate. Michael stood up to her that night, insisting that he was only human, and not a computer genius like her. His words only made her angrier.

To make up for his error, Michael had worked on locating the software glitch for the past two days - stopping only to make the public appearance in Savannah.

He hadn't found it yet.

Then, ten minutes ago, Leena had come into the lab and demanded to know what Michael was doing. When he told her, she exploded. She stormed off to a computer station on the opposite side of the computer lab, her laptop in tow.

Acting busy with the data on his screen, Michael stole a look at her now. She was still downloading information onto her sophisticated laptop.

Then Leena saw him looking at her. Michael thought she actually looked sick. Leena slammed the lid of her portable computer angrily and avoided his stare.

"I'm going back to my room and work this problem out," she announced haughtily. "It is obvious you can't."

As she rushed past Michael and opened the door of the lab, the youth was sure that Leena Sims looked pale and sickly ...

***

"Whoa!" Robin Halliday cried as Leena plowed into her in the narrow corridor running through the passenger area of the Destiny Explorer. "What's the hurry?" the reporter demanded, stepping backward.

The intense, dark-haired teenager looked up at Robin, her face scrunched up in obvious discomfort.

"Nothing ... just get out of my way!" Leena cried. "I'm going to my room."

Robin stepped aside, and the girl rushed past her. Leena reached her room, fumbled for her key, and ran the card through the slide. When the lock clicked, Leena yanked the door open. She hurried in and slammed the door behind her.

Robin heard the lock click again.

Then the reporter smiled knowingly. Well, well, Robin thought with some relish. The almighty princess of microchips acts like a tough cookie on the outside, but I recognize her problem, because I am very familiar with the symptoms.

At that moment, Robin realized that Leena Sims had the same problem as her former boss, Nick Gordon.

This little genius is afraid of flying!

***

Leena locked the door and had barely reached the bunk when the tremors hit. Her hands shook, her teeth chattered. Panic overwhelmed her, and her heart palpitated until it threatened to stop completely. Leena gasped for breath as she dropped the laptop on the floor next to her bed.

Moaning aloud, Leena clutched the blankets until her knuckles turned white.

Damn! she screamed at herself. No matter what I do, I can't crush this fear and forget that I'm in an airship! It had always been Leena's secret. She'd been afraid of heights since she was little. Lately, that fear had expanded exponentially. Now she could barely contain her fear of being off the ground for an hour at a time.

But she was still determined to try and beat this fear, no matter what it took.

For the first few days aboard the Destiny Explorer, Leena had locked herself up in her stateroom. As requested, she got a room in the central section of the passenger area so her cabin had no windows. She had her meals brought to her room instead of taking them in the glass-walled dining room.

She just hid from everyone, waiting for the fear that threatened to consume her to pass. Finally, after the first day or so, she was able to venture out to the computer lab, but not much farther. There were no windows in the corridor to remind her of where she was, but if she accidentally saw out a window, the fear would rise from her belly and threaten to overwhelm her.

When Shelly Townsend asked Leena to help with the lighting computers, Leena almost lost her nerve completely. She was sure that everybody would figure out she was afraid, and then she'd be put off at the next stop.

Fortunately, the work was done in the center of the ship, and there were no windows through which she could see how high the airship was - and how far down was the solid, steady Earth.

Leena Sims was not sure how much longer she could hide her fear of flying from the others, but she was determined to let the charade last as long as possible ...

***

Nick Gordon, on the other hand, felt like a new man.

As far as he was concerned, this assignment had changed his life - and it had hardly begun! That was because he'd learned that he wasn't afraid of flying - he just suffered from airsickness.

The first night aboard the Explorer was endless for the INN science reporter. Every shift of the airship, every change in sound and speed, brought with it a fit of nausea. He'd experienced mild nausea in boats and submarines - but getting into an airplane or a helicopter had always been a terrifying experience for Nick.

Usually he threw up until there was nothing left in his stomach - then he threw up some more. That's exactly what happened on the Explorer. Finally, Nick relented and went to Dr. Grace, the onboard physician.

The doctor chuckled knowingly as Nick described his symptoms. Suddenly, just as Nick was suggesting that he might need some kind of psychological counseling - speculating that his problem stemmed from some trauma of youth - Dr. Grace pressed a hypodermic gun to the reporter's arm and pulled the trigger.

"Ouch!" Nick cried. "What did you do that for?"

The woman smiled at him. "I just administered a large dose of a new type of antiemetic drug."

"Huh?" Nick replied.

"I just treated you for motion sickness," Dr. Grace explained.

"But I'm not suffering from motion sickness," he argued. "I'm suffering from a fear of flying!"

"Any heart palpitations? Difficulty breathing? Sweaty palms?" the doctor demanded in rapid fire. Nick shook his head each time.

The doc shrugged her shoulders. "Then you have motion sickness," she announced. She went to an aluminum cupboard and unlocked it. "I'll give you a patch behind your ear," she informed him. "The patch will let the antiemetics into your system in a controlled dosage. Your 'fear of flying' should pass in a few days."

And so it did, Nick thought happily. He rose from his computer and stretched his stiff muscles. Then he walked to the window in his stateroom and looked out into the darkening sky and the black ocean below.

I think I'll take a walk on the observation deck, he decided happily ...

***

"Hand me that wrench, Peter," Ned Landson asked, his dirty hand thrust in front of the youth's nose. Peter Blackwater sighed and lifted the heavy tool from a chest at his feet. He set it in Ned's palm.

"Thanks," Ned mumbled, turning a bolt that anchored the vertical stabilizer to the fuselage of the partially assembled Messerschmitt-XYB.

Though Peter's field of interest was botany and Ned's was oceanography, both young men fell in love with the concept behind this sexy flying machine. Built by the Germans, the XYB combined the vertical takeoff and, landing properties of a Harrier jump jet with the passenger capacity of a helicopter. The result was a small, compact craft that had a wide body and short, stubby wings, and could carry eight people and a pilot.

The XYB's task was to carry passengers from the hangar built into the airship's central hull to the ground below without the airship having to dock. On this trip, the experimental VTOL - vertical takeoff and landing aircraft - was to be used as a glorified elevator.

But the Messerschmitt-XYB had a top speed of 200 miles an hour, and a range of about 200 miles! Unfortunately, the XYB was so horrendously fuel-gobbling that it could be used only in certain conditions, and not for long-distance flying.

In fact, the XYB hadn't been used on this trip; like many other things aboard the Destiny Explorer, it was not yet finished. And anyway, the XYB was being saved for the Antarctic, where ground crews and landing towers would not always be available.

"There," Ned announced, sitting up and wiping some grease off his face. "I think the left rear stabilizer has been installed."

Peter Blackwater only partially understood what Ned was doing, but he enjoyed working with the kid from Florida. Ned, on the other hand, was used to working on boat engines and even aircraft - his father's deep-sea salvage facility owned two Bell helicopters. Ned saw the XYB as a chance to mess with new machinery.

Peter saw it as a chance to work near Shelly Townsend. She had joined them the other day as they began work on the XYB. The young Native American was smitten. He had never met anyone like the Destiny Explorer's first mate. She was cute and nice and she knew all about science - and she even knew how to fly this massive airship! Shelly was older than Peter, and totally unlike the girls he knew back in his tiny village in Alaska.

Deep in his heart of hearts, Peter knew that his crush on Shelly was pointless and absurd, but for now he was content to be near her whenever he had the chance. In fact, Peter was disappointed that Shelly hadn't shown up at the hangar tonight.

He wondered where she was - and what she was doing.

"Well," Ned announced, wiping his hands on his coverall, "I guess I'll call it a day and take a shower. What are you doing, Pete?"

"I dunno," Peter replied with a shrug, knowing that it was unlikely he would see Shelly tonight. "Maybe I'll check on my plants. The test seeds I planted in the lab are just beginning to sprout."

***

Captain Jack Dolan closed the battered journal in his lap. He tossed it on top of several others, which were spread across his desk along with some hand-marked maps of the Wilkes Land region of Antarctica.

Then Jack Dolan wearily snapped off the desk lamp and rubbed his tired eyes. He didn't bother to fold up the maps - he could do it in the morning. But there was one last duty he had to perform before sleep.

As Dolan stroked his beard, he keyed the intercom on the table by his bunk.

"Bridge, Givers here," Second Mate Gil Givers replied promptly.

"Anything I should know about?" Dolan asked.

"Jackson International Airport asked us to take her up to four thousand feet," Givers replied. "And we're about to pass Mayport Naval Air Station - the navy was kind enough to give us full clearance."

"Okay, Gil," Dolan said. "Have a good night. I'll relieve you at oh-six hundred hours."

"Good night, Captain," Givers said, signing off.

But as tired as he was, Jack Dolan could not sleep that night. He tossed and turned on the narrow bunk, charting the course over Antarctica in his mind, wondering what he would find.

And if they would get there in time.

Then, with a sigh, Dolan rose from his bunk and sat down at his desk again. He switched on the light, and his hand caressed the handwritten title on the cover of one of the battered journals.

In the clear, precise hand of his long-lost brother-in-law were written the words.

"The Scientific Journal of Dr. Alexander Kemmering."

Saturday, December 2, 2000, 1:15 P.M.
Deck of the freighter Dingo's Luck
Sea of Japan
55 miles off the coast of Kilchu, North Korea

"The captain is restless this fine afternoon," the grizzled old man nicknamed "China Bill" noted, squinting up at the deck that encircled the bridge of the ancient, battered freighter.

"That he is," Singh agreed. The small man with the white turban barely glanced up from his task. He continued to wash the deck with a mop that had seen better days.

Swabbing the deck along with the others, the youth known as Kelly listened to his shipmates, still trying to fit in. He was not yet accustomed to the job he had been forced by circumstances to accept, nor the hard-bitten men he sailed with.

The young man pushed his brown hair away from his eyes and loosened his wool pea coat, as the day was uncommonly warm for December. He peered up at Captain Willowby. The ship's master was pacing back and forth along the raised deck, scanning the slate-gray sea around them with binoculars.

China Bill watched the captain, too, before returning to the task at hand. His mop flew across the deck with careless ease. "The captain's got a lot to worry about," the old man muttered in his beard.

Singh nodded. "Yes, yes," the little man agreed. "He does, oh yes, he does."

"What's he worried about?" Kelly asked, his American accent pronounced among the mostly Australian crew. China Bill smiled and exchanged a knowing glance with the Indian man, but the old man did not reply.

"Come on, China Bill," the youth persisted. "What's up? Why are we anchored here, in the middle of nowhere?"

But it was another sailor, a man called Crispin, who finally replied.

"It's the cargo, boy," Crispin announced. "The captain is waiting for a chance to deliver his cargo."

Kelly just nodded, as if the man's enigmatic words answered all of his questions. Which, in a sense, they did.

The Dingo's Luck was a cargo ship. That much Kelly knew when he signed on. But in the two weeks he'd been aboard the rusty, run-down ship, the Dingo had never docked at any port. And, strange for a cargo ship, the hold was nearly empty. It contained only five large, unmarked wooden boxes.

It was a mystery, to be sure. But one that Kelly was not certain he wanted answered. Since joining the crew of the Dingo's Luck, Kelly had kept his mouth shut and done his job. He figured he was lucky to have work - so many others did not. When he came to Australia from Boston a little over a year ago, "Kelly" - whose real name was Sean Brennan - had searched long and hard for honest work. He heard all the talk back in the United States about how Australia was the new land of opportunity, with jobs for everyone.

Kelly had learned the hard way that it was not.

For months he had worked as a day laborer, a dockhand, and at whatever odd jobs turned up. He moved from place to place, searching for work, sticking to the big cities mostly. But he soon discovered that Australians were not pleased to see so many foreigners arriving on their shores. And though he possessed a stolen Australian passport, Kelly's American accent branded him an outsider.

Work became harder and harder to find as the Australian economy began to slide downhill along with the rest of the world's.

Finally, without money or a place to live, Kelly was forced to take a last-minute job aboard Dingo's Luck - a ship with a bad reputation and an unsavory crew to match. So far, the men had been decent enough, though Kelly was certain that the ship and its captain were up to no good.

Two hours ago, the captain had ordered the ship to anchor here, in the middle of a stretch of ocean near the shore of North Korea. No reason was given, and most of the crew didn't care. As long as they got paid, the captain was free to go about his business as far as they were concerned.

But Kelly was curious. From what he knew, the North Korean government was not very friendly, and few ships ventured this close to the coast.

And anyway, Kelly thought, if they were going to make a stop in North Korea, why not just go into the nearest port? Why stop in the middle of the ocean?

"We've got us some company, mates," China Bill declared, interrupting the youth's train of thought. Kelly scanned the waters around the freighter until he spotted a tiny ship approaching them from the direction of the Korean coast. As the vessel got closer, Kelly realized that it was a North Korean Navy patrol boat, and his heart began to race.

But Captain Willowby grabbed the signal light from the first mate and flashed the approaching ship a message. A message was quickly flashed back, and minutes later the North Korean vessel moved into position alongside the Dingo's Luck.

"Open up the cargo hold!" the first mate called from the bridge deck. Singh and China Bill dropped their mops and moved to the hold. A minute later, the gigantic doors opened and the ship's cargo crane swung into action.

Aboard the North Korean vessel, sailors in brown uniforms scrambled to make room on the narrow deck as the first of the large wooden crates was lowered onto the tossing deck of the patrol boat.

Kelly, still mopping, casually began to scrub the deck near the North Korean ship. He caught the eye of one of the officers aboard the patrol ship and smiled.

The man glared back at Kelly with cold, emotionless eyes. The youth averted his gaze, then turned to watch the activity on the Dingo's deck.

A second and third crate were soon lowered onto the North Korean ship. The tiny patrol boat rode low in the rough water now. Finally, a fourth crate was dragged from the hold and lifted high over the deck. But this time, China Bill had failed to properly secure the wooden box to the hook. With a loud snap, the cable twisted and the wooden box shattered, spilling the contents onto the Dingo's deck.

Crispin and Singh leaped aside, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

With the outer wooden crate shattered, Kelly, who was closest to the accident, got a good look at the contents. The wooden crate contained a single lead box that was roughly the size of a coffin. Partially obliterated, but still visible on the metal surface, was the familiar round radioactive warning symbol. On the lid of the box were the words DANGER! HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE. Under that was a single word that froze Kelly in his tracks.

PLUTONIUM.

Oh, god, Kelly gasped, unable to hide his shock and surprise. The captain is smuggling weapons-grade plutonium to the Communists in North Korea!

Suddenly, Kelly felt eyes watching him. He turned and spotted the North Korean officer with cold eyes staring at him. The youth quickly moved away from the debris as China Bill and several others tried to hook the lead box onto the crane again.

Finally, the lead box was lowered onto the North Korean patrol ship, followed by the last crate in the cargo hold. With the cargo secured on his ship, the North Korean officer climbed aboard the Dingo's Luck. He carried a canvas bag that looked stuffed and heavy. The smiling first mate welcomed the soldier aboard and then escorted the man to the bridge.

Twice the North Korean officer stared directly at Kelly. The youth moved to the far end of the deck, wishing himself invisible. He noticed that China Bill, Singh, and Crispin suddenly gave him a wide berth.

Kelly mopped the deck, one eye trained on the bridge, where the North Korean officer and Captain Willowby were obviously concluding their business transaction.

As the youth dumped the bucket of dirty water overboard, he noticed both the captain and the North Korean officer watching him intently. The first mate climbed down the ladder and approached Kelly.

"Hey, mate," he said with an ingratiating smile. "The cap'n would like to see ya on the bridge."

"What for?" Kelly demanded.

"He likes the job yer doin', kid," the mate said. "Yer up for a promotion."

Kelly looked up to the bridge again. The North Korean officer was signaling some of his men. They climbed aboard the Dingo's Luck. Each man was armed. The North Korean officer smiled thinly and pointed Kelly out to his men.

"Captain Willowby!" a voice cried out, shattering the stillness of the scene. The man called from the watchtower. All eyes turned as the man pointed to the ocean.

Kelly looked, too.

Amazingly, a section of the ocean rose up in a gigantic swell, rocking the two ships, which were still secured together. From the center of that swell, two gigantic, gleaming red eyes peered at the bobbing ships.

"It's Godzilla!" the man on the watchtower cried.

As the stunned crews watched, an immense, almost feline, head emerged from the ocean waves. The monster narrowed its eyes as it focused on the two ships.

"He's coming right at us!" the first mate cried in alarm. Suddenly, the deck of the Dingo's Luck exploded with activity. The North Korean soldiers who had come for Kelly aimed their rifles at the oncoming monster. Small-arms fire echoed across the water.

The cacophony was drowned out by Godzilla's angry bellow. The sound of the creature's roar echoed throughout the ship and battered their ears.

For an instant, Kelly's fear of the North Korean soldiers was replaced with a sense of wonder and awe. He'd never before seen anything like this creature.

The films and pictures he had seen of Godzilla did not do him justice. In the flesh, Godzilla was extraordinary to behold.

It's the radioactive material! Kelly realized. Godzilla is after the plutonium.

He recalled how Godzilla had destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syracuse, New York, the year before, in order to absorb the nuclear materials.

The volley of small-arms fire intensified as Godzilla moved closer to the two ships, obviously looking for a nuclear breakfast after his undersea hibernation.

For Kelly, however, Godzilla was not nearly as terrifying as the North Korean officer, who was down on the deck and coming right for him.

As another terrible roar filled his ears, Kelly searched for a way out. Then, suddenly, he saw it. As the North Korean drew his sidearm, Kelly dived over the side of the Dingo's Luck, right into one of the ship's two lifeboats.

Kelly landed hard on his back. The wind was knocked out of him, but he had no time to rest. He kicked out with his foot, hitting the handle that released the lifeboat from its moorings. The wooden boat plunged into the ocean, landing so hard that Kelly's teeth rattled.

Stumbling to his knees, Kelly searched for the oars. Suddenly, two forms dived into the water next to the lifeboat. A second later, Singh and China Bill poked their heads to the surface, spitting water. As they clambered aboard, a bullet whizzed by Kelly's head.

Kelly heard the sound of an engine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the North Korean patrol boat pulling away from the freighter and the approaching monster.

Kelly ducked down into the lifeboat again, still searching for the oars. Another bullet rushed past him, missing Kelly but striking Singh. The Indian's head exploded in a shower of red. His suddenly limp body fell backward into the ocean and sank.

Surprised, Kelly fell onto his back again, and stared up at the deck of the Dingo's Luck. The North Korean officer glared down at him. Smiling thinly, the soldier took careful aim at Kelly.

Then the American gasped as a shadow fell over them all. Behind the North Korean officer, towering over him and the ship he was on, Godzilla rose out of the water. The gigantic creature stood waist-deep in the sea. His wet hide was shiny black, and torrents of seawater poured off his colossal torso.

Kelly heard someone aboard the freighter scream.

Then Godzilla slammed his full weight against the Australian ship. As he struck the freighter with his forepaws, the sea crested in a gigantic wave that pushed the lifeboat clear of the ship.

Bobbing like a cork in a tsunami, the lifeboat was carried along. Inside, Kelly and China Bill clutched the handholds helplessly. Miraculously, the boat did not capsize, despite the towering wake from Godzilla's destruction.

As Kelly watched, wide-eyed, Godzilla slammed against the Dingo's Luck. With deafening sounds of ripping metal and snarling beast beating against their ears, the old man and the youth watched as their ship broke apart under the monstrous assault.

Godzilla grappled like a wrestler with the remains of the ship. One or two men could be seen leaping into the ocean, but they were immediately dragged under by Godzilla's wake. Suddenly, electric-blue fire danced across the monster's three rows of dorsal fins.

Kelly caught a strong smell, like a combination of salty fish and burning electrical wires.

Then Godzilla opened his tooth-lined maw and spat out a stream of searing, blue-white radioactive fire. The rays arced over the lifeboat and struck the ocean. Kelly could hear the seawater sizzle and boil.

Then cold water rushed into the hull of the Australian freighter and collided with the hot diesel engines. An explosion shuddered the doomed ship. Godzilla thrust the wreckage aside as the freighter split in two.

The Dingo's luck had finally run out. Silently, the two halves of the ship slid below the surface and vanished.

The lifeboat twisted violently as Godzilla moved past it. The tiny boat almost capsized from the force of the creature's tremendous wake. Kelly heard China Bill moaning in fear, but he made no move to help the man. The rocking motion of the boat was so violent that Kelly feared that if he let go, he'd be thrown overboard instantly.

Finally, Godzilla moved past the lifeboat, nearly capsizing it again with his long tail. Kelly saw the creature's back, and blue lightning flashing there. Another beam of energy spewed from the monster's mouth. This time, it struck its target.

On the horizon, the North Korean patrol boat exploded in a scarlet ball of fire and billowing black smoke.

With a grunt of satisfaction, Godzilla vanished beneath the waves once again - searching, no doubt, for traces of the now-scattered plutonium.

The ocean calmed, and the lifeboat steadied. Kelly and China Bill sat up in the boat, scanning the horizon.

But there was no sign of Godzilla, or of the two ships he had destroyed. It was as if the monster had never been there at all.

8
TERROR AND TERRORISM

Thursday, December 7, 2000, 0145 hours
Above a cluster of Wari ruins
26 kilometers northeast of Ayacucho
Central highlands of Peru

Sean Brennan shifted the M-16A1 assault rifle in his grip as he peered into the dark rock-strewn valley below. His passive infrared night-vision goggles were fastened securely onto his Kevlar helmet, which in turn was covered with camouflage brush gathered from the local terrain hours earlier, before the sun set.

In the harsh daylight, Sean had been sweating in his BDUs - battle-dress uniform. Now, waiting in the pitch-dark night, he was freezing cold. As he watched for movement in the valley, he suppressed the urge to shiver. Brennan heard a whisper to his left. Jim Cirelli shifted nervously and rubbed his cold hands together.

Johnny Rocco, on Brennan's right, motioned him to keep quiet.

Not ten meters below the ridge where Brennan and his two mates waited, the rest of his squad was hidden among a tumble of carved square stones - part of an ancient Wari archaeological site. Such ruins dotted the rugged Andean landscape in this region of Peru.

Just a few klicks away, a whole ruined city - called Wari, after the mysterious pre-Columbian culture that built it - had sat empty for nearly 1,000 years.

Tonight, if all went according to plan, this tiny valley filled with ancient stone relics would become a battlefield.

Peering over the rocks, Private Brennan could make out the heat signature of his squad leader, Corporal Franks. Only the high-tech goggles made it possible to see anyone or anything in the blackness of the Andean highlands.

Brennan again focused his attention past the others and at the floor of the valley. He had detected some movement, but immediately established that it was one of the soldiers under the command of Colonel Torres. These Peruvian regulars waited in ambush among the tumbled stones of the Wari ruins, their weapons ready.

Sean easily recognized their commander. Colonel Torres was a tall man with a stiff, military bearing. He carried no weapon beyond a service revolver, and he was crouched over a PAS-7 passive infrared system mounted on a tripod. Like the Americans on the ridge above them, the Peruvian soldiers scanned the valley in nervous anticipation.

Brennan flicked a toggle on the side of his goggles, and a digital display built into the lenses flashed the time. Almost 0200 hours. Any minute now, at least according to Peruvian military intelligence, the enemy should walk into the ambush waiting for them.

The enemy were members of Peru's most powerful and feared terrorist group, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso - the infamous Shining Path. Since taking root among the poverty-stricken natives of the Ayacucho region thirty years before, the Shining Path had fought the forces of the democratically elected government of this tiny South American nation. Along with an urban terrorist group called MRTA, the Shining Path assassinated government officials, planted bombs, attacked embassies, and kidnapped political hostages.

The Shining Path was all but broken in 1992, when the leader and founder was captured and imprisoned. But then, in December 1996, Shining Path terrorists and MRTA members seized the Japanese embassy in Lima in a bold attack during a Christmas party. The hostage crisis ended months later when Peru's president, Alberto Fujimori, ordered a paramilitary assault. All of the terrorists were killed by Peru's crack antiterrorist strike force in a meticulously planned and executed raid.

Colonel Torres, who commanded the men down in the valley this very night, had participated in that successful hostage rescue.

After that, the Shining Path went underground, only to reemerge in 1999, in the chaos that followed Godzilla's arrival in North America. The new and improved Sendero Luminoso groups were well equipped and had more militant, better-trained leadership. Some of the new members of the Shining Path were taught the art of terrorism at camps in Libya and Syria.

Already, bombings and carefully planned attacks had killed a number of prominent politicians and foreign diplomats. The political violence hurt Peru's economy and domestic stability.

Many villages in the central highlands were suspected of harboring Sendero Luminoso members. Things were so unstable in the rural areas that bands of terrorists were attacking trucks and military vehicles on Highway 3 - a vital roadway that connected the towns of Ayacucho and Huancayo - with increasing frequency.

The result was that instead of training alongside the Peruvian military in a nice, comfortable South American boot camp outside a civilized metropolitan area like Lima, Sean and his friends ended up "humping the boonies" with Peruvian regulars. The boonies, in this case, were the Andean highlands.

On tonight's mission they were led by Colonel Torres and a U.S. Army officer named Colonel Briteis - nicknamed, naturally enough, "Bright Eyes" by the American GIs.

As mandated by Washington, the Americans' role in South America was strictly that of observers. According to their commanders, the soldiers were in Peru to learn "antiterrorist and paramilitary tactics," along with the Spanish language. But even after three language lessons a week and a lot of practical experience with the natives, only Tucker Guyson was fluent in Spanish. He had even learned some words and phrases in Quechua - the language of Peru's native population. Sean and the others still relied on Bright Eyes to translate for them.

The Americans were allowed to shoot only if they were shot at. So far, that hadn't happened, but there had been several close calls.

Two days ago, oh a dusty dirt road near a tiny campesino farming village, Sean, Tucker Guyson, and Colonel Bright Eyes suddenly heard the distinctive staccato bark of an AK-47 - the weapon of choice for modern terrorist groups. Bullets began to fly, hitting the rocks around Sean and his friends.

