Project MINA Gen version

by Kei

An experiment releases a great evil onboard Seaview.

1. 1

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

"Project M.I.N.A."
(gen version/au)

by
Kei


"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God, in Him will I trust... surely He shall deliver thee from the pestilence. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night...nor the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor the destruction that wasteth at noonday..."
Psalms 91: 2-6, the King James Bible



Prologue




The gun was heavy in his trembling hands; the bitter cold of its metal body reaching through the tattered thin woven fabric of the beige-colored utility gloves that he wore as a feeble gesture of defiance against the rapidly dropping temperature all around him. Yet, despite the bitter cold ache in his stiffening fingers, he held onto the semi-automatic's sleek handle as if the gun was a life preserver and he, a drowning man. The stark walls echoed with his weary, beleaguered sigh. God... There was little he could do but wait. Wait as he had been ordered. Just sit here and wonder if hypothermia would claim his life before they did. He was no longer certain which fate seemed worse. Perhaps he would soon see.

A vague yet insistent pounding against the locked metal door that held this private frozen prison/sanctuary inviolate woke him from his grim daydreams of personal doomsday. He gasped aloud, releasing jets of semi-frozen condensation from his nostrils as he recognized the rhythm of the code that he and his one remaining comrade had hastily devised between themselves. It wasn't them. It wasn't. Just then, the P.A. hissed. "Pst... Mathieu!.. Will you open up the goddamned door!"

"Adam..." he whispered in a ragged voice as he punched the seven-digit entry code into the automated lock. Hours seemed to pass even though it was merely a matter of seconds before the massive metal barrier groaned aloud as if it was in great pain as it inched open ever so slowly, sending a shower of frost to the tiled floor of sickly green and grey. "Hurry! It won't take them long to notice the noise!"

"Christ Almighty, Mathieu! You don't think I already know that!"

Corpsman Mathieu Thibideau slammed his palm down upon the emergency closure button as soon as Captain Adam Hudson had squeezed his lean frame through the small opening they had created. Only a few inches -barely enough- but they dared not widen the entrance any further. The massive metal door had been slow to open and would be just as slow to close. And time was precious. Little escaped their notice and they would soon be coming. The door sealed the entrance with a low booming thud and another shower of frost.

In a gesture born of military-indoctrinated habit, Adam Hudson brushed the fine dust of frost from his damaged, once-fine and proud naval uniform, noting with almost comic exasperation that he had torn another gaping hole in one of the sleeves. He had never been a robust man, always dwelling on that narrow border between lean and skinny. Now...he could be taken for nothing else but gaunt, and though he had yet to reach his fortieth birthday only a year from now, he now appeared closer to an unhealthy fifty or more.

Corpsman Thibideau shuddered, hoping that his commanding officer had not noticed his unconscious reaction. His captain had the Sickness. As a medical man and an unwilling witness to the illness' subtler symptoms, he knew that plague for what it was...and for what it was slowly, but inexorably doing to this man who was to him as an elder brother...as it had to the others...as it had yet to do to him. How he wished he didn't. Ignorance would have been bliss right now. Perhaps Adam Hudson had read the poorly disguised expression of horror on the young corpsman's face for he sighed heavily and said: "We don't have much time...at least...I don't."

"Skipper -Adam- there's still a chance that help will come in time to-"

"Save it!" Hudson snapped sharply and then grimaced as a jagged knife of pain twisted deep within his stomach. Thibideau reached out to try to help, to at least offer what small comfort that he could, but was brushed, almost thrown aside, by a wave of the captain's hand. "Get away!" For a moment, there was something else beneath the pain; the ghost of something bestial that seemed to be struggling to the surface of the man's being as hard as he was struggling to keep it imprisoned. But...almost as soon as it had come, the moment passed and was gone, and with it, the faint shadow of hidden horror. The captain took a deep, cleansing breath and stood up straight...himself again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...I'm sorry. " The young corpsman nodded grimly -he understood. Explanations and apologies were unnecessary. Hudson shuddered visibly.

"The ship has been taken care of...Jean-Marc and I have seen to that," he said softly, shaking his head with awful remorse. His ship; his first full command... "The explosives will take care of the base." Captain Hudson took in his antiseptic surroundings with a small, tired smile. "This room was constructed to store the most volatile materials -it's blast-proof...the explosives won't touch it. You should be safe here."

"How can you remain so damned calm!" Thibideau demanded, forgetting all military protocol, the rage and fear he had been suppressing these last few nightmarish days, bursting to the surface. "It's not right and it's not fair!"

Captain Hudson cocked his left eyebrow in the familiar gesture of wry amusement which his corpsman knew so very well. "Since when has life been 'fair', Mathieu? Fairness went the way of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. You are the only one of us who possesses this peculiar immunity to this thing...and if it should come to that, you may be the key to a cure. You've got to stay alive!" He glanced at the watch that all but swung around his wrist. "I'm going to make another attempt at getting to the communications' center and release the warning beacon. Wish me luck."

"Bon chance, mon ami..." Corpsman Thibideau's words of luck rang hollow in the sterile, icy gloom as he released the lock on the automated door and watched his captain -his friend- disappear for what he believed was the last time. Even as he said "good luck", he knew in his heart that he was really saying "good bye".


1


The first cognizant thought that Harriman Nelson had as he opened his eyes was the vague impression of a memory...an ephemeral thing...the grim memory of the nightmare from which he had just awoken. It had been one of those confused nocturnal flights of fancy; images folding, one into another; neither here nor there...except for one. Even as wakefulness exorcised most of the few remaining details of the dream, he found that he remembered one image quite clearly still -that of a form, a thing in the nebulous darkness that had eyes like angry red coals and the canines of a beast, ripping and tearing... Nelson shuddered and uttered a low self-conscious laugh. Just another nightmare...just the foolish random imagery born of sleep's madness...and Cookie's most recent effort at preparing his famous "Chili Caliente" which still sat heavily in his stomach. Nightmares. In truth, he sometimes found it more than a little surprising that he didn't suffer them more often.

It was a well known secret. Admiral Nelson allowed himself a small tired smile as he swung his legs from his bunk to the polished deck of his private cabin. He walked over to medicine cabinet and shook from a small plastic bottle, two flat white tablets into a glass of water -the tablets began to fizz and dissolve almost immediately. Yes, this ship -this submarine- was easily the most widely known secret of which he was aware. The S.S.R.N. Seaview was his brainchild and he, her principal designer. She was a behemoth among giant super nuclear-powered submarines; a vessel of such power and advanced design that she could not openly -officially that is- be recognized as a regular naval vessel, and only those aboard her and those of the highest security ranking knew for certain that she was anything more than a technological flight of fancy...more than just another submarine. She was as much a research vessel as a warship; a spacecraft under the sea, and a ship and a crew that was sent into situations to which no other could go either in times of war or peace...as they had many times. Too many times. The stuff of nightmares...

Nelson put the glass to his lips and drained it of the effervescing drink and frowned at the bitter aftertaste.

"The stuff of nightmares..." he muttered under his breath, musing over past adventures. But not this one. Admiral Nelson cast a side-long glance at the dog-eared paper-bound book he had placed on the nightstand beside his bunk just before insomnia had finally given ground and sleep had claimed him for the night; right beside the neatly folded spectacles that he occasionally wore lately when his eyes grew tired -the glasses he had yet to admit to anyone but the ship's doctor that he wore at all.

It was one of those old, old novellas (a reprint actually) that had become popular with the present fancy for pre-21st century literature; something he had picked up at a five-and-dime second-hand shop while on a recent shore leave and had promised to lend to the ship's captain. It was a sometimes pretentious little tale of horror; of darkness and dwellers of shadow that had fangs and would attack to drink one's... Harriman Nelson uttered another muted self-conscious laugh. Utter foolishness. A man of his age should have known better than to dwell on such things.

The Admiral glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand and stifled a yawn as he ran his fingers through his rumpled wavy hair which had somehow steadfastly remained fiery red despite the onset of middle-age and the curious nature of the assignments to which he and his crew were often sent, and sighed aloud.

Time to get back to duty.




"Morning, Skipper!"

Captain Lee Crane glanced up from his usual morning cup of coffee (black, no sugar, no cream) and offered a half-hearted "good morning" in response to his executive officer's bright and cheery greeting. There was a slightly sheepish expression on the naval commander's handsome young face as he furtively stuffed a hastily folded handkerchief into the left breastpocket of his uniform shirt and went back to studying the still-steaming dark liquid in his mug. If Lee Crane's executive officer, Chip Morton, had noticed the self-conscious gesture on his captain's part, he made no mention of it as he returned from the mess counter, where the cook was now wearing a curiously knowing smirk, with a glass of tomato juice in one hand and an oversized carrot-raisin muffin in the other.

Morton sat down at the Captain's table and studied the sour, thick red liquid in his glass and then the healthfood cupcake, sighing with profound disgust. "Doc's prescription," the grim-faced executive officer muttered in response to his captain's questioning glance. "The man has a major mean streak in him if he actually expects me to increase my fibre-intake by eating this crud."

A fleeting grin passed over Crane's thin lips, animating his grim countenance, and then was gone. "Could be worse," he murmured, his New England accent all the thicker because of lingering tiredness, and stared into the distance at nothing in particular. He winced as he sipped his coffee and set the cup down.

"Oh?" Morton asked with a slight lift of his left eyebrow, suspecting that there was more to come. "How?"

The grin returned to Lee Crane's lips, a trifle sourly this time and not nearly as sincere. "You could have put up with the week I just did."

Commander Morton had been disinterestedly picking at the paper cup in which his muffin sat, peeling the paper away from the slightly sticky cake, but at his captain's cryptic utterance, pushed aside the object of his dissatisfaction and leaned forward almost conspiratorially. He glanced back sharply at Cookie who, feigning innocence or ignorance or both, immediately busied himself with restocking the galley stores locker. Morton returned his attention to Crane. "Your shore leave, you mean? Weren't you supposed to be spending your liberty with...what was her name...Laura?"

"Lorna," Crane countered with a slight grimace and pushed aside his coffee which had begun to cool. He had never liked lukewarm coffee.

"So..?"

"It didn't happen."

"Ahh..."

There was a sharp flicker of annoyance in Lee Crane's eben eyes at Chip Morton's too-knowing response. They were good friends -the best and for the longest time- but sometimes...just sometimes, Morton's tendency to be blunt hit the wrong nerve. No matter. He let it pass. "Not like that," Crane muttered with a scowl of disgust. "I went to visit my mother first... She had me up on the roof patching God-knows-how-many leaks during what had to be the heaviest and longest rainstorm I've experienced recently." He coughed. "I ended up spending the rest of the week in bed with the flu. If I ever so much as see another bowl of chicken soup..."

Morton winced slightly. "And Laura-"

"Lorna."

"-wouldn't wait."

"Not that I expected that she would," Crane replied honestly with a dismissive shrug and a small sniffle. He leaned forward and rested his aching head on his folded arms. "Damn...they can cure cancer, but they can't cure most strains of influenza. With the number of Aspirins that I've swallowed lately, I should rattle when I walk."

Morton shook his head sympathetically and nudged his glass of tomato juice toward his captain. "Here. You need this more than I do." He caught Crane's sharp glance of annoyance and prudently hastened to add: "For the vitamin C."

"Oh."

For a long moment, nothing was said; the only things to be heard were the ever-present, soft droning hum of Seaview's massive reactor-driven engines, and the sound of breathing. Morton silently studied Crane as the man regarded the thick red fluid in his glass as suspiciously as if he thought that the sanguine liquid might be blood. Eventually, Crane drew a heavy breath and sipped it gingerly, cringing both at the taste and the fact that his throat had begun to hurt. Finally, Morton steeled himself and summoned his voice. "Lee..." Lee Crane looked up, waiting.

Morton's brow creased with a frown of concern...of worry. In the years that he and Lee Crane had known each other -mostly as shipmates thrust together after the brutal murder of Seaview's first captain, John Phillips, and then as friends- he had come to realize that the man before him had no patience for his own weaknesses while he had plenty of it for others, and had a tendency to minimize the situation when he found himself ill. If Crane could admit that he was a little sick, then the chances were good that he was very sick. "Listen...Lee...this is me talking as a friend -if the Admiral finds out that you're going on duty in your condition, he will have a conniption! He'll haul you down to Sick Bay so fast that-"

Lee Crane looked up sharply, eyes narrow and dark with annoyance. "He isn't going to find out," he said quietly.

"Oh?"

For a moment or two, Crane seemed to drift among his own thoughts and spoke as if to himself. "The line between being treated like a son and being treated like a child is often dangerously thin..." The fog fled from Crane's eyes and the hard glint that came with authority returned to them as he sat up fully. "Chip... I have...what amounts to a small cold. If it was anything else, I'd confine myself to Sick Bay on my own authority. So -if a certain Executive Officer were to bother the Admiral over something so damned trivial, that same Executive Officer would find himself as the first XO on extended galley duty. Is that quite clear?"

Chip Morton raised his thin eyebrows and picked at his breakfast. "Quite clear."

Sometimes, it was impossible to tell whether or not Lee Crane was joking.




"Shit!"

The wrench fell from seaman Kowalski's hand and landed on the dull steel deck of the Missile Room with a loud, harsh clatter. Choice obscenities, each stronger and juicier than the one preceding it, fluttered before his mind's eye as he glared at the recalcitrant bolt that held the grate covering the airduct firmly fixed to the bulkhead...and then sighed, shoulders slumping slightly, knowing that a verbal tirade wouldn't make this almost painfully boring maintenance duty complete itself any faster.

Kowalski brushed aside a thick dark lock of hair that had drifted over his eyes and seemed, with almost human obstinance, intent on staying there as it immediately drifted back. "Ripe rotten shit," he growled under his breath, deciding that the first declaration wasn't strong enough after all. Maintenance duty -easily the least enviable and yet, one of the most important assignments on Seaview. Without the regular checking of every nook and cranny, without these jobs which left one sweaty, smeared with grime and the fingernails caked with unnamable crud, Seaview -despite her much vaunted power- would grind to an ungainly stop. Besides which...since his team's less than phenomenal performance rating, during one of the Captain's unannounced inspections a couple of weeks ago, the list of duties had grown longer and more detailed.

Kowalski glared at the obstinate bolt and reached for the wrench. Last duty on this roster and he was not going to have his whole day held up by a mindless lump of metal. At the edge of the seaman's hearing, he heard the gradually approaching sound of discordant music thumping from some unknown source and glanced over his shoulder, wincing both at the cacophony and at how it made his head hurt worse than it had been on and off all week long. Damned migraines. Seaman Stu Riley, a fresh-faced kid barely out of his teens -a strawberry-blonde who looked as if he was born to live out his life on a California beach, not serve on a submarine- skated into the Missile Room (nobody knew how) on the rubber soles of his uniform sneakers, a tool kit in one hand and a portable CD double tape-deck stereo in the other -the latter being the source of the steady diet of grunge rock or whatever it was called these days.

A sigh escaped Kowalski's lips. The sooner he got this little job done, the sooner he didn't have to listen to- "Son of a bitch!" The stubborn bolt had shown every sign of moving -a little, just a little- when the wrench had snapped from with such a sudden force that all Kowalski knew was that the bolt was still in place, the wrench had clattered to the deck, his left thumb was throbbing, and blood was slowly oozing from an ugly and deep gash there.

"Hey, Kowalski, what's your sitch? You got a prob?"

"No! No damned problem at all!" Kowalski growled, his ugly mood growing uglier. He pulled his bruised, bloodied thumb out of his mouth, grimacing at the metallic taste of his own blood. "I almost cut off my own thumb, that's all!"

"Bogus..." Riley whistled sympathetically, a cloud of concern passing over his usually beaming face -but only for a moment. "But Doc can deal with that problem like fast!"

"Maybe..." Kowalski murmured, unwilling to be pulled out of his deep-blue funk by Stu Riley's almost ever-present cheerfulness just yet. "Will you turn that down!"

"Chill, dude -no problem!" The portable electronic music box went dead and silent with a quick stab of Riley's thumb on one of its numerous buttons. He frowned again. "Something eating you, 'Ski?"

"Hmph...besides my thumb, you mean? Just this migraine that's been dogging me all week," Kowalski groaned with a begrudging and almost apologetic smile. "I've been to Doc about it, but the stuff he gave me last time...man, the side-effects ain't worth it."

"Bogus, dude. I guess I know what you mean about not wanting to go to the Doc...the stuff you gotta take... I had to make for the Sick Bay right after shore leave last. Antibiotics for me!"

"Yeah?" Kowalski grumbled, intrigued despite himself as he glowered at his wounded thumb and then back at the nearly cherubic face of Riley. "What for?"

A reddening shadow reached from Stu Riley's ears to his cheeks as he glanced around himself at the other crewmen working at the other end of the Missile Room. "Shore leave."

"'Shore leave'?" Kowalski questioned suspiciously.

"You know," Riley insisted. "Shore leave!" he repeated, gesturing meaningfully with his eyes.

Blank incomprehension and then aghast disbelief crossed the elder crewman's face. "Jesus, Stu! Where was your head! In this day and age -didn't you use anything!"

Stu Riley shrugged sheepishly. "Well, like, she was the most bodacious I had ever seen and I sort...forgot. Besides, Doc took care of it -what's the prob?"

"Just the likelihood that everytime we find a cure for whatever ails us, Nature has the sick sense of humor to cook up something way worse." Both conversationalists started at the voice of the unannounced audience to their tête à tête. Seaman Patterson, a tall lanky former Kansas farmboy, stood with a half amused/half disapproving smirk on his face. "It happens every time we think we've got things licked."

"How long have you been there, Pat!" Kowalski demanded , glancing uneasily from side to side.

"A minute -two maybe- it doesn't really matter. I was working in the aft ductwork -I could hear you clear across the room," Patterson said with a hunching of his shoulders and a sweeping gesture of his hands.

Stu Riley blanched nearly sheet-white. "Why didn't you say anything before now!"

"Well..." Patterson admitted with a sheepish grin. "It was better than any scuttlebutt going around these days and besides...what sailor hasn't heard of 'shore leave'?"

His initial indignation forgotten, Riley's youthful face and expression brightened visibly. This wasn't confession or embarrassment -this was bragging rights. "I mean, you just had to see her. She was tiny -tiny all over except she's got these like, really big bodacious cones-" He indicated with his cupped hands. "Like, you know?"

"We get you," Kowalski and Patterson chimed in unison.

"And she's, I think, Hawaiian or something, but she's got these green eyes-"

"Uh, Stu..." Kowalski interrupted uneasily and suddenly.

"And I was a real hunk even if I do say so myself -"

"Stu..!" Patterson hissed urgently with a cough.

