Chapter 2

Designed for rapid deployment, it was only four hours later that three fully enclosed, caterpillar treaded vehicles were crossing the icesheet of northern Greenland toward the ancient lava flow known as Heimdal's Horn. Topologists had worked with volcanologists, geologists and other specialists to plot the safest if not the most direct route to the U.F.O. crash site; thanks to the unstable terrain, air transport had dropped them fifteen miles from target, though their course took them much farther as it wound around seismic upheavels, some millions of years old, some no more than hours. The landscape was barren, naked rock jutting above frozen, blue-white wastes, as lifeless and inhumane as the surface of the moon itself.

Commander Edward Straker and Colonel Alec E. Freeman were bundled in the front seats of Mobile gamma, the firstmost in a caravan of three. Smaller than the heavily armored tanks SHADO usually employed on such assignments, gamma was closer in conception to the traditional snowcat, and every bit as agile. Freeman held the wheel in the dual control vehicle, guiding the tractors across ice crusted invisible paths and singing a mildly bawdy Welsh drinking song in a not-unpleasant off-key baritone. Straker, navigating in the left hand 'shotgun' position, sat hunched over a selection of terrain charts in his lap. A frown bisected his light brows, marring his otherwise perfectly smooth features.

"You'd better steer clear of that boulder," he advised, tapping the windshield in the direction of a jutting finger of granite that stood nearly four stories high. "According to our volcanologist ..."

"Chong," Freeman supplied, graciously interrupting his concert.

"... Chong, there's an underground magma pool located in that general area. It could have softened the icepack enough to sink us."

"You have us a new course?" Freeman glanced at the global satellite locator display on his forward monitor. A touch of a button narrowed the viewing field, an arrow serving as a 'You Are Here' indicator. "Doesn't look like we have too wide a margin; a couple of thousand meters port and we fringe the Louman Crevasse."

White-blond hair stirred slightly at Straker's nod. "Keep us bearing four degrees to port of present position until we reach those hills. If we stay on this ridge, we should be able to make it nearly all the way without having to trust the solidity of the ice."

"Roger." The Welsh pilot/intelligence officer turned the steering wheel in the desired direction, keeping one eye on the gyrocompass next to the screen. "That puts us about two hours away at present speed."

Straker folded the charts neatly, then unzipped his light blue parka to the waist. "I wish we could have used choppers instead of the mobiles. If that Ufo was exposed to the air in that last upheaval, it could be space dust by the time we get there."

"Nothing we can do about it," his companion returned reasonably. "It's a miracle the alien ship was located at all. If we make it in time to explore, fine; if not, we're no worse off than we were before."

"And no better," Straker snapped, extracting a pack of cigarettes from an inner pocket. "Blast it, Alec, we've been fighting a holding battle for ten years; we're do for a break." He tapped out a smoke, head cocking when Freeman began to whistle. "Must you do that?"

"Do what? Regale you with my melodies?" SHADO's Executive Officer shot his old friend a mischievous glance. "D'ya mean you're not a music lover, Ed?"

"When I hear music," the other returned irritably, "I'll let you know."

Far too long inured to his commander's brusque moods to be offended, Freeman watched out of the corner of his eye while the blond next extracted a match and lit up. "Don't have a cigar in one of those pockets, I suppose?" he hinted hopefully.

"Cigarettes this time out." He proffered one from the pack, which was accepted.

"Any port in a storm." Freeman held the tip of the smoke against Straker's match and puffed it to life. His hawk-like face was relaxed, his approach to potential risk less obviously intense than Straker's, though both were equally as alert. "Any guess as to how a Ufo got trapped in an ice pack?" he asked, obediently locking on a relevant subject.

Smoke wafted upward in spirals, the cigarette being utilized as a short, white pointer. "I had Colonel Lake run computer sims on that before we left. The scenario with the highest probability rating started with a critical reentry glide. If the Ufo entered atmosphere too steeply, it might not have bled off enough velocity to prevent a crash. It might have slammed into the ice pack, been trapped and buried for centuries."