The Americans later learned that members of Peru's elite Republican Guard had rooted out a nest of Sendero Luminoso guerrillas hiding in a stone farmhouse. The bullets coming from that fire-fight had been so close that Sean could feel them whizzing by.

Three terrorists were killed by the paramilitary troopers in a hail of return fire. Sean didn't even see the battle - he only heard it and ducked its fire.

It's as if we're getting our baptism by fire in slow, frustrating stages, Sean thought bitterly. The first week in Peru comprised long stretches of boredom and grueling forced marches with full combat gear - punctuated by moments of pure terror. He had been shot at and almost blown to bits. To his surprise, he was getting used to it.

At his side, Johnny Rocco readjusted his weapon in his hands. "I want some payback," he whispered to Sean.

Rocco, like the rest of the Americans, was tired of being a target. They were all itching for the chance to shoot back. Less than a month ago, they'd all been teenagers just out of boot camp. Now they were experiencing combat almost firsthand.

Sean's thoughts were interrupted when he saw Colonel Torres slowly draw his handgun from its holster. Then the sound the Peruvian officer must have heard floated up to the ridge where the Americans were watching.

Voices.

Voices speaking Quechua and a smattering of Spanish. And the distinctive clank of metal on metal - which probably indicated that the men coming down the trail on the opposite side of the valley were armed. Sean hoped they would stumble right into the ambush that awaited them.

That way it would be over quickly.

Through his night-vision goggles, Sean saw three terrorists cautiously climb down into the valley. The men were wearing dirty pants and thick woolen serapes. Their faces were covered by woolen scarves.

Two of them clutched Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles - Sean recognized the weapon's distinctive banana clip. The third man clutched a more formidable weapon; Sean searched his memory and soon remembered the type. It was a Russian-built Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyrev light machine gun - commonly known as an RPD. Brennan recognized the round ammunition clip attached to the weapon's stock.

The three advance scouts scanned the valley quickly and quite ineffectually before signaling the other terrorists that it was safe to proceed. Soon ten more men, all heavily armed, stumbled down into the rock-strewn valley, their steps uncertain in the darkness.

Sean tensed, waiting for the explosion of violence. Despite the briskness of the Andean night, sweat suddenly trickled down his spine.

The wait was not a long one.

Thursday, December 7, 2000, 2:34 A.M.
74° south latitude, 114° east longitude
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica

The Chinook helicopter descended on a barren area in the middle of the temporary camp, kicking up dust and a hail of ice. With his back to the mysterious crater that had swallowed many of his colleagues and friends, Dr. Stanley Wendell felt his scalp prickle. As the bright orange research helo landed on the ice, the geologist turned and faced the awesome and so far unexplained pit that yawned open in the ancient Antarctic ice covering.

Though he'd examined the hole innumerable times and from every angle since he returned to the camp fifteen hours before, he could not shake his sense of awe and primal fear. Cautiously, he moved toward the temporary rope fence erected around the crater. From the ropes, which were set up quite a distance from the edge of the pit, it was difficult to see too far into the stark white abyss. Unfortunately, to get any closer on foot was dangerous - the walls of the pit were unstable. Every few minutes, chunks of ice pack broke off and dropped into the hole.

No one had yet heard those chunks of ice strike bottom. Cameras had been lowered deep into the pit, but the bottom was still lost in the distance. Dr. Wendell wondered if there was a bottom.

He recalled his grandmother's stories about hell. Funny, Dr. Wendell realized. Since the ancient Greeks, and maybe before, hell was always thought to be at the center of the Earth ...

Dr. Wendell, one of only two survivors of Dyer base camp, was the only expert available. Since he had returned to the site, Dr. Wendell had worked hard, monitoring the seismological instruments he and his colleagues from McMurdo had erected in the field. They were trying to measure the depth of the pit.

Dr. Wendell was as stumped as anybody. And now, no doubt, the government wants answers, he thought.

But Dr. Wendell, still traumatized by his experience when the pit first opened, had no answers for the government men who were about to emerge from that helicopter - though he'd been searching for clues for fifteen hours straight. And he'd been awake a lot longer.

As Dr. Wendell waited for his guests to debark from the Chinook, he recalled how the mystery had begun more than a week before, when a strange new type of signal or solar event jammed all communications on the Antarctic continent.

For six days, every research station that was not hard-wired could not communicate with the outside world. Every type of wireless communication was jammed. After the first twenty-four hours of the blackout, the commander of "Mactown" - as McMurdo Station, the largest outpost in Antarctica, had been dubbed by longtime residents - decided to send out helicopters to make contact with other remote bases.

The first helicopter set down in the French base called Concorde. Twelve hours later, as a freak summer storm kicked up, Dr. Wendell and a graduate student arrived in a battered Hagglunds - the only survivors of Dyer base camp.

For the next six days, the Antarctic was in turmoil, with katabatic winds in excess of seventy-five miles an hour in some regions. All flights were grounded, and travel over land was out of the question.

Then, on the seventh day, the storm ended as abruptly as it had begun. Twelve hours later, the electronic jamming ended, too. Helicopters were immediately dispatched when it was discovered that another small temporary scientific settlement - the Waruga East Antarctica Camp, run by the Australians - could not be raised.

Searchers discovered that the Australian camp had been wiped away by the violence of the katabatic winds and the storm. All twenty scientists and support crew members were missing.

At the former location of the Dyer base camp, the rescue helicopter sent from McMurdo found this bottomless pit, an abyss that had never before existed and that should not be there.

Dr. Wendell stared at the Chinook. The doors had not yet opened. In the time he had left, Dr. Wendell reviewed what he already knew. Though no seismographic instruments at McMurdo had picked up any tremors that would indicate that such a pit had opened up on Wilkes Land through tectonic activity, Dr. Wendell had picked up some strange underground readings since arriving here.

During the storm, the seismographic device at Concorde had picked up activity deep beneath the ice, in the crust of the Antarctic continent itself. But it was not really tectonic activity - at least not as Dr. Wendell understood it. Rather, the noise resembled the sound a gigantic drill would make as it tunneled through the Earth. He suddenly recalled the young grad student, who referred to the mysterious sound he had heard as the noise of a "giant buzz saw."

There was a quality to the sound that suggested that something very large was moving inside the Earth, perhaps under its own power.

Just two hours ago, Dr. Wendell had finished a computer model that suggested that an object had tunneled through the Earth, starting from the area around this pit, underneath the South Pole itself, and across the continent to the Bellingshausen Sea. The object was moving incredibly fast - if there was indeed something there, and his data had not been generated by a crazy instrument failure.

Dr. Wendell, recalling how much data he lost at Dyer, had immediately sent his findings to McMurdo. He was informed an hour after the information arrived that a helicopter would be dispatched to Wilkes Land, and that it would be carrying U.S. government representatives.

Dr. Wendell glanced at the idling helicopter again. The doors finally slid open, and three men in thick parkas jumped out. Dr. Wendell recognized one of the men immediately - a Norwegian scientist named Gunnar Thorsen. Thorsen was a geologist working for Petramco Petroleum Company. Dr. Wendell remembered with a start that Dr. Thorsen had manned a research station near the coast of the Bellingshausen Sea.

A coincidence?

The other two men were strangers. But the youngest of them, a tall African-American with a wide, friendly smile, approached him.

"You must be Dr. Wendell," the black youth said, his voice surprisingly deep. The two men shook hands. "My name is Nelson ... Tobias Nelson, but please call me Toby," the young man said, then stepped aside and introduced the other two men.

"I think you know Dr. Gunnar Thorsen," the youth continued. "This other gentleman is Dr. Max Birchwood."

Dr. Wendell nodded to Dr. Thorsen, then faced the other scientist.

"Dr. Birchwood," he commented. "And what is your field of research?"

The skinny, bearded man was about to reply to Dr. Wendell's question, but Nelson interrupted him.

"Dr. Birchwood is a scientist," Toby Nelson replied. "Now if you could take us someplace where we could talk in private - someplace with a computer, if possible."

Still puzzled, Dr. Wendell nodded. "Sure," he replied hesitantly, pointing to the nearest tent. "This way."

Without preamble, Toby Nelson headed for the tent. Dr. Wendell followed, sidling up to Dr. Thorsen.

"Did you see the size of that pit from the air?" Dr. Wendell asked the other geologist. "Its radius is almost a kilometer, and God knows how deep it is!"

The Norwegian nodded, but said nothing. Dr. Wendell rambled on. "I was here when it began to open. The phenomenon was quite rapid. It swallowed Dyer camp in minutes. The pit seems bottomless, but can't be more than three kilometers deep - "

"It is far deeper than that," the mysterious Dr. Birchwood said cryptically.

"So you're a geologist, then?" Dr. Wendell pointedly asked the thin scientist who stumbled across the ice field at his side.

"I think this conversation had better wait until we're all comfortable," Toby Nelson warned, glancing at some of the other men from McMurdo. They had stopped their work and were watching the newcomers with mounting curiosity.

Finally, Dr. Wendell pulled aside a flap to reveal a door set into the wall of the thermal tent. All the men stepped through to the structure's surprisingly comfortable - and surprisingly warm - interior. After the men loosened their parkas, Dr. Thorsen proceeded to boot up Dr. Wendell's computer. The geologist looked on, annoyed that the man was handling his equipment.

"There is something I want you to see before we continue our discussion, Dr. Wendell," Toby Nelson announced, looking at the computer screen over the Norwegian geologist's shoulder. Everyone watched in silence as Thorsen inserted a disk into the computer's drive and activated the data.

"At my base near the Bellingshausen Sea, we have pioneered a process of creating three-dimensional images of the Earth's interior," said the Norwegian, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

"Three-dimensional imaging helps us find underground fields of oil, and clues us in on just how hard that oil would be to retrieve. It is a very useful and very accurate procedure."

Finally, a Petramco logo appeared on the screen, and they were into the program.

"Six days ago, we began to pick up strange seismic vibrations, as if something was moving through the Earth's crust," Dr. Thorsen continued.

The bearded Norwegian ceased typing for a moment. "I believe you picked up those same vibrations a few days ago," he said to Dr. Wendell, who nodded in reply.

"My computers stored all the data from the seismic event, and, with the help of our imaging system, I was able to create a computer-generated picture of what was moving underground."

"An image?" Dr. Wendell exclaimed skeptically. "A picture of an earthquake?"

"Not an earthquake, Dr. Wendell," the Norwegian replied. Then he tapped several keys.

A map of Antarctica appeared on the screen. A red line traced the movement of the tectonic activity from its point of origin - the pit outside - to the point where the object moved out of range of Dr. Thorsen's seismic monitors. The movement went under the South Pole, across the other side of the Antarctic continent, and under the Bellingshausen Sea.

"What is it?" Dr. Wendell asked finally.

Toby Nelson stepped in front of the Norwegian. "Before he answers you, doctor, I have to ask that you keep what you are about to learn to yourself for the time being."

Dr. Wendell, now thoroughly perplexed, nodded. Then he repeated his question to Dr. Thorsen.

The Norwegian geologist tapped a few more keys. "This is what my three-dimensional imaging system came up with," he announced.

Dr. Wendell's jaw dropped when he saw the image on the computer monitor. At first the shape looked like a rocket ship, but as the computer program moved around the object, more details emerged.

"It looks like some kind of creature," Dr. Wendell exclaimed. "A living thing!"

"It is a living thing," Dr. Max Birchwood replied.

Dr. Stanley Wendell turned and faced the thin man. "You're not a geologist, are you?" he stated.

"No, sir, I am not," the other man replied, smiling. "I'm a kaijuologist."

"A kaijuologist!" Wendell cried, fully aware of the meaning of the name for one of the youngest sciences. "Then you study -"

"That's right, doctor," Birchwood interrupted. "I study monsters."

For a moment, everyone in the tent was silent. Then Dr. Wendell pointed to the computer screen again.

"Where is that thing going?" he asked. Dr. Birchwood shook his head.

"I don't know where it's going," he answered solemnly. "But I know where it is."

The kaijuologist glanced at his watch. "Right about now, if its course and speed have remained the same, the creature is somewhere under the Andes Mountains."

In the Peruvian Andes ...

The two enemy scouts who were carrying AK-47s dropped like rag dolls under a hail of bullets fired from the Peruvian regulars waiting in ambush. The third scout, who had been clutching the RPD, died harder. His body was held erect for a few seconds as round after round struck him. The man's body jerked from the impact, and he finally dropped the machine gun. Then he simply fell to the ground in a tattered heap.

Machine guns raked the ranks of the terrorists as they ran across the floor of the valley, searching for cover. Most of them dropped instantly, ripped apart by the merciless firepower. A few of them managed to return fire as they took cover.

Finally, several terrorists found sanctuary behind the stone ruins at the opposite end of the valley. It was then that Colonel Torres detonated the Claymore mines he had planted behind those ancient stones for just such an event.

With an ear-shattering blast, the mines exploded. Most of the remaining terrorists were killed in the explosion. One of the men staggered out from behind the rocks, his hands in the air.

Colonel Torres raised his handgun and shot the man in the head.

Sean Brennan felt sick. He'd seen dead men since arriving in Peru, but it was usually long after the battle. He never actually saw people die before - not like this. These men were shot like fish in a barrel.

For a moment, Brennan forgot the victims of their terrorism and felt pity for the men being slaughtered in the valley. But then - suddenly - the rock in front of his goggles exploded. Dust and shards of rock covered his face as bullets ricocheted around him and his friends.

Then Sean heard a sound like a watermelon being struck by a hammer. Turning, he saw Corporal Franks drop to the ground, gasping as if he'd been punched in the gut. Bob Bodusky leaped to the fallen man's side.

Then Brennan focused his night-vision goggles on the ridge above his men. In the darkness, he could see the heat images of several terrorists, shooting down at the Americans from the ridge above them. Through the night-vision goggles, the flashes from the muzzles of their guns looked like bright explosions.

Brennan immediately grasped the situation. It looked as if two groups of terrorists were moving into the valley at the same time, perhaps for a meeting. And the groups were coming from two different directions.

Now one group of terrorists was above the American soldiers, raking their lines with gunfire.

For a moment, the raw recruits panicked. Their squad leader was down, and Colonel Briteis was with the Peruvians. They suddenly realized there was no one among them to give orders.

Sensing what had to be done, Sean Brennan mastered his fear, lifted his M-16, and squeezed the trigger. A second later, one of the figures on the cliffs above them dropped to the ground, his AK-47 falling from dead fingers. The other terrorists on the ridge above scrambled for cover.

"Rocco!" Sean cried, pointing at the cliff. "Blast them!"

"Right!" Johnny Rocco cried. The private quickly lifted the muzzle of his powerful M-60 light machine gun and turned around to face the threat at the squad's rear. Aiming carefully, he began raking the ridge with gunfire.

Sean Brennan saw two more men fall from their perch above them. The rest disappeared over the edge of the ridge.

"Cirelli! Guyson!" Brennan ordered. "Circle around the hill and hit them from behind ... and don't let any of them get away!"

Instantly, the two privates ran off to obey Brennan's commands.

Down in the valley, the shooting behind him caught the attention of Colonel Torres. His men were still mopping up in the valley, however, and so he did not join the battle on the ridge. Torres figured that the Americans could handle the rearguard action. Colonel Bright Eyes had a different reaction. He turned and ran up the hill toward his soldiers, ducking behind stone ruins and hugging the ground the whole way.

By the time the officer reached his troops, the battle was over. The terrorists who had tried to ambush the ambushers were all dead or heading for the hills with Cirelli and Guyson in pursuit. Brennan and Colonel Briteis heard the bark of distant gunfire - M-l6s - and then silence. A few minutes later, Cirelli and Guyson returned. They had snuffed two more fleeing terrorists.

"Medic! Medic!" Bob Bodusky cried as he crouched over the fallen form of Corporal Franks. But just as a Peruvian medic rushed up the hill to aid the wounded American, the ground began to tremble. Soon the hills were shaking, and rocks and dirt were raining down on the soldiers from the cliffs above.

Sean Brennan dropped to the ground as the earthquake continued to roll the ground underneath him, shaking the very earth beneath all of their feet.

In Wilkes Land ...

With the exception of Dr. Thorsen, the team that had arrived on the orange Chinook helicopter departed an hour after they arrived - just as soon as the helo was refueled and serviced. Dr. Wendell tried to get more information about the thing detected moving underground, but Dr. Birchwood, the kaijuologist, was not exactly forthcoming with the facts.

Dr. Thorsen tried to be helpful, running his computer model several times for Dr. Wendell to study. But in the end the American geologist was more puzzled than ever.

"This is all too much to absorb," Dr. Wendell complained. "When I was younger, science made sense. Nowadays ..." His voice trailed off as he threw up his arms in exasperation.

"It is a new age, Dr. Wendell," Dr. Thorsen announced gravely. "An age of monsters -"

The Norwegian geologist's thought was cut short as the ice beneath the tent began to tremble. The tremor lasted only a few seconds, but it was long enough to unnerve the two scientists.

Just then, the flap to Dr. Wendell's tent was flung open.

"Dr. Wendell!" cried a technician from the video tent. "Come quick! Something is moving down in the pit."

The two men zipped their parkas and ran from the tent.

The camp was already in chaos when the tremors began anew. Men were moving quickly away from the abyss, and the edges of the pit were crumbling even more. Each section of ice that dropped into the hole widened the pit even more.

"I think we'd better move the camp!" Dr. Wendell cried as he watched the rope fence around the hole being swallowed - along with several cameras on tripods that had been positioned around the pit.

As the tremors continued, the American geologist grabbed Dr. Thorsen by the shoulder. "Come with me!" he cried, leading the Norwegian to another tent that was surrounded by a cluster of communications antennas.

Bursting into the tent, Dr. Thorsen saw a technician sitting at a control panel. Above the man was a bank of large color television monitors. They were all filled with static.

"Are the cameras still working?" Dr. Wendell demanded. The man nodded his head excitedly.

"The power line was temporarily cut," the technician answered. "I'm just getting the electronic system back on-line now."

A moment later, the monitors sprang to life.

The three men gasped in awe and shock when the cameras revealed what was moving deep inside the abyss.

"Get on the radio and call McMurdo," Dr. Wendell commanded the technician. "I've got to report this."

As the technician tried to raise their home base, Dr. Thorsen and Dr. Wendell gazed at the thing inside the abyss.

"It's like a nightmare come true," Dr. Thorsen muttered. "Such a thing should not be alive."

"And it came out of the same pit as the other creature," Dr. Wendell added.

"I've got McMurdo!" the technician cried, thrusting the microphone into Dr. Wendell's trembling hand. The scientist took the mike and began to speak in an even, professional tone.

"There is something inside the pit," he reported after identifying himself and ordering the technician to record the conversation.

"It is, as far as I can make out, a living creature," Dr. Wendell said into the microphone. "The thing is moving upward - I'm not sure how - but it looks as if it is flying. I estimate that in about ten seconds it will break the surface."

When the technician heard that, he paled, but remained at his control board.

"The creature is light blue in color, with golden scales running down its belly. It has a beak for a mouth, and that beak has metallic-looking spikes on either side of it.

"The creature has only one red eye, which runs across its entire face. It has curved claws on the end of its arms. There are wings, too, on the creature's back."

Outside the tent, Dr. Wendell could hear the panicked voices of the other men in the camp. The earth began to quake more violently. Suddenly, a shrill, almost mechanical cry cut through the Antarctic day.

Dr. Wendell stepped closer to the door, peering outside as he continued to file his radio report.

"The creature is making a terrible noise, like an electronic squawk. The sound is quite piercing."

The ground began to roll violently, and Dr. Thorsen was dashed to the floor of the tent. Dr. Wendell gripped the edge of the door and continued to speak in a cool, professional voice.

"The thing is near the surface. It's coming up now."

***

Back at McMurdo, a radio technician and two other men listened to the scientist's report with mounting anxiety. Secretly, Dr. Birchwood and Tobias Nelson felt that he and the rest of the men at the pit were doomed.

Fortunately, the conversation was being taped, and Dr. Max Birchwood was enough of a scientist not to interrupt the flow of information. As they listened, Dr. Wendell continued to speak.

"It is moving to the surface!" Dr. Wendell announced, his electronically distorted voice finally showing some sign of the tension he no doubt felt.

"The creature seems very large. The ground is trembling more violently now. I don't know how much longer I can maintain this radio link -"

Then the three men in the radio room heard the shrill cry of the creature Dr. Wendell was describing. The sound, even transmitted over hundreds of miles by radio, was truly terrifying and utterly unearthly.

"It is coming up now ... Almost to the surface ... Oh, my God!" Dr. Wendell cried as fear and horror overwhelmed him.

"It's ... it's gigan -"

Then Dr. Wendell's radio went dead.

9
THE WAR AGAINST HUMANITY

Thursday, December 7, 2000, 0900 hours
NORAD Space Command Center
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

"We have a launch alert!" Airman Sandy Stilson cried, her bright blue eyes wide with shock and surprise as she stared at her "bandit board." Airman Stilson barely got the words out before the Air Force Intelligence officer on night watch, a twenty-year veteran named Colonel Roger Wistendahl, was at the young woman's shoulder.

"Are you certain, Stilson?" the colonel demanded, staring over her blond head at the monitor. The question was moot. Wistendahl could see the pip flashing on her screen.

"It launched thirty-six seconds ago," Airman Stilson insisted, noting the readout on the digital clock and tapping the keys on her board in an effort to trace the object's point of origin. Already its course and speed and attitude and apogee were being displayed on her monitor.

The object was climbing steadily into orbit from somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

"We've got a definite confirmation from Teal Sapphire," Airman Ted Rodofsky announced from his command station opposite the young woman's. It was Rodofsky's job to monitor the data coming from Teal Sapphire. The sophisticated satellite was designed to alert NORAD's Space Command Center of the launch of a ballistic missile or rocket anywhere in the world within seconds.

The three U.S. Air Force personnel exchanged uneasy glances. This wasn't supposed to be happening.

It was the end of the graveyard shift at the joint United States and Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command - NORAD for short. The Cold War was over, no monsters were roaming the fruited plains, and very few hostile powers were aiming nuclear weapons at the U.S. of A.

In fact, to Colonel Wistendahl, NORAD itself sometimes seemed obsolete.

The huge technological facility was cut into the very heart of the Cheyenne Mountain range. The base was built on gigantic coil springs designed to absorb the impact of a hydrogen bomb - not that anybody was aiming those things at NORAD anymore. For decades, NORAD had monitored North American airspace from hundreds of radar sites all over the world.

The entire facility and the philosophy behind it was a holdover from the Cold War of the previous century. Built to survive a Russian nuclear attack, the Cheyenne Mountain radar center was the backbone of air defense for the American continent. Twenty-four hours a day, each and every aircraft flying in or near American airspace was constantly monitored.

But NORAD monitored activity not only over the United States and Canada. The entire Northern Hemisphere - including the north polar region and Russian Republic airspace - was covered by the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, made up of radar stations scattered across the tundra of Alaska.

Missile launches in the Southern Hemisphere were covered by Pave Paws, a pyramid-shaped radar station operating in West Texas. All the information from these various sources was relayed to Cheyenne Mountain.

It was the Pave Paws radar system, built in the desert of Texas, that was the source of this particular launch alert.

Until a point of origin could be established, NORAD would remain on alert as a precaution. By international law, countries launching rockets or missiles into space had to notify all other space-faring nations through normal diplomatic channels.

It was a prudent safeguard against starting an accidental nuclear war.

Only this time somebody forgot to tell us, Wistendahl thought angrily.

According to the Space Command Center day-timer, no launch was scheduled for this date or time. As Airman Stilson tried to determine the launch point and Airman Rodofsky continued to monitor the object's course and trajectory, Colonel Wistendahl ran a check on the launches scheduled for the next three weeks, which had been previously logged in their computer calendar - just in case he'd missed any new information.

But, as Wistendahl suspected, there were no rocket tests or launches scheduled for tonight, anywhere in the world. The liftoff of the first Russian space shuttle from Baikonur Cosmodrome was not going to happen until next week, and the Europeans had no launches scheduled from the European Rocket Testing Range in Australia until January.

There was a launch of a French Ariane rocket scheduled for Saturday. That rocket was carrying a U.S. communications satellite built for the Independent News Network. If everything went according to plan, the Ariane would blast off from Khorou, French Guiana - but not for thirty-five more hours.

Colonel Wistendahl knew from experience that rockets were often launched late, but never early.

"Come on, Stilson," Wistendahl said, irritation in his voice. "Let's have that point of origin. ASAP, please ..."

Airman Stilson, at her command console, had already calculated a launch-origin solution. But the answer was so ridiculously impossible that she ran the mathematical model through the computer one more time, sure that some data had been flawed.

NORAD's Space Command Center was home to some of the most sophisticated equipment in the world. SCC not only monitored launches but also maintained watch on the 8,000 or so pieces of space junk - including active and nonfunctioning satellites, spent boosters, debris from the Atlantis and Mir, and other debris that floated in Earth's orbit.

When the computer finished its second tabulation, Stilson's speaker beeped. For the second time, her computer had come up with a point of origin based on the object's current trajectory.

The answer this time was the same as the first.

"Sir," she said, bewildered, "I think you should see this."

Colonel Wistendahl crossed the command center and stood at the airman's shoulder. He peered at the monitor for a moment. Then Colonel Wistendahl whistled.

"This can't be right," he stated.

"I think it is correct, sir," Stilson replied. "I ran it through the computer twice."

Wistendahl turned to Rodofsky, who was watching the action from his station.

"Get me the commander in chief of NORAD," Wistendahl said. "We have a probable launch. Point of origin, the Antarctic ..."

Friday, December 8, 2000, 3:00 A.M.
International Seismographic Agency
Sydney, Australia

On the other side of the International Date Line, Dr. Ryan Whittle, the chairman of the United Nations newest scientific research institution, the International Seismographic Agency, was puzzled.

Since taking the job as the agency's first chairman six months before, Dr. Whittle - a native of the Bahamas - had seen his share of confusing and contradictory data.

But he had never seen anything like this.

What he was seeing now defied common sense and all previous geologic theories. But the facts, as presented to him in the past few hours, had been checked and double-checked by a number of reliable and respected sources.