"What!" Riley snapped indignantly at last. His audience had suddenly gone silent -Patterson looked like he wanted to fall through a hole in the deck. "I mean, it's not like the Chief is here to-" Riley stopped, his voice fading out as he swallowed with sudden dread. "He's right behind me, isn't he?" Kowalski and Patterson nodded in unison. Riley winced, glanced to his side and whispered: "I thought so." Steeling himself , he put on his most innocent and ingratiating smile and turned to come face to face with the stocky, imposing figure of the chief of the boat -Chief Petty Officer Francis Sharkey. "Chief! How's it going? I was just on my way to-"

"Stow it, sailor!" Sharkey barked, his expression as dark as an approaching storm. The three seamen stood at ramrod straight attention, waiting for the proverbial leaden hammer to fall as the glowering chief petty officer paced a wide circle around them before stopping in front of them, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he fixed them with his blazing glare. "I...cannot believe you three jokers," he snapped in a Brooklynite accent so thick that it could be cut with a knife. "Last performance rating -60%. Sixty percent ! I tell the Skipper, 'Don't you worry about it, sir. I can whip these swabjockies back into shape in no time flat -no problem!' And what do I find? You three giggling girls flapping your lips about your love lives like a bunch of old ladies over Bridge! What in the blazes am I supposed to do with youse, hah? Babysit you 'till you get out of the ParaNavy or something? The only thing I want to hear an' see right now is all of youse getting back to your duties!"

"Yes, Chief. I know, Chief," Riley flustered while Kowalski and Patterson looked on, fighting the urge to grin despite their unenviable predicament. "It's just that she wasn't just any babe!"

"Oh really ?" Sharkey muttered sarcastically. "And just what makes this fling any different from the hundred or so that I've heard you talk about in the time you've been on Seaview, huh?"

"See, Chief," Riley explained eagerly, "she did this most radical thing with a rope, a trampoline, and a quart of cold cream to-"

"That's enough, Riley!" Chief Sharkey snapped, blanching an odd, nearly yellow hue. He shook his head weakly. "You three just get back to work and make sure you have a 90% performance rating -at least! I don't want to hear anymore!" With that, the Chief turned on his heel and stalked out of the Missile Room, saying after him: "I don't want to hear another word!"

Riley, Patterson, and Kowalski regarded each other and shrugged as they returned, chastened for the moment, to their duties. Patterson glanced the way the Chief had left and murmured to himself: "I wanted to hear the rest of it."




"Jesus..." Ropes, trampolines, and cold cream -the words bounced around in Francis Sharkey's head as he stomped down the corridor leading to the Control Room. Ropes, trampolines, and cold cream -what in the seven seas, he wondered, could a man and woman do with them while... He frowned as his active imagination provided a tentative answer and cringed as he decided that he really didn't want to know. It wasn't that he wasn't experienced in the ways of the world or that he hadn't been around once or twice, but this... The Chief shook his head in profound bewilderment and wondered if he was just more than a little behind the times. A little old-fashioned maybe.

Except for the Admiral, himself, the Doc, and maybe a number of crewmen he could count on one hand, Seaview's crew was young, exceptionally young; their ages landing somewhere between twenty and twenty-eight or less. An old memory fluttered before the Chief's mind's eye; that of his first meeting with the youthful skipper he had on first sight taken for a crewman -Captain Crane. Awkward situation best forgotten.

A boatload of children that had to be kept in line with an occasional swift kick in the butt or just as often, had to have their noses wiped...the best crew at sea. Which -Chief of the Boat Francis Sharkey decided- was why he had to lay it on a little thick when it came to discipline...like in the Missile Room just now. The best didn't stay the best if they were allowed to get slack -Sharkey's law.

"Hey! Watch it!" Sharkey barked, his fleeting reverie sundered as the tall form of the submarine's communications' officer, Sparks, all but barreled into him. The sealed communiqué that he had been carrying flew out of his hands and spun down to the deck. "Jesus, Sparks, what's with you!"

Sparks' fair features deepened to a flustered crimson as he snatched up the coded transmission. "Sorry, Chief...coded transmission for the Admiral -eyes only and right away!" With that, the radioman took to his feet and disappeared around a bend in the corridor, leaving a bemused chief petty officer staring after him, muttering to himself as he continued his own trek.

"Kids."




"Thank you, Sparks."

Admiral Nelson shut the door to his quarters and frowned as he studied the sliver-thin envelope; frowning because InterAllied Command had bypassed the ship's captain and had had this communiqué sent to him directly. Hardly proper naval protocol to- The mirror-like sheen of the palm-sized silver disk reflected the light from the envelope; an encoded laser micro-disk, requiring his personal code to decipher the message. Eyes only indeed. From clamshell terminal to clamshell terminal -the need for privacy must have been greater than normal... Nelson felt his frown deepen.

Almost as soon as the laser disk was placed in the computer's disk drive, there was a distinct electronic hum and the terminal's screen flared to life. In all, it took approximately twenty minutes for the entirety of the message to be relayed, but it took easily thirty or more before the Admiral of the Seaview could truly absorb and accept the information it contained and by the time he had, Nelson's countenance had become ashen. My God, he wondered in horror, if the situation was even half as bad as InterAllied feared...

Admiral Nelson stabbed a button on his desk communicator. "This is Nelson. Will Captain Crane and Commander Morton report to my cabin..." He paused as the potential ramifications of the message washed over his mind again and then added: "At once."

Less than five minutes passed before the Admiral heard a knock at the door of his cabin. "Come." The door swung open, admitting first Captain Crane and then, Commander Morton.

"You wanted to see us, sir?" Crane asked.

"I do. Shut the door...and you might as well sit down... This could be a long one." Morton and Crane shared a puzzled glance, saying nothing, but communicating much, both silently pondering the possible reasons for their abrupt summons. Morton shut the door with a soft click and took his seat beside his captain.

A long, long moment passed as Nelson tried to find the words, the right words, to express what had to be said. Lee Crane and Chip Morton, the finest officers aboard Seaview, were as different as night and day. Chip Morton, Germanic blonde, blue-eyed and very fair complected, was stoically intellectual and reserved, a by-the-book Navy man. Lee Crane, olive-skinned, eben hair and eyes, was an exceptionally young and intelligent captain about the same age as most of his young crew, one whose training allowed him to accept the usual and the unusual with the same gravity if the need proved itself and whose military bearing sometimes only poorly concealed a smoldering temper...different as night and day...and yet, they both had one major thing in common. Despite their individual skills and training, they were both still amazingly naïve concerning the seamier subtleties of the military politics that he knew so well...like the ones that would govern this mission. "We apparently have...a situation."

Crane's brow furrowed. "Sir?"

Nelson sighed with a definite weariness despite the fact that the day was still quite young. "Approximately an hour ago, a message was sent to me through InterAllied Command concerning a top secret research installation in the Antarctic by the name of 'Station Delta'. Have either of you heard of it?"

Again, the two officers shared that glance that said so much. They knew that except for some nebulous facility, the Antarctic was deserted these days, but... "No, sir," Morton said finally.

"I wouldn't really have expected you to," Nelson said with a wry grin, "but it's the most advanced international research facility dedicated to the study and cure of diseases -contagious and otherwise -all the way up to Biohazard Level 8! Though never publicly revealed, both the cure for AIDS and the genetic key that led to the cure for diabetes were discovered there." Crane and Morton both appeared duly impressed. "We have also...lost contact with it."

Crane shrugged, not particularly concerned. "Magnetic fluxes around the poles are very erratic this time of year -temporary communications' breakdowns are commonplace."

"Perhaps..." Nelson admitted, finding it pleasant to entertain the idea and then accepting that he didn't really believe it, pleasant though it was. He knew too much to think positively at the moment. "But...we've also lost contact with a sub registered to the Federation of Canada -one of the giant nuclear submarines- the S.S.N. Voyageur out of the state of New Brunswick...from its Acadian port."

Both Crane and Morton reacted at the mention of the name of the submarine that was often referred to as Seaview's cousin ship. While Voyageur could not equal experimental Seaview's advanced design and power, of all the submarines in service, she was the only nuclear vessel that came close. "But Voyageur's communications' systems were designed especially to overcome polar magnetic flux," Morton said in mild protest.

"I know -they're on par with those on Seaview." Nelson automatically reached for the cigarette pack in his front pocket and hesitated as he caught sight of the tiny, almost undetectable frown that creased his young captain's brow. Crane had never approved of smoking, didn't smoke himself, and though he had never and likely would never comment on his admiral's little vice, Nelson found himself suddenly and distinctly uncomfortable -how long had it been since he had boasted that he was going to quit smoking for once and for all? Five days? God -was that all? Nelson stuffed the pack back into his breast pocket. "And if something is wrong, it's difficult to tell when it actually occurred; the station only made reports bi-weekly and while on assignment to Delta, Voyageur was on radio-silence."

"Then how can we be certain that there's anything wrong at all?" Crane questioned, leaning forward. "You just said yourself that communications are restricted under the best of conditions."

Nelson slid the shimmering disk back into the disk drive and pressed the appropriate button, scanning. "A ham radio operator, using an admittedly restricted series of frequencies, happened upon a partial transmission from what is apparently the station's warning beacon. What he heard -and taped- frightened him enough to turn what he had recorded over to the proper authorities. InterAllied sent us an exerpt of what they were able to clean up -though the quality is still quite poor." Nelson released the scanning button and sat back uneasily. "The transmission was garbled due to distance, the magnetic fields, and what appears to have been a dying battery, but...perhaps you gentlemen had better hear this for yourselves."

At first, there was very little to hear; merely the telltale rushing and hissing of electronic static and feedback, but then, very gradually above the electronic din, came a voice -vaguely human and very distant, and with startling abruptness, sharp and clear. "...is Captain Hudson...Submarine Voyageur out of..." The voice was lost for several seconds, enveloped by a piercing whine, before it snapped back, fading in and out of a blizzard of noise. "Emergency situation...-arctic Station Delt...lab accident has caused...release of...created during Project M.I.N.A....Had no idea...Did not know...contamination...so great...did not...realize what they...found...Deliberate or...monstrous mistake ...Contaminant...aboard ship...now...Station..." The voice suddenly became so clear that it was as if the speaker was in the very room. "We had no idea how far Dr. Ionescu's team had gone or when the Phoenix Project became Project M.I.N.A....if there ever was a Phoenix Project at all. There may not have been -I don't doubt that now."

A look of thinly disguised horror paled the faces of Crane and Morton. Nelson felt a familiar chill travel down his spine as the message was replayed and began to break up again. "...repeat warning...condition red...Project M.I.N.A. has released...must not..." The voice was finally, completely swallowed by crackling noise. The silence in Nelson's office was deafening.

"A massive biological catastrophe..." the Captain said in a low, disbelieving voice. "That is what we're talking about here, isn't it?"

"It may very well be," Nelson replied honestly, "and of what, we don't really know. According to the governments involved, there was no noting of a 'Project M.I.N.A.' in the station's prior transmissions -nor had they been given any authorization for any private projects and Delta was well equipped to handle any form of accidental contamination. Their most recent authorized assignment was the Phoenix Project."

"If I may, what was the Phoenix Project?" Crane asked pensively.

"Simply the most ambitious medical project known," Nelson said grimly. "They were working on a preventative vaccine for cancer...any cancer -whether purpose changed with time, we don't know."

"And we're supposed to go in there, aren't we?.." Morton said in disbelieving sort of wonder. "...to maybe deal with something we know nothing about."

"Seaview's mission is to determine whatever the cause of the cessation of the transmissions...officially. Unofficially, and under Presidential orders of top secrecy, we are to determine the reason for this emergency transmission, and to also learn the nature of this 'Project M.I.N.A.' if it actually exists."

"And if it does?" Crane asked quietly. "Whatever it is?"

Admiral Nelson grimaced inwardly. He didn't like this -he really didn't. "Seaview's decontamination/anticontamination capabilities are without par -they are more than sufficient. However, we must prepare for the chance that our mission might not be one of rescue or discovery...but of 'containment' in whatever form that might take -is that understood? Very well then, gentlemen, I expect you to make preparations and set course for the Antarctic at best possible speed... Dismissed."

Nelson sank back in his swivel chair and rested his head against his hands, his fingers massaging the gnawing ache that was growing and spreading from temple to temple. He heard the door to his cabin open, steps into the corridor fading with distance, then another set of steps and a pause. Nelson looked up, not particularly surprised to see that Captain Crane had stopped, pausing at the doorway, his hand on the door itself, as if he was vacillating over whether to go or stay. He seemed to puzzle a moment longer and then, finally, turned to face Nelson. "With the Admiral's permission," he said almost diffidently, "I would like to...broach something that's ...puzzling me."

"About this mission?"

"Yes, sir."

Nelson regarded his young captain who, in his apparent discomfiture over whatever was troubling him, had sunken into the comforting formalities of stiff military-ingrained naval courtesy -as he often did. There was no surprise. Indeed, there was probably very little on the Captain's mind at the moment that he hadn't suspected that he would eventually ask, from the time that the information had been dispensed. They knew each other almost too well. Nelson nodded slightly and gestured for Crane to sit down. "What's bothering you, Lee?"

"Sir..." Crane hesitated again, not entirely certain at this point in time where the need to know ended and outright questioning of his admiral's orders began. While their deep and abiding friendship had occasionally allowed for the stretching of those limitations, there was only so far one could go. He was a captain and Nelson was an admiral. It was always so very difficult... Lee Crane bit his lower lip in automatic pensive gesture as he claimed his seat. "I know that most research stations are under very high security especially when medical investigation is involved, but...what I don't understand is why Antarctic Station Delta, and this mission, are under the highest Presidential security classifications."

"Ah. That."

"If I don't have the proper clearance-" Crane hastened to say.

"No, no, Lee. You do." Nelson straightened up in his seat, kneading a kink that had developed in the small of his back and then folded his hands in front of him. "What we have here is a very sticky situation." Crane regarded him, uncertain. "You see, Antarctic Station Delta did not start out, exactly, as a medical research station... You've heard about the Twelfth Geneva Convention?"

The Captain's expression brightened visibly. "Of course, sir! It's in all the history books -they made some of the greatest strides towards world peace there."

"Well," Nelson continued, a wry smile on his lips, "during that convention, it was discovered that certain governments, that had until then professed otherwise, had large stockpiles of...biological weaponry for the express purpose of eventual massive germ warfare." Crane winced visibly, the Admiral noted, again with no surprise. "Antarctic Station Delta was originally created as a remote facility to destroy these 'weapons' or to find countermeasures to deal with them, though its purpose has long since grown beyond that original goal."

"I take it that records still exist on base of their former purpose?"

"They do," Nelson replied, reaching for the cigarette pack in his shirt and then thought better of it. "And if the knowledge of these secret weapons were made known large, there could be dangerous political repercussions even today -repercussions that we cannot begin to deal with."

"Are you..." Crane paused, not so much surprised by what had just been revealed to him
-he was too aware of the ways of the world for that- but somehow, very disappointed that the initiatives he had been taught to be the greatest moves toward world peace as such were not quite what they had seemed -perhaps he was merely too naïve. "Are you saying that the Twelfth Geneva Covention's peace prerogatives were based on lies?"

"Some, unfortunately," Nelson said with a sigh as he circled the cabin and then stopped, his gaze fixed on the mounted aerial photograph mounted on the smooth grey wall; the picture that froze forever in time Seaview's very first dive beneath the waves. He observed Crane's brooding countenance. "But for the best of reasons." Crane returned his glance. "As much as most of us abhor the necessity of the lie, hiding the truth this time was and is a fair price to pay for avoiding another world war -one we would almost undoubtedly not survive."

"Hence the order to consider possible 'containment' procedures?"

Nelson winced at the word 'containment', but nodded soberly. "If necessary -most definitely, but not unless there is no other choice. We are sailors...not assassins."

"Aye, sir."

Nelson noted Crane's muted response in the back of his mind for further contemplation -a statement of acknowledgment, not agreement...not that he had expected it. Lee Crane had been trained to fight and, if necessary, kill -as efficiently with his bare hands as with a gun...but it wasn't in his nature to kill if he could avoid it. But Nelson knew that the horrible reality of it was that he did not need willingness or agreement; just obedience and the ability to follow orders. It was a moot point in the ParaNavy as well as the regular Navy -they both knew that. "Is there anything else, Lee?"

Crane shook his head as he rose from his chair, his expression a perfect mask of inscrutability. "No, sir. I'll set course right now and get us under way." He headed for the door.

"Lee," Nelson said suddenly.

Crane turned, his mien one of puzzlement and then, just as quickly, one of caution. Nelson's stern grim countenance softened as he studied the young captain, giving way to an expression of paternal concern. Crane felt an annoying, nearly choking tingle that heralded a coughing fit beginning to inch its way up his already irritated esophagus and swallowed, hoping against hope to suppress it. "Yes, sir?"

Nelson regarded him a moment longer and then: "Are you all right?"

For what seemed to be the longest time, the Captain felt his voice falter. He was fully aware that he had no real talent for the devious, for lying -his forthright nature had gotten him into far more scrapes and disagreements than he cared to admit- and the truth of it was that he felt absolutely miserable; far more than he had any intention of admitting -everything hurt. He despised being sick or helpless, but if there was anyone in the world that he cared less to try to lie about it than Admiral Nelson, he did not know who it might have been. Never in his memory had he been able to look Harriman Nelson in the eye -and lie. "All right...sir?"

A small frown had darkened Nelson's ruddy features. "I was just wondering -you look a little pale. I'd noticed it when you first came in."

"Perhaps I need more sun," Crane offered, avoiding Nelson's penetrating gaze. Partial truth -better than none. He had no intention of serving this cruise in the Sick Bay when there was no need.

Nelson nodded slowly, accepting Crane's answer, but not entirely convinced by it. "You're certain? I had heard that there was a particularly virulent strain of influenza going around in the Santa Barbara coastal area and if you're not up to-"

"I'm fine, sir. Really," Crane countered. "I wouldn't be on this mission if I didn't consider myself fit enough."

"Very well then," Nelson conceded with a small sigh. "Perhaps we should all spend some more time in the sun when this mission is through -a week never seems quite enough, does it?"

"Maybe...we could touch port in the Bahamas next time? For repairs of course."

Nelson found the Captain's humor infectious and laughed aloud. He had worried needlessly over unfounded nebulous concerns. "I'll see what I can do -carry on."

"Aye, sir."




The cough finally erupted as a half-muffled gasp as Lee Crane clamped his hand -hard- over his mouth, his cheeks flushing a warm red. That had been close. Too close. And though the charade had been played to its logical conclusion, he had already accepted that he would have been a fool to have believed that his admiral had been deceived by it entirely if at all. Nelson was too smart and he, too poor an actor to have pulled off the role convincingly. It was more like an understanding between them. As long as something didn't pose a danger to the safety or efficient running of this ship and her crew, ask few questions and one needed tell few lies. Or something like that. For some reason, he couldn't quite remember the saying at this point in time and couldn't be bothered to dwell on it. Time was too precious. Especially now.

My God, what was he and his crew getting into now? He remembered once viewing one of those old Navy ads on an archival laser disk; clear in his mind, the images of beaming young men and women, braced and eager to join the U.S. Navy and the voice-over vociferously proclaiming: "The Navy -it's not a job, it's an adventure!" Adventures he and his crew had had plenty -for the most part, of the human-made variety, and some...some not.

Adventures...none of those ads could have prepared him or any of his crew for the things they had come to know and experience -both wonderful and terrible. The general public had heard, no doubt, of the old, famed "Project Blue Book" and the enigmatic program, the "X-Files", both government projects dealing with either extraterrestrials or the paranormal, and viewed them with the same conviction that they had for the cheesy tabloids published en masse and available at any local magazine store. Few realized how far the accepted boundaries of reality diverged from the actual reality -that was where the ParaNavy -and Seaview- came in; they took on the missions that the government preferred not to admit existed at all.