"Possible." Freeman stuck his own cigarette in his mouth, using his free hand to brush back a lock of wavy brown hair off his forehead. "The alien might have been going for an ocean landing and miscalculated his approach; they tend to come in at a steeper descent angle if they aren't planning a landfall."

Straker rubbed his hands together, an excited flush tingeing his pale skin. "Just think, Alec, we'll have access to alien technology at last. Not just twisted metal and decomposing bodies, but an entire starship."

"Which could be thousands of years old, if our boys have estimated the age of the ice correctly," Freeman pointed out, glancing upward at the slate gray sky. "Their technology could have changed considerably since then."

"The ship looked the same." Straker bit his lip, brow furrowing even further. "If so.... Do you realize what this could mean, Alec?"

Freeman scratched his long nose. "Yes, unfortunately. It means they've been visiting our planet a lot longer than we've estimated. I shudder to think how many human bodies they've cannibalized over the centuries."

Straker looked startled at that, the concept apparently having not occurred to him. "I was referring to their technology. If we see no significant development over that long a period, it could mean their technology is stagnating - the strongest sign of a decaying civilization. It could even be crumbling."

SHADO's Executive Officer considered this, brown eyes narrowed. "Possible. Unfortunately, it took the Roman Empire nearly a millennium to crumble after the beginning of its decline; I prefer not to wait for it to happen naturally."

"I agree." The beamed-in satellite map broke into a series of colored lines before reforming fuzzier than before. "Looks like that solar storm is getting worse. There's probably quite an aurora borealis behind all those clouds." There was a beep from the console, and the blond picked up a microphone, tuning a scrambled frequency. "Straker."

"SHADO Control here," came the cool, dulcet voice of Virginia Lake. She paused, a burst of static breaking up the transmission for several seconds, then resumed when the air was clear. "Solar activity has risen twenty-four percent in the last half-hour, sir. Communications are expected to be sporadic at best until it clears, estimated time of disruption seven hours, fourteen minutes."

"Do you still have us on satellite surveillance?" Straker asked, visibly unflustered by the possibility of being out of touch that long.

Lake paused, a murmur coming off-mike as she consulted with someone else. "We do have a problem in that area, sir. Thanks to multiple coronal eruptions, the atmosphere is becoming highly ionized, particularly at your latitude. Thermal and magnetic scanners are distorting. We still have you on visual, but Meteorology is reporting a developing squall in your area, which could alter that at any time."

"The sky is getting pretty overcast," Freeman commented from the side.

Having overheard, Lake replied at once. "Acknowledged. We estimate another hour before you're hidden completely from SpySat. Do you wish to abort mission?"

The snowcat rocked when Freeman steered several degrees to the south to avoid a suspicious dip in the snow; inherently stable, it realigned on its center of gravity within seconds. "Without sat-recon and backup, we're out here on our own," he pointed out, fighting the wheel back to its original course. "You want to turn back? Maybe try again tomorrow?"

Thin lips pinched together resolutely. "If that Ufo is exposed to atmosphere, we've got a twenty-four to thirty-six hour window before it disintegrates. We're looking at the only chance we may ever get." He lifted one shoulder fractionally in assumed nonchalance. "We've got our course marked out already, and SkyDiver is standing by in case we need aerial support."

"Won't do us much good if we fall into a hole," Freeman muttered though not in argument.

Straker frowned at him anyway. "Is SID reporting any long-range alerts?" he asked into the microphone.

"Negative, sir. All clear through the outer planets." Lake paused again before asking in knowing tones, "Shall we assume the mission proceeds, Commander?"

Straker's unyielding features softened with a half-smile. "You know me well, Virginia. The mission proceeds." He switched off and glanced at an amused Freeman. "What's so funny, Alec?"

The other man waved his cigarette generally. "Ginnie's getting to know us both far too well. I'm beginning to suspect telepathic abilities."

"Ginnie, huh?" Straker eyed his friend suspiciously. "You sound like you're getting to know Colonel Lake pretty well yourself."

The modest shrug was somehow just a bit incongruent with the mischievous twinkle that entered Freeman's sharp brown eyes. "Let's just say we've been getting on rather ... closely of late. Very closely, indeed."