According to the report faxed to him from ANARE 2000 - the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition for the current calendar year - a large object had tunneled deep under the Earth's crust from a point in the middle of Wilkes Land, East Antarctica. The object bored under the South Pole and out under the bottom of the Bellingshausen Sea. The object had subsequently been tracked as it moved beneath the South American continent.

If that wasn't puzzling enough, a second report filed by seismologists at the Australian Antarctic base in Mawson suggested that a second large object had moved underground from that same position in Wilkes Land at about the same time.

But this second mysterious object moved toward the coast of Kemp Land - in the opposite direction from the first object. According to the scientists on-station in Mawson, this second object actually moved under the base, many kilometers beneath the crust of the Antarctic continent.

Eventually, the thing broke through the Earth's crust deep under the Pacific Ocean, about 150 kilometers from the Antarctic coast. Its last course had the object heading up the coast of East Africa, around Madagascar, then east again - to the Indian Ocean.

Moving ... or swimming? Dr. Whittle puzzled.

He wondered if he should alert the United Nations Security Council, or perhaps G-Force, or G-Force USA. But he wasn't sure that the objects posed any immediate danger - he wasn't even sure if they were living things, or some sort of previously undiscovered tectonic activity.

And not one object, Dr. Whittle thought, but two - and both originating in Wilkes Land.

The scientist had little doubt that something was happening under the crust of the East Antarctic. Only one question remained.

What?

Thursday, December 7, 2000, 0919 hours
NORAD Space Command Center

Colonel Wistendahl and his technicians continued to monitor the object as it rose from the south polar region into Earth's orbit. NORAD's delicate instruments determined the size, shape, altitude, and speed of the object.

But no one knew what it was.

The thing achieved orbit and now circled the planet, moving toward the equator with each rotation. An hour ago the object had taken its first hostile action - it destroyed a European satellite. Since then the object had destroyed or disabled six more objects in space. The UFO was showing no partiality toward nationalities.

First a European satellite was killed, then one belonging to the Japanese. Then a Russian satellite, a French satellite - and six minutes ago the object had taken out a Pentagon spy satellite in orbit above China.

Already U.S. Space Command was moving any satellite it could out of the object's path. Unfortunately, the Pentagon had moved its nearest satellite, but the object went out of its way to destroy the satellite anyway.

That meant that whatever this thing was, it was guided by an intelligence. But what kind of intelligence? And why destroy satellites without declaring war or without an apparent plan?

Unless the plan is to knock out every single satellite in orbit, Wistendahl pondered, a chill running through him.

That would cripple the whole world and throw us back to the Stone Age ...

Suddenly the glass doors to the Space Command Center opened, and General Rory Bierce, commander in chief of NORAD, returned from his video conference with the president of the United States and the prime minister of Canada. A tall lieutenant with bland features followed.

"Status!" the general barked.

Colonel Wistendahl, exhausted from being on duty for sixteen hours straight, saluted his commander and made his report.

"The object continues to knock satellites out of the sky, General," Wistendahl replied. "In six minutes, it will hit a Chinese satellite placed in orbit just six weeks ago - unless the Chinese manage to move the thing far enough out of the object's path to save it ..."

The general nodded grimly.

"We have an update on the size of the object, General," Wistendahl continued. He shuffled some papers in his hand and came up with the correct page. "The object has a mass of about twenty-five to thirty thousand tons. It is about sixty-five to seventy meters long. The thing may have wings, and seems to emit a laser beam - at least that is what destroyed the spy satellite a few minutes ago.

"We have some telescopes tracking it, and hope to have a photograph or computer image of the object in a few more minutes."

"We have those images now, Colonel," General Bierce interrupted. All heads in the SCC turned toward the general when they heard his words. The officer scanned the curious faces staring up at him.

"What I am about to show you must not leave this room," General Bierce announced loudly. "You all have security clearance - remember that what you are about to see is top secret."

The general nodded toward an aide, the tall lieutenant who, Wistendahl suddenly noticed, was wearing a sidearm. The man inserted a disk into the drive of one of the many computers. The man calmly tapped out a security code on the keyboard.

Everyone in the room gasped when they saw the thing on the huge main color monitor.

"Yes," Bierce stated. "I understand your surprise. We think the object is a living thing, or perhaps a cyborg or robot of some kind. Spectrographic scans indicate both the presence of metal and the density of flesh and bone.

"The object did launch from a previously unknown site under the Antarctic. Who knows how long it was buried there?"

"What do you think activated it, General?" Wistendahl asked.

General Bierce shrugged. "There have been reports of earthquake activity in Antarctica, and mysterious disappearances - in one case, an entire scientific research station."

Everyone continued to stare at the thing on the monitor until the voice of Airman Stilson interrupted them.

"The object is approaching the Chinese satellite," she announced. Everyone in the Space Command Center turned their attention to a second screen, which marked and cataloged all the satellites in space.

Slowly, the red dot representing the unknown object approached the Chinese satellite. Suddenly the two pips crossed paths, and the satellite disappeared from the monitor. The red dot representing the object progressed to its next target.

"If this goes on much longer, every communications satellite in space will be destroyed in less than three days," Colonel Wistendahl announced.

The general nodded. He had just informed the administration of that fact. The president seemed to have no comment.

"I'm putting us on alert," General Bierce announced. "DEFCON ONE. This facility will be sealed. No one comes in or gets out of NORAD as of now."

"The object is changing course," Stilson interrupted, staring at her monitor. "It is approaching a Saudi Arabian satellite ..."

Colonel Wistendahl and General Bierce exchanged meaningful glances. Both were old Cold Warriors who had fought battles like this before.

"One more thing," the general said finally. "The ... object ... has been given a name. From now on, refer to it as Gigan."

Friday, December 8, 2000, 11:13 A.M.
Taiwan-to-Manila ferry
Luzon Strait, near the South China Sea

"Make way for the Gecko Prince!" Jin cried, thrusting his arms out and throwing his emerald-green Gecko cape over his shoulders.

His little sister, Mae, gave her nine-year-old brother a sour look. "I want to be the Gecko Prince," she demanded stubbornly.

Jin brushed aside her protestations. "You can't be the Gecko Prince," he informed her. "You're a girl - and anyway, you don't have a cape."

Lacking an argument to match her brother's, Mae turned to threats. "Mother said you can't wear your cape on this trip. I'm going to tell!" she announced.

Jin, who had been avoiding his parents since the trip on the ocean-going ferry began early that morning, tried to reason with his annoying little sister.

"You can be the Gecko Princess," he announced magnanimously.

But Mae frowned and crossed her arms. "I don't want to be the princess," Mae cried. "All the princess does is scream - and she always has to be rescued from the evil Black Dragon!"

"But you're a girl," Jin pointed out. "You can't be a prince."

Mae stamped her tiny feet, turned, and walked away from her brother. As she left, she called to him over her shoulder.

"I'm going to tell Mother," she declared.

"Go on and tell!" Jin cried back defiantly. Then he turned around and ran across the deck, his green cape billowing behind him. Jin knew his playtime was going to be short once his mother found out he'd sneaked his cape aboard the ferry. As he stared over the railing at the choppy waves, Jin frowned.

Bad enough I'm missing today's episode of Gecko Prince of the Universe, Jin thought bitterly. Any minute now, Mother is going to arrive and take my cape away from me again.

Jin decided to make good use of the time he had left. Three times around the bulkhead means I'm going to Mars, he decided. Four times around and I'll arrive on Jupiter. The little boy thought about it for a moment before deciding to go all the way.

"Gecko Prince ... fly to Jupiter!" he cried as he took off in a run. His head down, his arms and legs pumping, Jin ran headlong around the bulkhead of the rusty ferry.

"Black Dragon, face me now, you coward!" Jin cried as he completed his third lap around the bulkhead. But as he came around the corner, Jin screamed.

To his amazement, he had come face-to-face with the Gecko Prince's archenemy - the Black Dragon himself.

Jin took three steps backward, then fell on his rump. The dragon, swimming in the ocean only a few feet away, turned its mighty head and stared at the little Chinese boy. Then it blinked and hissed angrily.

Jin screamed again. Then the boy heard excited voices. Some of the passengers had run out onto the deck, pointing at the monster, which quickly swam past the ship. Cameras were produced, and many of the amazed passengers began to snap pictures of the creature.

Jin, still stunned, closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fists. When he opened his eyes again, the dragon was gone. Only a ripple on the ocean waves indicated that it was ever there at all.

Suddenly, Jin felt a hand on his shoulders. He looked up into the angry face of his mother. His little sister, Mae, stood at her side, a triumphant smile on her tiny face.

"I told you not to bring that stupid cape on this trip!" Jin's mother cried.

"But, Mother!" Jin protested. "I just saw the Black Dragon! He was swimming right out there." Jin pointed to the deep ocean.

"That's it," the woman declared. "You're not watching that ridiculous television show anymore!"

"But, Mother -"

"Don't argue with your mother," the woman commanded. Then she dragged the boy up off the deck and pulled him away. Jin protested the whole time.

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 1:15 P.M.
Independent News Network, Studio B
World Trade Center Tower
New York, New York

"What is this? A rerun of Independence Day?" Larry Jones quipped with obvious irritation as he pointed to the fuzzy picture on the television screen.

Nobody in the control booth seemed to understand the man's reference - or they pretended they didn't. Instead, all eyes in the studio were glued to the monitors - two of which were blank. That was because two of the five major broadcast networks were off the air; they'd been off for two hours.

The Fox Network was still up, but its picture was broken and fuzzy, and often the audio track simply faded out.

PBS was still broadcasting - at least in New York City. The cable channels were not faring much better. Most of them were off-line, and more were going down every hour. And in the last several hours, telephones, fax machines, and even computer lines were being affected by some sort of massive glitch.

"I guess we're not going on the air today," Brian Shimura complained. "Too bad, too, because I have some great stories ... rumors of a UFO in orbit above the Earth ... earthquakes in Peru ... and get this! Someone actually took a picture of a dragon off the coast of the Philippines!"

"A dragon?" the director said from his chair. "Are you sure they didn't spot Godzilla?"

"Nope," Brian replied. "I saw the photo on the video newswire. And trust me, I know the difference between Godzilla and a dragon."

The producer sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.

"Actually, Brian, dragons sound about right," he said miserably. "Because at this rate, nobody will be on the air by this time tomorrow. As far as communications go, if it ain't hard-wired, it ain't happening."

"Yeah," the director added. "It looks as if we're all entering a new Dark Age."

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 1:55 P.M.
Bridge of the Destiny Explorer
Near the Ecuador/Peru border
Off the coast of South America

Shelly frowned when she saw the stricken look on her father's face. He had just completed a long radio call to New York - one of the first they'd managed to complete in many, many hours.

It looked as if the airship's communications system was going haywire, and for no apparent reason - at least none that Shelly could find.

"What's up?" Shelly asked, knowing it was bad news and not sure she wanted to hear it. Things had been going pretty well since they had departed from Orlando. The lights were working properly now, thanks to a software solution dreamed up by Leena Sims.

Ned and Peter had gotten the Messerschmitt-XYB prepped and ready for a test run, and Michael had corrected some of the glitches in the airship's navigational computers.

Shelly knew that the good times were about to come to an end. She suspected as much when she heard her father yelling at someone over the radio a half hour ago.

Simon Townsend looked at his daughter, then at Captain Dolan, who was still at the helm. Outside the bridge windows, the day was misty and overcast. The gray skies somehow fit the sudden changes of mood on the bridge.

"We've been ordered to land the Explorer in Lima," Simon announced, clutching a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled some notes during the radio conference.

"What?" Shelly cried. She and Captain Dolan exchanged shocked glances.

"You mean we're, not going to Antarctica?" Captain Dolan demanded, sounding more upset than Shelly or Simon would have expected him to be at the news.

"Oh, we're going to Antarctica, all right," Simon Townsend replied. "But our passengers aren't. We've been ordered to leave them behind in the care of the American embassy."

"But why?" Shelly asked.

"We're supposed to take on a unit of U.S. Army Rangers with full combat regalia."

"Rangers!" Shelly cried. "Why Rangers? Has some kind of war broken out?"

Simon looked down once again at the sheet of paper in his hand.

"The United States government has just taken possession of this airship and its crew," he announced. "A state of emergency has been declared. Something is happening in Antarctica, and the Rangers are supposed to investigate it."

Unnoticed by Shelly or her father, Captain Jack Dolan paled. His hands clutched the control wheel of the airship, and his eyes remained fixed on the horizon. But turmoil blackened his features.

Could it all be true? the captain wondered.

"Why can't they just fly an airplane full of troops down to the South Pole?" Shelly demanded. "Why do they need our airship?"

Simon looked at his daughter.

"For one thing, it's not our airship. It belongs to Mycroft E. Endicott," her father reminded her harshly. "And according to this message from Mr. Endicott, there has been no communication with anyone on the Antarctic continent in three days.

"Every airplane sent over the South Pole simply disappears, and a spy plane sent over the region a couple of days ago discovered that a seventy-mile-wide hole has opened up in the ice."

My God in heaven! Captain Dolan screamed to himself. His heart began to race. Perhaps I'm not on a wild-goose chase after all!

"Is all this weird stuff connected to our communications problems?" Shelly asked. Her father nodded.

"And not just ours," he replied. "It seems the whole world is having troubles with its communications systems."

"This can't be happening!" Shelly moaned, striking her hands on the wall of the bridge. "We can't lose the Destiny Explorer to a bunch of tin soldiers!"

"I'm afraid we can, Shelly," her father said grimly. "We've gotten our orders from Endicott himself."

As tears welled up in Shelly Townsend's eyes, her father addressed the captain of the airship.

"How soon can we land in Lima?" Simon Townsend asked.

"We'll get there in five hours," Captain Dolan replied. "But how can we land this thing without a ground crew?"

Simon held up the crumpled paper in his hand.

"According to Mycroft, a tower and a ground crew are waiting for us at these coordinates."

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 1016 hours
NORAD Space Command Center
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

"Launch alert, Colonel," Airman Miles Jackson announced. Jackson, a three-year veteran of SCC, had relieved Sandy Stilson an hour before. Colonel Wistendahl was still on duty, and would be for another two hours.

"Where is the point of origin?" Wistendahl asked.

"Baikonur," Rodofsky cried from the Teal Sapphire monitoring station. Colonel Wistendahl nodded.

Unlike an unplanned launch from Antarctica, a launch from the Russian version of Kennedy Space Center was easy to detect.

"Get me the Cinc," Wistendahl demanded, referring to General Bierce.

A moment later, Jackson looked up at his commander. "Bierce is in a video conference with the president, sir," the young man informed him.

Wistendahl nodded his head at the news. "I guess we'll handle this one ourselves," he muttered.

"I have a course and speed, sir," Jackson reported.

"Cut to the chase and tell me where it's going, Airman," Wistendahl replied as he sank into the command chair.

"Sir ... I think you should see this," Jackson said, his voice tense. "The computer estimates that the rocket just launched is an orbital ballistic missile. The missile is on an intercept course with the object ... I mean, with Gigan, sir!"

"Holeeee -" Wistendahl bit off the words as he jumped to his feet again. Then the colonel shook his head. "Looks like the Russians were tired of watching their satellites being knocked out of the sky," the officer announced. "They decided to do something about it."

The Space Command Center grew quiet and tense as everyone watched the blip on the screen steadily approach the red dot that represented Gigan. It took six minutes for the two computer images to converge.

Rodofsky looked up from his monitor. "Teal Sapphire has just recorded a nuclear blast in space," he reported gravely.

"They used a nuke!" Colonel Wistendahl cursed.

"Well, sir, maybe they finished it off," Rodofsky offered hopefully.

"No such luck!" Jackson cried. "Gigan is still there ... and he's pissed!"

"Clarify, Airman!" Wistendahl barked.

"The creature has changed course, Colonel," Jackson reported in a brisk military fashion. "It is beginning a descent."

"Oh, my God," Rodofsky muttered. "It's heading for Russia!"

"More accurately," Jackson announced, "it's heading for Baikonur Cosmodrome."

10
THE AGE OF MONSTERS BEGINS

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 10:01 P.M.
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Energia-Buran launch site
On the Kazakhstan steppes east of the Aral Sea

Floodlights and precisely directed spotlights illuminated the crowning achievement of the newly revived Russian space program - the multipurpose carrier vehicle-shuttle complex Energia-Buran. An influx of foreign money from Japan, Europe, and the United States had made this leap in Russian space technology possible.

When the Mir was destroyed, it looked as if Russian space exploration had died with it. But renewed interest in building an international space station - and the knowledge that dangers such as King Ghidorah might lurk in space - fueled the development of the Russian shuttle program as an adjunct to America's program.

The brightly lit ground complex designed for the launch of the Energia-Buran featured a huge assembly hangar, cryogenic propellant depots, and the uniquely designed launchpad itself. Off in the distance, the concrete landing runway for the Buran space shuttle's return to Earth - a field that had never yet been used - waited for the Buran's maiden voyage. A new age was about to begin with the launch of Russia's version of the U.S. space shuttle in just a few days' time.

Already, technicians had assembled the various stages of the Energia rocket booster in the weatherproof hangar. The huge railway trains designed for the task had moved the completed booster and shuttle to the main launch complex. Now the Energia-Buran stood proudly on the launchpad, its nose pointed at the stars shimmering in the desert sky.

Work had been interrupted earlier, when the scientists and technicians first noticed lights and activity at the Proton launch site on the other side of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. As far as anyone knew, no Proton rocket was scheduled to be launched - yet within hours after the flurry of activity began, the men working on the Energia-Buran were stunned into silence when a rocket indeed lifted off from that distant pad, lighting up the Russian night with its fiery exhaust.

Now, more than an hour later, the excitement of the mysterious, unscheduled launch had died in the face of the daunting work that still needed to be done before the Energia-Buran could fly into history.

As men in cold-weather gear scrambled around the base of the Energia booster rocket, high-pressure pipes were hooked up to the boosters themselves. Other technicians in white coats scrambled around on the catwalks of the delicate-looking two-story launch tower. Two elevators constantly moved up and down inside, carrying men and material to their workstations.

Underneath the rocket, inside the five-story concrete hexagon that served as the launching pad, scientists and ground crew members were performing vital system checks on the high-pressure hydraulic pipes and gas ducts.

There were over 400 rooms inside this pad. The rooms were filled with instruments and equipment that still needed to be installed in the booster before the launch could commence.

In the distance, lights burned in the huge, 787-foot-long, 175-foot-high vehicle assembly hangar. There, railcars were loaded with explosive fuel, destined to be pumped into the Buran shuttle's engine tanks. The shuttle, which was already attached to the hull of the Energia three-stage booster, gleamed white in the spotlights.

The booster rockets themselves had already been fueled before being railed out to the launch pad. It was a hazardous practice, but part of the Russian space program since its inception.

The Russian shuttle looked remarkably like its NASA counterpart. In fact, only an educated observer could tell them apart. The Buran was white, covered by heat-resistant tiles; it had swept-back wings and a drooping nose that was painted in antiglare black.

Around the Energia-Buran pad was a forest of service facilities, diverters, and the floodlights - which could be pointed at a specific area of the shuttle or booster for work at night.

There were also tall lightning-protection masts to draw nature's fury away from the sensitive rocket during the many storms that blow across the steppes.

As midnight passed, work continued - until the unexpected sound of the cosmodrome's early-warning system began to wail. The alarm system was a relic of the Cold War days, a precaution against an American sneak attack.

The men halted their work and exchanged uneasy glances. One of the project directors cursed aloud and flipped open his cellular phone.

"This has to be a mistake," he muttered angrily.

But the man could not raise anyone on his cell phone. Satellite communications were down - or his cell phone battery was dead. In the distance, some of the workers began to heed the air-raid warning and moved to their designated bomb shelters.

Dropping the cell phone into the pocket of his overalls, the project director crossed a concrete plain to a communications post. There, a hardwired phone was installed for just such an emergency.

The director lifted the phone and clicked the receiver. On the other side of Baikonur, at the Leninsk control facility, an excited voice answered.

"What is this nonsense?" the director spat. "We have mere days to prepare for the launch, and you have my men excited over nothing!"

But the voice on the other end of the line ignored the project director's words. "Get into the shelters," the voice cried excitedly. "We believe an attack is imminent."

Attack? the project director thought. Attack by whom?

The director slammed the phone onto its hook. He turned and saw technicians and scientists staring at him. They were waiting for instructions.

"Well, what are you waiting for!" the director cried. "Get to the shelters."

The men took off in a run. But it was already too late.

"Look!" a ground crewman cried, pointing at the dark horizon. Others paused and turned, staring into the darkness. Despite the blinding lights of the launchpad, a glowing streak was evident in the night sky.

The project director grunted. That glow resembled the one that often surrounded a space vehicle as it reentered the atmosphere.

The director felt a touch of fear. He turned and pushed the scientist in front of him. "Get to the shelter, Dmitri," he commanded. But the scientist, along with several others, was too mesmerized by the vision dropping out of space toward them.

Three minutes later, Gigan slammed into the middle of Baikonur Cosmodrome. The creature landed in a forest of rocket-fuel tanks and high-pressure pipes near Pad Number Two - the Proton site, which had launched so mysteriously earlier that night.

A mushroom cloud of fiery fuel blossomed over the space center. The explosion was so brilliant that it lit the entire cosmodrome as if it were early afternoon.

The technicians at the Proton site, who had just launched the orbital missile that struck the creature, had fled to their underground shelters at the first sound of the air-raid alarm. Now torrents of burning liquid fuel gushed into the crowded shelters. Men and women died screaming.

In the midst of the firestorm, Gigan rose to its feet and howled into the night. Its single scarlet eye glowed in the creature's head. Above that eye, a tiny red dot flickered eerily.

The gigantic creature turned and moved toward the Proton assembly building nearby. As Gigan walked, its single-clawed foot knocked aside the heavy railcars that transported rockets to their launch pads.

Under Gigan's fearsome tread, the tracks curled and buckled, and concrete shattered. Underground pipes burst, and water spewed from the ground.

Gigan slammed into the Proton's assembly hangar, which was still brightly lit - powered by its own internal electric generators. The creature opened its beak, and a shrill machine sound suddenly shattered the night. The huge buzz saw built into the cyborg's chest began to whirl, until the individual blades were lost in a blur.

Then Gigan slammed, belly first, into the assembly building, the blades cutting into the walls of the hangar. The hollow building was twice the size of the sixty-five-meter-tall creature. But Gigan's terrible power was tremendous.

The hangar crumpled under the cyborg's assault. The roof came down on top of Gigan's head, but the creature was not even stunned. Shaking off debris and whole sections of steel framework, Gigan lurched into the center of the building. As the walls collapsed around the monster, high-pressure fuel lines began to blow up.

Gigan staggered through the exploding building, finally stumbling out the other side as blazing debris flew in all directions. The noise and explosions seemed to infuriate the monster even further.

One curved metallic forearm lashed out, knocking down a swaying launch tower. As the steel-frame structure slowly tilted and fell, an underground fuel tank detonated. It sent the tower flying into the sky like one of the rockets that once rose into space from that very pad.

Kilometers away, a HIND military helicopter rose from the airfield on the far side of the town of Leninsk. The sprawling town was the home of thousands of scientists, cosmonauts, engineers, technicians, and their families. Inside the helicopter, the top directors of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and their immediate family members were being evacuated.

But the movement attracted Gigan's attention. Its dead red eye focused on the object in the distance, and the creature stood stock-still. Suddenly a red beam of energy sprang from the tiny dot in the middle of Gigan's forehead.

The light stabbed through the darkness, striking the helicopter as it attempted to escape. The chopper instantly blew apart in a yellow blast, raining debris onto the runway and igniting several aircraft parked on the tarmac. These fires quickly spread to the hangars and to several other helicopters idling for takeoff.

Now two sections of the Baikonur Cosmodrome were burning.

But not yet satisfied with the destruction it was meting out, Gigan turned to the brightly illuminated Energia-Buran launchpad a kilometer or more away. With surprising speed, the 25,000-ton creature lumbered across the steppes to the other launchpad.

With the creature's imminent approach, the shelters near the pad began to disgorge frightened technicians and scientists, who fled the monster's apocalyptic destruction.

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 11:00 A.M.
Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Central Lima, Peru

Her gigantic shadow falling across the buildings of central Lima, the airship Destiny Explorer was docked on a temporary mooring tower and an elevator tower erected in a small, tidy park in the heart of the crowded city of seven and a half million souls. Mycroft E. Endicott was as true as his word. The mast and elevator tower were waiting when the airship arrived in Lima.

This South American metropolis was one of the first European settlements in the New World, and was founded by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro - who, in 1535, actually laid out the 117 blocks of the main town with his own hand on a blank sheet of parchment.

The city had since grown, and the latter half of the twentieth century saw the rise of the pueblos jovenes - literally "young towns" - the terrible shanty-towns where most of the unskilled rural laborers ended up living after they moved to the city to find work. These settlements had rampant crime, and they lacked electricity, running water, and sanitation facilities. Most of the waste from the shantytowns ended up in the Pacific Ocean.

As the airship circled the city the day before, Shelly Townsend got an aerial view of some of those slums. It wasn't pretty. She saw many unpleasant details, despite the clinging fog that hovered over this part of the country from April to December. The mist, called garua, blotted out the sun and blanketed the city, trapping car exhaust and other pollutants.

All in all, Shelly's first impression of Peru wasn't a good one. But she had to admit that the sound of the bells, which had been ringing all morning from dozens of churches and cathedrals, was quite beautiful.

After she thought about it for a while, Shelly wondered if shantytowns like the ones in Lima would be the future home of many of her own countrymen. Things just seemed to be getting worse everywhere in the world - including in the United States. At least the people of South America had their faith to sustain them. Shelly wasn't sure what she believed, now that a pit had opened up at the bottom of the world.

Is this Armageddon? Shelly wondered gloomily. And does the world die with a whimper, or a bang?

Shelly knew that her melancholy state of mind sprang from the knowledge that she would soon lose control of her beloved airship ... and get booted off, too.