Science fiction writers of television and literature had absolutely no idea how close they sometimes came to the truth...and for the sake of the general peace, they could not know. Crane quickly descended the metal spiral staircase that led from Officers' Country to the brain of the Seaview -the Control Room.

Of all the wonders and horrors that he had known and experienced firsthand -the alien lifeforms, the creations of science gone wrong, the realities within realities- none of it frightened him nearly as much as the horrors that humanity could visit upon itself deliberately or worse perhaps, in error. Again, he wondered, what was he and his crew getting into now? He knew that he wasn't half as religious as he suspected that he should have been, nor was he as superstitious as some, but that didn't stop the Captain of the Seaview from praying that this mission didn't prove to be the one that they could not handle.

Chip Morton looked up sharply from the plotting table as his captain descended the spiral staircase, a grim brooding expression on the Captain's countenance. The Executive Officer let the HB pencil that he had been mindlessly drumming on the table's plexi-glass surface fall from his hand to roll to the table's opposite end as Crane surreptitiously glanced from side to side and quickly joined him there. "So..?" the Executive Officer asked, sotto voce.

Crane exhaled deeply. "It's worse than we thought," he said in a similar muted voice. "The Station was up to some pretty illegal shit that our government and others do not want the general public to realize they were aware of all the time -and they may have been working on something worse on their own." He glanced to his side again. "And none of it can be made public unless we want another world war. 'Containment' may not be optional."

Morton paled. "Jesus..."

"I know." Crane observed the crew in the Control Room and noted that despite the fact that they had not been told any details, they all somehow appeared more on edge, almost painfully alert. It was unusual to secure shore leave rotation before it was complete without a good reason -especially when they all deserved it. Crane clapped Morton on the shoulder. "Lay in a course of 180 degrees relative -specifics to follow. I'm going to have a word with the crew."

"Aye, sir."

Crane lifted the communicator mike on the periscope island from its metal cradle and brought it to his mouth, clicking the button that piped its signal to every speaker throughout the entirety of Seaview. Though he had yet to speak, several of the crew had already noticed and were waiting for what they knew not, but waiting anyway. "This is the Captain. By now, I am sure you all know that liberty rotation has been temporarily secured." There was the soft buzz of voices as a ripple of agreement and acknowledgment went through the crew to be silenced by a sweeping, sharp glare of warning from Chief Sharkey.

"By Executive order, we have been called on an emergency mission to the Antarctic. An important science installation there needs our help and, perhaps, so do fellow submariners on the S.S.N. Voyageur." Dead silence. "While we cannot be certain of the circumstances of their S.O.S. at this time, I am obligated to tell you that we must prepare for any contingency...even for the worst. Crew chiefs will report to the Wardroom at 1300 hours to receive their assignments. Carry on." Crane set the mike down and turned to speak to Morton. "Take her down, Mr. Morton."

"Aye, sir!" Morton responded in a clipped, military tone, respecting the subtle shift that came between them when duty was paramount. "Mr. O'Brien," he called to the young, dark-haired lieutenant, "clear the deck and make preparations to dive!"

"Aye aye, sir!" O'Brien responded immediately.

"Make it 90 feet, Mr. Morton," Crane ordered.

"Aye, sir -90 feet," came the Executive Officer's response. "Prepare to dive."

Crane viewed the efficient, ordered activity around him with a satisfaction that bordered on awe. So many individual crew members aboard the giant submarine and yet, while on duty, they acted with one purpose; each part acting in perfect synchronicity between themselves and the ship so that Seaview almost became a living thing. The deck was cleared and the overhead hatch slammed shut, sealing them all off from the outside world with a loud, clanging note of finality as the diving horn blasted twice -no-one could not hear it. The ballast tank indicators in front of Chief Sharkey changed, one by one, from red to green. "All green!" he barked.

A low, distinct rumble throbbed throughout Seaview's massive hull as she pulled away from the rippling coastal waters off of Santa Barbara and headed to open waters. There was a deep feeling of anticipatory tension among the crew that they almost never failed to experience before a dive; truly, it was almost as if the great silver grey vessel herself was eager to be completely unfettered by coastal boundaries and be free and at sea again. Once again there was the double blast of the diving horn as Lieutenant O'Brien pressed the button. "Dive! Dive! Dive!"

The Seaview's blunt nose seemed to cut through the choppy waters like a hot knife through butter as the waves bashed against her towering super-tempered plastic alloy viewing ports and then swallowed them entirely.

Morton approached Crane. "Final trim, sir. Depth nine-oh feet and 1/3 speed."

Crane paused before responding. "Make it 150 feet and all ahead -flank. Until further notice, hold her wide open."

A response that would have come dangerously close to sounding like he was openly questioning his captain's orders and, perhaps, his judgment as well, fluttered on Morton's lips before he swallowed it. "Aye, sir. One five-oh feet and flank speed until further notice." Crane exited the Control Room and Morton watched him go, wondering how much he had not been told.


2


He was hungry. The reality of it had been a whisper for the days that had preceded this one; the faint echo of instinct within the ragged remains of his mind, a small voice that kept repeating the same thing until he could hear nothing else -not that there was anything else to listen to, really. His voice had finally given out after days of bellowing, screaming, and raging and was now a hoarse whimper. Nothing else to hear but the voice within his mind. He was hungry. He was thirsty. There was no difference between the two -both needs had fused into one great Hunger...and the Voice gleefully continued to remind him of that. The Voice no longer whispered. It shouted.

Mewling like a wounded animal, he licked at his fingers, his tongue rasping against the digits and then stopped in frustrated disgust. The last of the blood of that lab rat he had killed was gone and there was no more...no more that he could catch. Rats were small and could hide in places that even he could not go...and it was the blood that he needed, wasn't it? The Voice said so. He had resisted the hunger for the longest time and now that it was all that mattered, there was little of it left.

"So what did waiting avail you?" the Voice demanded. "You lick at your wounds like a hunted thing and you know full well that they heal too quickly to get much out of them even if you could stand the taste. Feed and be shut of the pain for awhile. There's still one of them left."

The Voice was right as always. There was one more left -he had known that all along. And he needed to taste the metallic savor of human blood to make the change complete; resisting had only delayed the inevitable, not stopped it from happening as he had once hoped. But he couldn't feed. Though he could smell the scent of warm human flesh, though he could all but feel the human presence, he could not reach it. The solid, thick wall of silver metal was an insurmountable barrier between them. If there was some magical word to force entry, he could not remember it, and though he had scratched at the hard, cold metal until his nails cracked and his own blood had run down his fingers, that damned door still held...and the humanity in his blood was so thin now that the taste of it was bitter, almost foul.

The shrinking part of him that was still human begged for release in death, but, as the Voice reminded him, he no longer knew how to die...and so, he would wait...wait for- He suddenly stopped his lumbering pacing and crouched still and statue-like, sniffing dog-like at the bitterly cold air, a low burring growl building within his throat. The unattainable temptation behind the wall of grey metal was forgotten while he reached out with his sharp senses, searching for -what? Nothing. There was nothing and no-one there, but he could feel... something...a sensation so faint it was like the touch of a fruit fly's wing, a rippling in the ether that was growing closer though it was still so very distant...too distant to be of use for a long while yet. "But not for long," the Voice said with malicious glee.

Not for long, he concurred as his tongue washed over his sharp teeth in an anticipation that repulsed only that tiny, dying part of him that still wished to remain human. He glared at the imposing metal barrier and sniffed, drinking in the human scent behind it.

He would wait.




Darkness. It was the deep of the night sky or that of the inky depths of starless space...a cold lightless void that seemed to go on forever. And in a way, it was space -inner space. The murky depths of the sea. At this enormous depth, no light from the surface world, even though it was the height of day, could penetrate the black waters that surrounded Seaview as she plunged ahead at flank speed, her electronic illumination array and the almost blinding beam of light that emitted from her nose's strobe lamp, reduced to a sickly muted greenish beam that was hard-pressed to pierce the unfathomable gloom. At this point, were it not for her infra-red electronic sensors, the great titanic lady of the sea would have been half-blind in this submarinal world of endless night.

Admiral Nelson stabbed a button beside the Sick Bay's viewing screen. With a small starburst of light, the screen went blank as he stared at it, pondering what he had seen, contemplating how utterly alone Seaview was at these lightless depths, and then turned away.

"Here. Take these." Nelson accepted the pale beige oblong pills and the small paper cup of water that Doc, the Seaview's chief medical officer, had handed him. For a moment, he studied the pills with a half-suspicious frown of loathing and then quickly swallowed them with a draught of the cold liquid, shuddering at the bitter taste the pills left as they caught at the back of his throat and then were washed away.

Doc noted the twisted expression on his admiral's countenance with fleeting amusement. "Come now, Admiral, they don't taste all that bad. Most patients tell me that Famotidine is fairly tasteless."

"So you say, Doc," Nelson muttered with a pained grimace of disgust. He crumpled the paper cup in his hand and tossed it into the waste basket at his side. "You're not the one who had to take them."

"That is true," Doc admitted, still permitting himself a small grin at how peevish even the highest ranking officers could be when obliged to take their medicine. "However, just avoid Cookie's Chili Caliente from now on, hmn? Heartburn is never a joke."

"We'll see." Harriman Nelson observed the Seaview's doctor as the man resealed the plastic container of pale beige pills, placed them in the medical supply cabinet and then closed it. He found himself studying the austere sterile surroundings that was the Sick Bay's ante-room with some interest, mentally taking note of what he already knew of Seaview's medical capacities, concerned over what he did not. "So?" he said after a long heavy silence that seemed to be dragging on a little to long for his liking.

Doc flashed Nelson an ill-concealed frown. He sighed aloud and brushed aside a strand of hair that had drifted into his eyes. "You know how I feel about projects like Station Delta," he said quietly.

"I also know that there was and may still be a need for them," Nelson countered almost gently.

"Yes...I know..." Doc admitted reluctantly. "And I can't deny that they have done the world a great service...the cures discovered there were invaluable, but their primary purpose... My...God, Admiral -weaponry for germ warfare! there should never have been a need to have a disposal plant for weapons like those!"

"True. But at the moment, that's a moot point."

Doc considered his admiral's words, accepting the truth in them, albeit with the same reluctance. In what he had to concede was old-fashioned naiveté, he had never been able to fathom how anyone could fashion and use weapons that were, in their own way, more dangerous and unstable than the radioactive fuel that powered this underwater vessel. "And what about the taped warning, Admiral? A biological experiment gone out of control?"

Nelson did not immediately meet Doc's eyes. Something about the official government line on Antarctic Station Delta's supposed purpose had not entirely rung true to him either. "I hope not," he said grimly. "The station has been a pure medical research base for years."

"Perhaps," Doc admitted almost begrudgingly as he sat behind his desk. "However, considering Station Delta's history as you explained it, and the fact that even the most important medical research does not usually require Executive-level security clearance, I find myself wondering just how many dirty little war weapons secretly exist there even now." Doc paused for a long moment, staring at nothing in particular as his shoulders heaved with a heavy breath. "However," he continued wearily, "all of Seaview's medical, anti-contamination, decontamination, and containment facilities are, in my opinion, more than capable of handling whatever we may be facing -including infectious contamination and survivors, if it comes to that."

Nelson offered a grateful smile. "As I knew it would be."

Just then, both men looked up as they both heard a familiar electronic tone and the squawk box mounted on the bulkhead burst to life. "Admiral Nelson, please report to the Control Room," came the curiously slightly agitated voice of Captain Crane.

Nelson flicked a switch on Doc's desk communicator. "Nelson here," he responded smoothly. "What is it, Lee?"

"At present speed, we are within five hours of Antarctic Station Delta. Sparks has been unable to establish communications with them at this time."

Nelson studied the communicator for a long pause. "Polar magnetic flux?"

"No, sir," came the response. "Radio transmissions are not being obstructed and the airways are clear -as far as Sparks can tell, they're simply not responding." There was a pause, as if from hesitation. "That's not all, sir," Crane continued. "Our sensor array indicates that we are approaching what appears to be the outlying area of an ecological dead-zone."

Doc looked up with troubled surprise and Nelson returned the glance with similar concern. "Dead-zone" was the most recent, internationally accepted term for any terrestrial land or sea area devoid of natural or naturalized biological life whether flora or fauna, whether by natural means...or unnatural. The Sahara Desert had once been declared 90% dead-zone -as recently as of the end of the twentieth century. Only through the most arduous efforts of the international terraforming community had that classification been revised and changed to a mere "50% dead-zone". How there could have been a dead-zone in the Antarctic when life teemed there at very least at the microbial level Harriman Nelson found that he could not answer. Nelson spoke into the desk communicator, knowing even as he said the words that his response was fairly lame. "There are no dead-zones registered for the Antarctic."

"Yes, sir," Crane responded, not quite successful at expunging from his voice a tone that said that he already knew the fact very well. "Shall we send out a remote submarinal probe unit to take water and soil samples?"

"No. Just take note of the area for further study and for registration. We'll come back to it and check it out when we have more time."

"Aye, sir. Crane out."

Nelson frowned pensively as he quietly placed the communicator back on Doc's desk, well aware of the doctor's eyes upon him all the while, questioning silently...and he had no answers to give. Dead air and now, a dead-zone... As the circumstances metamorphosed into dreaded omens before the primitive part of his all too human psyche, he liked where they were leading less and less. An ice-cold finger of apprehension traveled down the Admiral's spine as he again caught sight of the medical man's clouded expression. Doc's suspicions were beginning to sound far too plausible.




"I don't like this. I don't like it at all..."

Seaman Patterson glanced up from the monochromatic screen of the fathometer; his station on this seemingly endless watch, and furtively looked over to his side. Not much more than an arm's length from his station, Kowalski sat hunched over the sonar, its light bathing his stern, brooding countenance in pale green as the sonar ping blipped and faded...blipped and faded...the sound almost becoming one with the constant electronic drone that permeated every section of the bulkhead and deck in the Control Room. Patterson sighed softly and rubbed his eyes with his free hand while his other pressed against the part of the head-set that covered his left ear, no longer certain that he had heard his comrade-at-arms say anything at all. The electronic murmur was almost hypnotic and he was growing tired.

"Pat..!"

Patterson's eyes darted uneasily to the opposite side, assuring himself that the Captain and the Executive Officer were well out of earshot and that Chief Sharkey was still marking co-ordinates on the Control Room's plexi-glass vertical plotter, before nudging the earphone from his ear and answering in a similar secretive whisper: "What?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Kowalski murmured, not taking his eyes from the pulsing sonar screen.

"About what?"

"The mission," Kowalski answered flatly. He looked away from the sonar board for just a second; just long enough to catch sight of the expression on Patterson's face; a look that said his fellow crewman was likely thinking: "Oh, brother -not again." He ignored it, returning his steady gaze to the pulsing screen. "Think about," he said, pressing the point he was eager to make. "Usually, the Skipper tells us all mission details once we're at sea, right?"

Hesitantly and uncertain that he liked the direction that this conversation was taking, Patterson slowly nodded in agreement. "Right. So..?"

"This time, we get told sweet fuck all until we need to know."

"Well...yeah...but the Skipper must have a reason..."

"I know, I know..." Kowalski admitted begrudgingly. "I know he knows what he's doing, but I'd like to know what we're going to be doing. Remember what happened that time we were kept in the dark about a really big mission?"

"We've been kept in the dark plenty of times," Patterson countered tiredly.

"In the Arctic..? When the Skipper first signed on..?"

"Oh...yeah," Patterson said, his face twisting with a small grimace at the memory -he had spent most of that cruise in Seaview's bowels, doing some sort of filthy maintenance duty, but he remembered it...oh yes, he remembered that mission, all right. "A routine cruise that turned out to be a mission to plant a bomb-"

"-to stop a big quake that would've swamped a good hunk of the western coast...with God-knows-who taking potshots at us all the way."

"You've got a suspicious mind, 'Ski."

"Maybe, but I-" Kowalski stopped mid-sentence and quickly returned his gaze to the sonar screen with ferocious intensity. "Heads up," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "The Skipper at four o'clock."

As the two crewmen studiously bent to their respective tasks, the sound of heavy footfalls behind them announced their commanding officer's nearing presence -announced, one would have to say because unless Captain Crane wished to be heard, it was more likely than not that he would not be heard. Lee Crane studied the pulsing screen, well aware of the conversation that had taken place, but feeling no mood at the present to make an issue of it. "Nothing?" he questioned dully, more out of habit than a real need to know. He could read the sonar board as well as any man aboard this great ship...and far better than some. And the board was disturbingly clear.

"Nothing, sir," Kowalski responded, a muted note of puzzled wonder in his voice. "No contact -natural or mechanical. A real dead-zone."

Crane nodded, sympathetic to the weariness and crushing boredom he sensed all around him -his crew had less idea of what was really going on than he and in the face of that, routine was becoming oppressive. He clapped Kowalski on the shoulder in a familiar, encouraging gesture. "Just keep with it, 'Ski."

"Aye, sir."

Crane turned as he heard the steps of Chief Sharkey coming towards him. Usually cheerful, the Chief Petty Officer's rough countenance had taken on a look of profound concern. What the Captain knew about this mission -what the crew would soon have to know- Francis Sharkey already knew. The difference between them was that the rough-edged Brooklynite was, by nature, thoroughly unskilled at masking the fact that it all worried him to the core of his being. "Fathometer isn't getting anything, sir. Neither is the hydrophone. There's nothing out there. It's like an underwater mausoleum."

"It doesn't make sense..." Crane muttered in helpless frustration. "I can almost accept a sudden ecological shift creating a new dead-zone, but we're four hours from Station Delta and we should at least be getting some indications of the presence of the S.S.N. Voyageur."

Chief Sharkey nodded sagely. "Yes, sir. That would be right, sir. Maybe...maybe they're just doing underwater maneuvers under anti-detection screening?"

"Perhaps...but that wouldn't-" A decision formed in Crane's mind, his dark eyes narrowing. He turned sharply in the direction of the Radio Shack and pulled aside the obscuring curtain which cut it off from the rest of the Control Room. Sparks looked up from his console with mild surprise and nudged aside an earphone. "Yes, sir?"

"Sparks... I want you to send out a message -widest possible beam. Try to make contact with the Voyageur. Send Captain Hudson my personal compliments and inform him that he must break radio silence -this is of the highest emergency priority."

"What if he asks who authorized the break in radio silence?"

Crane's expression became pained. "Tell him InterAllied gave permission...tell him his president gave the o.k. -just tell him something!"

"Aye, sir!" Sparks responded smartly and quickly turned back to his console.

"Anything, Lee?"

"Not a thing, Chip." The Captain glanced back at the radio operator, hunched over his set, repeating the message that he had given him -which Sparks would continue to do until there was a response or until his captain had ordered otherwise...if his voice didn't give out first. Crane kneaded a growing stiffness in the back of his neck. "He's sending, but so far, Voyageur's not answering."

"You remember that message transmission..?" Morton asked cryptically.

Crane regarded the Seaview's executive officer darkly and then slowly nodded, drumming his long fingers tunelessly on the railing that surrounded the periscope island. "I'd like to be able to forget it... Besides...there's still the slight chance that-"

"Skipper, could you an' Mr. Morton take a look at this?" Crane and Morton started Chief Sharkey's voice. They both strided the distance to where the Chief stood brooding at the glowing sonar screen. "What is it, Chief?" Crane demanded.

"'Ski?" Sharkey prompted.

The scarlet-uniformed seaman's brow furrowed with perturbation as he gestured to the pulsing unit with a slight tilt of his head. "I've got a metal contact," he said in a low voice as he made some quick adjustments to the instrumentation. "Bearing...two-zero-two. Range...one thousand five hundred feet." He exhaled deeply. "And whatever it is, sir, it's big -really big...maybe as big as Seaview."

Morton and Crane locked eyes for a long moment before the XO glanced at the screen and said softly: "Voyageur...is seven hundred feet -from bow to stern." He paused and added, a deeply troubled cast to his visage: "Fifty feet shy of the length...and just less than the bulk of the Seaview." Crane just inclined his head slowly -he already knew.

"It definitely profiles like a sub," Patterson added, at the fathometer. "Eight...hundred and thrity-nine feet down on some sort of rocky outcropping." He looked away from his station. "It's not moving, sir."

Riley pressed the hydrophone earpiece to his ear. The usually everpresent exuberance of youth had been replaced by a frown of uncertainty. "Nothing. There's no sound coming from it at all."

"Chip..." Commander Morton met his captain's stern and yet troubled gaze. "Inform the Admiral that we may have located the Voyageur." Before the Executive Officer turned away, Crane added quietly: "Also tell him that it looks like she's down." Morton nodded gravely and went to tend to his duty.

Crane grimaced inwardly, too aware of the non-physical nausea that twisted in the pit of his stomach. It was every sailor's nightmare, wasn't it, that the waters on which he sailed and served might one day claim his life. "Secure call. Prepare the micronic viewing units."

"The new viewing unit, Skipper?" Sharkey asked, surprised. "It hasn't been field-tested yet."

"No time like the present, Chief," Crane said with the slightest smile twitching at the corners of his thin lips, almost exorcising the gnawing worry that had plagued him since the beginning of this mission...but not quite. Micronized laser-eye cameras focused on the specially treated, newly installed viewing ports which were presently clear, revealing the dark blue/green waters that surrounded the Seaview -if this unit actually worked, it would render many of the conventional onboard camera viewers that most submarines used obsolete. "Activate viewing unit." At the Captain's command, the viewing ports themselves became a series of massive viewing screens, a stage for what was essentially a two-dimensional hologram. "Activate telescopic lens and focus on contact."

"Aye, sir."

The Control Room crew fell silent and Crane himself blanched a sickly yellow. "Ah, Jesus..." he whispered, horrified. The picture flickered and snapped into sharper focus, Seaview's powerful strobe light illuminating endless night into the grim murkiness of twilight. There, propped precariously close to the precipice of a massive ledge of rock that towered over a lightless, seemingly endless chasm, was the silent, unmoving monolithic form of a submarine similar in shape and design to the Seaview though not the same. The strobes burned across the once sleek hull that had only recently been steel-silver/grey, but was now so encrusted in places by silt and dirt that it was difficult to determine her original lines or color. The beams danced over the dead ship's hull until they rested over a certain spot, revealing at last, her name: "S.S.N. Voyageur".

"Is it Voyageur?"

Crane looked to his side, caught Admiral Nelson's expression of haunted disbelief, and nodded. "Yes, sir. We're quite certain."

"What...what could have happened to her? With her power and capabilities, she should have-" Nelson squinted, cursing vanity and absent-mindedness that he had neglected to put his reading glasses in his breast pocket. "Lee...increase magnification by...25%." The picture jumped, focused and grew. "Focus on the stern section." The Admiral's ruddy complexion blanched. "My God..." The dark mass along Voyageur's stern section that had attracted Nelson's attention came into sharp focus, so defined now that it was revealed for what it really was: a massive, gaping hole literally torn from the ship's thick, scorched hull of titanium and steel.

Morton's lips worked silently until he whispered: "Whatever hit her, hit her hard."

"Nothing hit her, Chip," Nelson countered grimly.

Commander Morton regarded his admiral silently, questioning. "Sir?"

"Look at the bulging along the hull and the edges of the breach..." Nelson explained somberly, his eyes riveted to the image on the screen. "That metal's been twisted outwards, not inwards. I'd say that whatever blasted the Voyageur's hull, came from inside."

"Sabotage..." Crane said in a ragged whisper. His eyes widened with horrific realization. "What Captain Hudson said on the emergency transmission..." Nelson acknowledged his captain's words with a tilt of his furrowed brow. Lee Crane swallowed deeply and squared his shoulders, a mask of perfect military composure covering the roiling emotions within him, aware that the Control Room crew was staring, expecting him to say something...the right thing. Anything. "Johnson, what are we getting on the neutron counter?"

"Radiation nominal, sir," the crewman responded, slightly puzzled. "Reactor output is zero -they must have been cold for more than a day."

Crane frowned, mentally reviewing what he knew off-hand about Voyageur's designs and capabilities. "Admiral, what is the compliment of the Voyageur's nuclear arsenal?"

"Twenty-five Trident-XII missiles...specials...eight birds per missile...200 warheads in all," the Admiral answered matter-of-factly.

"Explosive potential?"

Nelson calculated silently in his mind, seeing now where the Captain's questions were leading. "About 52 kiloTonnes nominal yield each unit...approximately five times the nuclear force of the blast that leveled Hiroshima in the mid-twentieth century during World War II...perhaps more."

"Christ..." Crane hissed. "Johnson, what are the readings from Voyageur's missile silos?"

"Radiation nominal -no leakage...insulation intact. The silos are in good order."

"Keep an eye on those readings."

"Aye, sir!"

"We're going to have to off-load them, Admiral," Crane said uneasily. "We can't leave World War III at the bottom of the ocean."

"We will once this mission is over," Nelson agreed.

"But for now..?"

"For now, organize a diving party for a reconnaissance mission," Nelson ordered. "We have to know what happened to her."




It had all the appearance of a costume from some sort of science fiction television serial. Though it had been put through all of the rigors that the Nelson Institute's research and safety teams could make it suffer; though it had been twisted this way and that until final approval had been given, seaman Patterson held the light-weight helmet of the experimental deep-sea diving suit at arm's length, viewing the unit with profound suspicion.

The suit itself was not rubber, as was a normal diving suit -nor metal as the old-fashioned deep-sea diving suits- but was comprised of a synthetic material the labs at the Nelson Institute had cooked up just for Seaview; a material easily three times lighter and thinner than rubber; something that would protect the wearer from the pressures that would otherwise crush the human body like an aluminum can under the heel of one's shoe, and from the bitter cold of depths that would kill by hypothermia just as quickly. Patterson adjusted the fit of the suit -the material felt like a second skin...just about as comfortable as well.

The new helmet was far more compact than a conventional helmet; no more than two inches of micronized mechanics or material form-fitted around the human head, a silver-dollar-sized transmitting camera mounted over the right eye -what the diver saw, the crew of the Seaview would see on the onboard video monitors. All in all though, he found himself wishing that the Flying Sub wasn't still laid up for repairs. Into high-tech seafaring technology would some of humanity go -even if only kicking and screaming.

Patterson was shrugged into the harness for his deep-sea air tanks and glanced over to where his fellow diving-party members were also shrugging into their deep-sea diving gear. Chief Sharkey, and seamen Burns, Willis, Donato, and Jurgen were almost completely suited up as was Commander Morton, who was heading up this detail, and was making final adjustments on his diving helmet. "I feel like Alan Shepard or something..."

"Who?"

Patterson regarded Chief Sharkey with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. "Alan Shepard...you know...one of the original astronauts -on the Mercury missions." He stopped and puzzled for a moment. "Went up in the mid-twentieth century sometime, I think."

"Nineteen sixty...uh, sixty-one...May fifth," Burns chimed in and then went back to adjusting his suit.

"I know that!" Sharkey snapped, a flush coming to his temples. "I did pass that night-course on twentieth-century events I went for, you know!" His lips pursed in mildly embarrassed disgust. "Besides, why would you be feeling like an astronaut?"

"C'mon, Chief," Patterson protested earnestly. "I mean, the sea is like space, right? And these new suits are like the ones the original astronauts wore -they didn't know for sure if they were going to work until they actually tried them out."

"Of course they'll work," Sharkey muttered, a devilish spark coming to his eyes as he pulled on his protective gloves. "I know it for a fact."

"How do you know?" Patterson retorted suspiciously.

"The three divers that tested this design just before they were turned over to us went down to ten thousand and fifty feet for over two hours without a hitch and they're doing just fine."

"Really?"

"Sure," Sharkey replied sweetly, the devilish spark in his eyes now a gleam. "And one of them gave birth to a litter o' pups just last week."

Patterson opened his mouth in silent, aghast disbelief before turning away to make an extra final safety check on his own suit, a frown of dismay creasing his brow. At that moment, an electronic tone broke the sudden silence as the speaker on the Missile Room's bulkhead burst to life. "We have just established a cruising circle around the Voyageur," came Captain Crane's slightly tinny-sounding voice. "The deep-sea detail is instructed to make ready."

"Diving party ready," Commander Morton barked into the wall mike. He set the mike down into its metal cradle and gave his diving team a visual once-over, noting their collectively uneasy expressions...knowing that what they showed in their faces openly, the position of command did not permit him the luxury of showing himself. "I don't know what we're going to see down there," he said as flatly as he was capable, "but it's a given that it is unlikely to be pleasant. Our mission is to retrieve the Voyageur's automatic voice log, the captain's safe, and any pertinent papers. We are also, if possible, to discover what brought the Voyageur down. Any questions? Willis?"

The crewman fidgeted uneasily before speaking. "What about survivors?" Commander Morton shot the crewman a baleful glare as the man shook his head regretfully, realizing what he had said. At this depth, in the Voyageur's present condition, there would be no survivors.




"Divers are emerging from the airlock."

Admiral Nelson turned his attention away from the viewing screen, his expression grim and thoughtful. "How are their signals coming in, Lee?"

"Checking now, sir." Lee Crane leaned closer to the communications' instrumentation panel, the flickering glow of the frequency power indicators reflecting off his grim countenance as he put hand to mouth and surreptitiously stifled a cough that traveled up his throat and then died. At a touch, seven indicators lighted up and seven digital point-of-view images appeared on the main micronic-enhanced screen. "Gentlemen, your signals are coming in loud and clear except..." He paused, unconsciously adjusting the earphone of the headset that he wore as his smile of satisfaction gave way to a scowl of sudden annoyance. "Chief Sharkey..."

"Yes, sir?" came the Chief Petty Officer's voice over the console speaker.

"We're getting some definite interference on your visual transmission. Please check your frequency."

"Aye, sir!"

Crane studied the second of the transmission pictures -far more than the others that were experiencing random minor interference due to some sort of residue magnetic energy whose source he had yet to define, Sharkey's visual was confounded by electronic snow, fading in and out like a television whose cable has been cut. All of a sudden, there was a burst of brilliance and the image was sharp, almost pristine in its clarity as the Captain of the Seaview saw what Sharkey saw as he was seeing it. "Visual is clear, Chief."

"Yes, sir. The frequency was off by two and a half points... I never was much good with cameras."

Crane chuckled despite himself...despite the situation. "Admiral, they're all presently coming in loud and clear -on both audio and visual frequencies."

"And the new deep-sea diving gear?"

"All in excellent working order."

Nelson acknowledged the affirmative response with a slight tilt of his head, silently wishing that he could feel as hopeful in his outlook as his captain seemed to be. Crane had quietly turned to continue his careful watch over the instruments that would ultimately track the diving party's every move. It was at that precise moment that Nelson had the sudden urge to pull the young commanding officer aside and tell him that he didn't think that the government -their government, any government- was telling everything they needed to know, that something about this mission stank to high Heaven, that as a scientist even the hint of genetic weapons scared him to the core of his soul...

But he didn't.

Harriman Nelson shook his head, softly chiding himself for giving into that instinct that gave into fear of the unknown even for a silent instant, and then trained his steady gaze on the multi-signal viewing screen. "Then let us see what we shall see."




"And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of-"

"Chief?"

Chief Sharkey drew a sharp breath, sending bubbles erupting into the bitterly cold sea water as Commander Morton swam back to the rear of the diving party as they left Seaview in the distance. The Executive Officer 's bright yellow deep-sea diving suit was hardly distinguishable from the red material that made up Sharkey's suit at these depths. The XO swam closer to the Chief Petty Officer's side. "Is something wrong?" he asked, studying him.

Though Sharkey had the training and experience to operate the throat mike attached to the throat-piece of his head-gear, a communications' unit which translated esophageal vibrations (essentially one "hummed" the words) into transmittable sound frequencies, his voice, at first, came out in a meek sort of squeak. "Wrong...sir?"

Through the infra-red-capable visor of the experimental deep-sea diving suit, Sharkey could see that the Executive Officer's brow had creased with concern. "Are you all right?" Morton asked again, pressing the mike closer to his throat as if he thought that Sharkey might not have heard him correctly the first time. "I thought I heard you saying something."

Mortified embarrassment at having been overheard when he hadn't realized that he had unfortunately, actually, spoken aloud in the first place, reddened the Chief's face. He found himself relieved to realize that because of the diving masks, it was unlikely that Morton had noticed the unconscious reaction. "Uh...yes, sir. I was...just talking to myself... Sorry, sir."

"All right..." Morton said with a muted sigh, "but try to keep icy, Chief. These boys don't need to see either of us lose it out here."

"Aye, sir." Sharkey watched as Commander Morton took up the lead in the diving party again as they made their way further and further from the comforting presence of the Seaview to the massive dead hulk that had been the pride of the Navy of the Federation of Canada. Dead was an apt description. When a submarine functioned at optimum -when she was at sea with a hard-working and efficient crew serving within her- a submarine was alive, but this...this was truly dead.

The Voyageur lay on her starboard side like a giant toy discarded by a disinterested child...no lights...antenna array crumpled like a used straw...starboard side mostly buried by the tonnes of dirt and rock that she had kicked up when she had tumbled or crashed here...port side horribly scorched, puckered and blackened, a massive maw-like breach in the hull...her bow crushed inwards like some weak aluminum can against the mountainous rock by which she lay.

The Voyageur hadn't just died, she had been murdered.

But by what? And why? What did the taped rantings of someone who might or might not have been her captain tell them? That was what they were here to find out, Sharkey reminded himself, suppressing a shudder. Like a railroad train that always seemed so distant until it was all but upon one, the derelict vessel for which the Seaview's diving team headed so painfully slowly, impeded despite their special suits by the press of so much dark and cold seawater, seemed to loom up before them all of a sudden -a great metal beast, its jagged maw wide open, waiting for them to- Sharkey silently cursed his lively imagination for the fleeting imagery that had fluttered before his mind's eye.

"Neutron counter reading?" Morton asked as they drew closer to the huge, gaping hole torn from Voyageur's hull.

Sharkey quickly checked the readings on the palm-sized neutron counter. "Nothing, sir. Reactor's cold. Missile silos are secure."

"But is the ship stable?.." Morton muttered under his breath. "Patterson, take stability readings. I don't want to find her suddenly taking us to the bottom with her."

The monitor chattered in a series of electronic beeps as Patterson waved it up and down in the direction of the giant vessel. He pressed one of the many buttons with his thumb and the chattering stopped. "Whatever sent her down here, sir, must have created a lot of heat because I'd say she's pretty well welded to the rock bed. She isn't going anywhere."

"Do we go in?" Sharkey asked uneasily.

Morton took in the sight of the great dead hulk and nodded grimly. "That's what we're here for."



It was like a massive underwater tomb. Dark. Empty. Cold. As the Seaview's deep-sea diving team swam through and beyond the jagged-edged hole, it was as if they had passed beyond some threshold between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This was the world of the dead. Usually, by now, the sea would have begun her endless work of claiming whatever the surface world had sent to her. Life, either as water-borne animals or simple flora, would have started to take hold here. But here, in this dead-zone, there was nothing; not even the microbial creatures of the sea that would claim almost anything as a framework on which to build their homes. It was as if the water had been boiled clean.

The giant breach opened into a wide black tunnel-like chasm, walls curiously smooth to the touch, that reached from the outer hull straight to- "Stores locker?"

On the Seaview, Crane frowned in concentration at the scene played out before him on the viewing screen at multiple angles and shook his head slightly. "I don't think so, Admiral. It looks...it looks like a crew's mess room...or what's left of one."

The mess room of the Voyageur was a charred ruin. Once pale, grey walls had been blackened, metal frames twisted and bowed outwards; mangled like scorched thin wire, bits of recently melted metal hung down from what remained of the ceiling like some grotesque tinsel display. The galley no longer existed.

Morton bent down, reaching towards the crazily tilted deck and picked up a twisted scrap of silvery metal that somehow continued to glint obstinately among all this charred ruination, reflecting the light of the portable strobe lamp he carried with him. The object vaguely resembled one of those small metal spatulas any galley chief might use in the course of a day. For all he knew, their cook might have been getting the crew's dinner ready when... The Executive Officer let the piece of metal fall from his hand, biting back the revulsion created by the shadows of imagination inherent in such a macabre train of thought. He sighed heavily and pressed his throat mike. "Morton to Seaview."

"Yes, Chip?" came Crane's voice.

"We've entered what might have been the ship's galley. There's definitely been some kind of explosion in here and a pretty powerful one by the damage we can see."

"Any idea what might have caused it?"

Morton gestured to Sharkey who swam up beside him. The Chief Petty Officer's countenance was almost stricken. "At this point, sir, I can't exactly be sure, but my best guess would be...some sort of plasma-burst bomb. That's the only thing I can think of, outside of a nuclear-based charge, that could have done this kind of damage."

On Seaview, Nelson nodded in grim agreement, remembering the classified government attempt to synthesize an equally infamous super-explosive non-nuclear element -Subterranium 1-16, creating instead something just as destructive though nowhere nearly as stable -plasmacore, the heart of a plasma-burst bomb. "Makes sense...the power of a bomb with a plasmacore explosive pack would melt metal like hot candle wax...and the initial energy pulse could overload the electrical systems that the actual blast didn't touch."

"No..." Crane protested softly though he himself felt inclined to believe the possibility. "No Allied nuclear sub carries plasma-burst bombs -they're too unstable to have, let alone use."

There was a cynical twinkle in Nelson's eye. "Remember reading about the twentieth-century scare that with the right materials and instructions that one could make a nuclear bomb in one's own kitchen?" Nelson returned his gaze to the viewing screen. "There's very little that one can't make if one knows how and has the right resources...or intensity of purpose." He glanced back at his captain who seemed to stand dumbfounded. "The question is not 'how', but why?"

Crane nodded silently and spoke into his mike. "Can you get to the rest of the ship from there?"

"Yes, sir," Morton said, eyeing the misshapen remnants of a hatchway. "We're going to split up into three teams -fore, 'midships, and aft. Willis and I are going up to the captain's cabin for his safe and log. Burns, Jurgen, and Donato are going to check out the Reactor and Missile Rooms. Sharkey and Patterson are going to head for the Control Room and the automatic voice recorder."

"Be careful, Chip. The ship may be in a stable position, but by the looks of things, she's bound to be rocky internally."

"Aye aye, sir." Morton gestured to the rest of the diving party with a sharp wave of his arm. "We meet back here at 1500 hours sharp! Now, let's get on with it."




"The Missile and Reactor Rooms have been sealed off...some sort of super-stressed metal sheeting -maybe titanium or a titanium alloy... It's welded to the bulkhead and over the ventilation gratings that lead to either room. The metal's badly scorched, but secure. It'll take a high-range laser drill to get through it."