Just like the INN reporters and those poor kids who won the contest.

Even now the teenagers were packing their bags, and the reporters - who traveled light - were sitting in the observation deck awaiting the ground transportation that would take them from the park to El Condado, a four-star hotel on the other side of the Rio Remac. INN, through the American embassy, was footing the bill.

Shelly refused to pack, however. She decided that her father and Captain Dolan would have to drag her kicking and screaming off this airship before she'd leave.

And they would need some of those Army Rangers stationed at the bottom of the elevator tower to do it, too!

That little drama would unfold when her father came back from a briefing in a government building across town. When Simon Townsend returned, he would do so with a U.S. Army colonel named Briteis. The colonel would lead the expedition to Antarctica, in command of two squads of Airborne Rangers.

***

At the very heart of the old city of Peru was the Plaza de las Armas. The plaza was the center of government in this capital city. The largest building on the plaza was a centuries-old cathedral. The second-largest structure was the Government Palace. Inside, in a briefing room provided for the Americans by Peruvian authorities, Simon Townsend fought the battle of his life.

For more than an hour, Townsend had listened to, and argued against, the U.S. Army's request to requisition his airship. Now, in order to convince Townsend of the urgency of the crisis confronting the entire planet, Colonel Briteis brought in a thin, gawky young scientist with a frizzy beard and a faraway stare.

Though unimpressed by the man's demeanor, Townsend listened in stunned silence and with mounting apprehension to the top-secret briefing given by the kaijuologist named Dr. Max Birchwood. Townsend had never imagined the unexplained and unexplainable events that had occurred on the south polar continent over the past several weeks.

As a slide projector cast pictures on a white screen at the front of the room, Dr. Birchwood laid out the situation to the man who had built the Destiny Explorer.

"The abyss at the pole is now almost one hundred miles in diameter," Dr. Birchwood said. "In this series of images, you can see how fast the hole grew."

Simon Townsend stared mutely. In each photo - taken only hours apart, as the numbers in the upper right-hand corner indicated - the hole continually expanded.

"These photos were taken by a high-altitude spy plane that took off from Australia several days ago. That plane was the last manned aircraft permitted to overfly the abyss -"

"Permitted?" Townsend asked. "What do you mean by 'permitted'?"

"Twelve hours after the first spy plane completed its mission, the Royal Air Force sent its own spy plane over the site. That aircraft vanished without a trace."

"It could have crashed," Townsend argued.

Dr. Birchwood shook his head. "The first plane might have crashed, except for the fact the next six aircraft sent over the Antarctic disappeared, too."

"You risked other pilots' lives like that?" Townsend asked incredulously.

Dr. Birchwood shook his head. "Only the first two planes had pilots - volunteers. The other four were remote-control drones. None of them made it back with their intelligence information intact."

"So you don't know what is going on right now, do you?" Townsend asked.

"Not true, Mr. Townsend," Dr. Birchwood stated. "Which brings us to your remarkable airship ..."

Dr. Birchwood nodded to the soldier at the projector, and more slides appeared on the screen.

"Yesterday, we sent a U.S. Navy remote-control blimp over the abyss. The ship took twelve hours to cross over the opening and circle back. But it made it, and it brought back new photographs of the pit and its surroundings."

Townsend studied the pictures. It appeared that the abyss had stabilized and was no longer growing, but no matter the angle from which the pictures were taken, the hole in the ice seemed to have no bottom.

The last photo had two dark blots on it, standing out in stark relief against the ancient ice. The objects seemed to be flying or hovering above the mouth of the abyss. The picture flashed by, and only one dark object could be seen in the next photo - the other one was gone.

"What were those things over the pit?" Townsend asked.

Dr. Birchwood smiled. "What, indeed?" he said cryptically.

But before the kaijuologist could say more, the army colonel spoke up. "Encouraged by the blimp's success, another unmanned aircraft was sent over the area," Colonel Briteis added. "It, too, was destroyed or crashed -"

"So we think that whatever intelligence may be driving events in Antarctica, it does not regard lighter-than-air craft as a threat for some unknown reason," Dr. Birchwood said, completing the colonel's thought.

Simon Townsend's eyes widened in comprehension. Then he shook his head in disbelief.

"So you are telling me that on the basis of this thin and rather dubious theory that whatever is in that pit likes airships, you are willing to risk my life, the lives of the U.S. soldiers who are going on this crazy expedition, and the Destiny Explorer itself?"

Dr. Birchwood paled as if the words stung him. Townsend knew he'd hit a nerve. But it was Colonel Briteis who answered the airship designer's question.

"As far as the soldiers are concerned, they are trained for this. If it means death, they will accept that," the colonel said icily.

Then he stood up and leaned over the table toward Simon Townsend. The colonel's voice dropped an octave.

"Though this is not yet general knowledge," Colonel Briteis announced, "I am authorized to inform you of this, Mr. Townsend ...

"Right now, even as we speak, a previously unknown monster is raging through the Russian Republic. That creature came from the mysterious pit in Antarctica - we know that - and so did at least two other creatures who have not yet shown their ugly faces."

The colonel paused and stood up to his full height.

"Someone or something at the South Pole has declared war on humanity, Mr. Townsend, and it's up to the Airborne Rangers to put a stop to it."

Yuri Gagarin Highway
Five kilometers outside Baikonur Cosmodrome

"Yes, yes, run along to Moscow, you chicken-turd little peasant cowards!" the officer bellowed loudly from his position in the command hatch of the speeding T-80 main battle tank.

"The big, bad monster has you all on the run. And whom do you call? Why the heroes of the Russian Army, of course!"

Sergeant Yuri Chevakov twirled the corners of his handlebar mustache as he directed more venom at the fleeing populace who choked the two-lane highway. The refugees were fleeing in the opposite direction from which the tanks were coming, hindering the soldiers sent to do battle with the mysterious creature.

"Get out of the way, you fools!" Chevakov cried, waving a group of people away from a stalled Russian-built automobile that had died in the middle of the roadway. Without slowing, the T-80 slammed into the car, smashing it off the road, over a guardrail, and into a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the raised roadway.

Chevakov laughed as a civilian shook his fist at the passing column of tanks.

"Yes, we are here to save your skins, comrades!" Chevakov cried. "You don't have to thank us."

The civilian was left to choke on the diesel exhaust of the tanks, which was polluting the late-afternoon sky.

With his bluster and bellicose voice, the Russian sergeant reminded his men of a parody of an arrogant czarist officer from the old days of the Russian Empire. Of course, no one ever said that to Chevakov's face.

If someone did, he would probably give him a good beating - and then buy the man a vodka, if he had any rubles in his pocket.

Yuri Chevakov was not the kind of man who held a grudge.

As the tank rounded a curve in the road, a boxy Russian-built Zil limousine came right at them at a fast clip. At the last minute, the driver of the car lost the game of chicken with the nearly fifty-ton tank. He swerved off the road and into the drainage ditch.

Before the car flipped over, Chevakov saw the pale face of a woman peering out from the backseat window of the black vehicle.

She was screaming.

"Yes, well," Chevakov said fatalistically as the tank rolled by. "Maybe next time you will remember to pay us soldiers more regularly with the money you earn from your capitalistic factory collectives!"

In the 1950s, when the cosmodrome was constructed, the area around Baikonur was a vast empty steppe. Since then, because of the huge and sprawling space center, a whole city called Leninsk had grown up in the desert. It was a town of schools, tradesmen, businesses, and even a Palace of Culture.

But on this day, the inhabitants of Leninsk were fleeing their homes in the wake of the monster that had dropped out of the night sky hours before.

Now, as morning brushed the horizon, Sergeant Chevakov, at the head of the fast-moving column of T-72 and T-80 main battle tanks, could see the red fires of the cosmodrome burning in the distance.

"Here we come, monster," Chevakov cried, shaking his fist at the inferno that flickered on the horizon.

"Maybe the capitalists cannot kill giant monsters, but we Russians can!"

As he shouted those words, another huge explosion lit up the distant horizon. A plume of fire and smoke rose hundreds of feet into the sky. The initial blast was followed by several secondary explosions.

Chevakov pulled a map from his pocket and scanned it in the dim glow of his flashlight. He tried to orient himself and discover where the explosion had actually occurred.

"It looks as if our nation's space program has been dealt another serious blow," the sergeant announced to no one in particular. "That fire over there was once the Energia-Buran pad ..."

Bridge of the Yuushio-class submarine Takashio
Sea of Japan

Captain Sendai slapped the control console in front of him.

"Course and speed?" he demanded.

The sonarman replied without looking up from his screen. "Still moving in the same direction and at the same speed, Captain," the man replied with crisp precision.

Sendai turned to his first mate. The second-in-command's face glowed softly in the red lights of the bridge.

"Estimated time of arrival?" Captain Sendai asked the first mate.

The man glanced down at the illuminated map table in front of him. "If Godzilla continues to move at his present course and speed, he will reach Honshu in less than five hours, Captain Sendai," the first mate replied. As he spoke, his fingers traced the probable path of the monster.

Captain Sendai slumped into his command chair. "That's it, then," he announced. "We must notify the government of a possible landing by Godzilla."

Three hours before, Captain Sendai's sonar had first picked up Godzilla. The captain hadn't expected to find the monster in the Sea of Japan - the last time he'd tracked the creature, he'd been in the Sea of Okhotsk, and he had been moving away from Japan.

Something had turned the creature around. For some mysterious reason, Godzilla was returning to the shores of Sendai's homeland.

"Helm," Captain Sendai barked, rising from his chair. "Blow the main ballast, and take her up ... We must break radio silence and send a warning immediately."

Fifteen minutes later, the Takashio floated on the water's choppy surface. The communications mast had been raised, but the radioman had failed to make a satellite link. Captain Sendai checked his computer log and knew exactly where the Japanese satellite should have been ... but for some inexplicable reason it was gone, or dead.

Sendai tried to raise another Japanese vessel. When that failed, he attempted to contact a U.S. Navy ship. But that effort was unsuccessful as well.

"Damn!" Sendai cursed. "Try to raise another ship. There must be some way to warn the mainland that Godzilla is coming!"

Government Palace
Plaza de las Armas
Lima, Peru

The meeting had just ended, and the details of the shift in command of the Destiny Explorer had been worked out. Now, Simon Townsend watched as the U.S. Army Airborne Rangers piled into two trucks parked outside the Government Palace.

The soldiers were in full combat gear and carried M-16 assault rifles, grenades, and an assortment of light weaponry. They were clad in camouflage BDUs and Kevlar "Fritz" helmets, and each man's bulky backpack seemed big enough to tip him over at any time.

Colonel Briteis directed the men as they mounted the trucks and loaded crates of spare ammunition. Simon closely watched the man who would now be commanding him. The airship designer had a definite distrust of soldiers, though Briteis seemed honest enough, if a little aggressive.

As Simon watched, Dr. Max Birchwood emerged from the palace, carrying a backpack and a laptop computer. He, too, was wearing army BDUs. Except for his slim physique and his wild and unruly beard, the kaijuologist looked just like the rest of the soldiers.

"Am I supposed to wear a uniform, too?" Townsend asked, only half-jokingly. Dr. Birchwood halted in his tracks and approached the airship designer.

"I know how you feel, Mr. Townsend," he said sympathetically. "I'm a scientist, too, and I've had a number of projects about which I cared very dearly pulled out from under me in my time."

"Well," Townsend said, relenting, "at least my daughter won't be making this trip. I'd hate to have to worry about her safety -"

Suddenly, the earth beneath the Plaza de las Armas began to quake. The ground itself seemed to ripple, and a great rumbling filled their ears. The soldiers reacted first. Most of them bailed out of the trucks and hugged the ground. Some of the men rolled under the trucks themselves as a tree branch dropped to the pavement nearby.

Dr. Birchwood tugged on Townsend's shoulder and pulled him away from the palace. Pieces of the building's facade began to drop off. In the distance, they could hear windows breaking and people crying out in alarm. Across the plaza, a wrought-iron lamppost tilted and fell into the street.

The quaking lasted for several minutes. Then, just as Simon Townsend began to think it would never end, it did.

A strange calm descended on the city. In the distance, sirens began to wail.

"Okay, okay, let's go," Colonel Briteis barked at his men as he clapped his hands. "Mount up and let's get moving!"

Reluctantly, the soldiers rose from their safe positions on the ground and climbed into the trucks. Dr. Birchwood and Simon Townsend stood nearby, listening as more sirens rose from the city around them.

Suddenly, a man in a Peruvian military uniform burst through the gate of the Government Palace and called to Colonel Briteis in Spanish. They exchanged words in an intense conversation. Dr. Birchwood and Townsend, both curious, approached the two soldiers.

"What's going on?" the kaijuologist asked. Colonel Briteis pulled off his Kevlar helmet and scratched his head.

"Colonel Torres here claims that a giant monster has broken out of the ground under one of the pueblos jovenes and is wrecking the city."

11
ARMAGEDDON

Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Central Lima, Peru

When the quake first began, Corporal Sean Brennan had ordered his men away from the airship's mooring mast and down onto the ground. Soon the vibrations had intensified, and he'd hugged the earth, too. This was the second major earthquake they'd experienced since arriving in Peru. The soldiers were becoming old hands at it.

You just had to know what to do until it passed.

Out beyond the boundary of Parque Molinas, the crowds that had gathered in the streets to see the Destiny Explorer dropped to the pavement. The earth rumbled, windows shattered, and a marble statue in the center of the park began to sway. So did the temporary mooring tower and cargo elevator. The members of the INN ground crew began yelling, but there was nothing to be done.

Finally, the quake passed. The mast and tower remained intact.

Then the sirens started to wail.

"This is worse than California," Bob Bodusky complained.

"Hey, look over there! "Jim Cirelli cried, pointing to an area of the city in the distance. Smoke began to rise in dark, rolling clouds. "Do you think something caught fire?"

***

Inside the observation deck of the Destiny Explorer, Nick Gordon and Robin Halliday spotted the cloud of smoke rising into the sky from the "new town" across the brown waters of the Rio Remac, on the other side of the city. From their vantage point high above the area of Lima called Miraflores, Nick and Robin had a pretty good view of the monster that suddenly emerged from the trembling ground!

Robin cried out when she saw the insectoid head rise above a cluster of wooden and paper huts and shelters that made up the shantytown. While she watched, entire structures leaped into the air as gigantic pointed claws lashed out at everything around them. People spilled out of those buildings, dropping into the pit from which the creature emerged.

"I've got to find my video camera!" Nick cried, tearing into his suitcase.

***

Ned Landson and Peter Blackwater were in the hangar bay saying good-bye to the Messerschmitt-XYB, regretting that they'd never tried out the toy on which both of them had worked so hard. They were joking about hijacking the XYB when they suddenly felt the airship shake. At first they thought it was just an errant gust of wind that had pushed the ship.

Then they heard the rumble of the Earth many feet beneath the airship. The boys ran to a view port in the hangar deck and peered outside - just in time to see a giant green monster crawl out of the pit in the heart of a shantytown!

"Wow!" Ned cried. "This is so cool in the extreme!"

Peter felt less enthusiastic. But Ned is a biologist, he reasoned. And that thing out there is a new form of life!

"I want a better view of this," Ned proclaimed.

"We're not going down there, are we?" Peter replied.

"Nope," Ned answered, grabbing his shoulder. "I know a way to the top of the airship!" With that, Ned dashed off with Peter in tow.

"Do you mean on top?" Peter asked nervously. "Like ... on the hull?"

"Sure!" Ned said as he began to climb a narrow ladder that ran through the center of the hull.

In the Plaza de las Armas ...

As soon as Colonel Torres brought the Airborne unit the news about the creature, the army trucks moved off. Together, Simon Townsend and Dr. Birchwood clambered into the back of one of the ten-ton, six-wheeled, camouflage-green vehicles.

The military column, led by Colonel Torres's Hummer, left the plaza and entered the streets of Lima. Already, the city was in chaos. People stumbled in every direction. Some carried possessions. Others dragged children behind them.

A few minutes later, as they cautiously navigated the narrow, crowded streets, the colonels, Torres and Briteis, got their first view of the monster.

"What the hell is that?" Colonel Briteis exclaimed, looking up at the creature, which was fortunately still a good distance away. The thing looked like a big bug with two pointed metal drills for hands. As he watched, the monster slammed its foreclaws together. Sparks flew, and a clanging peal echoed over the city.

"Bad news, Colonel Briteis," Colonel Torres told the U.S. Army officer in Spanish. "That diablo is between us and the flying ship!"

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 8:10 P.M.
Outskirts of Leninsk
Near Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Russian tanks reached the suburbs of Leninsk at about the same time that Gigan reached the opposite end of the town. General Borodin would have preferred to confront the monster on the steppes, or even in the vast cosmodrome itself, which had plenty of empty space for his tanks to maneuver.

But the flood of refugees fleeing the town had slowed the progress of the defense troops. The tanks - fifty-five T-72s and twenty-five T-80s - had arrived more than an hour late.

Worse still, Borodin had no artillery - and artillery was the backbone of all Russian military tactics.

"Without artillery, you cannot fight a battle." Borodin heard these words all during his decades of military training. But in this case, he did not have the luxury of time. The general had been ordered by the prime minister himself to destroy the creature right here at Baikonur.

And it would be another two hours before the artillery was in position.

Anyway, his former military instructors had fought Nazis in the Great Patriotic War - not monsters in an age of monsters.

Borodin found little comfort in that knowledge. The general cursed the inefficiency of the new Russian Army and the chaotic political situation in the region. Baikonur, which had once had its own division of troops to guard it from internal and external threats in the days of the Soviet Union, now shared civil defense troops with the independent government of Kazakhstan.

General Borodin pulled off his oversized hat and rubbed his right hand through the dirty-gray stubble on his head. A short, bulky sixty-eight-year-old man with an even temperament, Leonid Borodin projected an aura of power and authority.

He paced around the command trailer for a few moments, considering his options. Then he stooped over a map table. The illuminated surface displayed a detailed map of the city.

Already, Borodin had sent scouts into the area, and they were constantly reporting on the creature's whereabouts. According to the latest report, the monster had reached the heart of Leninsk. The creature's position was marked with a blip on his map display.

Not that Borodin had to look far to find the creature - he only had to look for fires on the horizon.

His decision made, the general crossed the command trailer and tapped his communications officer on the shoulder. The man, who sat in front of a huge communications console, removed his bulky earphones and looked up at his commander.

"The attack will commence in twenty minutes," General Borodin announced. "The tanks will enter Leninsk from three directions, as planned. The tank commanders are to use concentrated fire to destroy the creature upon contact."

As the general spoke, the communications officer scribbled notes on a piece of blank paper.

"Even if that attack fails, it will buy us time," the general continued in a rare moment of candor. "In two hours the artillery will be in position to finish off the monster."

Hull of the Destiny Explorer
Over Lima, Peru

"Up here," Ned cried to Peter, who was still climbing the narrow ladder far beneath him. When the older teen reached the top, his progress was blocked by a round aluminum hatch. Ned studied the latch mechanism for a moment, then threw it. Fresh air gushed into the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel they'd been climbing through. Ned pushed again, and the hatch clanged open.

Scrambling to the top of the ladder, Ned pulled himself out of the tunnel and onto the top of the Destiny Explorer's hull. Winds blasted him, throwing his long blond hair over his eyes. Ned brushed it aside and helped Peter out of the tunnel. But when the Native American teenager crawled onto the hull, he clutched the handhold and wouldn't stand up. His raven-black shoulder-length hair whipped around in the wind.

Ned rose unsteadily, but immediately dropped down again when the airship lurched. Both he and Peter could feel the Explorer swaying beneath them. Ned was ready to go back down the ladder when Peter spotted a yellow sign. He pulled on Ned's arm and pointed.

PULL HERE TO DEPLOY SAFETY RAIL, the sign read.

Ned Landson reached out, grasped the metal handle, and pulled. Silently, a stretch of railing rose up from the hull. The railing was low, but it formed a path all along the top of the airship. With a pop, a square metal door opened next to the hatch. Inside, Ned saw coiled safety belts and harnesses. He grabbed two of them.

The teenagers put the harnesses around their waists, and then clipped their individual safety lines to the rail. They could now move back and forth along the hull without fear of falling. Even if they did, the safety line would catch them before they could slip off the rounded sides of the airship.

As they got to their feet, the two teens heard an explosion from below. They looked out over a panoramic view of the city.

On the far side of a ribbon of water, the city was ablaze. Along the riverfront, low buildings that housed small businesses and shops burst into flames as a bolt of electricity struck them. Ned and Peter followed the path of that flash of lightning and saw the monster towering over the center of town.

"What is that?" Peter cried. "A giant bug!"

"No," Ned replied quickly. "It has only four legs - well, two legs and two arms ... or are they arms?"

"They look more like drills," Peter replied.

Ned nodded in agreement. "That thing isn't a product of evolution, I'm sure of it," Ned stated. "It looks like something a mad geneticist would create."

The mysterious monster was about fifty-five meters tall and had a large, insectlike head - complete with two multifaceted eyes and waving antennae above them. In the middle of the creature's hideous face were mandibles, which opened and closed intermittently for no apparent reason.

On the crown of the monster's head was a horn topped by a star-shaped crest. From that star, flashes of what looked like lightning bolts burst forth, raining destruction down on the city.

The creature's green-hued body was protected by layers of thick, overlapping scales. On its back were beetlelike wings with slashes of bright colors. The lower legs were short and there was even an abbreviated tail.

But the most amazing things about the creature were the pointed metallic half-cones where hands or claws should have been. The creature waved its arms wildly, smashing anything within its reach.

As the teens watched, the creature's right claw clipped the bell tower of a centuries-old stone cathedral. The structure crumpled, spilling huge bells into the crowded streets below. A cloud of dust obscured the rest of this horrific vision, but Peter was sure people had been crushed under the rubble.

Ned watched in dread as people began to jump out of the burning buildings on the riverfront. They leaped from high windows into the murky waters below. One woman was on fire as she plunged into the water. Ned watched as her corpse bobbed to the surface a final time before sinking beneath the dark waters.

Suddenly, Ned didn't think what he was seeing was so "cool."

Through the din of crashing buildings and screaming, fleeing victims, the two teenagers heard a fusillade of small-arms fire. Since arriving in Lima, Ned had noticed uniformed and heavily armed police on the streets below. Now a bunch of those paramilitary police had formed a line; with clear plastic riot shields held in front of them, they approached the monster down a wide boulevard.

"Those guys are crazy!" Peter exclaimed, tensing for the horror to come.

For almost a minute, the police line fired round after round at the monster. The creature did not even notice them at first, but when an armored truck came up behind the police phalanx and fired several bursts from a turret-mounted heavy machine gun, the monster looked down at them.

Lightning danced along the star-shaped horn, and a red bolt of jagged energy arced downward, rippling across the line of policemen. Their riot shields were futile as death rained on them. The men fell with screams on their lips.

When the arc of energy danced to the armored car, the vehicle exploded. The force of the blast blew the doors and hatches off. A man was blasted out of the gun turret like a rag doll as the entire vehicle lifted off the street and flipped onto its side.

The police - what few of them were left alive - beat a hasty retreat.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning from the creature arced right over the two teens. Ned and Peter instantly dropped to the hull as the hairs on their heads stood on end from the proximity of so much electric energy.

They heard an explosion behind them. Ned turned and saw the target of the energy bolt. The flaming remains of some type of helicopter were dropping out of the sky. The aircraft crashed down in the middle of a crowded plaza as people scattered in all directions.

The realization hit Peter and Ned at the same time: This ship could be struck at any moment.

Streets of Leninsk
Baikonur Cosmodrome

Sergeant Yuri Chevakov's T-80 tank, along with the rest of the tanks in his division, had been playing cat and mouse with the monster through the city streets for more than an hour.

The sergeant decided he did not like that game anymore.

Soon after the vehicles reached the heart of the city, rubble and debris from fallen buildings blocked their progress. In the smoke and confusion, the various units became separated. A three-pronged attack that was meant to surround the creature and drive it out of the town turned into chaos.

Soon, the battle was down to tank units of two or three vehicles. Some of the less-experienced men were so edgy that they fired at anything. Chevakov saw a T-72 near his heavier, more advanced tank destroyed by friendly fire.

He couldn't understand how a gunner could mistake a tank for a sixty-five-meter-tall monster!

The tanks were having a tough time hitting the monster as well. Though Leninsk was not a huge metropolis with towering skyscrapers, it was still difficult to get a clean shot at the gigantic blue-and-golden-scaled creature in the heart of the city.

Twice before, Sergei, his driver, had gotten them lost in the smoke and confusion of battle. They even drove down a dead end at one point. The street was so narrow that Sergei had to throw the T-80 in reverse and back out again.

A little while ago, they had gotten lucky. As the T-80 emerged onto a wide boulevard lined with shattered, burning buildings, Sergeant Chevakov spotted the monster in the crosshairs of his infrared targeting system.

The sergeant immediately pressed the fire-control trigger. The tank bucked with the recoil of the 125-millimeter cannon. But at that precise second, the creature ducked its head to swipe its curved claw at a T-72 tank that had emerged from another direction. Chevakov's shot went right over the creature's horned head.

The tank that the monster had struck flew apart. The turret slammed into a line of buildings even as the hull bounced down the wide boulevard like a toy thrown by a spoiled child.

Chevakov slapped the cannon, impatient for the automatic loader to spew the empty shell out of the chamber and feed a new high-explosive round in. When the operation was completed, he quickly put his eye to the sight again.

But the creature had moved on.

Too slow! Too slow! thought the tank commander, cursing the loader.

The automatic loader was the bane of the Russian tank corps. On the one hand, it saved vital resources. The tanks of the NATO armies all had crews of four. A Russian tank needed only three men to operate it in battle. The fourth crewman was replaced by the automatic loader. But the downside was that the loader was slow - much slower than a man performing the task. In T-72s the loader was prone to jamming, too. That was not the case with the improved gun of the T-80, but it was still slow. And in battle, speed was decisive.

Chevakov was suddenly glad he had never had to face the Western countries in a full-scale war.

Just then, bricks and debris rained down on the composite armor of the T-80. The driver, shocked into action by the noise, threw the tank into gear, and it leaped forward. Chevakov struck his head against the wall of the compartment.

As the T-80 jumped forward, crawling up and over a pile of debris, Sergeant Chevakov traversed the turret and elevated the gun.

There you are! he thought with deadly satisfaction as the single red eye of the monster filled his infrared gun sight. His breath hissed out of his mouth as he depressed the trigger.

Again, the T-80 bucked from the recoil. The interior of the tank filled with the smell of cordite. But Chevakov's eye never left the eyepiece. The high-explosive antitank round was designed to penetrate thick armor and detonate in the vulnerable interior of the target. But even through the hull of the tank, Chevakov heard a bell-like clang as his round bounced off the monster's armored scales.

Then Sergei gunned the engine, and the T-80 disappeared around a corner. The monster vanished from the view port's field of vision.

"Sergeant!" his radioman cried out. "I'm getting the recall code from headquarters."

"Retreat?" Chevakov said in disbelief. "The general wants us to retreat?"

But the radioman smiled. "Not exactly, Sergeant. The creature is about to be attacked by an artillery bombardment - and then a ballistic missile attack from Kapustin Yar!"

Sergeant Chevakov smiled. In the red-lit interior of the tank, he looked almost devilish with his drooping handlebar mustache. The sergeant knew all about Kapustin Yar. It was another cosmodrome, hundreds of miles away from here and close to the shores of the Caspian Sea.

That facility had huge missiles stored there - missiles capable of dealing with the monster, he was sure. Sergeant Chevakov realized that a missile attack probably meant that their generals were willing to destroy the Baikonur Cosmodrome as well.

But, the sergeant thought philosophically, there's not much left of it any way ... and better Baikonur than me and my men!

"All right, Sergei," the sergeant said, slapping the driver on the shoulder. "Get us out of here ..."

Bridge of the Destiny Explorer
Over Lima, Peru

As the jagged bolt of energy sizzled past the airship, Captain Jack Dolan made a decision.

"I'm getting the ship out of here," he announced.

At one of the observation windows, Shelly Townsend turned to face the captain, her mouth gaping in surprise.

"You can't just leave!" she cried. "What about Dad! What about the soldiers down there? And the ground crew?"

"Look out there, beyond that river," Captain Dolan said, pointing through the window. "Do you see that fire on the opposite shore?" Captain Dolan said, pointing. "That's where your father is. He's not going to make it back, Shelly, not now!"

As he spoke, the captain began his preflight checks. His words brought fear to Shelly's heart and tears to her eyes, but Dolan seemed oblivious to her emotional turmoil.

Michael Sullivan was visiting the bridge to say good-bye when the monster appeared. Now he reached out his hand and touched her arm.

"I'm sure your father is okay, Shelly," Michael stated with more confidence than he felt. "We can always make contact with him later - and pick him up somewhere else."

The girl looked at him and rubbed away the tears. She nodded weakly. Outside, an explosion from the city vibrated the windows of the bridge like drums. Shelly jumped from her chair.

"You never answered me, Jack!" she cried. "What about the soldiers down there at the base of the tower? We can't just leave them here."

Dolan turned and faced the teenager. "Do what you want to do," he replied, checking the instrument panel. "You've got five minutes to get them aboard before I move the Explorer out of harm's way."

"I'm going to the elevator," Shelly announced, rushing past Michael toward the exit.

"Wait!" Captain Dolan commanded. "I need your help here on the bridge."

Shelly pointed to the teenager in the wheelchair. "Michael will help you. He's a smart kid and he knows what's what!"

Then Shelly was gone, headed for the loading dock and the elevator to the surface.

Michael looked up at the captain. "What do you want me to do, sir?" he asked.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river that divided the city, and behind a wall of fire and destruction, the military column led by Colonel Briteis was trapped. The destruction ahead of them was so massive that they could not get around it.

Furthermore, their limited progress was hindered by fleeing crowds of panicked people. Colonel Torres halted the Hummer. Behind him the other trucks in the column stopped, too. Colonel Briteis jumped down from the passenger side of the HMV and looked around.

Dozens of people were lying in the streets. Some of them were not moving, but most were trying to free themselves from under heaps of debris; others were crawling with wounded limbs, trying to escape the wall of fire that consumed the buildings nearby and moved inexorably toward them.

Suddenly, Simon Townsend appeared at Colonel Briteis's shoulder. "We've got to get to the airship!" the designer shouted urgently over the noise and screams. "The Explorer could be destroyed by the monster at any moment!"

Colonel Briteis looked at the airship designer. Simon Townsend's eyes were bright, and his pony-tail whipped sharply around his head in the hot gusts of winds churned up by the fires. Then the U.S. Army officer turned toward the injured people scattered, crushed, and trapped in the streets and the buildings all around them.

After a long silence, the soldier turned back and looked Simon Townsend in the eye. "I'm sorry, Simon," Colonel Briteis said. "We're never going to get you to your airship now. But we can do some good. Let's help these people."

Simon Townsend was about to argue when Dr. Max Birchwood placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come on," the kaijuologist said. "These people need us."

Leninsk
Baikonur Cosmodrome

The artillery rained down on the ruins of the city of Leninsk for an hour. Tons of explosives detonated inside the city limits, demolishing the few structures that remained standing.

Because the radios in some of the tanks had failed to pick up the recall code, a few remained behind and were caught in the holocaust. Many Russian soldiers died from shells fired by their countrymen.

After the artillery bombardment, Kapustin Yar launched an attack by ballistic missiles fitted with conventional, non-nuclear warheads.

Far away from the blazing city, the few tankers who survived the Battle of Leninsk stuck their heads out of their hatches and gulped fresh air as they watched the missiles arc over their heads and descend on the target area.

But when the horizon had been lit up by millions of tons of explosives - reducing Leninsk, Baikonur, and everything around it to dust - a figure rose, phoenixlike, from the ashes.

Gigan had survived.

The creature scanned the area. Its cyclopean eye glowing in the half-light of the burning city. There was nothing left to destroy, so the cyborg, as per its programming, calculated the trajectory of the missiles that had attacked it.

When Gigan calculated the position from which the rocket attack originated, it spread its wings and took off into the night sky.

Gigan was heading for the cosmodrome at Kapustin Yar at Mach 4 ...

Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Lima, Peru

"I don't like the look of that crowd," Bob Bodusky said nervously, shifting the M-16 in his grip.

Corporal Brennan scanned the crowds fleeing through the streets around the park. So far, the boundaries of the park itself were secure. Since they arrived, it had been guarded by Peruvian paramilitary policemen. But as the insect monster continued its rampage, those policemen were looking plenty nervous as the minutes passed.

"I think they're going to head for the hills any second now," Johnny Rocco announced, eyeing the Peruvians warily.

"Just like those other bums," Tucker Guyson added, referring to the members of the airship's ground crew who had slipped off into the crowd a few minutes before.

Sean Brennan nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing. What should I do? the young man wondered, his mind in turmoil. Should I abandon my post and protect my men, or stay here and risk being killed by the monster - or the mob?

As he ran the options through his head, Sean Brennan saw that the crowds in the streets were beginning to swell. Some of the people were pointing at the airship, no doubt figuring it was a fast way out of town and away from the monster.

"What do we do, boss?" Jim Cirelli asked. Brennan faced his comrade. He noticed that the rest of the squad, along with others on guard duty with them, were looking to him for leadership.

For the hundredth time since he'd been given a temporary field promotion, Brennan regretted it. His mind flashed back to the moment he was given the rank. It was after the skirmish at the Wari ruins.

Colonel Briteis called Brennan into his tent and dropped the bomb in the young man's lap.

"Corporal Franks is going home," the colonel announced, referring to the American soldier who had been wounded. "I like the way you performed out there, Brennan, so you get his job and the temporary field promotion that goes with it," Colonel Briteis announced blandly.

"Sir, yes, sir," Brennan replied, fighting the urge to salute his commander - something you didn't do in the field.

Colonel Briteis locked eyes with the youth. "Don't screw up," he said, and then dismissed the brand-new corporal.

What Bright Eyes didn't tell me was how many chances I would get to do just that! Brennan thought bitterly.

"Corporal," Tucker Guyson said, interrupting his thoughts. "What should we do?"

Brennan could not make a decision. But salvation came from an unlikely source.

The elevator doors on the tower attached to the airship's cargo hold slid open. Two young women were standing inside the steel cage.

"Let's go, GI Joe," Robin Halliday said with a smile, motioning the men to board the elevator.

"Yeah," Shelly Townsend chimed in. "We're getting out of here."

"Wow!" blurted Jim Cirelli, who spent way too much time watching television. "You're Robin Halliday ... Wow! I'm a big fan of yours."

"Get in the elevator and I'll give you an autograph," she quipped, tugging his arm.

"Let's go, soldier!" Shelly said, looking out the door at the airship floating above them. She could hear the turbofan engines powering up. "We don't have much time."

"I ... I mean, we can't ... we can't go," Sean Brennan announced. "We've been ordered to stay at our post and guard this airship."

"Well," Shelly retorted, "your post is leaving ... Now, do you want to go with it, or stay here and say hello to the monster?"

Sean turned to his men, then looked out at the crowds surging around the park. Some of the Peruvian policemen had already melted into the stream of refugees. The others were getting ready to.

"Okay," Brennan decided, turning to the men he commanded. "Grab your gear and get in!"

The ten soldiers swiftly entered the huge cargo elevator and rode the steel car into the bowels of the Destiny Explorer.

In the streets of Lima ...

Simon Townsend was helping two American soldiers dig a woman out from under the rubble of a shattered structure. As they pulled her free of the wreckage, she kept shouting something in Spanish. Colonel Torres approached, and the American asked him to translate.

"She wants you to find her baby," the colonel announced before moving on.

Townsend swallowed hard and continued to dig through the ruins. He found the baby a few minutes later, trapped under its crib. Miraculously, the child was unharmed, though stunned. As soon as he picked up the infant, it began to cry.

After he placed the baby in its mother's arms, Simon stood erect and wiped away the sweat that streamed down his face. He pulled loose the wet cloth he had placed around his mouth and nose, but immediately began to cough from the smoke.

The heat was intense this close to the blaze, which was still consuming whole sections of Lima.

Belatedly, firefighting crews arrived at the scene, but there were too few of them. Far too few.

Then, as he prepared to go back to work, a shadow passed over Simon Townsend. He looked up in time to see the Destiny Explorer cross the sky over the inferno. As the airship flew above the heart of the conflagration, the valves on the airship's hull were opened and the ballast was dumped. That maneuver was meant to lighten the ship so that it could rise higher into the sky.

But this time the maneuver had a beneficial effect. Thousands of gallons of water spilled down onto the burning buildings. It was not enough to extinguish the flames or even stop the firestorm from spreading, but it helped.

Then the airship turned lazily in the sky and flew off toward the Pacific Ocean, away from the destruction. Simon Townsend watched it go with little regret. He figured that he and Colonel Briteis could reestablish contact with the Explorer later and set up another rendezvous. But in the meantime people here in the streets needed his help.

"Godspeed, Explorer," he muttered aloud before he went back to work.

12
COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 4:15 P.M.
Over the Pacific coast of Peru

Grupo 21 had first been alerted forty minutes before. They were scrambled from their new base near Iquitos, on the border with Ecuador. The squadron, made up of U.S.-built A-37A Dragonflys and British-built Canberra bombers, usually patrolled the disputed zone on the border. Interest in the area had heated up when some valuable and exploitable minerals were discovered there.

The timing couldn't have been worse for the squadron.

A Canberra bomber had crashed two days before, during a routine training mission. The rest of the Canberra fleet was ordered on a stand-down until extensive safety checks could be completed. The scramble alert came right in the middle of those safety checks.

Most of the Canberra bombers in Grupo 21 were all but dismantled. It would be days before they were ready for service. Not so the Cessna Dragonflys.

Built by the Kansas aeronautics firm famous for manufacturing light planes for civilian use, the Dragonfly was created by Cessna designers in the late 1960s for duty in the Vietnam War. The light COIN - counter-insurgency - aircraft was designed for bushfire wars and so was perfect for use in South and Central America.

The Dragonfly was short and squat and wide and klutzy-looking. On the ground, the belly of the aircraft was mere inches off the tarmac, and when fully loaded, the airplane lumbered down the runway like an overstuffed turkey. Its long, straight wings were tipped with sleek instrument pods reminiscent of warplanes built in the 1950s.

On eight hardpoints beneath the wings, the Dragonflys carried six high-explosive rockets and two 100-pound iron bombs. Each warplane was also armed with a GAU-2 six-barreled Minigun.

Inside the two-seater, the pilot and weapons officer sat in tandem within a large bubble canopy, which was not pressurized. The Dragonflys were low-level attack planes powered by twin General Electric turbofan engines with a top speed of 500 miles per hour. The Peruvian Air Force warplanes wore the tri-color markings of their nation and were painted a dull, misty gray with splotches of darker hues.

Commanding the eight Dragonflys of Grupo 21, Captain Salazar piloted the lead aircraft with his weapons officer, Lieutenant Abelle. The squadron had followed the Pacific coast down from the disputed zone, each crew wondering what they were about to encounter.

Fifteen kilometers away from Lima, they saw thick billows of black smoke rising from the city.

Captain Salazar also noticed a strange blot on the horizon. He squinted into the distance in an attempt to make out the details. Then he glanced at his "wizzo," who'd had the new search radar screen added to the cockpit in a recent upgrade.

"It's the airship," Lieutenant Abelle announced presently.

Ah, Salazar recalled. The great Yankee airship. The elongated shape was moving away from Lima and out to sea.

Good, the squadron leader thought with relief. At least that lumbering thing won't get in the way ...

Presently, Captain Salazar tipped his wing, and the eight warplanes banked toward the city. The leader of Grupo 21 felt his pulse quicken. He was anxious to get a look at this "monster."

But as the Dragonflys approached Lima, the city was completely obscured by thick, rolling smoke from a thousand fires. The eight warplanes warily approached the dark, oily columns of dense smoke. Suddenly, out of that cauldron, a bolt of electric fire lanced out and struck the Dragonfly cruising on Salazar's port side.

The airplane detonated with a loud report that rocked the squadron leader's plane. The explosion, fed by fuel and high-explosive rockets, unfolded like an evil orange and scarlet flower. Secondary explosions rolled like thunder through the boiling black smoke as the aircraft and its two crewmen plunged into the streets below. Salazar's aircraft was buffeted by the powerful shock waves.

"Pull up! Pull up!" Salazar shouted into his command net. The Dragonflys rose as one, and then scattered in all directions as another bolt of energy stabbed at the sky. Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Salazar saw another bright flash in the smoky sky.

A few minutes later, clear of the city limits, Salazar ordered his men to regroup over the Pacific Ocean. When the squadron was reunited - minus two aircraft - they formed up and dived for the attack once again ...

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 6:21 P.M. EST
The entire world

The blackout was instantaneous and affected every corner of the globe. At the exact moment in time, every form of communication beyond human speech ceased to function. Phone lines went dead. Television and radio stations went off the air. Cable systems lost their ability to send or receive signals via satellite or hard-wiring. Computers connected to phone lines were scrambled, their memories fried.

If the signal was sent through the air, or over a wire - by electronic impulse or as a beam of light through a fiberoptic system - it simply stopped working.

The world was effectively rendered mute.

Governments all over the world scrambled to find the cause of - and the solution to - the calamity. But no one could have possibly considered the immediate or long-range consequences of such an impossible event. Within minutes, the tragic results became evident to thousands of horrified eyewitnesses.

Dozens of passenger airliners crashed while attempting to land without guidance from air-traffic controllers. Radar ceased to function, and there were many midair collisions, and even collisions on the runway. Two passenger planes collided over Queens, New York, while trying to land at LaGuardia. Much of the debris landed atop the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Forest Hills, destroying the famed sports arena.

Ships at sea, small and large, were suddenly lost. Without geo-positional satellites to guide them, or navigational beacons beamed from land, several ships ran aground. A European cargo vessel crashed into the fog-shrouded coast of Spain. A Libyan tanker rammed a pleasure cruiser off the coast of Greece.

In the worst sea disaster of them all, a Japanese supertanker collided with a cargo ship, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Osaka. Already, oil slicks a hundred kilometers long were washing ashore around that ancient, beautiful city.

Emergency calls in every metropolis in the world went unanswered. Thousands died in fires and traffic accidents, as victims of crimes, from heart attacks and strokes - all because help could not be summoned in time to save them.

Within hours, riots swept through the major cities of the world. Some were caused by panic; others were by design. Civil order all across the world broke down. Without communications, the very fabric of civilization began to unravel ...

Monday, December 11, 2000, 9:16 A.M.
Bridge of the Destiny Explorer
Over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile

"This is Destiny Explorer, calling anyone, come in, please, anyone ..."

Nothing but harsh static sounds emerged from the radio. Shelly rose from the communications station and lowered the volume. The bridge was suddenly silent.

"How about your communications equipment, Corporal?" Shelly asked Sean. The soldier, who stood at the huge window staring out at the ocean, cleared his throat.

"We've tried our command nets, and they're dead," he replied. "I sent Rocco and our communications man, Mike Templeton, up to the top of the hull to set up their satellite gear. They haven't reported in yet, but I don't have high hopes, Miss Townsend."

"What about the computers?" Shelly asked, turning to Leena Sims, who sat at the navigational computer.

"The internal computers are still working," the intense dark-haired girl answered. "And we can pull up the maps we need, so we pretty much know where we are. But anything that involves long-distance communications, like the satellite net or the geo-positioning system, is down. Everything is gone ..."

Her voice dropped an octave. "It's like the end of the world," she murmured, a shadow crossing her face.

"Sunspots?" Michael Sullivan asked. Leena shook her head. Captain Dolan and Second Mate Gil Givers did, too.

"I would bet that this is not a local event," Captain Dolan stated. "Communications have been spotty for days, and GPS satellites have disappeared as if they fell out of orbit. Something weird was going on long before this happened."

Then the bearded captain smiled proudly. "For the last two days I have been navigating the old-fashioned way - with a compass!"

"So what is going on?" Shelly asked no one in particular. Captain Dolan, at the helm, replied. "I think I can answer that question," he announced. "Perhaps I am the only man on Earth who can."

All eyes turned to the captain, but it was U.S. Army Corporal Sean Brennan - the man who, because of his temporary rank, was supposed to be in charge of the airship and its passengers - who finally spoke first.

"I think I should brief you all on the situation in the Antarctic," Brennan said. "I suspect that you know something about what's happening. It's time I told you the rest, just as Colonel Briteis explained it to me."

Captain Dolan faced the youth. "You tell your story, son, and then I'll tell mine ..."

***

Fifteen minutes later, Captain Dolan stood before the group seated in the crowded briefing room of the Destiny Explorer. On the table in front of him was a stack of battered journals and tattered maps scribbled with handwritten notes.

The group had just finished listening to Corporal Sean Brennan, who told them all of the details of the briefing he'd received the night before the monster arrived in Lima. The briefing was very much like the one Simon Townsend received, minus the fancy graphics and an authority like Dr. Birchwood.

Brennan outlined everything he knew about the pit in Antarctica, and the mission that he and his Airborne troops were supposed to undertake once they got there.

Shelly Townsend, Nick Gordon, Robin Halliday, Ned Landson, Michael Sullivan, Leena Sims, and Peter Blackwater listened in stunned silence. Though Captain Dolan was hesitant to tell his story to everyone - especially the teenage passengers - Shelly insisted that they be present. Their future was at stake, too.

The group met behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the airship's small crew and the other soldiers, who would be briefed later.

When Sean Brennan completed his lecture, he took a seat at the long table and waited to hear the words of Captain Dolan. The bearded captain rose and told his story.

"What I'm about to tell you sounds almost as crazy as the tale you just heard," Dolan announced. "Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself. But after learning about the events outlined by Corporal Brennan, and the strange communications failures of the past few days, I am increasingly certain that what I am about to tell you is true."

Then Captain Jack Dolan told them the story of his college friend and brother-in-law, an eccentric genius named Alexander Kemmering. Dolan told them about the man's obsessive search for the south polar entrance, convinced that a lost world existed at the center of the Earth.

He told them about Kemmering's wife - Dolan's own sister - and how she had died trying to help prove her husband's unorthodox archaeological and geological theories about the Earth and its prehistory. Dolan told them about Atlantis and Lemuria, and how Kemmering thought these legends had more than a kernel of truth to them.

"Kemmering was convinced that in ancient times, the South Pole was not covered in ice," Dolan explained. "He felt that a civilization grew up there - and some of his theories are borne out by historical evidence. Old maps show accurate details of the Antarctic continent, details that have been obscured for thousands of years because of the layers of ice over the bays and rivers and mountains.

"The Pyramids, which were long thought to have been built by the Pharaoh Cheops, have recently been proven by geological science to be much older - perhaps, as Kemmering suspected, they were built eons ago, in the dim recesses of prehistory by a civilization forgotten in the mists of time."

Dolan explained how Alexander Kemmering had delved into forgotten folklore and long-forbidden books, as well as the writings of famed occultists and discredited scientists and theologians. He also told them about the birth of his niece, Zoe Kemmering, and how nearly nine years ago Alexander had dragged his teenage daughter on a mad quest into the Antarctic waste - where both of them vanished forever.

"Alex Kemmering was convinced that a polar opening, a small one, would appear in Wilkes Land around the time of his expedition. Kemmering was also convinced that with the new century's dawn would come cataclysmic events like the ones we are witnessing today.

"Alexander also accurately predicted the opening and the location of the giant hole in Antarctica that exists there now. He surmised in his journals that when the pit finally opened, great changes would come to our world ...

"Sometimes he seemed to be talking about a new Eden, a paradise on Earth, waiting to be reborn ...

"But at other times, he sounded as if the opening of the abyss would herald the coming of Armageddon."

Dolan paused. "Now it looks as if Alex wasn't a madman at all. Hell! I'm beginning to believe he was an unappreciated genius, like Copernicus!"

"But what proof do you have to support this crazy story?" Ned Landson, ever the scientist, demanded.

Dolan pointed to the journals spread out on the table in front of him.

"Alexander Kemmering gave me his scientific journals, maps, and notes before he left for Antarctica in 1993," Dolan announced. "I kept them, without looking at them, for six years. Then, last year, when this expedition to Antarctica was announced, I got curious. I dug out the journals and began to study them."

The captain paused, scanning the shocked and doubting faces that stared back at him.

"To my own amazement, some of the predictions my brother-in-law made ten years ago have already come to pass. There are others made in this journal which have not ... yet."

The captain met Ned Landson's skeptical stare. "You are all free to study these writings and come up with your own conclusions," he said evenly.

"So what do we do?" Shelly asked. The room was silent for a moment. Then Sean Brennan rose.

"As I explained before, according to all our intelligence this airship can safely pass over the Antarctic continent and reach the abyss. I submit that we should proceed there immediately and try to find out what is happening at the South Pole."

Shelly leaped to her feet and cried out in protest. But the tall, broad-shouldered corporal silenced her.

"My men are equipped, and your hold carries the weapons and supplies we need for this mission, more than we need, in fact, because there were supposed to be five times the number of men that we have."

Sean Brennan glanced at Captain Dolan. "While I am not the highest-ranking officer aboard this ship, I say we go!"

"And, Corporal, I say we go, too," Jack Dolan stated.

Shelly looked around her, searching for support. But Peter Blackwater and Ned Landson were smiling, obviously anticipating the adventure of a lifetime.

Robin's and Nick's journalistic instincts were aroused. They both wanted to proceed.

Michael Sullivan was pensive but resolute. "We have to do something to help," he said simply.

Even the prima donna Leena Sims seemed to agree. She nodded every time someone pointed out another good reason to go.

Finally, Shelly threw up her arms in surrender.

"Okay," she relented. "Let's go to Antarctica!"

Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 12:36 P.M.
Pudong New Area
Shanghai, People's Republic of China

Despite the weird communications blackout that affected the whole world, it was business as usual in the Pudong New Area - a glittering, bustling capitalist zone in the middle of Communist China. Though the phones and fax machines were not working, electricity, self-contained computers, and the citizens of Pudong New Area certainly were.

But as the sun shone overhead, noon arrived - and that meant lunch. Many of the people who worked in the towering glass-and-steel skyscrapers began filing out into the busy streets and plazas to buy a meal at the many food stalls that serviced the brand-new city. Lines were long, and secretaries spent the time in gossip. Executives eyed the competition warily, or traded stock tips.

Towering over all were two unique structures. One of them, the Jin Mao Building, was the tallest structure in Asia. The other, called the Pearl TV Tower, looked like a huge oil rig covered with glass. It, too, was one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai, and a symbol of the new China.

In the 1980s, the land on which Pudong New Area now stood was muddy farmland, used for growing food to feed the people of Shanghai. But with the coming of the early 1990s, and new economic initiatives by the Chinese government, development began.

Now skyscrapers replaced rice paddies, and Pudong New Area featured a new transit system and a coal-burning electric-generating plant. The first stages of construction on a new international airport were already under way.

Two massive bridges and several commuter tunnels now connected Pudong New Area with Puxi, central Shanghai. Each day hundreds of thousands of people crossed those bridges to go to work in this shining capitalist powerhouse.

Deep beneath the ground, in the newest tunnel under construction - a wide, two-tier shaft for commuter trains - Chinese and Japanese engineers were searching for the source of a leak in the walls of the brand-new structure. When workers reported for duty in the deepest section of the tunnel that morning, they found the floor covered with water.

The leak was puzzling. There had been no sign of trouble when the men quit work the day before, and night crews, who worked on the entrance of the tunnel in the heart of Pudong New Area, had heard nothing unusual.

But now tons of brown, muddy river water were pouring into the tunnel. As the men walked through the wide shaft, the electricity suddenly died, leaving the engineers in pitch-darkness.

One of the Chinese foremen leading the consultants pulled a flashlight from his belt. But before he could turn it on, the entire shaft echoed with a strange, supernatural noise that sounded like the hissing bellow of a huge beast.