"Do you think it was a deliberate effort?"

"Yes, sir. Whoever did this, knew exactly what they were doing."

"All right, Jurgen. Any sign of bodies of the crew yet?"

"No, sir, Mr. Morton. Not yet."

"Well, continue the search. Inform me if you find anything at all. Morton out."

The tell-tale click that signaled a transmission's cessation crackled over the communicator earpiece in each helmet of each diving crew member. Sharkey glanced over his shoulder towards Patterson who followed closely behind. While the up-ended corridor between the crew's mess room and the Voyageur's Control Room had, as they had hoped, proven unblocked thus far, it had also proven far from unobstructed...and the bits of debris that they had to push aside to avoid being snagged or injured made the going intolerably slow.

Huge sections of the bulkhead and deck had been blasted out into the sea (so far, three other giant holes had been found, but on the starboard side of the ship), but in the section Sharkey and Patterson now searched, deck and bulkhead had been wrent in such a way that in this disquieting half-light, they created monstrous unmoving convoluted forms that appeared to loom up before a diver without warning. Wires that were no longer connected to any power source hung down in partially melted tatters like the slowly swaying tentacles of some strange submarinal beast. But it was not monsters of the deep that frightened them at this point though of such Sharkey and Patterson had seen more than their share. It was the fact that a wrong move made in haste or even in forethought, could damage either suit or airtank and if that happened, nightmare creatures wouldn't matter all that much.

Patterson nudged the Chief slightly on the arm, a quiet uneasy edge to his voice as he spoke. "This is all too familiar," he whispered cryptically.

Sharkey regarded the former farmboy, a sour expression of scarcely hidden annoyance etched on the Chief Petty Officer's face. "You've been in a wrecked submarine before?"

"No..that isn't what I meant, Chief," Patterson murmured, visually scanning his confused surroundings made all the more unrecognizable by the murkiness of the water. "It's not the ship exactly...it's the condition it's in. I was watching one of those old, old classic science fiction/horror movies on the Golden TheaterMax channel a couple of weeks ago...some sort of space explorers found this derelict alien spaceship all wrecked and everything and later, they realize-"

"For crying out loud, Patterson!" Sharkey snapped, at wits' end. "Just keep your mind on your duty, okay!"

"Sure, Chief," Patterson said with a small shrug of his shoulders -and then, as an afterthought: "But y'know, Chief, the movie had a real catchy phrase that I'll never forget."

"What!" Sharkey growled, willing to allow for this much of a concession for more work and far less superfluous chatter.

Patterson cocked a slightly ghoulish grimace. "'In space, no-one can hear you scream'." Just then, Patterson stopped short as his electronic torch illuminated the area ahead of him. "Aw crap...not now..!" The access to the Control Room no longer existed -sealing it shut was a fair-sized chunk of the Voyageur's pitted hull. "Now what are we gonna do?" Patterson snapped in disgust.

Sharkey swung his electronic torch in a wide arc, its brilliant beam illuminating the area immediately before him, his lips pressed into a tight thin line of angry determination until the beam struck one small area of the blocked passageway and then, another. "All right..." he said, his thick eyebrows knitting together. "See there...and over there..?" Patterson nodded slowly. "We got what looks like a ventilation shaft on the left and an inspection passage on the right. It'll be a tight squeeze, but I think we can get through if we each take one. Not a direct route to the Control Room, but better than nothin'. Whoever gets through first, signals the other -got it?"

"Aye aye, Chief."

"Right then..." Sharkey canted his head in the direction of the ventilation shaft. "I'll go through here."

Patterson stared after Chief Sharkey as the man pulled the brittle ventilation shaft grate from the warped bulkhead, the surprisingly easy effort sending bits and pieces of charred metallic paint floating past in the water, before he disappeared into the rectangular passage. The quietly uneasy seaman immediately followed suit and pulled at the dog wheel to the inspection passage, experiencing a curious ambivalence that the hatch undogged so easily as, logically, in the face of so much structural damage around it, the hatch shouldn't have opened at all...but it had, and he had a duty to perform.

The passageway stretched before him like one long, inky black subway tunnel -except that unless experiencing a power outage, a subway tunnel had at least some light to lessen the darkness. This tunnel had none. None save for the little that the electronic beacon that he had in his possession could provide -and that wasn't all that much really. Patterson slapped a hand against the metal body of the torch as the bulb inside dimmed slightly and then regained its former brilliance, coaxed finally by a second, harder blow, himself wondering whether the remnant energies of a plasma-burst bomb usually lasted this long. Patterson heaved a heavy sigh of relief as the glow steadied. He had not forgotten that his helmet had infra-red capacity, and that he didn't really need this conventional portable light, but he had to admit that its brightening beam comforted the part of him that still shrank at shadows though he had long since given up keeping an ear tuned for the shuffling gait of the Bogeyman in the dead of night.

Echoes of memories best forgotten. Patterson paused, suddenly uncertain. Voyageur's designs were certainly similar to those of Seaview, but they were by no means the same and he was struck by the realization that he was no longer certain which of the hatchways ahead of him that he ought to try. Logic would have had him signal the Seaview and ask Admiral Nelson in order to avoid wasting precious time by trying one hatch and then the other, but the faint whisper of human pride... Patterson tried the hatch wheel to his left. It spun awkwardly, sending silt flying into his face, obscuring his visor, until he dashed the muck away with an impatient gesture. The wheel wobbled and then fell off with a watery thud. Patterson gave the round hatchway door an angry kick and it fell away just as easily, revealing an opening and a darkened room beyond. Patterson reached ahead, the light from his torch playing over the room beyond the opening -the Voyageur's Control Room- illuminating its pitted, blackened remains until- "Jesus Christ! Chief!"

Chief Sharkey had just pulled himself out of the ventilation shaft, which had proven blocked three meters in, when he heard Patterson's terrified scream. He plunged into the inspection passageway, heading towards what he knew not, but pumping against the slowing water as fast as he could anyway until he saw Patterson in the near distance. "Pat! What is it!" But the young seaman only shook his head wildly, eyes staring, struggling to breathe. Sharkey roughly grabbed Patterson by the arms, forcing the seaman to look him in the eye.

"Patterson, look at me! Breathe slow an' deep -you're hyperventilating! Dammit, man, do as I say! Slow an' deep! That's it..." Little by little, Patterson's heaving breaths slowed to ragged gasps, almost sobs. "All right now, Patterson," the Chief Petty Officer said firmly. "What happened?"

For a moment, Patterson only shook his head slowly, dazedly, and then he drew a shuddering breath and whispered: "In there."

"Okay...stay here." Sharkey pushed himself toward the hatchway and cautiously peered through the opening, the strobe-like beam of his electronic torch playing on the interior. "Jesus Christ! Mary Mother of God!" The Chief recoiled from the opening, the light almost falling from his shaking grasp. For a long moment, he simply sat, struggling against the bitter bile that tried to force its way up his esophagus, until he could trust himself to speak without screaming out loud or throwing up. He pressed against his throat mike, hand still trembling. "Seaview...this is Sharkey. We've...we've found Voyageur's crew."

3


The Control Room of the Seaview was consumed by a silence so complete that it was deafening. Even the constantly functioning instrumentation seemed to have been stricken mute as the crew stared at the viewing screen, each point-of-view image transmitting a vision no director of horror had yet to put to video or film. The crewman at the fathometer, his skin blanched a ghastly yellow, burst from his chair, clamping a hand over his mouth as he retched, still running, and bolted out through the hatchway. Kowalski immediately took over the deserted post though no-one, though not even the Captain, had acknowledged the incident at all. Nearly every eye was on the viewing screen and its multiple images.

The Voyageur had become a tomb. In its burned-out Control Room were the many bodies of some of its crew, some still frozen at their stations, some not, each corpse a grotesque parody of the living men that they had once been; ragged, carbonized skeletons wearing gaping Death's Head grins, clothed in the tattered charred remains of their uniforms, eyeless sockets staring at nothing at all.

"We've found it like this in compartments throughout the ship," came Commander Morton's voice over the bulkhead speaker, the tremor in his voice pronounced and unmistakable. "I can account for maybe...sixty-five percent of the crew by the number in the ship's official compliment. There may still be some in the compartments we couldn't get to...and some might have been lost to the sea, but..."

Captain Crane grasped the mike, his knuckles straining until they had bled almost completely white and forced himself to continue to look at the screen, knowing full well that looking away would not have erased the gruesome image burned into his mind's eye. "Do you...do you have any idea what could have done this?"

"We've found evidence that plasma-burst bombs were used throughout the ship, each possibly triggering the other in what might have been some sort of...sequential order." Morton paused, his on-screen image momentarily confounded by electronic snow and then clear again. "There are three more main breaches...on the starboard side...and heavy damage all along the hull within and without. Munitions and stored conventional fuels were obviously ignited as well, though I can't say whether deliberately or not. All I am sure of is that whoever set this up, planned to make sure Voyageur went down fast and for good."

Admiral Nelson took the mike from the Captain's grasp. "Were you able to retrieve the captain's log and the automatic voice recorder?"

"The automatic voice recorder is in questionable condition at best, but we're bringing it in. As for the captain's log...the captain's cabin no longer exists. There wasn't anything left to retrieve."

"I see...secure the diving detail and get back aboard Seaview."

"Aye, sir."

Nelson clicked the mike, ending the transmission. "Lee...tell Doc to have the heavy anti- contamination units ready and functioning in no more than twenty minutes from now. We're going to need them sooner...much sooner than I had thought." Nelson caught the look of puzzlement on Lee Crane's face, the question forming on his lips and yet, never spoken aloud, and added in a low voice: "This might be more than our conventional units can handle -we can't be too careful." Crane nodded slowly, comprehending now. "After the diving party is aboard, make best speed to Antarctic Station Delta. We're going to get to the bottom of this for once and for all."




"Enter the cubicle, please."

Chip Morton stepped into the stark, sterile cubicle, eyeing his new surroundings with an acute human suspicion of the unknown, glancing back sharply as the door through which he had entered slid shut with a hiss and a quiet click, sealing him within the room. Alone.

Upon arriving back at Seaview and exiting the airlock in the Missile Room, his diving team had been instructed by a team of corpsmen in obscuring medical anti-contamination gear to strip naked (Admiral's orders, they had been assured) and were handed paper-thin opaque, white medical robes like the one he wore he now, and had then been escorted through deserted corridors to this newly set-up heavy decontamination chamber. "Discard your robe in the disposal unit to your right," came Doc's voice over the hidden speaker.

With no little reluctance and an even larger share of embarrassment, Morton removed the robe and dropped it into a slot which opened and then shut just as quickly, leaving the wall as seamless as it had appeared before. "Doc, is all this really necessary?"

"Unfortunately, Chip, it is. We have to be absolutely sure that you are all clear," Doc's weary-sounding voice said. "The process doesn't take long and we'll have you out of there as soon as possible."

"'We...'" Morton muttered sourly under his breath. "Why do doctors always say 'we' when they mean 'me'?"

"Okay, Chip, I want you to stand as straight and still as possible, arms about eight inches from your sides, legs about six inches apart, and close your eyes."

"Close my eyes?" Morton questioned.

"And keep them closed until I say otherwise."

"Aye..." Morton closed his eyes, squeezing the lids tightly until no light entered them, wondering what- All at once, the Seaview's Executive Officer heard a humming sound not unlike the collective buzz of a hive of angry bees and vaguely like the sound of one of those portable decontamination units used to cleanse contaminated uniforms or vessels. A powerful glow which he could see even through his tightly closed eyes enveloped him as the electronic hum grew until, it seemed, it would permeate his entire body, every cell tingling. Then...it stopped.

"You may open your eyes now."

Morton blinked, eyes watering, ears ringing slightly and looked around himself. At his feet, all around him, was a fine grey/white powder which he realized was the dried epidermal layer which had minutes ago covered his body which was now a slightly sunburnt pink. "Are you finished, Doc?"
"Just about, Chip. There's a shower cubicle to your left and there's a sealed package inside containing another robe... When you're dressed, come out and the corpsman will take one more blood sample."




"That's the last one."

Doc accepted the vial containing the small sample of Chip Morton's blood and held it to the sterile white light mounted on the bulkhead of the Sick Bay lab, studying the container and the carmine liquid within it as if the blood might speak and reveal its deeply hidden secrets without benefit of the massive array of scientific equipment that constantly threatened to overwhelm this "horse and buggy doctor" -as he often referred to himself. Hands tightly clothed in the thinner-than-skin medical gloves, he placed a tiny drop of the Executive Officer's blood on a slide and positioned it before the lens of the hyper-sensitive micro-electronic microscope, multiple laser beams playing over the sample as the image came into focus.

A long drawn-out moment passed as he peered through the binocular viewing apparatus and then finally looked up with weary satisfaction. "Commander Morton checks out just fine -all clear like everyone else. There is absolutely no evidence of foreign bacteria or contagion in his blood."

Admiral Nelson rubbed his chin contemplatively. "You're sure about that?"

"Quite sure," Doc replied quietly, bristling despite himself at the Admiral's uncertainty. He gestured to the now-empty experimental decontamination cubicle on the Sick Bay viewing unit as he peeled off the medical gloves. "That unit," he said with an air of ambivalence, "is certain to put me out of business."

"Highly unlikely, Doc...and not in the conceivable future," Nelson disagreed, his attitude grave. He indicated the decontamination unit on the screen. "There are certain grim realities involved in experimental units such as these... For one, this decontamination unit cost five billion dollars just for this prototype -that's just one- and about a tenth of that every time we employ it."

"The grim economic realities of medicine, Admiral?"

"That and its scope as a curative tool is still very limited. It may be years before the higher frequencies needed to erase truly virulent and deadly viruses can be used without harming their biological hosts. For now, the unit is best used as a diagnostic tool in conjunction with the much more traditional biological and chemical medical methods as guided by an experienced hand." Nelson flicked a switch and the monitor went blank as he turned and faced Doc, an almost mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "In my opinion, most patients are likely to prefer the human touch anyhow."

Doc shook his head, amused. "Don't worry, Admiral. There's no further need to salvage this medical man's wounded pride."

Nelson grinned, effecting an image of innocence. "That was never my intention."

"Admiral Nelson, this Crane."

Both men looked up sharply as the squawk box sounded and Captain Crane's voice came out over the bulkhead-mounted speaker. Nelson grabbed the wall-mike and spoke into it, his countenance suddenly drawn with tension, the momentary warmth of humor forgotten. "This is Nelson. What is it, Lee?"

"The Voyageur's automatic voice recorder was badly damaged -most of the recordings were completely unintelligible. There were a few minutes of tape that we could understand -not much use- and something towards the end of the tape that might be useful."

"Might be useful?" Nelson questioned, his brow creased in a frown. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not...I'm not certain, Admiral."

Nelson reacted with surprise to the obvious embarrassment in Lee Crane's voice. "What do you mean by that?"

"French was never my strong suit, sir."




"...ainsi sort-il...avec beaucoup de regret...je suis d'accord...le sargesse de mon capitaine...ultime action...fais fonction de...commandent...S.S.Voyageur...Je m'appele capitaine de..." Words, faint...sometimes loud...tumbled through recirculated air and crackling static. "...d...corvette...Jean-Marc St. Baptiste...commandé...destruction de Voyageur...mandats des Capitaine...des Capitaine..." Confused noise and distinct sounds merged and fractured until: "...Hudson...prévinis...se répendre...de la maladie...pas de choix...Les morts!...Ils voici arri-...pas de choix...pas de choix...maintenant...Christ Jesus...Marie Mère...pardonnez moi...pardonnez-"

Captain Crane leaned over the recording unit and pressed the "rewind" button, sending the tape spinning back to the beginning. He studied the young petty officer first class who sat, staring at the machine, his eyebrows knitted with intense concentration. "So," the Captain said, "do you think you can translate it, Devereaux?"

Devereaux nodded slowly, uncertainly. "Canadian French is somewhat different in dialect and intonation than my native Cajun, sir, but I think I can make a rough translation."

"As long as we can understand it, Devereaux, I don't care how rough it is." Crane turned to face Nelson who looked on, troubled. "What little we could understand on the recording was in English -except for this segment. It was apparently recorded by a Jean-Marc St. Baptiste who was listed as Voyageur's Lieutenant Commander. For whatever reason, he fell into speaking in French alone. Even this part is garbled as you could hear, but it's the best the communications' team could do as to cleaning it up."

"All right, Lee. Go ahead."

Crane nodded to the youthful petty officer who closed his eyes in concentration as the tape spun and began to play, the voice of Lieutenant Commander Jean-Marc St. Baptiste speaking softly under the translator's own voice. "...so be it...with great regret...I agree...my captain's wisdom...last..." Devereaux frowned, struggling to hear the words above the noise. "A...act...acting as...commander...S.S.N. Voyageur...I, Lieutenant Commander, Jean-Marc St. Baptiste..." At a frustrated signal from the young officer, the tape was partially rewound. "Am......am commanded...destruction of Voyageur...ordered by...Captain...Hudson...prevent...the spread...the plague...the only way..." There were sounds in the hissing, crackling background of the recording -at first, they could have been mistaken for distant explosions, but as they grew louder, the sounds were more like the noise made by the pounding of fists against metal. On the tape, the Lieutenant Commander gasped, his nerve seeming to falter before the reverberating sound heard above the crackling static of the damaged recording. "The Dead!..They're here...no choice...no choice...now..." For the longest moment, there was only the sound of static and then the voice of Lieutenant Commander St. Baptiste; quieter, more controlled this time as if the man had plumbed the last dregs from his well of courage. "Lord Jesus Christ...Mother Mary...forgive me...forgive-" Just then, there was a strange electronic whine and the building thunder of a distant explosion within the doomed ship followed by the growing thunderous roar of rushing water and the horribly distinct cacophony of human screaming, a second explosion -closer- and then...nothing...

...not even static.

Captain Crane stabbed the "off" button of the machine and the spinning reels stopped with a sharp jerk. For several minutes, seemingly endless minutes, utter silence reigned, not a man among them willing to believe the words they had heard or to speak out loud. Sharkey and Morton, who had entered the room as the tape had begun to play, exchanged puzzled glances, their newly acquired tans blanching pale; what they had seen after the fact made all the more horrible by the utterances of a man who had witnessed the terrifying event and had died while doing so.

"We saw..." Sharkey's voice faltered, anguish etched into his face. "All those bodies...the Voyageur's crew...Why did he do it?"

Nelson's shoulders sagged as he rubbed his tired, reddened eyes. "I don't know, Chief. Why a captain would order his XO to scuttle his ship and cause the death of her crew..." He sighed heavily, a grim, unavoidable decision forming in his brain. "Lee..."

The Captain came to immediate attention, woken from the stupor of disbelief. "Yes, sir?"

"Have we come within launching distance of Antarctic Station Delta?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have there been any more transmissions...any more warnings?"

"No, sir -the only message was the initial one."

"Very well. Then set a detail to prepare the mechanical launch and get a shore party together...heavy anti-contamination/arctic-weather gear, all necessary instrumentation -radiation contamination detectors, cold protection, the works..." Lee Crane nodded solemnly and turned towards the hatchway. "And, Lee-" Crane stopped and waited for the command. "Arm yourselves with conventional side arms and medium-range plasma rifles." Nelson saw the tiny frown of puzzlement on the Captain's brow and added: "We can't be too careful at this point either."