The electric lights flickered once, then came on again. One of the engineers pointed into the distance and screamed at the nightmare vision that the lights revealed.

The gigantic face of a traditional Asian dragon was emerging from the deepest part of the underground pit. Its huge eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. Its snout had strange antenna-like tendrils, which flared back from its wide nostrils. The creature hissed again, and a pointed tongue flicked out of its massive, tooth-lined maw.

As one, the men in the tunnel bolted. As they raced for the entrance to the shaft, they passed lines of scaffolds with dozens of workers toiling away.

"Run! Run!" an engineer cried.

The workers exchanged uneasy glances. Then the creature burst out of the tunnel and was on them. Laborers screamed and died as the creature slithered past them, tearing down the scaffolds. Men spilled to the floor of the cavern, where they were crushed beneath the creature's heavy scaled body.

As workers spilled out of the mouth of the tunnel and ran through the muddy construction site, the mammoth dragon thrust its head out of the mouth of the tunnel.

From dozens of nearby buildings, scores of office workers saw the monster emerge from the pit. Many were struck with supernatural dread as a figure from Asian mythology uncoiled to its full length outside the tunnel.

At one of the food stalls near the construction pit, an ancient Chinese woman, who had lived in Pudong New Area when it was just a muddy bog full of vegetable plants, saw the creature. Instantly the old woman recalled the legends of the region, and one story in particular - the story about an ancient dragon that lived in the bog.

"Manda! It's Manda!" the woman cried, pointing at the monster that slithered through the ultramodern streets of the New Area.

As the old woman gathered up her wares and pushed her food cart out of harm's way, she began talking to herself. "Aiiiee, I always knew this place had bad feng shui," she muttered, waving her hand to ward off the evil spirits. "The stupid fools built the Pearl TV Tower on the dragon's eye, and now it's coming to tear down the building."

As she ran away, food and cooking utensils dropped off her cart, but she did not slow.

With short, stubby forearms, the dragon called Manda pulled itself over the low construction buildings surrounding the tunnel site. As it passed, a tall crane plunged to the ground and a bulldozer was reduced to scrap metal. The mammoth creature was a silvery gray color. Its large head was framed by tufts of woolly hair and punctuated with two elongated eyes that scanned the area with an evil intelligence.

Manda's long, snakelike body had four short legs that ended in grasping, curved claws, similar to a bird of prey's.

The creature had a length of 150 meters and probably weighed 30,000 tons. Its body was entirely covered with overlapping scales. As Manda uncoiled to its full length and began moving in the steel-and-glass canyon of Pudong New Area, it smashed aside buses, cars, and the tiny food stalls that clustered around the large buildings. The citizens fled before the dragon, while civil defense sirens began to wail in the distance.

But there was no one coming to save Pudong New Area - all communications were out, and no one outside the city knew that the district was in any danger ...

Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 4:39 P.M.
Aboard the Yuushio-class submarine Takashio
Under the East China Sea

After failing to make contact with Japan - or anyone - in the past few days, Captain Sendai continued with the primary mission of Japanese submarines on patrol in the world's oceans: locate and track Godzilla's movements.

The Takashio had followed the monster since stumbling across it in the Sea of Japan, near the coast of Hokkaido. Godzilla had moved parallel to the Japanese coast since then, with the Takashio in pursuit.

Captain Sendai was glad that he'd refueled and resupplied the submarine at a naval base before embarking on this mission. They had many days of sailing ahead of them before they would have to return to Japan for resupply. And if they were to lose Godzilla, the elusive creature would be difficult to locate again.

To the captain's surprise, Godzilla suddenly changed direction after passing through the Korea Strait. Now he was moving away from the Japanese mainland. Though that brought relief to all aboard the Takashio, the officers were curious as to why Godzilla had moved into the East China Sea, toward the southeast coast of mainland China. Captain Sendai realized that the creature might soon lead them into Chinese territorial waters, which could cause an international incident.

With the submarine following, Godzilla soon increased speed - as if rushing to a rendezvous of some kind. And as they neared the Chinese mainland, the submarine's powerful sonar began to pick up loud sounds, which were carried to them through kilometers of ocean.

When the sonarman and the sound technician put the noise over the intercom, Captain Sendai and the others on the crowded bridge listened intently. Finally, the captain said what the other submariners were thinking.

"It sounds like a battle," Sendai announced. He scanned the illuminated map table. "The sound is coming from the area around Shanghai."

Then the captain looked at the sonar screen at his command station.

"And Godzilla is heading right for it," he whispered fearfully.

13
MONSTERS FROM THE SEA

Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 9:03 A.M.
Somewhere along the shores of the Caspian Sea

Craig Weedie, INN's famed Backpack Adventurer and spokesperson for Fellow Traveler Publishing Company - the publishers of the popular series of international travel guides - found himself stranded.

It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. Sometimes things got intense on the road, but the life of a Backpack Adventurer was always intense.

It was also one of the greatest jobs in the world.

Craig Weedie got to travel all over the world, he was on television every week, and he made a lot of money. He had no bosses, no one to report to - up to a point, that is. As long as he taped his weekly appearances for Teen Beat and wrote a few introductions for the Fellow Traveler Travel Guides, everything was fine.

Craig Weedie was totally free. He didn't even bother to drag a film crew around with him. He merely traveled to the nearest large city with an INN affiliate and taped his weekly report. Then he moved on to the next destination. He was free to go where he wanted, when he wanted - and the Fellow Traveler Publishing Company paid for everything!

It was the best life possible for a nineteen-year-old from Athens, Ohio, and he was lucky to have it.

In the last two years, Craig had done it all. He ran with the bulls in Spain, hiked through Tibet with Richard Gere, and explored the wreckage of the Titanic with science reporter Nick Gordon. It had been fun and rewarding.

But it all came to an end on Sunday, when civilization collapsed. Suddenly Craig Weedie, international citizen-at-large, became a foreigner in a strange land where he didn't speak the language.

Worse still, he was nearly penniless.

And all because of a stupid monster that probably doesn't exist in the first place.

Craig bitterly regretted his futile search for the monster called Anguirus - named after some local legend or something - in the beginning of the cruel Russian winter.

It started out innocently enough. He'd done a tongue-in-cheek story about monster sightings on the Caspian Sea a couple of weeks before, and a lot of viewers liked the segment. Craig was having a good-enough time in the towns around the Caspian Sea, so he stayed for a few weeks. The whole region was in the middle of an economic boom because of the vast, previously untapped oil reserves that were only now being exploited.

During his time on the shores of the Caspian Sea, he even went out on a fishing boat to film a report at the last place the creature had been spotted. Weedie also interviewed people who claimed to have seen the sea monster.

Someone at INN's art department in New York had drawn a sketch of the monster, based on eyewitness reports that described the creature as a huge reptile with a head like a crocodile's and a spiked, turtlelike shell.

Craig, of course, had never seen the creature - and doubted that it ever existed. He wondered cynically how much the people near Loch Ness made cashing in on their monster - in tourist dollars alone!

Just as Craig was getting bored with the story and with Russia, a real monster arrived - the thing called Gigan. Before the communications meltdown, Craig had seen the reports about the creature's rampage through the Baikonur and Kapustin Yar cosmodromes on Russian television.

Craig sensed it was time to go. He filed his last story of the Caspian monster - a clever piece in which he contrasted the charming local folklore about Anguirus with the horror that was Gigan - and then scheduled a chartered airplane to leave the region. The dreary village in which he'd been staying had finally gotten to him.

Then things fell apart. The blackout began, and Craig's chartered seaplane never arrived. Now he was down to his last traveler's check.

Before the blackout, all he had to do was call INN's financial department in New York, and they would wire him funds - usually within minutes. And if that didn't work, Craig had a wallet full of credit cards, along with his U.S. passport.

But without communications, credit cards were just useless plastic. And he hadn't been able to contact the next town - let alone New York City - in days. Money became a big problem. Since he'd gotten a visa to enter the Russian Republic, Craig was used to bribing people to get what he wanted. Now he didn't have enough money to buy a meal, and he was stuck in a town filled with people as hostile toward the Russian government as they were toward strangers - especially strangers who couldn't speak the language.

So Craig Weedie finally left the village he'd been stranded in yesterday morning, without checking out of the hotel. He couldn't afford to pay the bill, anyway. When and if civilization returned, he'd get INN to pay the bill. If not, it didn't matter anyway.

Wearing his down parka and a backpack crammed full of gear for the harsh winter, Craig set off on foot. He took the road that led to the Russian military base at Peliograd, about fifteen kilometers away. He was lucky enough to get a ride with a local laborer for part of the way, and that saved him some time. But he didn't cover the full distance on the first day of the trek, as he had hoped.

After spending a cold night in a remote area on the shores of the Caspian Sea, Craig rose, folded up his insulated thermal tent, rolled up his sleeping bag, oriented himself, and proceeded to walk the remaining five kilometers or so to the entrance of the base at Peliograd.

The day was bright, sunny, and crisp - a little mild for this time of the year, but he didn't mind. Temperatures could easily have fallen to minus fifty. As he walked, Craig recalled the first time he'd made this trip along the shore of the Caspian Sea. He had gone to Peliograd a few weeks before to interview General Kolgan, the commander of the base, as part of his sea monster story. Some of Kolgan's soldiers had been loading a patrol boat when they spotted the creature - they claimed.

Craig and the general had gotten along well, and Craig presented the man with his own Sony video-cassette recorder - Craig knew he could always wheedle another one out of the folks at Fellow Traveler. Craig liked and trusted the general, and hoped that the Russian would have a cot for him to sleep on until the blackout passed or until he could arrange transportation to Moscow.

But as the American trudged up a steep, rocky hill that overlooked the sea and the shore ahead of him, he noticed plumes of smoke rising in the distance. Craig hurried up to the top of the hill. Breathing heavily from the exertion, he dropped his backpack and drew out his binoculars.

Squinting through the lenses, he focused on the Russian military base in the distance. Then the American gasped.

An unbelievable sight greeted him ... two of them, in fact!

Pudong New Area
Shanghai, People's Republic of China

The first civil authority to respond to Manda's invasion of Pudong New Area was the Chinese Navy, which dispatched ships and helicopters. Despite a total lack of radio communications, the navy managed to mount a well-organized and effective counterattack.

A Chinese naval officer who was enjoying leave brought the Chinese Navy its first warning. The sailor had been on his way to meet his girlfriend, who worked in Pudong New Area, when he saw Manda emerge from the construction site. The officer immediately appropriated a motorcycle from a messenger and sped to the Chinese naval yard at Jiangnan, on the coast of the old town of Shanghai.

Admiral Lu'un, an experienced blue-water naval officer, immediately took control of the defense of the city.

The admiral quickly formulated a clever plan using the resources he had at his fingertips. He scrambled a flight of six brand-new Mil Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopters belonging to the Chinese marines. The attack helicopters were recently purchased from the Russians, and the pilots were still in training.

Armed with a thirty-millimeter 2A42 high-velocity chin machine gun and over 5,000 pounds of wing-mounted rockets in four pods, the Havocs deployed to drive Manda out of the city and back into the East China Sea. There, two Jianghu-class missile frigates and an ES5G missile submarine would launch an attack on the dragon.

When the Havocs arrived over Pudong New Area, they found Manda many stories above the streets, coiled around the center section of the Pearl TV Tower. Inside the building, hundreds of office workers were trapped. The power had been lost, and the elevators were not working. Already stairwells were clogged with frightened people.

As Manda climbed the glass-and-steel structure, the Havocs approached. The vibrations from their blades beat against the windows of the skyscrapers of Pudong New Area. Circling the tower with the dragon coiled around it, the Havocs soon unleashed their fury.

Hundreds of bullets and dozens of rockets were launched in seconds. The munitions struck Manda repeatedly, but they also tore through the tower, killing many workers who were trying to flee. Cover was impossible - the shells fired from the chin gun ripped through the glass windows and the thin partitions between the offices.

Shards of glass were blasted inside dozens of offices, even as the glass rained down on people below, who were trying to get out of the building's lobby.

The rockets struck the center of the skyscraper, too. Multiple explosions weakened the structural integrity of the building. Fires broke out on a half-dozen floors. Soon smoke began pouring out of the shattered windows.

The dragon Manda was unaffected. Bullets bounced off its armorlike scales, and the rockets detonated on its thick skin but did not penetrate to damage anything vital.

The noise and confusion disoriented the creature. In its frenzied throes of rage and bewilderment, Manda tightened its grip, crushing the center of the Pearl TV Tower. The tip of the pointed skyscraper began to sway. Then it plunged into the streets below, spilling hapless workers through broken plate-glass windows and into the concrete canyons.

Manda plunged, too. The creature dropped to the Earth and landed with a world-shaking sound. Concrete sidewalks caved in under the creature's weight. But Manda struggled to its feet and began to crawl away.

As the Havocs kept up their merciless pounding, the gigantic dragon was driven to the East China Sea.

When the monster was near the shore, Chinese Navy observers spotted it. Admiral Lu'un pointed the frigates' missile launchers at the creature and ordered the attack to commence.

Dozens of missiles leaped into the air in a haze of smoke and exhaust. The frigates were obscured by a white mist from which bright streaks issued intermittently. The missiles arched over the city and landed all around the dragon, leveling buildings, overturning cars and buses, and killing hundreds.

The missile submarine, which had to remain on the surface to fire, launched its cruise missiles as well.

It was the sound made by the launch of these larger rockets that was heard by the crew of the Japanese submarine Takashio on its sonar.

More and more missiles rained down on Manda, driving the creature into a frenzy. It crawled toward the bay on its stubby legs as explosions detonated all around it. It hissed and growled the whole way.

Admiral Lu'un was satisfied with his attack.

Soon Manda would be driven from the city limits and into the sea. Despite the terrible destruction and death in Shanghai, the attack was going well and his tactics had succeeded.

That is, until the monster called Godzilla emerged from the East China Sea and approached the warships. His arrival changed everything ...

On the shores of the Caspian Sea
Near the Russian military base at Peliograd

Craig Weedie looked in awe and amazement at the tableau spread out below him. He could clearly see the dock from which military patrol vessels were launched. There were no ships moored there now, however - it looked as if the entire base had been abandoned.

And it was evident why.

Standing in the middle of the rubble and smoke of the shattered remains of Peliograd, the monster Gigan roared a defiant challenge at the equally amazing creature that lumbered out of the Caspian Sea.

That must be Anguirus, the backpacker decided as a huge, four-legged creature crawled across the shore toward the blue-and-gold-scaled monster that swiped at it with huge, curved metallic claws. Anguirus roared with a barking honk that echoed for miles.

Weedie dropped his binoculars and drew his camera and telephoto lens from his backpack; he wished he still had his Sony videocassette recorder.

Anguirus was an impressive creature. Just as described by eyewitnesses, the creature's back was covered by a hard, bony shell. The shell had hundreds of sharp, irregular spikes, like those on a porcupine. The monster had a long snout, topped by a short horn like a rhino's.

Anguirus, Craig estimated, was about 100 meters long and more than fifty meters high. His mouth was lined with yellow teeth, and his eyes gleamed with malevolent fury at the unearthly beast he faced.

Craig Weedie quickly peered through the telephoto lens and began to snap pictures of the battle that ensued. His stomach suddenly growled, and the backpacker realized he hadn't eaten that morning. While he continued to snap photos, he snatched a granola bar out of his pocket and began to eat.

It was going to be an exciting morning, and he wanted to keep up his strength.

For several minutes, the monsters barked roars at each other, as if sizing up the enemy. The unearthly sound Gigan made was a shrill electronic wail that shook Craig Weedie's teeth. Anguirus's roar was more beastlike and predatory, but no less ear-shattering. From his vantage point half a kilometer away, Craig could feel the rocky ridge he sat upon vibrate. Anguirus pawed the ground with his foreleg as he prepared to charge the strange creature that had invaded his territory.

Then, with a sudden burst of speed that surprised the American youth, Anguirus lunged at Gigan's throat. His slavering jaws were wide as he rose up on his hind legs and reached out for the other creature's neck.

The four-legged brute clambered up a low embankment on his powerful legs and sank his ivory teeth into Gigan's neck.

Anguirus shook his mighty head like a bulldog clutching a rag doll. Gigan, stunned by the attack, flailed its curved claws in futile defense. As Anguirus closed his jaws around the blue-scaled monster's throat, strange silvery ichor gushed out of Gigan's wounds.

But the cyborg monster was not finished off yet.

Craig watched in disbelief as the buzz saw on Gigan's chest burst into motion. He could hear the sound of the chest-mounted weapon as it was engaged.

The teeth of the saw caught Anguirus on the creature's relatively soft underbelly. Anguirus howled in rage and pain and let loose of Gigan's throat. The cyborg stumbled backward, finally toppling onto a burning building in the heart of the ruined military base.

When the cyborg monster struck the ground, the land under Craig Weedie shook. He fumbled with his camera and realized he was out of film. As he quickly reloaded, Anguirus, black blood streaming from his wounded belly, continued the attack. He lunged at Gigan again, while the cyborg was down in the rubble.

The two creatures locked into a clinch, tearing and ripping at each other with fang and claw.

Suddenly, the thunderous sound of the battle of the titans was interrupted by a more familiar noise - the sound of jet fighters approaching from the east.

Shanghai ...

Godzilla lumbered past the two Chinese warships, moving them aside with the backwash of his passing. As the frigates maneuvered to get out of the monster's path, sailors on deck opened up on Godzilla with machine-gun and small-cannon fire. The shells detonated harmlessly against Godzilla's thick hide.

With a quick maneuver, the frigates moved out of the path of Godzilla. The missile submarine, floating on the surface of the sea between the shores of Shanghai and Changxing Island, was not so quick - or so fortunate.

Godzilla slammed into the vessel with all of his massive, unimaginable power and bulk. Though the Romeo-class submarine was built to withstand the incredible pressure of the ocean depths, it could not endure the force of Godzilla's attack. With an ear-shattering crash, the submarine split in two even as it capsized. Godzilla reached his forearms down and thrust the wreckage aside.

Curiously, there was no explosion. The two halves of the submarine simply sank, spilling some sailors into the violently churning waters while dragging the others down with it.

With the naval attack broken, Manda raised its serpentine head once again, hissing curiously. Then its elongated eyes focused on Godzilla, and the dragon hissed again. This time the sound was clearly a warning.

Godzilla bellowed a challenge, and the sound of his mighty roar echoed over the decimated city of Shanghai.

Blue flashes rippled across Godzilla's dorsal spines, and a blast of blue radioactive fire washed over Manda. The dragon pulled back its wedge-shaped head and squinted its eyes against the assault, but took no more notice of the energy blast than it would off a stream of water fired by a squirt gun.

Manda hissed angrily and slipped off the docks and into the sea. Its head raised above the waves, Manda swam quickly toward Godzilla.

The creatures soon met. Godzilla lashed out at Manda with his foreclaws. He quickly seized the dragon's coiled body and lifted the monster out of the tossing waves. But grabbing a dragon and holding it were two different things, as Godzilla soon learned.

With a speed and agility that belied its bulk, Manda circled its body around Godzilla's bull neck. The dragon dug its sharp claws into the thick, ridged hide and hung on.

In an attempt to dislodge the creature, Godzilla thrashed about in the sea, sending torrents of water washing over the barges and commercial ships docked at the wharves, flooding the warehouses full of raw materials and manufactured goods. Godzilla reached up and tugged futilely at Manda's serpentine body. The dragon's wedge-shaped head bobbed in front of Godzilla's own.

But as the King of the Monsters opened his mouth, and blue lights danced along his spines once again, Manda began to constrict its coils tighter, choking the King of the Monsters ...

On the shores of the Caspian Sea ...

It took only a few minutes for the airplanes to appear in the blue morning sky above him. To his surprise, Craig Weedie recognized the aircraft from countless visits to Russian military installations during his trip through the former Soviet Union - they were MiG-27 ground-attack aircraft.

The twin titans still wrestled in the ruins of Peliograd, oblivious to the attack to come. Anguirus lashed out with his spiked tail, slamming it against Gigan's body again and again.

As he watched, Craig slipped behind a tumble of rocks. Half a kilometer suddenly did not feel like a safe distance from an impending air attack.

With graceful precision, the MiGs banked and, with their variable wings swept forward and wide, pointed their duck noses at the monsters on the ground. In a blasting stream of exhaust and fire, tactical air-to-ground missiles leaped from each wing. Craig lowered the camera and covered his ears as the first missiles struck home.

Explosions rippled across the distance, shaking the ground and loosening pebbles and dust from the ledges around him. The first two blasts, from missiles fired by the lead plane, blossomed on the ground. They were quickly followed by others.

Many others.

As explosion after explosion sundered the Earth, the two monsters continued to do battle. Soon their gigantic forms were all but obscured by smoke and fire.

In the chaos, Craig would see a flash of Anguirus's tail, or a silvery reflection off one of Gigan's metallic claws - but nothing more. The attack seemed to last forever, and by the time it ended, the Backpack Adventurer was hugging the ground and covering his head with his hands as dust and small rocks rained down on him almost constantly.

Soon the entire area was filled with smoke and dust. The wind, which was blowing toward the observer, smelled of cordite and burning wood. Craig coughed and choked. Through it all, he could still hear the roars and bellows of the struggling monsters.

Finally, the explosions died away. The sounds of the jet engines receded. Cautiously, Craig lifted his head. Gigan's shrill cries pierced the air, but it was Anguirus who was in control of the battle now.

As Craig snapped photo after photo, Anguirus dragged the thrashing Gigan down onto the shore. Gigan struggled and kicked, its red eye glowing evilly. But Anguirus continued to drag the creature into the lapping waves of the Caspian Sea, even as black blood poured out of a dozen wounds.

The four-legged beast had Gigan by the throat and would not let go. One of Gigan's metal claws slammed repeatedly against Anguirus's hard shell. A noise like a clanging bell echoed across the waters, but it looked as if Anguirus hardly felt the blows.

Gigan's other claw was missing its tip. The monster waved its useless stunted arm as a silver stream of internal fluids poured out of the soft center of the shattered claw. Gigan's roars seemed to weaken with each passing minute, as Anguirus inexorably dragged the wounded cyborg into the sea.

Finally, after many long moments, the struggle ended. Anguirus backed into the waves, until the green waters completely covered the creature. Gigan, its arms waving weakly, its beaklike mouth opening and closing silently, was dragged beneath the water headfirst as if it were a dying mouse in the mouth of a tomcat.

The Caspian Sea churned for a few more minutes, then stilled. Of the monsters' passing there was no sign.

Craig Weedie stood up, peering across the water. He found himself powerfully affected by the primeval contest he had just witnessed. He wondered if Anguirus had survived the struggle. He was almost certain Gigan had not.

As he stared out over the sea, the sound of approaching helicopters beat against his ears. Vaguely, Craig Weedie realized he would soon be rescued ...

In the East China Sea ...

Godzilla struggled against the coils that threatened to strangle him. Manda's head bobbed in front of his eyes, which seemed to dim and cloud over with each passing second. Godzilla tried to summon his fiery breath, but it somehow stuck in his throat.

Red foam flecked the edges of his massive jaws, staining the double row of teeth crimson. Godzilla's jaws opened and closed spasmodically as he gasped for air.

Finally, Godzilla managed to hook one of his huge, tearing claws around Manda's own neck. Godzilla's massive hand dug into the woolly hair around the dragon's head.

Godzilla began to squeeze. Manda stubbornly clung to Godzilla's throat and would not budge. But Godzilla reached up with his other claw and grabbed one of Manda's stubby legs.

Now, with both of Godzilla's mighty forearms dragging at Manda's coiled body, the dragon began to weaken. Suddenly, Manda's grip was broken. The creature tried to slip into the sea and escape, but Godzilla would not let it go.

Instead, the King of the Monsters lifted the dragon out of the water and held it at arm's length. Godzilla opened his eyes and stared into Manda's own.

Manda hissed and spat as Godzilla unleashed the full fury of his radioactive breath. The hot, burning rays washed over the dragon. Manda seemed to shrink back from the force of the blast, but Godzilla still gripped its neck tightly.

Manda's tail flailed wildly as it began to burn, and suddenly Godzilla released the creature from his grip. Manda struck the water with a huge splash and a boiling hiss. A wave of superheated seawater flooded sections of the docks once more. Godzilla, his arms spread wide, his tail churning up the waters behind him, turned his eyes to the sky above.

Godzilla's feral head tilted upward. Then the King of the Monsters opened his mouth and let loose a ringing, ear-shattering bellow of victory.

Manda, limp and perhaps dead, disappeared beneath the waves of the East China Sea ...

Thursday, December 14, 2000, 12:25 A.M.
Aboard the Destiny Explorer
Off the coast of Chile

Leena Sims closed the battered handwritten journal and lay back in her bunk. Her mind was whirling with a hundred ideas. She'd been reading the journals of Alexander Kemmering for days now.

She decided that Kemmering was probably a scientific genius. But Leena was certain that he was also an egotistical megalomaniac determined to prove to the world that it was wrong and he was right.

Though Leena was still suffering from her fear of flying, some of the sheer panic had fled. It was worst when she tried to go to sleep. As she nodded off, she would experience a sudden surge of panic - like a fear of falling, only a hundred times worse. She found that if she worked hard enough, the fears vanished. And if she worked to the point of exhaustion, she could sometimes fall asleep without those disturbing incidents.

Leena was surprised to learn that she found some peace in knowing that the world was falling apart. It made her feel strangely free. Suddenly it didn't matter if her microchip process worked or not - or if Intel, Apple, or IBM made the bigger bid on the copyright to her process. The knowledge that she was helpless, trapped aboard an airship that was probably heading for certain doom was, in the end, comforting.

Free of the ghosts of her past and the memories of her father - a computer genius who died two years ago, before Leena achieved her success - Leena joined in with the others to try to solve the mystery of Alexander Kemmering's journals.

But as she waded through the obscure references to everything from the Bible to Hindu scriptures with unpronounceable names, Leena couldn't help thinking of Zoe Kemmering. The daughter of the vanished genius was hardly mentioned in these journals - and only as someone who found some obscure fact, or cleaned up a lab, or set up a camp. The dead archaeologist seemed to have used his own daughter as an unpaid assistant, surrounding her with all of his theories and scientific pursuits.