Crane inclined his head in grim agreement.




It was a world of grey and white; flat and seemingly able to stretch to a distance without visible end...and so bitterly cold that one could not lose his footing on the flat colorless surface because the ice did not flow, nor was it covered with that nearly invisible sheen of water that made most icy surfaces slick and dangerous therefore. A frozen desert. Dead and silent save for the soft, haunting moan of the bitterly cold wind against the glacial tundra itself; a harsh draft that occasionally disturbed the ancient snows and gave the comfortless image of the sun in the nearly grey sky a dull, ghostly glow. It was as it had been since the Earth had cooled millennia ago.

All at once, the ancient peace was disturbed by a sound that had no place here or anywhere in nature's plan; a high, keening sound that preceded the rumble of distant thunder. It grew, this sound, rumbling louder, sharper, causing snow drifts that had stood their ground since time immemorial to crumble to a barren white plane that was...melting -melting into a growing, widening pool. Slowly at first, and then much faster, the melting expanse stretched, becoming a great circle that bubbled, and then exploded upwards in a huge fountain of steam and water as a jet of blinding-white energy burst from beneath the surface.

"The plasma cannon has cleared an opening through the ice barrier, sir. We should soon be able to surface."

Admiral Nelson acknowledged Lieutenant O'Brien's observations with a small nod and returned his attention to the viewing scope as he continued to direct the Seaview's awesome power through the plasma cannon on the submersible's nose.

Upon arrival beneath the complex that was Antarctic Station Delta, he and his crew had discovered two things: that the underwater submarine pen which had once been S.S.N. Voyageur's underwater docking bay had been destroyed; sealed up against the only underwater entrance to the station by what were likely the same forces that had destroyed the great grey ship herself. They had also discovered that an unusually cold spell -even for this part of the world- had created an especially thick layer of ice; a barrier between themselves and the world above; which had meant that they had had to blast through some twenty to thirty feet of ice at its thinnest, and completely solid all the way through.

Nelson glanced at the power-level indicator on the instrumentation panel that monitored the flow and eddies of raw energy to the ship's plasma cannon, Seaview's most potent non-radioactive tool. The plasma cannon was a mighty instrument, no-one could question, but it was also a greedy thing that drank up every drop of energy that Seaview's reactors could afford it and thus was employed only when necessary and then, sparingly. Nelson's brow furrowed deeply as he took in the information that the indicators displayed. "All right, kill the power-feed to the cannon. Take us up to surface and increase hull temperature as directed. We don't want to end up frozen in here like a prize Christmas turkey."

"Aye aye, sir!" O'Brien responded smartly, cracking a slight grin despite himself. As the power-feed was cut off, the lights in the Control Room flared to their normal intensity. "Surface! Surface! Surface!"

On the frigid tundra, the huge circular patch of melted ice had begun to stiffen almost as soon as Seaview's plasma jet cut off, hardening in response to the frigid temperature which had immediately begun to reclaim it -would have reclaimed it- except that the dully shimmering film of hardening grey water cracked and then literally exploded into millions of half-frozen shards as the blunt nose of the Seaview burst from beneath the deep, dark waters below and then crashed down onto the stiffening surface with a mechanical roar as the great silver-grey submersible attained even keel...riding, amidst a thick cloud of fog-like steam that rolled off her artificially heated hull, on the slowly shifting waters her slightly glowing hull kept from freezing.

Nelson picked up the mike at the periscope island and clicked it. "Nelson to Crane."

"Yes, sir," came Crane's voice. "Crane speaking."

"How's the shore party detail coming along?"

"We're making final equipment checks right now. We should be ready to disembark in...less than ten minutes."

Nelson permitted himself a brief smile of satisfaction -and more than a little pride. Preparation time had been less than his estimate by half, but then, that was Lee Crane's trademark -to do his duty quickly and efficiently; something he only demanded of his crew because he demanded twice as much from himself; an attitude that had made it possible for Nelson's former student to become a captain at an exceptionally youthful age. Whether or not it was his right, Nelson knew that what he felt in Lee Crane was a father's pride. But at that moment, ill thoughts of the grim nature of this mission intruded and Nelson felt himself compelled to add: "Very well, Lee, but be careful out there...and keep watch. The nuclear charge through Seaview's hull is keeping the ice around us liquefied for about fifty meters, but the launch may have a hard time with ice clumping around the propellers the closer you get to shore."

"Aye, sir."

Nelson disconnected the transmission, silently considering the slightly irked edge that had crept into Lee Crane's voice; the familiar note of a child bridling under a parent's oppressive, well-intentioned care.




At first, he thought he had been stricken blind. Seaman Kowalski blinked rapidly, trying, despite his tearing eyes, to scan the brilliantly white and featureless landscape beyond Seaview's artificially-created moat, and grimaced painfully. Despite the visor that shielded his eyes from the cold sun's actual reflected light intensity, the glow was still strong enough to hurt and it took several long minutes to adjust as he fumbled about, half-blind, and boarded the motorized launch. Sight clearing, he noted with grim comfort that the rest of the shore party was experiencing similar difficulties as they, too, waited for the photo-sensitive plexi-glass of their visors to react to the snow-blinding brilliance about them and darken accordingly.

The rest of the shore party clambered into the launch -Captain Crane, Seamen Riley, Tomàs, Clarke, and Petty Officer First Class Devereaux- each equally uncomfortable in the protective suits that encased them head to toe like some sort of high-tech mummies in one-piece shrouds of pale-blue synthetic fabric; purified air pumped into the suit from the air tank in the harness on their backs to avoid the air-borne contamination that they had been told that the Admiral suspected (feared?) might exist in this area; portable controls in their utility belts to keep the interior temperatures of their suits at a cool, but comfortable sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The launch hit the weirdly colorless water with a painful jolt that sent a frigid surge up the sides of the small craft as it almost immediately powered up and forged ahead through the thin slush.

Kowalski searched his utility pack and pulled out his pair of electronic field glasses, peering through them, scanning the cheerless landscape, curiously devoid of the life that usually teemed here...the penguins...the sea lions... No matter. At a touch, the mechanisms in the glasses would focus and zoom in on some non-descript area...nothing interesting catching his sight just yet... Kowalski jerked back from the image picked up by the binocular lenses and then studied it again before looking away and struggling over to where his captain sat. "Skipper, we've got a cloud ridge due north. It doesn't look too good -we might be heading towards some rough weather."

Crane took the offered field glasses and peered through them intently in the direction that the seaman had pointed. "Shit..." he muttered almost inaudibly, a hard set to his jaw. He sighed heavily, handed back the binoculars, and pressed his throat mike. "Crane to Seaview. Do you read me? Over."

"This is Sparks, Captain. We read you. Over."

"We've gotten a visual on what may be some unstable weather coming our way. Are you getting anything?"

There was a long pause, long enough that Crane began to wonder if the transmission might have been cut off somehow, but then- "It looks like you might have a pretty heavy storm system coming your way," came Sparks' even-sounding voice. "We were just about to contact you -it developed pretty suddenly. High winds...probably heavy snows and white-outs, and highly erratic polar magnetic fields. The system has already begun interfere with your camera transmissions. We're getting your audio pretty clearly, but the video-feed is shot. We can't see you."

"We were told that we had an unlimited window," Crane retorted almost peevishly despite himself.

"Yes, sir. I know, sir," Sparks replied, unperturbed, "but this is the Antarctic."

Crane rolled his eyes in frustrated disgust, sorely tempted to tell his chief communications' officer off, but squelched the impulse with a thin smile. "All right, all right... What kind of window do we have now?"

"Less than seven hours, sir."

"Then I guess that'll have to do. Crane out."

Kowalski glanced over his shoulder as he clambered back to his seat and shook his head with concern. "The Skipper's not in a happy mood," Riley observed as Kowalski sat down beside him.

"No shit, Sherlock," Kowalski muttered as he stuffed his field glasses back into his utility pack. "Though I can't say I'm feeling much better about this mission myself."

Riley studied the crewman with an amused expression. "You worried again, 'Ski?"

"Yeah...and I'll tell you why." Kowalski shifted himself closer to where Riley was sitting, glanced furtively to his side and lowered his voice further, hoping that the Captain wouldn't overhear him as he had come to learn from past experiences that the man had very sharp ears -as most of the officers he had known seemed to when the need called for it. "Look...you've been on Seaview for awhile, right? And you've never known either the Admiral or the Skipper to be worrywarts -right?"

Riley mulled this observation over in his mind for a moment and bobbed his head in agreement. "No...like, they're the most together dudes I know of."

"Well, I've known them a lot longer than you have and I can tell that they're not telling us everything and it's worrying the both of them." Kowalski scowled slightly. "And if it worries them, it scares the hell out of me."

"So why'd you volunteer for this detail, 'Ski?"

A sheepish smile lit Kowalski's face. "Well..." he said with a small impish shrug, a little embarrassed at the confession on his lips. "See...there's this Corvette I've had my eye on and if I'm even going to think of putting a down payment on it, I need the danger pay."

"A 'Vette! Bitchin' to the max!" Riley said with an appreciative, low whistle. "But you should do what I do when I'm stressed out."

"You?" Kowalski cackled incredulously. "Stuart Riley ever stressed? Pul-eeze!"

"No -really!" Riley implored, terribly earnest. "Like, whenever I'm stressed out, I just think of that time I was in Oahu, surfing, when I scoped out that major wave-"

"-that tsunami last year?"

"Yeah -it was so radical. I was totally one with nature -when I bounced off the lip and spun through the foam-"

"For God's sake, Stu," Kowalski moaned piteously. "Speak English for once in your life!"

"Hey, no problemo, dude," Riley retorted with a mischievous grin. "I can-"

"Gentlemen-" Riley and Kowalski turned sharply at the sound of their captain's voice, grimacing inwardly like doomed schoolboys about to receive punishment at the hand of their stern principal. Crane observed the two crewmen's reactions, struggling with himself not to laugh aloud and more than a little relieved that his protective visor hid the grin that he could not suppress. "If either of you can tear yourselves away from your discussion on modern-day events, we are about to reach shore."

"Aye aye, sir," Riley and Kowalski murmured in unison, chastened yet again for the moment.

The motorized launch came to a stop at that moment with an abrupt, sharp jerk, bobbing up and down against a shore of snow and ice. One by one, the members of the shore party clambered onto the frozen ground, surprised that it actually was possible that the ice could be so cold that one could not slip on it -but it was true. Even the edges of the artificial mote were sticky not slippery and the ice beyond that was so completely frozen that the sheen of water on most icy surfaces on which one slipped and injured himself, simply didn't exist. Nowhere else in the world was ice so truly frozen. Enlisted men and officers alike eyed their strange surroundings with as much unease as they might were they astronauts disembarking from their ship onto the alien surface of another world.

Crane glanced up at the increasingly turbulent sky covered in rolling thick clouds of grey and white. Seven hours, Sparks had said. He was beginning to suspect that Mother Nature was working on her schedule; the one she employed whenever her humans got cocky enough to believe that they could read her mind. Besides...classical allusions aside, the fact was that it was already beginning to snow...random bits of frozen moisture carried on a building wind that would easily freeze their flesh on contact were it not for their protective suits.

"All right, men," Crane barked, calling for the shore party's collective attention, "this is how we're going to play it. This is a search and rescue mission. Station Delta is just beyond that ridge there." Crane pointed to the dark, long wall of metamorphic rock that jutted from the mainly flat icescape incongruously; too long to go around and tall enough to be more than slightly daunting. "I don't know what we're going to find, but we have to discover what happened at Delta and why...and if there are any survivors. Containment procedures will be initiated only if necessary and only on my express command -is that clear?"

The shore party members stared at each other for what seemed to be an age until Clarke, one of the recruits new to Seaview, stepped forward. "Just one question, sir..."

"Yes, Clarke," Crane said, studying the young crewman, "what is it?"

"Well..." Clarke said uneasily. "What if we don't have time to ask you?"

"Belay that!" Devereaux snapped, face reddening.

"No, no -that's all right, Devereaux." Crane met the crewman's eyes. "If the situation should arise and unless you happen to find yourself suicidal, Clarke, you have my permission to defend yourself. Is that all?" The men glanced at each other; each slowly and uncertainly, wondering if one or the other should speak, and then returned their attentions to Crane -there were no more questions for now. "Very well," said the Captain, satisfied at their non-response, "we have plenty of ground to cover and not much time to do it before the snows hit -move out!"




"Sir..."

Admiral Nelson looked up from the cup of coffee in his hand as Commander Morton entered the Wardroom, a sheet of print-out paper in his hand. "Captain Crane's party is ashore and heading towards Station Delta. If the weather system holds to its present course, they should have plenty of time to get there and back."

Nelson offered Seaview's XO a wry grin. "That is the key word here, Chip... If." Nelson scanned the paper, his expression tense as he took in the information. "The weather near the poles is always tricky at best."

"If it should turn for the worse, the Captain will know what to do," Morton offered, sensing his admiral's concern, wishing that he could help, but not really knowing how as he had his own troubling notions with which to contend. "I've never known the weather to bother any of those Secret Forces guys."

Nelson flashed Morton a sharp, puzzled look, wondering how the Executive Officer could know about that part of Lee Crane's service record when it was classified, but he let the question die on his lips. Perhaps...perhaps he would ask later. Perhaps not. "You're right about that, Chip. Definitely right."

"Sir..."

Chip Morton had turned to leave the Wardroom, but had stopped at the door, seemingly contending with himself over some private concern. "Is something wrong, Chip?" Nelson asked, setting his cup down on the meeting table. The Executive Officer's countenance clouded, troubled. "Did you want to talk about something?"

"Sir, I..." Morton's lips pressed into a thin line of frustration. He stared at the deck and then back at the Admiral who stood wondering. "Permission to speak freely, sir."

Nelson returned the guarded look evenly. "Permission granted."

Morton squared his shoulders, not certain how to start, but determined that he should say what he now wished he had said long before this time. "Sir, what I saw in the Voyageur..." He exhaled heavily. "Something about what I saw , was all wrong."

"Very little about what happened to Voyageur makes much sense, Chip..." Nelson offered, noting the officer's obvious anguish. "It bothers me too."

"Yes, sir -the explosion, the bodies- but it's not how they died or that they died that's bothering me now."

"Go on."

"Sir, if there's one thing I know, it's that people act in pretty much the same way when they know that there's deadly danger coming their way -even when there's no escape, they try to escape." Morton paced a slow circle around the table before coming to a stop. "According to that tape we retrieved, it was very likely that Voyageur's crew knew what was coming when those explosions started. They probably even had time to try to escape even though they knew that it was impossible..."

Nelson frowned deeply. "What are you trying to get at, Chip?"

"Sir, the Voyageur's crew were frozen in their tracks by the plasma-burst bomb explosion and I'd say that not one of them was trying to escape!" Morton shook his head, struggling to collect his thoughts. "And that just doesn't happen!"

"Have you...told anyone else about this?"

"No-one. Not even my diving party, sir...but they know what they saw. The transmissions didn't show it as clearly as we saw it."

"I see." Nelson studied the world map mounted on the bulkhead, not really looking at anything, before facing the Executive Officer who stood waiting apprehensively. "Chip, for now, I want you keep this to yourself -until the shore party returns. They may be able to shed some light on your observations...or at least corroborate them."

"Aye, sir."

Admiral Nelson watched Morton leave and then stabbed a button on the communicator on the table. "Sparks, this is Nelson."

"Yes, sir!"

"Open a channel to InterAllied as soon as possible."

"Aye, sir."

Nelson studied the silent desk communicator as he waited for the sought-after response. It was becoming less and less possible to ignore what he feared...and knew.




The randomly falling flakes of snow were beginning to fall faster than they had been only minutes ago -heavier, larger, carried by a brutally cold wind that seemed to spring from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, leaving no direction in which one could turn to avoid its awful force. Not even the jutting rocky ridge offered any respite from the white gale that was not quite blinding -not yet, at least- but it was making it increasingly harder to see more than a few meters ahead. The shore party of the Seaview trudged against this wintery gale, bent low to better resist the force of it, further from home than they were near.

"Sir..."

"Yes...Tomàs?" Crane responded with great difficulty, as out of breath as all of his men appeared to be presently. It was as if the wind had taken on an angry life of its own, deliberately driving them back from their eventual goal for reasons known only to it. They stopped less than a meter from the ridge, chests heaving from the painful exertion. "What...what is it?"

"I'm...I'm getting an energy reading..." Tomàs yelled above the deafening gale. He brushed the clotting snow from the small screen of his hand-held indication unit. "Weak...signal...maybe -maybe one hundred and fifty feet north...beyond the ridge!"

"Station Delta..." Crane whispered apprehensively. Maybe there were people alive there...generators functioning -or possibly something else. "What kind of energy reading!"

"Hard to tell, sir! The rock wall is interfering with the signal and the polar...fields aren't helping!" Tomàs angrily dashed away the snow that obstinately clung to the delicate instrument. "But it isn't radiation...that I can tell!" The crewman studied the daunting ridge of black rock. "I can get a better reading if I can go on ahead a ways. I'm...a good climber, sir...I...can get up that rock in three minutes flat!"

Crane glanced up at the rock face uncertainly -he was a skilled free-hand mountain climber himself and the ridge with its too-smooth ice-covered surface and clumped snow looked daunting even to him...but they all had to climb it eventually and he knew it. Crane regarded the rest of his men -fit, but puffing from their exertions, his own chest feeling like it was being crushed by some sort of jagged-edged vise- and then returned his attention to the ever eager Tomàs. "All right...go ahead, but we'll be right behind you!"

"Aye, sir!"

Tomàs stood before the great rock as if sizing it up, and then, to the amazement of his fellow submariners, he mounted the barren wall, finding foot and hand-holds where most of the others saw none; all too soon merely a tiny blue-shrouded figure against the black rock wall, going higher despite the snow-ridden winds swirling around him. "Sir...I see...something..!" came the transmitted message over their communicators. "It's difficult...Oh my...God!"

Crane was the first to react to the seaman's horrified cry, mounting the sheer rock face, grasping hidden hand-holds, propelling himself upwards with seeming cat-like ease despite the impediment of his cumbersome protective suit and unwieldy equipment. He knew that he would pay for this effort. He was ill with the flu -he couldn't deny that now- and when the adrenaline rush wore off and no longer fueled his muscles as it did now nor numbed the discomfort of illness, he wouldn't just ache, he would be in real pain. For the time at hand though, petty potential aches and pains didn't really to matter all that much to the youthful captain of the S.S.R.N. Seaview -the frozen look of sheer horror that the Captain could see twisting seaman Tomàs' young
face, as he hoisted himself upwards, did. "Tomàs, what's wrong! What did you-"

At first, Tomàs did not respond at all; he merely stared into the distance until Crane touched his shoulder and, like an automaton, seaman Tomàs thrust his electronic field glasses into his captain's hands and pointed beyond the precipice. "See," he said dully. "There."

Crane studied Tomàs silently, puzzled by the usually level-headed, energetic crewman's bewildering, nearly robot-like response and then hesitantly put the powerful binoculars near to the visor before his eyes, struggling with the cold-stiffened focusing controls to sharpen the blurred image he could barely spy. At first, there wasn't much to see -just a shifting, white wall of falling frozen vapor obscuring his vision, clinging tenaciously to the lens despite his efforts to the opposite. Then, like ephemeral theater curtains, the drifting airborne glacial precipitation all but parted. Crane's eyes widened in disbelief. His mouth dropped open, but no sound came forth...not at first...and then a whisper. "Ah...Jesus..."

The rest of the shore party had joined Crane and Tomàs on the peak of the rocky ridge. Crane tapped Kowalski on the shoulder, pointing into the distance wordlessly. Kowalski looked at his captain curiously and then peered through his own field glasses and jerked back from them suddenly as if they had suddenly metamorphosed into a living thing, and then peered through them again.

Antarctic Station Delta was a charred, smoking ruin. The multi-level complex that had measured no less than a mile across at its narrowest point was surrounded by a blackened, scorched area, a jagged near-circle, glass-like and utterly flat, only just now being covered by the thickly falling snow. Stark-white buildings made of the latest and toughest building materials had been reduced to burned, twisted skeletons of steel and cracked concrete. Steam and smoke still rose from the decimated multi-million dollar structure. Only the outlying sections of the gutted complex still stood and those were barely recognizable as the once and former monument to international co-operation as it had been created to be.

"Skipper..." Riley whispered, aghast. "What happened here! It...it looks like someone laid into it with nukes!"

"I don't know, Riley," Crane confessed helplessly and forced himself to look away from the horrific ruination. "I really do not know..."

"Sir! I'm still picking up energy readings!" Tomàs said, recovering from his shocked stupefaction. He blinked with amazement. "Ordinary electricity, sir. A static generator on an independent source or some kind of transformers running on power stored in batteries."

"It could be on automatic or there could be someone down there..." Crane studied the glowering sky above -it was more threatening than it had been only minutes before and showed no signs of getting better in the near future. His eyes narrowed as he came to a decision; a potentially unpleasant and unavoidable one. He had his orders. "Kowalski?"

"Yes, sir!" Kowalski snapped, alert.

"Contact Seaview. Inform Admiral Nelson of what we've seen and that we're going in." Crane squinted, straining to see through the driving white precipitation. "We've got a job to do."




Nelson lunged for the mike at the periscope island as soon as Sparks had piped the signal through from the absent shore party. "Kowalski, this is Nelson!" He grimaced at the squeal of high-pitched static that screamed painfully in his ear. "I can barely read you!"

"Yes...sir...Station Delta...found..." Kowalski's voice was swallowed by electronic noise, disappearing and then popping back just as suddenly -but barely. "...ruins...maybe survivors..."

Nelson saw Morton shale his head in poorly concealed concern as he watched the radio signal, indicated on the monitor at Sparks' station, begin to fluctuate and then break up altogether. "Kowalski!" Nelson barked into the mike. "Listen to me! Tell Captain Crane that he is to secure the mission! We have a major magnetic storm building over your area! It's powerful enough to disrupt even Seaview's transmissions! You won't have another clear window for four hours -maybe longer! You have to get back now! Did you hear me -scrub the mission!" But the only answer was static. Nelson glared at Sparks who stared back helplessly. "I don't care how many circuits you have to blow -you have to boost Seaview's transmitting range beyond regulation and break through that static!"

"But, sir..." Sparks stammered. "I'll have to open up the whole console -it'll take at least three hours to make the necessary modifications!"

Nelson's expression hardened, his patience now worried thin. "You have half an hour."

Sparks opened his mouth to protest and then, seeing his admiral's fierce expression, prudently swallowed his initial response, and merely nodded. "Aye, sir."




The floor beneath Lee Crane's feet was covered in twisted bits of blackened glass and incinerated plaster that crunched with a harsh, brittle sound with every echoing footfall no matter how softly he stepped. His mood was grim. The transmission he had had sent hadn't gotten through to Seaview -he was fairly certain of that- and neither had he been able to understand Seaview's response had there been one at all. The interference had been much too strong to know for certain one way or the other.

He had never been witness to an actual magnetic storm before, but he had studied the phenomenon long enough to know one when he saw one. What other expression of Nature's displeasure could have had lightning bolts streak across a snow-ridden Antarctic sky? What an irony it was that this razed building should provide temporary shelter for his shore party. Shelter in a house of horrors.

Crane stifled a choking cough that still managed somehow to escape his enflamed throat as he played the powerful beam of his electronic torch over the gutted remains of Antarctic Station Delta. Just as they had on the late submarine Voyageur, plasma-burst bombs, he wasn't sure yet how many, had decimated most of Station Delta; the incinerated evidence didn't lie. Neither did the silent charred remains of the dead that his team had discovered; frozen in an instant of time by an inescapable burst of destructive energy. At least, this time, the crew of the Seaview had been spared the horrible sight that his team had had no choice but to see. Carbonized bodies of nameless people that fell to ash at a touch...less than dust. Individually...and sometimes in groups.

Some of them were piled together as if they had sought each other's comfort in their final agonies or...what? Something else? Something that whispered at the back of his mind and yet, something that he could not, no, would not accept.

Crane shook his head with a very uneasy, very nervous laugh. No...just the shadows of imagination whipped up by horrors that the human mind found too terrible to accept. Crane passed by a partially opened door, quickly looked in, and turned away sadly. He wondered almost idly whether any of the victims had even tried to escape. Or had it all happened so fast that no-one had been aware of death's approach? He just didn't know.

Just then, there was a sharp, loud crack that broke the stillness and echoed against the pitted walls of the decimated complex. Conditioned by years of naval Secret Forces training, Crane immediately reached for the cold-tempered semi-automatic in the holster strapped against his side before he consciously thought to do it, and then stopped, his gloved hand just a hair's breadth from the gun's black metal butt, and drew a shaky breath of relief, his shoulders slumping slightly with the release of tension. Seaman Kowalski emerged fully from the shadows until his captain could see his face. "Have you found anything yet, 'Ski?"

Kowalski hesitated a moment before speaking, glanced uncertainly at his captain who was drawing his hand away from his uncovered service weapon with obviously false nonchalance, and realized that he, too, had begun to reach for his own service pistol, fingers a mere centimeter from resting on it. He let the hand drop limply to his side. "Not much, sir," he said, gesturing with a helpless hunch of his shoulders. "More of the same...rooms destroyed...equipment likewise...and the people -they're in the same condition as on Voyageur...some worse, but I haven't come upon a single survivor. Not one." A chill of revulsion traveled down the crewman's spine...revulsion and fear. It was the subconscious unease of primitive man when he walked upon the resting place of the dead in the deep of night. Antarctic Station Delta had become a great cemetery and though neither of the present members of Seaview's crew would admit it, neither of them could deny to themselves that every tiny creak of settling timbers made them glance to one side or the other, seeking things that belonged only to shadow.

"There was one thing though," Kowalski said, suddenly struck by memory. He anxiously fished through his utility pack and carefully removed the object of his search, and handed Crane the crumpled bit of charred paper. "I don't know if it means anything, but..."

Crane accepted the heavily creased, tattered scrap of paper. It was, or had been, part of a computer print-out sheet, the paper scorched and browned, its edges falling to the floor in tiny charred flakes. Crane brought the tattered sheet closer to his eyes, squinting at the print that proved to be difficult to decipher because of the damage. "'Dr. Isaiah Perlman -positive...Dr. Ellen Rhys-Jones -positive...Dr. Pavel Kirschev -positive...Ensign David McDonald -positive...Corpsman Lt. Junior Grade Mathieu Thibideau -negative. V2 is showing a geometric pattern of infection, however, further testing may prove fruitful if we can locate the unique immunity factor in-'"

The Captain's voice trailed off as the tantalizing bit of information came to an end -the rest of the scientific missive too burned to read. He glared at the scrap of paper that gave only enough of a clue to intrigue, but little more. "Some kind of test results. Medical, I'd say. The rest of the sheet is...completely illegible."

"Then...there was germ testing, sir? Like the Admiral said?" Kowalski asked, voice faltering despite himself, as a new apprehension took hold of him as if he had just remembered the awful possible reason for their being here in the first place.

"Maybe," Crane said, striving to force the tone of his voice to remain non-committal, "but even if there was, fire is supposed to be the great purifier, isn't it? I'd imagine the explosion was probably as good as any of our decontamination units."

Kowalski regarded his captain uncertainly, picking up on the hint of incertitude in the man's voice. "You're...you're sure of that, sir?"

For a long moment, Crane met the crewman's eyes and the shook his head as he looked around himself at all the terrible devastation and whispered: "No."

Kowalski studied his captain and then sighed with weary resignation. "Aye, sir."

"Sir!"

Crane and Kowalski turned sharply in the direction of the new voice as seaman Stu Riley bounded from behind the blind corner of a debris-cluttered corridor. His cheeks were flushed and his chest heaving as he came to an abrupt stop, slid on some charred refuse underfoot, and landed flat on his ass. Struggling not to laugh aloud more because of nerves than amusement, Crane and Kowalski quickly reached down and grasped the hapless crewman by the hands and helped him to his unsteady feet. "Sir!" Riley gasped, still slightly out of breath. "Clarke and I...we found it!"

"Easy, Riley," Crane cautioned. "Found what!"

"The source...of the energy reading...some kind of generator..."

"Why didn't you tell me over your communicator?"

"Bogus. There was, like, no-" Riley caught sight of Kowalski's silently mouthed warning and started again. "The generator is apparently powered by a transformer...a huge battery, sir. It seems to be creating a field of interference. We couldn't get through it -and we tried. The blast barely touched it at all -it just blew a hole in the shielding panel...and there's something else. We found a whole wing of the complex still standing...and there's this - this room."

"Room?" Crane questioned.

"Yes, sir. Or a huge safe -it's got a random combination lock generator on it. The lock was protected by a metal panel...Devereaux's trying to crack the combination now."

"All right then..." Crane said, pausing for a moment to digest all this new information. "Lead us to it."

Crane and Kowalski followed Riley as he carefully led them through an awkward maze-like path carved through solid matter by a powerful blast of heat and destructive force; through partially collapsed corridors and past walls that had been violently breached, some barely standing, others run through by steel girders twisted at odd angles or laying against massive piles of rubble. "Watch it!" Crane suddenly felt himself grabbed by the arm and wrenched to one side in one violent motion that nearly pulled him off his feet...but his immediate indignation was quickly forgotten as the awkwardly-shaped tunnel just ahead resounded with deafening thunder as a huge section of the cracked ceiling suddenly buckled under some uneven pressure and opened up, sending a huge avalanche of synthetic concrete, wire, and misshapen metal struts tumbling to the already littered floor. When the roaring cacophony died down, echoing and then fading, a fog of dust and dirt hung heavily in the cold air. As the haze lessened, Crane glanced at the buried spot where he had been heading and then regarded seaman Riley, offering a small half-grin of slightly unnerved gratitude and relief. "Thank you."

"No prob- er, aye, sir!" Riley responded brightly. "This way!"

Devereaux, Clarke, and Tomàs had just peeked their heads in the lighted end of the tunnel, about to enter the damaged corridor when Crane, Kowalski, and Riley emerged from it, dusty and more than slightly shaken.

"We heard the corridor go!" Devereaux said anxiously. "Are you all right!"

"A bit startled, but otherwise unharmed," Crane responded, apparently unaffected by his nearly deadly experience. He studied his men's faces as a look of great relief seemed to erase most of the worry in their expressions. It wasn't that the experience hadn't affected him really -would that it had been so- but, as he reminded himself, the position of command denied him the right to show it as long as his men's confidence depended on his own. Uncertainty of the facts was more easily shown than uncertainty of one's ability to lead.

Crane studied his new surroundings. The passageway had led them to a wide rotunda-like extension about fifty feet high and more than twice that across, and though the ceiling and walls were cracked and very badly scorched, they still held. Crane ran his gloved hand across the curiously textured surface of the walls, feeling the odd, impossibly even grain through the synthetic fabric of his uniform's protective gloves. It was as if the walls had been woven like cloth rather than constructed with bulk materials like mortar, plastics, and bricks. "Hard...maybe some sort of metal, but if it is metal, it isn't like any I've ever seen..."

"Yes, sir," Tomàs said, running his clothed hand across the surface. He stared at the grey residue left on the fingers of his gloves and brushed it away. "It's not steel or titanium, nor is it any alloy I know. It might be some experimental synthetic metal -it definitely has some unusually potent flame-retardant properties otherwise this room would be in the same shape as the others...and that's not all, sir. Look!"

The crewman gestured excitedly over to where Petty Officer Devereaux had taken up the task on which he had been working before the incident in the tunnel had distracted them. Devereaux acknowledged his captain's presence with a nod as he continued his work. "What's this, Louis?" Crane asked, peering over the Petty Officer's shoulder.

"It's some kind of computer combination lock with one hell of a random-combination generator." The young officer shook his head with frustration as he moved aside to let the Captain get a better look at the device mounted against the wall beside what appeared to be a huge towering door. "There was some kind of shielding over the lock. It took awhile, but I got through that using my plasma rifle, but this-" He gestured to the rows of buttons on the lighted panel. "If I could be sure that using the plasma rifle on it wouldn't just cause the vault to permanently fuse shut, I would do it, but I don't."

"Can you crack the combination?" Crane asked quietly. "It could be important."

"I know, sir, and with Seaview's computers, I could initiate a random sequence program that would probably have the lock open in...minutes, but without one..." The young officer drew a heavy breath. "Sir, the potential combination would be comprised of any of the digits of zero to nine and the characters of "a" to "z", including the decimal point here." Devereaux spread his hands in frustration. "Unless I got very lucky, it could take days -and I was a very good hacker in my day."

"Twelve spaces...a potential combination from ten digits, twenty-six letters, and a decimal point...if we could cut off the power source perhaps..." Crane straightened up and looked at Riley who waited patiently. "You said that you'd found some kind of generator?"

"Yes, sir! This way!" Crane followed the crewman down a short passageway, and frowned as he gradually became aware of a low-frequency electronic whine that reverberated against his eardrums like some sort of bad tinnitus condition. He followed the sound with a turn of his head.

The source of the powerful irritating hum, standing deeply within a huge recess in a wall in almost direct view of the enormous vault, was a towering structure of scorched and scarred metal and wire which, despite the cosmetic marring, stood incongruously untouched amidst such extensive ruination, the constant sound emanating from it growing louder the nearer one came to it. In truth, the only apparent damage to what appeared to be some kind of back-up battery unit was the gaping, jagged hole in the transparent insulation shield that surrounded the mechanism.

"Have you tried to deactivate it?" Crane asked, wincing despite himself at the hum which seemed to pierce his ears like some sort of sonic drill.

"No, sir...and because we don't dare," Riley said with a grimace and then, seeing his captain's questioning stare, he canted his head in the direction of one of the other crewmen and said: "Clarke...you show the Skipper."

Clarke nodded and reached down to the rubble-covered floor and picked up a thick palm-sized chunk of plaster. He hefted the fragment and, effecting a big league baseball pitcher's stance, wound up and hurled the chunk towards the huge electrical unit. The small missile hit a panel on the generator and disappeared with a blinding, blue burst of energy. "The explosion did some damage, sir. The null-energy insulation shield is gone and somehow the live electricity is being fed directly into the outer casing. One touch of that and -poof! We found that out when a loose piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and hit the generator."

Crane studied the great, resonating unit a moment longer and shook his head wearily. All that power and not a working furnace to be seen, he thought dryly. "So," he said, "until that battery runs down, that thing might as well be a death sentence to anyone getting too close."

"Yes, sir," Devereaux replied wearily himself, drawing up to his captain's side. "It would seem that way...at least, unless and until we can get some of the heavy-duty equipment from the Seaview."

"That may be for the best-" Crane stopped mid-sentence, his train of thought interrupted by a piercing sound; an unexpected, sharp noise not unlike the shrill intermittent beeping of an electronic timer. Crane glanced sharply to his side and saw Tomàs hunched over a small hand-held electronic device that seemed to be the source of the sharp pulsing sound, his young countenance twisted into a frown. "What is it, Tomàs?"

Tomàs pulled his mouth into a small grimace. "I'm not sure, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm getting some kind of reading on this motion detector...or, at least, I think I am. This generator is putting out a lot of interference -it may be causing some kind of false readings -but according to this-" Tomàs gave the pulsing unit a small sharp slap, annoyed. Nothing changed. "According to this, we've got company."

"Rats -right?" Kowalski asked almost nervously. "They had test animals in this place, didn't they? Vermin can take any kind of weather."

"No..." Tomàs said through tightened lips. "Singular reading -can't get a clear idea from which direction...too much mass for a small animal...most likely human -or something like it."

"Survivors...here?" Kowalski protested, disbelieving still, as he stared uneasily around him. "That isn't possible. Nothing human could have survived those bombs."

"I don't know about that, 'Ski..." Riley murmured, his eyes wide, straining to hear beyond the hum of constantly opening and closing circuits within the generator. "That hurricane that hit the Santa Monica area three years ago wiped out a whole city block...houses, everything -except this budgie...in a cage. Birds, rats or humans -it can happen."

"Thank you, Riley. We'll all keep that in mind," Crane said tersely, his hand now on the butt of his service pistol. The word containment rang through his brain and he shook his head in frustration -it didn't have to be that way. Not yet. "Fan out. If we have a survivor, he or she may not be in the most reasonable frame of mind after all this time alone -and we still have to accept the possibility that there may have been some kind of viral contamination involved here -so, be careful."

There was a general murmur of agreement as the shore party spread out, more cautiously than they had before, creaks and settling beams somehow far more ominous than they had been a mere few minutes ago. Crane turned sharply at a loud, haunting moan and drew a shaky breath as he realized that it was only the sound of wind howling through a small hole in the ceiling above him. Funny, he mused almost idly, it had stopped snowing- "Jesus -God!" Crane unfastened his semi-automatic -that hadn't been the wind!

Reacting on instinct alone, Crane tore down through the wrecked corridor through which he had just come, back into the rotunda-like room in which he had been just moments before. There, he stopped, frozen despite himself like a bird facing a cobra, at the sight before him. Tomàs was face-down on the litter-strewn floor, his hand-held equipment had been torn from his grasp and flung out before him, far from his reach, as someone...no, much more like
something straddled his back. The ragged, beast-like human-like thing looked up and locked eyes with the Captain of the Seaview. It was a twisted monstrous thing, clothed in scorched rags, its hair wild and matted, its grossly disproportionate mouth dripping with blood. Horrified, Crane glanced down at the unmoving form of the crewman, still alive, claw-like tears in the anti-contamination suit, livid gouges beneath the cloth...a mouth dripping with Tomàs' blood!

The service pistol was in Crane's hand before he was consciously aware of it. The gun discharged before he realized that he had pulled the trigger. The man-thing reeled with the impact of the bullet, falling away from the prostrate crewman, but even as the Captain took a single step forward, the beast-like man got up, a lurching lumbering thing, eyes blazing red, and its gnashing teeth... The Captain fired -once, again- as the thing launched itself at him, the force of its contact throwing him bodily to the floor, his gun flying from his hand -out of reach.

As an officer in the ParaNavy, trained by the Secret Forces, Lee Crane was trained to kill with his bare hands and fight to a win in hand-to-hand combat almost any man twice his size, but the strength of this thing... In seconds, Crane was all but pinned to the floor. He heard a ripping sound somewhere in the vague distance of his senses and felt a tearing pain in his shoulder, a foul odor filling his nostrils as he struggled with this maddened thing -the stench of old death.