Once, in the third journal, Kemmering referred to his daughter as a genius. Leena suspected this was only because she believed in the theories he was putting forth.

For some reason Leena Sims felt a bond with the vanished girl, who was surely dead. Alexander Kemmering had dragged his daughter all over the world, making her live through his own obsessions. Perhaps, Leena realized in a moment of self-awareness, her situation was the same as Zoe Kemmering's. Leena's father had pushed her mercilessly, teaching her the basics of the inner workings of computers when she was just a child.

Leena idolized her father. She often acknowledged his help when she made her breakthrough. Sometimes, in early negotiations with the chip manufacturers, Leena referred to her new chip as "our invention" and something "we came up with," referring to her dead father's help in the research.

Finally, one of Leena's lawyers pulled her aside and asked her to stop using the plural. "These corporate types will think you can't do the work, Leena. They'll think it was your father's idea, not yours."

Leena understood the man's argument, but she had to fight not to use the plural when talking about "her" new process.

As her eyes closed and she lay back on her pillow, Leena wondered if Zoe had felt the same way about her father ...

14
FIRE AND RAIN

Tuesday, December 19, 2000, 3:25 P.M.
Aboard the Destiny Explorer
Off the coast of central Chile

"We're coming up on Concepcion," Captain Dolan announced to the others on the bridge. "We'll be over the city in about forty minutes."

This was not a revelation to the people on the bridge - they could clearly see the smoke rising from the city for the past hour. Despite its beautiful and sacred name, Concepcion would be just like the other cities they had passed over.

As they neared the Chilean metropolis of more than 300,000 people, everyone on the bridge grew tense, recalling their experiences near Santiago two days before.

Like almost every coastal city they'd passed since the communications blackout, Santiago was torn by war and civil strife. But unfortunately, the capital city of Chile was also a scheduled fueling and provisions stop for the Destiny Explorer. An arrangement had been made weeks before to provide the airship with food and water. Staples like that were not a problem now: the soldiers had brought aboard enough MREs - meals ready to eat - to feed three times their number for months to come. But the Destiny Explorer needed fuel.

The Petramco Oil Company had promised to deliver the fuel at a remote tank farm outside of Santiago. While the range of the super-efficient turbofan engines on the Explorer was phenomenal, and the tanks of the Explorer held thousands of gallons of jet fuel, without the stop in Santiago they might make it to Antarctica but not back again.

And if they met any obstacles along the way, such as harsh weather or katabatic winds, which could blow them off course, the whole mission was jeopardized.

While they approached Santiago, Dolan, Shelly, and Corporal Brennan argued the wisdom of trying to make the rendezvous at the fuel yard. It was apparent that things were in chaos almost everywhere in South America. Without communications, there was no way to know if it was safe to make the rendezvous or not.

Shelly argued that if it was possible, her father would find a way to make the rendezvous. Even now, she speculated hopefully, he could be at the fueling station waiting for them. Sean Brennan liked that idea. If Simon Townsend was there, then Colonel Briteis and his men would be there, too. Sean could turn over his command to an officer.

But Sean had to be realistic. The chaos they'd seen from their airship indicated to him that travel through South America was probably horrendously dangerous. Overland travel was impossible, and air travel was risky because of sudden hostilities between nations, or civil strife.

Three times in the last several days the airship had been buzzed by fighter jets. The first time, a Chilean Mirage fighter made a pass. The second time, the aircraft stayed too far away from them to make a positive identification, but Dolan swore it was a British Harrier.

The third time, they were attacked.

An A-37A Dragonfly with no markings opened up on them with machine guns. Johnny Rocco climbed to the top of the hull, where he'd mounted a Stinger antiaircraft missile two days before. Rocco aimed and fired.

The missile streaked up the tailpipe of the Dragonfly when it made a second pass. In a spreading fireball, the plane burst apart, its burning debris tumbling into the Pacific.

There were no parachutes. There was no time.

One crewman on the airship was killed, but damage was minimal and easily repaired.

Then yesterday, as they descended low over the Chilean coast, gunmen hidden in the jungles shot at them as well. Everyone on board got the message: Yanqui, go home. Or, as Jim Cirelli quipped, "Don't get out of the boat."

But they still needed that fuel. Finally, Captain Dolan, Shelly Townsend, and Sean Brennan formulated a desperate plan to get it. Since they didn't know who controlled Santiago, or who might have taken control of the fuel yards, it was decided that Brennan and his Airborne troops would grab the tank farm in a night raid.

If the legitimate owners were still in possession, no harm done. The Destiny Explorer would simply ask for the fuel, which was bought and paid for. If not, then the Rangers would just take it - if it was there. The biggest fear was that the remote tank farm outside the city had been destroyed.

In the dark of night, the Messerschmitt-XYB - piloted by Shelly herself - inserted six of the Airborne Rangers, led by Corporal Brennan, on a dirt road two kilometers away from the tank farm. The troopers hoofed it from there and approached the complex warily.

It turned out that the tank farm was intact, but it had been seized by a violent group of anti-government rebels. In a decisive, lightning-fast attack, Brennan and his men took the base with no casualties to their own forces. A few of the rebels were killed; many more fled into the jungle believing they were being attacked by a much larger force.

Hours later, as the sun rose, the Destiny Explorer flew away from the smoking city of Santiago with thousands of gallons of jet fuel pumped into its hull. Later, it stopped at a reservoir in the hills to pump in thousands more gallons of water.

At least the operation went smoothly, Brennan thought with a flood of relief. I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost one of my men ...

But suddenly, as they neared what looked like another disaster area, this time at Concepcion, the airship's automatic collision alarms began to blare - shocking Sean out of his troubled thoughts.

"What's that?" he demanded, instantly tense.

"Collision alarm," Shelly announced, turning to the short-range radar screen. Captain Dolan, on the helm, activated his HUD and scanned the area.

"Something is moving parallel to us! Something very large," Dolan said.

Just then, the intercom on the bridge crackled to life. "This is Ned, on the observation deck," the young scientist cried excitedly. "Take a look out the starboard window ... at two o'clock. We have company."

Shelly and Sean peered out of the starboard-side window, looking up past the curved hull of the airship.

"Look!" she cried, pointing.

"Oh, my God!" Captain Dolan said, without letting go of the control shaft.

"It's Rodan!" Shelly called to the others. Michael Sullivan's mouth dropped open, then he smiled with delight.

"Or one of them, anyway," Captain Dolan added. "There are a few Rodans, I think."

"Yeah," Michael said. "I remembering reading that an egg on the top of Mount Rushmore hatched, and a young Rodan was born."

"Or maybe two," Shelly added, trying to recall the details.

"He does look young," Sean Brennan observed as he watched the graceful creature glide alongside the floating airship - fortunately at a respectable distance. "The horns on his head are short, and he seems a little smaller than the one that nested on Rushmore."

"How do you know so much about Rodan, Corporal?" Dolan asked. It was a question, not a challenge.

"Well, sir," he replied, "they taught us kaiju recognition in basic."

"It's beautiful," Shelly exclaimed as she watched the creature flap his massive brown wings almost lazily in the blue summer sky. For some reason she could not explain, Shelly Townsend felt comforted by the flying creature's company.

Wednesday, December 20, 2000, 3:25 P.M.
Kita-Ku, Osaka

The ocean cleanup had been going on for many days, but the Japanese crews were no nearer to finishing now than they were when they started. The tanker that had collided with a container ship off the coast of Osaka sank almost immediately, carrying millions of barrels of crude oil with it.

Since then, raw oil had spilled into the Pacific Ocean in a steady stream. At ten o'clock that morning, the oil slick, which covered miles of ocean on the Japanese coast, began to burn. Soon, those fires spread. All ship traffic was immediately halted. Container ships were trapped inside the harbor, while others out to sea were forced to reroute to Kobe or other ports.

The ferry to Shanghai, already canceled because of the turmoil in that Chinese city, burned at the dock in a mysterious fire along with a section of the port. Oil was seen in the area, and fire control units feared that the fire on land might spread out to the oil-slicked waters of the harbor.

That is exactly what happened at about three o'clock.

The fires were out of control, and most of the harbors were already severely damaged, when the waters of Osaka Bay caught fire.

Because of the blackout that affected the world, it was no longer business as usual for Osakans, anyway. The traditional greeting that Osakans used, "Moo kari makka?" - literally "Are you making money yet?" - now took on a bitterly ironic tone.

But if Osakans weren't making money, they were certainly spending it. The bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and clubs of Dotonburi Street were packed on this damp and rainy Wednesday afternoon.

On the northern side of town, in the Kita-Ku area, things were less crowded but still lively. People shopped in the labyrinthine underground mall called Umeda Chika Center, or visited Panasonic Square - the "Futuristic Electro-Fun Zone" - where high-tech virtual reality games and a gigantic jukebox entertained tourists and natives alike.

Though the day was rainy and overcast, people paid ¥1,000 to ride to the top of the Umeda Sky Building, northwest of Osaka Station. The Sky Building had two tall towers, joined at the top. The unusual, futuristic architecture was loved by some and hated by others, but it certainly was unique. The observation deck was a popular place for Osakans to visit. For the final five stories of the trip to the top, the passengers rode on a glass-enclosed escalator high over the city.

On this particular afternoon, the observation deck offered people a good look at the fires on the ocean and the thick, oily smoke that hovered in the sky above it.

But no one in Osaka could have suspected the twin nightmares that would smite their beautiful and ancient city.

The horror began at the harbor, where the flaming, oily surface of the Pacific began to bubble and churn. As firemen in boats watched warily, a massive figure surfaced in the middle of the conflagration. Two huge slanted eyes peered up out of the Pacific.

As the fireboats scattered, the dark figure in the burning water began to move toward the city. As the creature approached the smoldering docks, it leaped out of the water and took to the air. The creature's hide was dark green, and it had an irregular, disk-shaped body. Underneath the curved upper surface, vents or spouts in the creature's underbelly spewed toxic gases as it skimmed the water. Stricken, many of the firemen dropped to the decks of their boats, their eyes, noses, and lungs burning.

The creature swooped over Osaka, continually spewing deadly, toxic sulfuric-acid vapors over everything. As it rose above the seaward section of the city and moved toward the northern end of Osaka, firemen and emergency crews battling the blaze at the waterfront were overcome as well.

Those far from the creature's passing were less affected. Their eyes smarted and their skin itched. For those closer, it was much worse. Their eyes burned like fire; if the victim inhaled enough of the toxic gases, his or her lungs would be so damaged that death was almost certain. As the gas settled on the town, the fallen literally began to melt away as the acid ate at their flesh.

The creature continued to circle over Osaka, spreading its poisonous cloud of destruction over a wide area. As the minutes passed, the mounting death toll made small sections of Japan's third-largest city into a graveyard. Fortunately, the gas dissipated rapidly, and a few blocks from the most horrible destruction there were no injuries. However, without communications, no one could summon help. More and more people died from the poisonous gases.

As the creature swooped low over the city, citizens ran for cover. Many made it indoors, away from the worst effects of the gas. Those who remained in the streets heard a weird pulsing throb issuing from the creature as it passed over them.

Often, that was the last thing they heard.

The creature, which would be dubbed Hedorah by the Japanese newspapers in the next few days, seemed to be made of a flowing, living sludge. Circling the city like a flying saucer, Hedorah was clearly visible to the people on the observation deck of the Sky Building.

Most of them felt relatively safe inside the glass-enclosed, climate-controlled areas of the building. But as power lines melted under the torrent of corrosive gases spewed from the creature, the electricity went off, and a collective gasp of fear issued from those now trapped on the observation deck.

Some panicked, but most remained at the window. A second gasp sprang from their lips a few minutes later. A storm was brewing on the horizon. A flash of lightning in the dark sky revealed a figure looming over the burning ocean - a figure every Japanese citizen recognized instantly.

It was Godzilla ...

Aboard the Destiny Explorer
Off the coast of Concepcion

Perhaps curious about the nature of the gigantic airship, Rodan paced the Explorer for more than thirty minutes. Nick Gordon was happy because he got a lot of footage with his camcorder. He bragged that he was going to be as good a live-action photographer as he was a science correspondent.

Finally, as they approached the city of Concepcion, smoke began to obscure their vision. Rodan soon disappeared behind a wall of smoke, or might have finally lost interest and flown away.

Worried about visibility, Shelly sent several of the crewmen to act as observers. The chief engineer was sent to the glass nose of the airship, and two other crewmen were sent to the second bridge in the bottom tail fin.

Sean Brennan ordered Johnny Rocco back up to the Stinger missile launcher, just in case another warplane decided they were a ripe target. Bob Bodusky and Jim Cirelli were at twin fifty-millimeter machine guns mounted in the airship's hangar bay, facing to port and starboard.

But as they flew over Concepcion, it was not an airplane that attacked them. Instead, a gigantic winged horror rose up from the city he had just shattered toward fresh new prey - them.

"What is it?" Captain Dolan cried, pointing at the huge silhouette below them, set against the blue waters of the Pacific. Through the hull cameras, which magnified the image for their monitors, he looked like a cross between a butterfly, a beetle, and a bat.

"I don't know what he is," Sean Brennan cried as he raced for the hangar. "But I know that he's coming right at us!"

"Full speed ahead," Dolan cried, pushing the throttle forward. At the engineering console, Michael fed more fuel to the engines. Even in this moment of crisis, Shelly was proud of how well he'd learned to use the board.

The airship slowly picked up speed, but everyone on the bridge knew it was not nearly fast enough to outrun the monster.

Once again, collision alarms echoed throughout the airship. With a shrill, chirping cry that battered their ears, the gigantic flying insectlike predator approached the airship, his eyes glowing preternaturally.

Ned Landson, on one of the observation decks with Peter, studied the strange creature through binoculars with cold scientific inquisitiveness.

"He looks similar to Megalon in many ways," he declared calmly. The monster beat his wings, increasing speed to catch up with the Explorer.

"Yep," Ned said finally. "He's coming for a visit!"

Ned continued to peer through his binoculars as he described the creature to Peter. "Like Megalon, he has antennae, mandibles, and a cluster of bony horns on his head surrounding a longer central horn, I might add. He looks so much like Megalon that I'll bet he fires a weird beam of some kind from that central horn ..."

"How comforting to know that," Peter replied.

Megalon was the name Ned Landson had given to the monster that had attacked Lima. It was not a scientific classification, though he had one of those, too. But Megalon was the name he liked best - "Mega" because the creature was so large, "Lon" simply because Ned thought it sounded cool.

Suddenly, twin scarlet beams of light issued from the creature's red eyes. One beam streaked harmlessly past the airship's belly. The second struck one of the starboard engines on the Explorer. The turbofan exploded instantly, vibrating the entire airship and throwing Ned and Peter off their feet. Shards of the steel propellers tore through the thin metal-and-plastic hull, shorting out electrical systems and mortally wounding Gil Givers, who was stationed on the engineering deck.

"I thought you said that a deadly ray would come out of his horn," Peter remarked.

Ned ignored him.

"I might add that this creature seems very aggressive - just as Megalon was," Ned concluded as the airship shuddered.

"Well, it might look like a bug," Peter proclaimed. "But I never heard of a bug that could do that!"

A secondary explosion from the damaged engine rocked the airship once again. Ned, clinging to a handhold, continued to stare at the creature.

"I think I'll call him Battra," he announced. My second major life-form discovered during this trip, he thought proudly.

"Fine," Peter replied. "I'll read your scientific paper when we get home - if we get home!"

On the second observation deck, Nick Gordon and Robin Halliday watched the action. Nick tried to shoot footage, but the creature kept flying out of the range of his camera. He howled in frustration and rushed from one side of the deck to the other, trying to get a shot while Robin taunted him.

Meanwhile, inside her stateroom, Leena Sims was paralyzed with fear. When the collision alarm blared the first time, she had been frightened. It took her a half-hour to master that fear. When the alarm went off for a second time, she was sure that the airship would fall from the sky, dragging her with it.

This is the end, her mind screamed. Then the ship was hit by something and lurched violently. Leena, standing next to her bunk, struck her head on the night table and was knocked unconscious.

On the bridge, Michael Sullivan was working at the fire-control station now. The automatic fire extinguishers were activated, dousing the blaze where the engine had exploded. But soon other red warning lights lit up his panel. Michael's fingers flew across the keyboard, releasing fire-prevention foam in several sections of the lower hull.

Battra, meanwhile, attacked the airship, his wings beating against the hull. The ship was battered by the force of the powerful wings and the rush of air that slapped the airship to the side with each beat. Several aluminum struts buckled inside of the hull - dangerously close to the helium cells.

The collision alarm continued to wail.

Watching the greenish black creature on the monitor now, Ned noted that Battra had six legs that ended with tiny claws. The monster had a wingspan of more than 180 meters. And Ned knew that though Battra was dwarfed by the huge airship, the creature was much more deadly. Its attempts to grab the Explorer with its sharp claws and rip it apart showed a dangerous, feral intelligence.

On top of the hull, Johnny Rocco aimed the Stinger missile launcher down at Battra. He steadied himself with the safety harness as the creature beat his wings against the airship. In a moment of calm, Rocco stared through the sight and waited impatiently for the tone to sound. When the beeping commenced - signaling that the missile's seeker warhead had found the target - he depressed the trigger.

The missile shot from the tube with a fiery backwash and raced toward the target. A second later, the projectile impacted on Battra's head, hitting the creature right between his slitted red eyes as he approached the airship for another pass. The warhead exploded without doing any visible damage or slowing Battra down.

Johnny Rocco was hurriedly loading a second missile into the tube when a dark shadow fell over him ...

In Osaka ...

Godzilla waded through the burning ocean just as the drizzle, which had continued intermittently all day, turned into a steady torrent of rain. Sheets lashed against buildings, obscuring everything. The people trapped inside the Umeda Sky Building were suddenly blinded. They saw only the dim glow of the distant fires, and the black shape in the center of them.

Sirens finally began to wail throughout the city. Those on the ground rushed to subway entrances and cellars, seeking shelter from the twin behemoths that threatened their city.

One creature did not seem to be afraid of Godzilla. The flying creature with the toxic exhaust slammed to the ground in front of the Sky Building, crushing smaller structures under its tremendous bulk.

The people on the deck, who had been watching with awe, now panicked and crowded the few emergency exits.

In the plaza, the entire form of the creature seemed to bubble and shift. Hedorah's shape gradually changed, and it seemed to grow right before the eyes of the shocked and unbelieving witnesses. Bubbling pseudopods appeared all over the creature's body.

Its head bulged and enlarged, and the thing now swayed on what looked like two thick legs. The monster waved flapping, dripping forearms that popped out of its sides.

Only the eyes remained the same. With an evil intelligence it focused them on Godzilla.

For many minutes, the creature stood still, waiting for the King of the Monsters to reach it. Godzilla obliged, knocking buildings aside, crushing streets and sidewalks, and shaking the Earth with each mighty tread of his massive feet.

Then Godzilla twisted his head and roared a challenge. His bell-like voice boomed over Osaka. Rain washed off his gigantic body in torrents. His tail lashed back and forth angrily as a deep rumble emerged from Godzilla's throat.

The shape-shifting thing that waited for Godzilla finally reacted. A beam of energy burst from the corner of the creature's huge eye, striking Godzilla on the shoulder. As his flesh burned and rain sizzled in the wound, Godzilla snarled in rage. Rearing back his head, Godzilla raised his forearms in a defensive posture.

But despite the ray that danced across his body, searing his hide, Godzilla did not slow his relentless approach toward Hedorah.

Aboard the Destiny Explorer ...

Leena Sims lay at the foot of her bunk, unconscious.

And she dreamed.

She dreamed of a flat, icy plain with terrible winds. She dreamed of falling down a pit in the ice and of being trapped in a deep crevasse. Walls towered above her, and a polar storm raged. Leena tried to move, but she was paralyzed. In the dream, she could not feel the cold, though she somehow knew it was there.

What she did feel was a fear that crept up from deep inside her and threatened to overwhelm her sanity.

Finally, with an act of will, she rose. But just as she was on her feet, the ice under her simply dropped away. Leena looked down at her feet and saw a bottomless pit opening up.

Then she was falling.

She screamed and screamed until she could scream no more, but still she fell. Finally, when she thought she'd fallen to the very center of the Earth, everything went black.

When Leena opened her eyes, she was lying against the trunk of a tree. The tree was so thick it seemed more like a wall. Long tendrils snaked out of the top of the tree, wiggling on the ground around her. At the end of those vinelike tentacles, huge pods with snapping mouths rolled and slavered soundlessly.

Leena looked up and realized that she was inside something. Far above her was a roof. Then she realized she was in a cave, but a cave so huge it dwarfed the Grand Canyon. Cautiously, Leena rose and stepped around the enormous bole of the ancient tree. It took a long, long time.

Finally, when she was on the other side, she saw another world.

A city ... a city made of ice ... and it spread out in front of her for miles and miles - endless buildings of strange shapes, leaning at unsettling angles. Some of the city looked more like an M.C. Escher print or a painting by Nicholas Roerich than a real metropolis.

Then Leena shuddered. A cold, blasting wind suddenly sprang up, chilling her to the bone - to the depths of her soul as well. Then Leena heard a sound behind her. She whirled around fearfully.

A shimmering, glowing light bathed her. Blinded her. For a moment she felt fear, then a sudden peacefulness washed over her, calming her nerves and soothing her troubled soul. In the center of that mass of shimmering light, a million tiny butterflies with multicolored wings beat the air around her.

Then a voice spoke to Leena, filling her head with its melodious tones.

"Be not afraid." The soft, feminine voice seemed to caress her.

"Who ... who are you?" Leena whispered.

"I am Mothra, the Protector of the World ..."

"What do you want with me?" Leena demanded.

"You are to be my vessel, my messenger," the voice replied. "Heed my warning. There is danger to your world ... from one of your own ..."

"Someone on the ship?" Leena asked.

"Someone in the Antarctic," Mothra replied. "Monsters are being created there by an ancient technology that is being horribly misused. These monsters will be unleashed on your mute and helpless civilization. It is there you must go to stop it before everyone on Earth is destroyed."

"We're already going," Leena insisted. "We have soldiers and weapons with us ..."

"They will be useless," the voice replied. "You can save your people, Leena Sims ... you and your comrades ..."

Then the voice faded, and Leena awoke on the floor of her stateroom, bathed in a cold sweat.

***

Outside the airship, high above the aircraft's hull, a battle was raging.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Midnight in Osaka ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now it was reduced to rubble.

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

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

And Hedorah began to burn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minutes later, as Godzilla waded into the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese submarine Takashio took up position behind the King of the Monsters.

To the surprise of Captain Sendai and his crew, Godzilla swam quickly away from the Japanese mainland. He was headed due south ...

15
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Monday, January 22, 2001, 4:15 A.M.
75° 15' south latitude, 113° 10' east longitude
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He soon forgot the incident.

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

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

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

Shelly simply felt that it was their duty to humanity to rescue anyone trapped on the inhospitable continent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

It was obvious that Erebus had erupted in recent weeks.

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

***

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

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

The winds had been strangely calm in the past few hours, and he'd relieved Shelly at the helm at 2:00 A.M., anticipating that bad weather would strike at any moment.

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

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

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

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

Dolan stepped up to the intercom and tapped the button.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"When do we arrive?" Robin Halliday asked.

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

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

Monday, January 22, 2001, 9:00 A.M.
The entrance to the Kemmering Passage
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the hull, the turbofan engines whined and slowed, decreasing the speed of the massive airship to less than fifty miles an hour. As everyone aboard held their breath, the nose of the Destiny Explorer slid into the mouth of the pit.

As the airship entered Kemmering Passage, a dark shadow fell over it. Boldly and courageously, the crew of Destiny Explorer plunged into the unexplored darkness of the gateway.

"Running lights on," Dolan, at the helm, declared as spotlights all over the airship ignited, illuminating the interior of the unimaginably vast cavern.

As they moved a mile or so into the passage, Dolan tilted the nose of the airship downward and they began to descend. Shelly and Captain Dolan carefully probed the darkness ahead with their spotlights even as Michael continued to scan the tunnel for unexpected obstacles with the radar.

Far behind them, at the mouth of the passage, a dark, gigantic figure lumbered into the cavern, too. Unknown to the crew of the airship, Godzilla had entered the tunnel. Whether he was guided by a higher power, or by some bizarre instinct, the creature slowly followed the Destiny Explorer into the pitch-darkness of the passageway.

"Right full rudder," Dolan ordered as he turned the ship slowly.

After proceeding for several miles, the Explorer was forced to detour around a column of ice that was miles high and ran from the top of the cave to the bottom. The diameter of the base of the column was so large it was measured in miles.

As they circled around it, spotlights played on the icy shaft. Nick and Robin, who were taking photographs, were sure they detected movement inside the icy column. The asked for more spotlights to illuminate the thick, translucent shaft.

"It's water!" Nick proclaimed after a moment.

He was right. The icy column acted as a huge pipeline. Water rushed from some point on the surface of Antarctica down through the thick-boled shaft of ice. When the Destiny Explorer finally circled the column, the observers saw a flood of water gushing out of a gigantic hole at the base. Beyond that, a river as wide as the Mississippi flowed downward toward the bowels of the Earth.

After this brief detour, the tunnel continued down with no further obstacles. The airship flew parallel to and above the crashing white waters of the underground river. The level of the passage floor inclined more and more drastically. Soon the river was transformed into a series of waterfalls, each of them dwarfing Niagara Falls.

The Destiny Explorer was descending at an almost forty-five-degree angle. Inside the airship, crewmen and passengers alike gripped handholds as the ship plunged into the claustrophobic darkness. Outside the hull, the sound of the roaring waters echoed off the cavern's roof.

The airship lights played off the walls, roof, and floor of the passage. Eerie, flickering shadows danced around the airship. The temperature climbed steadily until the explorers were unnaturally warm in their winter gear.

"It's the internal temperature of the Earth's crust," Peter Blackwater speculated. "I wonder how deep we really are."

From the bridge, Captain Dolan answered that question. Over the ship's intercom system - which remained open for all aboard to hear - he announced, "We're now about sixty miles inside the passage, and a mile or more under the surface of Antarctica."

The walls of the cavern had long ago turned from ice to rock and earth. The darkness outside the hull was now absolute. Even the spotlights had trouble piercing the preternatural blackness.

But still they descended, lower and lower, as the hours passed....

3:25 P.M.
Inside the Kemmering Passage

It was Shelly Townsend who noticed the subtle change in the darkness ahead. She stepped up to the front of the bridge and peered into the distance.

"Turn off the forward spotlights," she ordered.

Dolan looked at her curiously, but obeyed. "Keep scanning with the search radar, Michael," Dolan commanded, concerned that another obstacle might appear in the unlit passage.

When the spotlights dimmed and their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they saw a glow flicker in the distance ahead of them.

"Bingo," Jack Dolan muttered.

"There are no obstacles ahead of us," Michael announced, looking up from his search radar. "But the tunnel is beginning to narrow a little."

"As if we're being herded forward, to a precise location," Corporal Brennan muttered.

Unknown to the crew of the airship, miles behind them Godzilla slipped into the rushing waters of the mighty underground river and was swept rapidly and helplessly downstream.

The dim glow increased in intensity as the airship approached it. The roof of the passage changed subtly, too. As they watched from the observation deck, Ned and Peter noticed crystal structures forming and re-forming on the cavern walls.

"The walls look alive," Ned said. Peter nodded mutely, staring out the windows at the complex and beautiful patterns that appeared and disappeared with every passing second.

On the bridge, Dolan killed all the external lighting. Though the passage was dim, there was enough light for him and the others to see. The explorers noticed that the walls, floor, and roof of the cavern were glowing with their own internal luminescence.

But by far the brightest light in the underground world came from far ahead of them.

Soon they neared the source of that light, but to their surprise they could not proceed. The light came from beyond a semi-translucent wall of crystal. Behind that wall, brilliant lights glowed and flickered. At the base of the wall, the underground river flowed into a vast, deep lake. The black waters shimmered beneath their hull and lapped against the crystal barrier.

"I don't think we can go any farther," Captain Dolan announced. But even as he spoke, a tiny hole appeared in the center of the crystalline wall. Then, the hole began to widen. Michael spotted it first and pointed it out to the others.

As the rest of the bridge crew watched in amazement, the hole continued to expand, like a huge crystal iris. They watched hopefully as it opened wider and wider, until a gateway a mile in diameter yawned before the airship's nose.

Multicolored lights danced and flickered beyond the opening and were reflected on the black waters of the underground lake.

"I think that's our invitation to come in," Shelly Townsend proclaimed.

"And we didn't even have to knock," Nick Gordon added.

Suddenly the airship shuddered, and the collision alarm went off. But the vibration quickly ceased. As Michael killed the alarm, Captain Dolan immediately realized that the ship was no longer in his control. The intercom crackled, and Peter Blackwater spoke from the observation deck.

"Long crystal arms that popped out of the walls have taken hold of the mooring hooks on the hull," he announced.

"He's right; we're being dragged inside," Captain Dolan declared.

"Reverse engines!" Shelly cried, but Dolan overruled her.

"No!" he cried. "That maneuver could rip this ship apart!"

Then, in a much calmer voice, Sean Brennan spoke. "We've been invited inside," he remarked. "We might as well go in." The Airborne Ranger smiled. "Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding," he stated hopefully. "Maybe we can all just get along."

But no one really believed it.

As they watched helplessly, the Destiny Explorer was dragged through the entrance to an undiscovered world.

Unseen by the others, Leena Sims stumbled onto the bridge and peered through the observation windows. What she saw made her gasp.

Robin heard the girl's sharp intake of breath and turned. "What's the matter, Leena?" she asked.

"It's ... it's the underground city from my dream," the teenager proclaimed.

Spread out before them, in a huge roofed cavern, was an obviously ancient, and obviously abandoned, city. But it was unlike any city known to man.

All the buildings were constructed of living, moving crystal. The structures shimmered and rolled with colors - indescribable colors that could blind anyone who stared at the skyline for too long. The vast metropolis stretched out for miles in all directions. There were areas of low, individual buildings like suburbs, and other sections where the high crystalline towers were taller than any building built by humankind.

The city itself was larger than New York City, larger than Tokyo. It was perhaps the largest city on the entire planet. But it was empty, a necropolis. A city of the dead.

Upon closer inspection, the bridge crew realized that much of the city was in ruins. Some of the mightiest towers were shattered. Others tilted precariously, or leaned against nearby buildings. This was not immediately apparent to those aboard the Explorer, for the architecture was strange and unsettling, as if the city were designed to appeal to an alien aesthetic. Shapes and sizes seemed jarring and irregular, though Captain Dolan was sure that they made perfect sense to the builders.

In the distance, a red glow reflected off the roof of the vast cavern. Bright flashes of fire appeared there. Ned Landson realized that a river of molten lava flowed beyond the city.

As they approached a wide central plaza, a massive structure of pastel blue crystal loomed over them. The building was shaped like a huge mushroom, with a wide rounded cap resting on top of a round crystal shaft at least three miles in diameter. The crown of the building - at least five miles across - had long, irregular shafts of crystal projecting from it at many angles. The central structure was decorated with weird modernist statues that looked to the explorers like the wildest examples of abstract art.

As they gazed at the structure, a door appeared in the pastel wall at about the same height as the bridge of the airship. There were no windows or joints in the structure; the door, like the iris gate, simply opened in the smooth wall.

The plaza under the airship gleamed as if paved with crystal-clear ice. But suddenly a shimmering tower began to grow up right in the center of the clearing.

"It's a mooring mast," Dolan exclaimed.

And just as he said the words, the tip of the airship touched the top of the crystal tower and was anchored. The Destiny Explorer drifted to a halt. As they watched, a delicate bridge of the same type of living crystal grew out from under the door in the massive structure ahead of them.

The airship moved to the side, until the edge of the crystal bridge touched the door where the elevator was usually mounted.

"What do we do?" Shelly asked.

"We go inside," Captain Dolan answered immediately.

Minutes later, a crewman opened the airlock. Then, Corporal Brennan and his ten Airborne Rangers rushed out, wearing full combat gear and with weapons ready. The soldiers moved uncertainly onto the delicate structure. The crystal bridge did not appear strong enough to hold even one man's weight. Yet the bridge didn't sway, even when Johnny Rocco jumped up and down on it.

Sean Brennan signaled to the others. Shelly, Captain Dolan, Nick Gordon, Robin Halliday, and the teenagers exited the airship. As they crossed the high bridge, they looked out over the sprawling, gleaming city below.

"Look!" Peter cried excitedly, pointing to a dark area near the iris through which they had flown. The others saw it, too - a gigantic plant of some kind, hundreds of feet high, with vinelike tendrils growing out from its bole. The central core of the tree was a huge trunk that ended in a sharp tip that pointed to the roof of the cavern.

Oddly, the snakelike tendrils, which seemed to be moving, ended with pods that looked like they had openings - or mouths.

"That's definitely a plant," Peter observed. "It's the first thing I've seen entering the city that was not made of crystal."

Suddenly Corporal Brennan, who was in the lead, tensed.

On the other end of the wide crystal bridge, large insectlike creatures were filing out of the door in the structure and lining up on either side of the span. The creatures were not much bigger than human beings, and the soldiers noted warily that they seemed to be carrying weapons of some kind.

Ned Landson studied them with scientific curiosity. He noted that the creatures looked very similar to the Kamacuras that had decimated Kansas last year.

But these greenish creatures were much smaller - about seven or eight feet tall - and walked erect on four back legs connected to their thorax. Their forelegs were unusual, too. They ended not in sharp claws but in small, four-fingered appendages that looked very much like hands. Each creature carried a long pointed crystal pole.

As the creatures stood at attention, they made no sound at all.

"Our reception committee," Shelly whispered uneasily. Corporal Brennan continued on, pretending to ignore the creatures as he walked between their ranks. But Shelly, who knew him better than anyone else, realized that Sean was tense. He carried his weapon at the ready and flicked off the safety.

"Easy, men," he cautioned his troopers. "No shooting unless I give the word."

The line of insect creatures formed a corridor, and the group of humans walked down it. When they entered the huge building, they found themselves in an immense crystal chamber with a high roof and smooth, glasslike walls. There Michael spotted something amazing.

"Look!" he cried, halting his electric wheelchair. "Look at all the computers."

Indeed, banks of computers lined the walls. Many computers, old and new. The vision of something so conventional in such an unconventional setting disturbed them all. On closer inspection, the group realized that the machines had been cobbled together from the ruins of a dozen Antarctic stations, and the wreckage of airplanes and ships.

The computers were working, too; they were connected to crystal pipes that ran into the smooth, featureless wall behind them.

Finally the group saw a raised dais before them. To everyone's shock, a lone figure stood on that podium. Sean Brennan sensed that they were about to meet the master of this lost and forgotten world.

"Zoe!" Captain Dolan cried, rushing forward when he saw the girl. "Zoe Kemmering ... it's me, your uncle Jack!"

But Shelly knew that if they were seeing Zoe Kemmering, the girl was no longer human. The creature before them had the face and form of a teenage girl, but the resemblance ended there. Her skin was silvery and shimmered in the weird illumination. Her hair looked like spun glass, and even her eyebrows stood out like tiny shards of pointed crystal. Her eyes were blank and glowed like harsh, cold diamonds.

As Dolan approached the raised crystal platform on which the girl stood, another crystal construction raised out of it, near where Zoe Kemmering was standing. This shaft was made of clear crystal and shaped like a tombstone. In the center of that structure, the corpse of a middle-aged man was entombed. Captain Dolan halted in his tracks and gasped.

"It's Alex," he muttered. "Alexander Kemmering ..."

"Why have you come to our world?" the woman spoke. Her voice, like her appearance, was beautiful - but cold and emotionless. Her utterances stabbed at Shelly's ears like icy daggers. Leena and Robin actually shivered when the woman spoke.

"We came searching for you, Zoe!" Dolan replied, cautiously moving toward the girl. But when he reached the base of the raised platform, one of the insect creatures scurried forward and barred his way. The sound of its bony claws tapping across the crystalline floor sent more shivers through Shelly.

Sean Brennan's grip tightened on his weapon. His men glanced around them warily.

"The Kamakites will not harm you," the woman announced, gazing down at them. "But they will not allow you to approach us, or to use your weapons."

"Us?" Sean Brennan said, his voice echoing hollowly in the vast chamber. "Is there someone else here with you?"

"Yeah!" Nick Gordon cried. "Who built this place, anyway?"

The woman on the dais focused her cold eyes on the young military commander. Shelly felt a sudden rush of fear as Zoe's inhuman eyes flashed with frosty fires. Then the woman looked at the journalist and smiled.

Somehow, her smile made Shelly even more uncomfortable.

The woman tossed her spun-glass hair and strode across the podium, the glass heels of her crystal boots clicking loudly. She touched what looked like a stalagmite sticking up from the floor, and the towering blue crystal wall behind her shifted and flickered before it became transparent.

Shelly gasped. So did Robin Halliday. Some of the Rangers began to mutter among themselves, but a look from their commander silenced them. Nick Gordon pulled out his camera and began to take pictures.

Behind the transparent wall, three huge, glowing figures of pure living crystal stood nearly motionless. Each being was at least twenty-five feet tall. Their vague and formless bodies shimmered. Two of the creatures glowed in a bright blue shade - the third throbbed with a deep, flickering crimson. Clearly visible inside the beings were more crystalline structures of various shapes and colors - the equivalent of human organs, Ned Landson assumed. There was something like a head, though it was pointed and irregular - and something like three glowing eyes or lenses, but no visible arms or legs. How it could move was a mystery to the young scientist.

Thousands of bits and pieces of multicolored crystal whirled around each of the figures trapped behind the wall.

Some kind of unidentifiable instruments surrounded the creatures as well - crystal growths of many writhing shapes and varying sizes. Leena, however, recognized a more conventional computer cable running down from somewhere in the roof to the crest of the crimson being's bulbous "head."

"The Ancient Ones built this city," Zoe Kemmering declared. "Hundreds of millions of years ago. Before the coming of man, even before the dinosaurs, the Ancient Ones possessed a civilization that was already a half-billion years old!

"Now only three of them remain."

The woman that had been Zoe Kemmering smiled again.

"We control this city now," she announced. "And it is our task to remake the Earth in our own image."

"So you sent the monsters?" Nick Gordon asked. "To destroy mankind?"

The woman on the dais nodded. "That, and the Babel Wave that cut off your communications. They were but the first step, however. Soon humans will be extinct, and we will rule over all."

"Those creatures behind the wall," Captain Dolan whispered angrily to Sean Brennan. "They are somehow controlling her ... forcing Zoe to do these terrible things against her will!"

"What have your friends got against humans, anyway?" Sean Brennan demanded, pointing at the things behind the wall. Again, Zoe Kemmering's eyes danced angrily and seemed to glow with an inner light as she gazed at the soldier.

"It is not personal," Zoe announced. "The Earth is to be cleansed to make way for a superior species. Out there, beyond the city, the first seed of the Earth's new life is growing.

"Soon Biollante will be ready to cover the Earth with her roots and branches, and wipe mankind from the face of this planet forever."

16
THE SLEEPERS AWAKEN

In the necropolis of the Ancient Ones

It looked as though the woman on the dais could hold those below her in a hypnotic thrall forever. But a moment later, the gigantic chamber exploded into pandemonium.

It started when Captain Dolan spoke.

"We've got to free my niece from the control of those creatures," he hissed to Corporal Brennan. The soldier did not reply. But Leena Sims, who was close enough to overhear the captain, did. Remembering the warning from Mothra, Leena exploded.

"That's bull!" she cried loudly. Then the girl locked eyes with the woman on the podium.

"You don't fool me!" Leena cried, shaking her fist at Zoe Kemmering. "Those creatures aren't controlling you. You're controlling them!"

"Quiet, Leena!" Robin cried, reaching for the teenager. But Leena shook herself loose from Robin's grasp and moved in front of everyone. Warily, the soldiers glanced around them, fingering their triggers nervously.

As a Kamakite scrambled to stop her, Leena pointed up at Zoe Kemmering.

"You may have the others fooled!" Leena cried. "But not me! I know who's controlling whom around here!"

"What are you saying?" Captain Dolan demanded.

Leena faced the girl's uncle. "You're blinded by the guilt you feel for not coming to her rescue sooner," she said. "Don't you understand? Can't you see the truth?

"When Zoe says we, she doesn't mean she and the Ancient Ones - she means she and her father!"

Then Leena turned and faced the girl on the dais above her. "You're bitter and angry, aren't you, Zoe?" she cried. "You've taken on your father's obsession with discovering this new world ... and you've taken on all of the pain, rejection, and alienation he felt, too."

Suddenly, Shelly began to understand Leena Sims's argument. As Shelly helped her father build the airship, she'd also felt every single one of his disappointments, failures, and rejections, as her own ... even though it had never been Shelly's intention to build airships for the rest of her life.

"Your father is dead!" Leena cried emotionally. "Stop living his life! Stop letting a dead man control you!"

Zoe Kemmering's eyes flickered for a moment. For a brief instant, Shelly was sure she saw a flicker of humanity cross Zoe Kemmering's inhuman face.... And then it vanished as suddenly as it came.

The woman on the dais looked down at her army of Kamakites, which surrounded the humans.

"Kill them," she said simply.

As one, the Kamakites moved toward the humans, their crystalline spears raised.

But just then, a sound like a tremendous hammer hitting a door echoed over the city, shaking the foundation of the building they occupied. The booming sound repeated two more times. Each blow was so intense that it vibrated the floor under them. Surprised, Zoe Kemmering stepped backward until her spine pressed against the crystal wall behind which the Ancient Ones waited motionlessly.

The sound also halted the Kamakites' advance, breaking their limited concentration.

Sean Brennan used the respite to good advantage. He lowered the muzzle of his M-16 and pointed it at the Kamakite closest to him.

"Let's rumble!" he cried as he pulled the trigger. The slugs tore through the creature, sending jets of black, bubbling ichor splattering in all directions. The Kamakite collapsed into a heap on the smooth floor, spilling black blood.

As the rest of the soldiers opened fire, the room exploded in chaos and ear-shattering noise.

Above it all, the strange, booming sound continued. Something was banging on the crystal iris through which the Destiny Explorer had entered. But too much was happening in the chamber for anyone to find out who - or what - it was.

In the confusion, Leena Sims ran up behind Michael Sullivan and turned his wheelchair. "I need your help!" she cried as she pushed him toward the bank of computers.

Jim Cirelli moved until he was back to back with Private Mike Templeton. Blasting away together, they raked the ranks of Kamakites with round after round of explosive bullets. Composite eyes exploded and bone-hard carapace shattered.

A Kamakite scrambled up to a Ranger who was reloading and shoved its crystal staff through his belly. Screaming, the soldier dropped his M-16 and drew the service revolver from its holster. Choking on his own blood, the Ranger pumped round after round into the Kamakite's head.

They died together.

"Get them out of here!" Brennan cried, pushing Captain Dolan toward Shelly, Ned, and Peter. The captain stumbled forward, then halted. He took a last look at the lone figure on top of the dais. Finally, the airship commander turned and pushed the others out of the chamber, toward the crystal bridge.

The teens took off in a run, followed by Nick and Robin.

"Come on!" Captain Dolan cried to Leena and Michael, who were still studying the makeshift computer setup in front of them.

"Look at the cable up there," Leena cried to Michael over the noise and gunfire. She pointed to the wires that led into the central creature's crystal head.

"Somehow these computers are controlling the monsters," she announced. "That cable proves it!"

The revelation lit up Michael's face. His fingers flew across one of several keyboards on the crystal stands. When nothing he liked happened with the first keyboard, he moved on to another. This time, as he tapped the keys, the monitor above it began to display raw data. He continued to work feverishly, hacking into the system. Leena, who was good at engineering but bad with programming, tried to grasp what he was doing.

She couldn't.

"Zoe Kemmering has adapted a navigational computer from one of the wrecked airplanes," Michael announced. "She's fixed it to work with the crystal machinery. I'm sure she's using the computers to somehow immobilize the Ancient Ones. They are in some kind of electricity-induced sleep or something."

"Get out!" one of the soldiers cried to them, pointing at the exit. His warning to the teens cost the man his life, as three Kamakites swarmed over him, stabbing repeatedly with their crystal spears. Leena closed her eyes in horror; then she turned and hissed at Michael.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"I've almost got it!" Michael replied. "There! That ought to wake them up!"

But behind the wall of the Ancient Ones' crystal cage, nothing seemed to happen ...

***

Outside the edge of the city, the booming, pounding noise continued during the firelight. Finally, a crack appeared on the massive crystal iris at the entrance to the city. Then another appeared. Soon those two cracks joined.

Finally, with an ear-shattering crash of tumbling crystal shards, the wall exploded inward. As thousands of tons of gushing water rushed into the necropolis from the underground lake on the other side of the iris, Godzilla stumbled through the opening he'd made and into the city of the Ancient Ones.

Bellowing a challenge to the rulers of this lost metropolis, the King of the Monsters moved forward as dark water rushed around his legs and tail and splashed against his belly. Godzilla flexed the fingers of his forepaws and tilted his feral head back. His jaws opened, and Godzilla's primeval roar echoed throughout the ancient city.

At that instant, Biollante attacked.

Suddenly, long vinelike tentacles whipped out and wrapped themselves around Godzilla's immense body. As the monster struggled, more and more tendrils lashed out, each with a toothy pod on its end. The mouths, with long thorns for teeth, sank into Godzilla's flesh. Tugging against the tentacles that entwined him, the King of the Monsters was dragged off his feet.

With a mighty splash, Godzilla hit the churning, rushing water that flooded the city. Biollante's tentacles whipped back, releasing Godzilla. The monster struggled to rise against the force of the water. Finally, as Godzilla stood erect once more, Biollante's chest began to glow bright red.

The tip of the central bole, which had been pointing to the roof of the cavern, now moved slowly, until it was pointed at Godzilla. Then a huge maw opened up in the center of the bole. Twin glowing eyes opened on either side of Biollante's long snout. Then Biollante's mouth opened, and the creature issued a bellowing hiss that could be heard as far away as the airship itself.

With a rumbling sound, the plant monster literally uprooted itself and shambled toward Godzilla, tentacles waving, red eyes flashing ...

***

Inside the chamber, another soldier died as five Kamakites descended on him.

Sean Brennan turned in time to see his man fall, and the corporal opened up on the creatures who killed him.

"Let's go, people!" Brennan cried, pushing the last of his surviving men out onto the bridge. The chamber was empty, except for Zoe on the dais, and Michael and Leena near the computers. With a curse, the corporal turned and ran back into the chamber to retrieve the two teenagers.

Blasting another Kamakite apart in a hail of gunfire, Brennan approached the teens. Michael was still furiously tapping on a keyboard. Leena was urging him on. As Brennan crossed the chamber, he eyed the dais warily, alert for any sign of trouble from the woman called Zoe. But he glimpsed her only briefly as he gunned down another Kamakite. The girl was on her knees before the crystal tomb of her father. Corporal Brennan could swear he heard her sobbing.

Brennan finally reached the teens. He glanced down at the ruined body of one of the other soldiers.

"Come on, kids!" he cried, pushing Leena toward the door. "Let's get out of here!" Then the soldier grabbed the handles of Michael's wheelchair.

"Wait!" Michael cried, putting on the brake. He tapped two more keys, then looked up at the corporal and Leena.

"Okay," he declared. "If that doesn't do it, nothing will. I'm ready."

As the three of them rushed for the exit, Leena spoke. "What will happen?" she asked.

Michael smiled. "I think I woke the Ancient Ones up," he announced proudly. "I tried everything else, then I figured out that Zoe wasn't using electricity to knock them out - she was controlling the voltage so that they couldn't wake up."

"I don't get it," she cried.

"I sent enough electricity through the Ancient Ones to shock them awake ... I hope."

Leena turned. It looked as if Michael's idea was working. She sensed movement behind the wall. To Leena's surprise, Zoe Kemmering remained paralyzed, kneeling before the entombed remains of her dead father.

They reached the exit, and Brennan thrust Michael's wheelchair into Leena's hands. "Go!" he barked. "I'll cover you."

As the corporal turned, a Kamakite rushed him. He pulled the trigger, and bullets ripped into the insect's body. The creature continued on. As Sean ducked, the dying Kamakite rushed right past him and plunged over the edge of the crystal bridge.

Then Brennan felt a cold pain reach into his guts. His body was yanked backward. As he hit the crystal floor, he tried to rise, but couldn't. He looked down to see the point of a Kamakite's spear jutting from his abdomen. Blood gushed around the shaft. Brennan finally managed to raise himself to one knee, draw his handgun, and shoot the creature that had stabbed him.

Then the corporal dropped his gun and slid soundlessly to the floor of the chamber. Through a haze of pain he saw several more Kamakites scrambling across the smooth floor toward him. Their spears were raised above their ugly heads ...

***

Godzilla grappled with Biollante as the creature's many tentacles wrapped around him once again. One tendril wrapped itself around Godzilla's neck. But the monster seized the pod at the end of the tentacle and ripped it open until the jaws separated and dropped into the bloody water flowing around their feet.

The plant monster, which was at least 120 meters tall, shuffled forward awkwardly on thick, twisting roots. Biollante slammed its full weight into Godzilla, sending the monster flying backward. More tentacles reached out, closing on Godzilla's neck again.

Thrashing and struggling helplessly in Biollante's grip, Godzilla felt his strength ebbing as the life was literally choked out of him.

Godzilla raised his forepaw in defense, and Biollante lashed out. A thick, thorny point ripped through Godzilla's hand and burst out the other side to penetrate the monster's throat. Godzilla opened his eyes wide in surprise. As he gurgled, bloody foam flecked his jaws.

But still Godzilla battled on, yanking on a single tentacle until it finally gave. Ripping the arm free from its root, Godzilla bellowed as the pressure was released from his neck. Rising with a snarl, Godzilla faced the plant monster, his lips curled to bare a mouthful of long, sharp, uneven teeth.

Blue lightning danced along his dorsal spines, shimmering eerily in the deep underground cavern. Then a blast of radioactive fire burst from his powerful, slavering jaws and washed over Biollante.

The plant monster howled in pain ...

***

"Where's Sean?" Shelly demanded when Leena stumbled into the airship, pushing Michael's wheelchair through the narrow airlock.

"He's right behind me," Leena cried, turning. "He -"

But the teenager fell silent when she saw that the bridge behind her was empty.

"I've got to go - " Shelly bolted, but her words were cut off as Captain Dolan dragged her back inside the airship.

"You and Michael have to help me launch this airship!" Dolan declared.

"But what about Sean?"

"You are responsible for the lives aboard this ship, Shelly. Remember that! They need you ... I need you."

"But what about Sean?" she cried again.

"He's a soldier. He knew the risks," Dolan replied. "Do you think I wanted to leave Zoe back there? I didn't, but I had to."

Shelly nodded finally as tears streamed down her face. But suddenly a figure raced past them.

"Get the ship up and running," Nick Gordon cried as he rushed by. "I'll go fetch our American hero!"

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

"You magnificent idiot," she whispered.

***

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

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

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

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

The end was near.

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

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

This time, they were looking back ...

***

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

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

Where the drops touched, Godzilla's hide sizzled and smoked.

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

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

***

"Look!" Shelly cried from the helm, where she readied the airship for takeoff.

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

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

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

She feared that they both were dead.

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

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

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

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

Everyone listened intently as the Ancient Ones spoke to them.

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

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

"Take care of it."

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

Suddenly, the lights blinked inside the Destiny Explorer.

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

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

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

Shelly rushed back to the stateroom, where Dr. Grace was fighting to save Sean Brennan's life.

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

Somehow, Shelly Townsend knew that he would.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so was Godzilla ...

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

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

"Thank you, Mothra," she whispered.

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

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