All at once, the raging creature was pulled away from the fallen captain. Kowalski, though not as skilled in hand-to-hand combat, was very nearly as powerful a fighter as Crane, and yet, he was literally tossed aside by the raging, howling thing. Riley, Clarke, and Devereaux struggled desperately, futiley as he -it- knocked them to the rubble-covered floor without effort, bellowing in mindless rage...and somewhere in the loud unintelligible, garbled roaring could be heard a word formed from a voice that was only barely human: "Mine!..Mine!..MINE!" Again and again, that word was repeated; louder and again, as the vaguely human man-thing lurched once more towards the fallen, unconscious Tomàs.

"Get the fuck away from him, you bastard!" Blood dripping from the gaping wound in his shoulder, Crane pulled the plasma rifle from the sheath on his back, even as the beast-like creature spun to meet his eyes -and fired. The thing reeled and started toward Crane again. Eyes cold and narrow, Crane fired again, increasing the wattage of the blast. The thing recoiled, but started toward him -slower this time, but still coming forward. Crane heard the warning beacon on the plasma rifle begin to sound as he pushed the energy control up to maximum -and fired. A jet of cold-white plasma spewed from the maw of the weapon, hitting the rampaging creature fully in the chest, sending it hurtling through the now steaming air. There was a blinding burst of electric flame as the bestial man hit the live generator and a scream that no human mouth had ever made as its image seemed to go negative, and the smell of burned flesh filled the air, as the few lights that ran off the energy in the generator dimmed and went black.

When the paroxysm of electric sparks and white flame died down, the carbonized body of the shore party's nameless attacker remained impaled on the sparking transformer, spread-eagle, spasming several times and then crumpled to the scorched floor, a pile of blackened bones and foul, smoking ash.

For a moment, there was no sound...no movement. With an almost mindlessly mechanical motion, Crane resheathed his plasma rifle, the metallic-black muzzle now steaming, and hearing crewman Tomàs' muffled moan, signaled to Kowalski and said: "Break out your med-kit and check him out."

Kowalski drew his hand away from the scratches deep within his left arm -they were sore, but there was more pain than blood, and he was able to nod numbly as he grasped the box. "Aye, sir."

"Sir..." Crane turned in Riley's direction as the crewman approached him. "Your shoulder, sir...you're hurt too."

As if just remembering the attack on his person, Crane covered the throbbing wound in his shoulder with his hand and then brought the hand away and stared dully at the steaming slick of bright red blood on the palm of his glove -his own blood; the sight of it stirring some vague, dull fear that he could not quite place. "The blood..."

Riley had another of their med-kits in his hand and gestured almost diffidently. "Sir...if you'll let me, I can take care of it."

"No." Crane blinked, mentally shaking off the emotional stupor that had momentarily dulled his senses...his thoughts. "I'm all right. Just-" Crane's eyes narrowed as the last of the strange emotional dullness fled, replaced by a realization. "Shit! Shit twice!.." he cursed under his breath and then, dreadfilled and fully coming back to himself : "Everyone -check out your suits! Look for rips, tears, anything -no matter how small!"

No... Oh God... Not that... Jesus, it can't be... The soft murmur of dismay echoed through-out the shore party, confirming Crane's worst and deepest fears. It had happened -minor damage or worse- from a mere scratch to a tear that left a ragged flap of fabric hanging loosely down- each anti-contamination suit had been breached, their protective capacities severely compromised. If there was a disease here... Crane studied the haunted expressions of his men -they had a right to be afraid. He was suddenly very afraid too. "All right...use the sealant in your utility kits and patch up your suits. I don't know if we are facing infection here, but I do know that there's no need to die from hypothermia if we can help it -and we can." The men hesitated and Crane's tone of voice grew necessarily sharp. "On the double!"

Crane sighed with grim satisfaction as his men fell to their tasks with desperate vigor, glad to be occupied for the time with other things than time to worry about whether some madman had infected them with some dreaded known or unknown disease. Crane knelt beside Kowalski who was efficiently binding the wounded shoulder and arm of Tomàs who had regained consciousness and was now sitting up, looking around dazedly. "How is it, 'Ski?"

"A bite and some scratches...neither dangerously deep. I've cleaned them up the best I can..." Kowalski reported in an official sort of monotone. "But I think they'll need stitches as soon as we...as soon as we get back on board Seaview."

"Uh huh..." Crane murmured flatly. "Tomàs..?"

Tomàs shrugged wearily in pain. "I didn't see or hear him coming until he was almost on top of me, sir." He shook his aching head. "All I know is that I can usually whip any guy my size -no problem, but this guy... It was like trying to wrestle with an overgrown pitbull, and...and he bit me..." Tomàs drew a shaking breath. "Sir, who was he? Why did he-" The crewman grasped his bandaged arm, grimacing. "Why did he do what he did? We...we're here to help..."

"I don't know, Roberto," Crane said, using the familiar. "Maybe being alone for all this time, among all these dead bodies and ruination, destroyed the man's sanity...whoever he was." Crane saw Tomàs' face whiten, sickly and pale, as he uttered a groan between clenched teeth. "'Ski, give him something for the pain."

"It's okay, sir, I don't-"

Crane silenced Tomàs' feeble protest with a glare of warning. "Do as you're told and take it."

"Aye, sir," Tomàs replied meekly, apparently relieved that he had been released from some obligatory act of military-bred stoicism. He flexed his arm, bunching and releasing a fist as Kowalski administered the injection. Tomàs winced and shot his fellow crewman a dirty look as Kowalski removed the hypodermic and sealed it in a disposal container.

Crane turned aside, studying his grim surroundings and suppressed a shudder, exhaling heavily, his breath misting his visor. An errant snowflake landed on his mask and he flicked it aside in annoyance as he visually followed the snowflake's trail to its source -a jagged hole in the ravaged ceiling. The sky was a dark grey, very little snow, but it was getting colder. Pathetic though it had been, the generator had provided some small measure of heat in this area simply by being there, and now, the source of that meager comfort was gone just when they needed it -a charred mass of twisted metal, still sparking occasionally due to the static electricity still built up in its metallic mass. But no heat. And worse, the long period of night that came to this part of the world at this time of the year would soon be upon them, bringing with it, a bitter twilight's deadly cold that they would not survive in their compromised suits.

Crane gingerly touched the patched area on the shoulder of his protective suit. Sore...and dangerous if they had been infected. Crane winced, drawing in a sharp breath. The thought that the fire and explosion had purged the contagion, was a comforting one, but not so much so since the attack. The explosion hadn't touched every part of the complex...and it certainly hadn't taken that poor, maddened soul who had attacked his shore party. God...Seaview had to be warned -even if it turned out to be a false alarm. "Clarke?"

"Yes, sir?" responded the young seaman nervously.

"Try to contact the Seaview -the polar magnetic fields might be stable enough right now to get a message thr-" Crane fell silent as, without warning, the great rotunda was shaken by a building, rumbling sound like the enormous unearthly groan of an unseen giant, echoing from every wall at one time.
"Sir!" Kowalski pointed to the huge sealed vault. The greying layer of frost fell from the seemingly impregnable vault as the towering metal door began to move; seams becoming pronounced, as the door slowly crept forward. Minutes passed and still the portal continued to uncouple from the wall of alien alloy, thicker than any barrier the men of the Seaview had ever known -until now. Then it stopped. Abruptly. Completely. And all was silent again. Kowalski regarded his captain, questioning. "Interruption of the electrical current when that guy hit the generator?"

"I would say so..." Crane suspiciously eyed the narrow opening between the door and the wall. Whatever was beyond the opening, a room no doubt, was warmer than their present surroundings -condensation was rolling from the thin gap like an undulating carpet of fog. "Clarke?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Continue trying to contact Seaview. Inform me as soon as you've gotten through."

"Aye, sir."

"Kowalski, Riley, Devereaux..!" The three crew members came to attention. Crane jerked a thumb in the direction of the narrow opening. "This way." A moment of hesitation passed between the crew members before they fell in step behind their captain, each looking from side to side as if expecting the Bogeyman to lunge out from the shadows. Instead of total darkness, though, there was light -a stark, sterile white light from bar-shaped halogen lamps mounted on the strangely untouched, undamaged ceiling.

In fact, to the men's complete disbelief, as the Captain directed them to split up and go ahead, the entire chamber as far as they could see had been left untouched by the blasts that had decimated the rest of the scientific complex with such apparent ease. Crane drew a hand against the painfully white wall. The texture was the same as the odd alloy that comprised the outer barrier. Definitely not a metal on the atomic charts -an unknown metal. The bright lights had to have been running off an independent internal source as yet unseen. There also had to have been an air revitalization unit functioning within -the tassel of fabric hanging from a vent flapped gently and the flora samples on the shelves still prospered. Crane tapped the wall thermometer with a finger, but the reading was the same as the reading on his portable detection gear -this room was being maintained at an even thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit.

This was a storage room. Crane gingerly picked up a sealed container, stared at the label for a moment, eyes widening, and almost timidly replaced the container onto the shelf where it had been sitting before his shore party's arrival. He signaled to Kowalski who was standing not further than an arm's length away. "'Ski," he said, drawing the seaman aside, "most of the containers -at least, the ones I've examined thus far- contain highly volatile chemicals...acids and explosive compounds...some poisons and contaminants as well." Kowalski cast a sharp, uneasy look in the direction of the rows upon rows of shelves, each level on each shelf having on it some kind of tightly sealed canister or container; each receptacle now equally as foreboding as the one beside it. Crane regarded the seaman's mute response. "Tell Devereaux I want the men to make a special effort to watch their step around these shelves from now on -very carefully. Some of them contain biological cultures...maybe germ samples."

"Aye, sir..." Kowalski replied with a slight nod, paling, but just as he was about to do as he was bidden, both captain and seaman heard the padded, muffled thunder of running feet and Stu Riley -cheeks flushed with the exertion of running while wearing such unwieldy gear, came to an abrupt stop before Crane. "Sir!" he gasped, chest heaving. "You won't believe this, but - but the petty officer and I -we found someone in this place!"

"Found-" Crane looked sharply in the direction of the shelves and then storage crates stacked against the walls. "What -you discovered a body?"

"No, sir!" the flustered seaman gasped, struggling to gather his thoughts, shaking his head with his own disbelief, wondering how he could possibly make his commanding officer believe when he could scarcely accept the evidence of his own senses -especially when he was well aware that the general consensus aboard Seaview was that seaman Stu Riley's mind floated with the fishes most of the time. Riley took a deep, steeling breath. "He - he's a live dude -like, totally zoned out, but kicking! I, er, I mean...I don't know who he is or how he got here, but the joker's alive!"

"All right!" Crane said sharply. "Lead the way!"

Crane and Kowalski again followed Riley, this time through the winding maze of storage shelves, realizing as they went that this chamber was far larger than they might have suspected. There was a glacier-like rock formation against which Antarctic Station Delta had been built and this lengthy room had most certainly been built directly into it at some point. After several meters, the rows of shelves thinned out until they only lined the walls of the part of the room which was their final destination.

At the farmost end of the room, Devereaux was hunched over what at first glance appeared to be a large bundle of rags or clothes piled in one corner of the farmost wall. As Crane and party entered this once hidden inner chamber, Devereaux looked up and moved aside from the large bundle partly, revealing that the pile of "rags" was, in fact, a man; a shivering, pathetic creature that mindlessly curled up closer to the supposed safety of the corner as they approached. He was young, but how young was almost impossible to tell -his situation had dealt harshly with him. He was Caucasian, but his skin had taken on a grey, almost ashen pallor; his ginger hair, short-cropped in the manner common to servicemen, was a wild tangle, his drawn, haggard face unshaven, but not yet bearded; and his pale grey eyes stared, rarely blinking, at nothing.

"I'm no corpsman, but I think he's suffering from deep emotional shock," Devereaux said flatly, drawing on what first-aid he knew. "I haven't been able to get a word out of him yet...but I can tell you that he's a submariner...not one of ours, but definitely a submariner." The Petty Officer reached toward the man and pulled aside some of the emergency blankets with which the man had apparently covered himself to reveal a navy-blue uniform that had seen better days...the uniform of a member of the Navy of the Federation of Canada. "And look at this." Devereaux gestured to the glimmering pin above the man's left breast pocket.

Crane leaned nearer and touched the gold naval decoration. "A gold dolphin...he's a submariner all right -and an officer." He checked the man's uniform more closely. "Lieutenant Junior Grade..." he murmured, reminding himself of the proper rank designation since Canada had adopted the American system not two years ago. "And a member of the medical corps." Crane sighed heavily. "One of the Voyageur's men...but what is he doing here?"

"Sir! This should help." Kowalski handed Crane a beaten leather wallet. "I just found it stuffed behind a box of emergency rations. It looks like it was thrown together from the Voyageur's stores -there was all kinds of stuff in there; bottles of Canada Dry, Maple Leaf canned ham, Kraft peanut butter -all Canadian stuff. Looks mostly untouched, but it might have been how he stayed alive."

"Maybe...but this should tell us who he is, I hope..." Crane muttered as he opened the wallet and studied its contents. "Thibideau, Lieutenant Jr. Grade Mathieu Marcel..." He frowned with recognition at the name, remembering the charred list in his utility pack. "A corpsman on the S.S.N. Voyageur out of New Brunswick's Acadian port..." He looked at the I.D. picture in the wallet's see-through pouch; at the bright-eyed, fresh faced young officer on the static image...and then at how he looked now -a mere ghost of his former self. "Acadian New Brunswick... Devereaux, try again."

Devereaux sighed with resignation and, with his gloved hands forced the trembling young corpsman to look at him. "Do you speak English?" No response but a blank stare. Devereaux frowned in concentration, trying to sort out the Cajun idioms and phrases from the pure standard French. "Est-ce que vous parlez français?" There was no verbal response, but though he continued to stare, the corpsman's stare was not quite as blank. Devereaux glanced at Crane who nodded for him to continue. "Comment vous appelez-vous?"

"Thibideau..."

There was a silent release of tension. Now, perhaps, they would get some information; some idea of what had really happened to this place...and its people. "Depuis quand êtes-vous ici?"

Thibideau's mouth worked mutely, his expression one of profound confusion. "Je...je ne comprend pas...je ne..."

Devereaux shook his head ruefully. "He's out of it again -total brain lock."

"All right..." Crane said, his expression grim. "I want you to rig up some kind of insulated litter." He grimaced as he saw the whiteness of Thibideau's fingers -the tell-tale sign of the beginnings of frost-bite. He didn't know how extensive or severe it was elsewhere on the man's person. "We're going to have to move out soon and he's in no condition to walk."

Devereaux bobbed his head in agreement. "Aye, sir!"

"Sir! We've got a signal through to Seaview!" Crane felt a tentative relief wash over him as seaman Clarke handed him the hand-held communications' device. Crane noted that the unit had been modified to produce greater power and range than its original design specifications -Clarke's forté. He would make a fine communications' officer some day. "Crane to Seaview. This is Crane to Seaview! Do you read me -over!"




On board the Seaview, in the Control Room, it was a scene of ill-controlled jubilation as Captain Crane's voice filtered over the squawk box. Admiral Nelson grabbed the mike at the periscope island, his face breaking into a great smile of relief. "Lee!.. This is Nelson! Are all of you all right!"

"No...severe injuries, sir," came Lee crane's weary-sounding voice over the speaker, "but we do have a problem."

The jubilation fell still as Nelson stared at the mike in his hand, his countenance suddenly grim, his jaw working as he tried to decide what to do or say next. Crane's tone of voice had told him little except that there was cause for concern. "Well, spit it out, Lee! What's the problem?"

"We encountered two survivors, sir. One of them was completely mad. He attacked us, causing the compromising of the integrity of our environmental suits. We've patched them up, but highest level precautions will have to be taken when we come on board Seaview. We have no idea if we have a situation of infection."

"I...see," Nelson murmured, suddenly weary. "Were you able to secure him?" There was silence -no response on the other end of the signal. "Lee..?"

"The subject was unavoidably 'contained', sir," Crane said in a muted voice as if ashamed. "There was no other option... I'll explain further when we get aboard."

"All right, Lee..." Nelson said somberly. "And the other?"

"Deep emotional shock, initial stages of frost-bite, and border-line malnutrition. He's a Canadian -a corpsman from the Voyageur."

"Very well, Lee. Come back in. Your window is still pretty shaky."

"Aye, sir."




Crane stared at the silent communicator before stuffing it in his emergency kit and looked up to study his sterile surroundings. Canisters, shelves, and boxes... When InterAllied sent a pure research team over here, they would have a field day with what they would find. Kowalski, Riley, and Devereaux were carrying the helpless corpsman of the Voyageur out to a make-shift litter they had created out of blankets and gear from their emergency stores.

"Sir?"

Crane turned and regarded the seaman wearily. "Yes, Clarke?"

The crewman hefted an old burlap satchel. "I found this -the corpsman was lying on it. There are a load of papers and some journals inside -should we take it along?"

"Yes...just wait in the rotunda with the others. I'll be along shortly." Crane waited until the crewman had left before he sighed aloud and leaned against a wall, an oppressive tiredness that bordered on depression engulfing him in an inescapable wave. What-the-Hell had he and his crew gotten into this time? He was suddenly uncertain whether he actually really wanted to know after all. The only thing he felt like doing right now was- Crane grimaced and clutched at his stomach as a dizzying wave of nausea swept over him and passed. He shook his head vigorously to shake off the fleeting sensation whose presence somehow did not surprise him. He was a captain, but ultimately, he was only an ordinary man...and the sights that this man had seen sickened him to his very soul.

A gasp escaped Crane's mouth as the nausea suddenly returned in force and he had to clench his teeth or... Heedless of the possible danger, realizing the uselessness of the precautions now that his suit had already been compromised, Crane struggled with the catches on his face mask, hastily unlatched his visor, flipped it open...
...and threw up.

"Sir..?"

"Yes?" Crane responded shakily at the sound of Kowalski's voice, not daring to look behind him. "What is it?"

"We're ready to go."

"I'll be with you shortly."

Kowalski nodded slowly. "Aye, sir." He hesitated. "Sir..?"

"What?"

Kowalski shook his head. "No...nothing, sir. We'll be waiting for you." With that, he left the room.

Crane leaned against the wall a moment longer until the nausea passed. There was no way that Kowalski could not have known what he was doing -he knew that- but the crewman had allowed him his pride. Perhaps what Nelson had said had been right when he had said those years ago that a loyal crew was often more forgiving of its captain's weaknesses than the captain himself. No. Not just perhaps.
Definitely.

Crane straightened up, taking a deep breath that cleared his head, and giving himself a tidying once-over, left the storage room and joined his men. Devereaux and Clarke were lifting up the litter. Kowalski was attending the wounded Tomàs who continued to protest audibly. Crane hefted the satchel Clarke had found -he and Riley would carry most of the equipment. The procession started slowly, carefully by-passing awkward piles of clutter, as they headed toward an open corridor that led to the outside and, eventually, the Seaview. They passed the grim, still-sparking generator and the horrible remains at its foot. As they paused for a moment, Thibideau slowly turned his head toward the awful sight, eyes clearing for just a moment as he whispered softly: "Adam..."

Then the Seaview's shore party headed toward the bitter outdoors...and their present home.