That provoked a full stare. "I thought Colonel Lake and Colonel Foster...."

"You're way behind the times, Ed. That's what comes of leaving all personnel affairs ... so to speak ... to your Executive Officer. That's me," he added, smiling graciously.

The double entendre was not lost on the blond. Straker lifted his cigarette high, watching the smoke ascend in a more or less horizontal line. "So fill me in. How long have you been dating ... er ... Ginnie?"

"Four or five weeks now. She dropped Paul almost two months ago."

"She dropped him, or he dropped her?" Straker prodded, growing actually intrigued enough to engage in the rare occasion of social gossip. "Look, Alec, you aren't serious about her, are you? You know her profile mentions a tendency to play the field pretty heavily. Look how fast she dropped Paul."

Freeman laughed. "I'm well aware of her profile. She'll dally with the young ones awhile, then move on without a backward glance. The closest she's had to a long term relationship in the past five years was with Craig Collins."

"Who is dead," the blond pointed out, expression going closed.

Apology crossed Freeman face then was gone; the subject of Straker's old friend was still a sensitive one. "After Craig died, Ginnie spent a little time with Paul while they were both doing two weeks on Moonbase, and moved on as soon as she made Earthside." He paused, deliberating his next words, the apology returning in full force. "That reminds me, I saw Mary Sunday, at Concorde Ristaurante."

Straker glanced at him sharply then away, the mention of his ex-wife a sharp, hastily buried pain. "Did you?" he asked, drawing heavily on his cigarette. "How was she?"

Several monitors blipped on the forward console, two of them labeled 'Com unit' going red, one monitor winking out. Freeman focussed on them as a way of avoiding looking in his friend's direction. "She didn't speak to me, and I didn't intrude. But she was looking good. Still quite beautiful."

"She would be," the blond murmured, sky blue eyes focussing inwardly for a brief instant. "Was she alone?"

"No."

Silence draped them several tense seconds, then Straker sighed and, in an obvious attempt at changing the subject, asked in a brighter tone, "And who were you with? Colonel Lake?"

That won a full grin. "Told you we were getting to know each other rather well."

Straker shook his head, smiling fondly at his friend, who winked. "How did Paul take it?" he asked, the smile shifting into a frown. "Casual relationships are part of Virginia's psych profile, but not his."

Freeman took a last puff, then dropped his cigarette to the floor, stubbing it out with his bootheel. "Don't worry about Paul Foster; I'm rather fond of him myself, you know." Irrepressible good humor peeking through, he tugged at the neck of his blue wool turtleneck, Welsh accent thickening. "Actually, it's my breaking heart you should be worrying about. Paul is young; he'll bounce back a lot quicker than us oldsters."

Straker shot him an offended scowl. "Speak for yourself, Gramps. I'm not ready for a rocking chair yet."

Both hands left the wheel in an open armed wave, returning to it immediately when the snowcat careened to the right. "All I meant was, Paul's a tough boy. He'll get over it."

"Like us?" Straker asked vaguely, mind obviously many miles and many years away.

"If he isn't already, he will be. Youth is the one thing you tend to outgrow. Besides, if he survived Ginnie Lake, he'll survive anything."

Blue eyes focussed on the Exec, a bare trace of the mischief that had once seasoned Ed Straker's personality peeking through. "Paul might, but will you, considering your advanced years?"

"I'm old enough to know better," Freeman returned modestly, "and far too young to care."

But even that amount of humor faded from SHADO's Commander; his scowl returned, computer fast mind already running worst-case scenarios on the situation now that it was brought strikingly to the fore. "I can't say I approve of Colonel Lake's flirtations. It's bad for morale."

"Not my morale," Freeman objected, pressing one hand to the front of his brown jacket. "It's never been better."

He caught Straker's eye, the two bursting out in a short laugh over the sheer absurdity. "All right, Alec," the American relented after a moment. "You're a better judge than I am in the matter ... maybe. But if this continues, I'm going to have a talk with Miss Lake about office relationships." The satellite map flickered again and went out; Straker glared at it, then plucked the microphone from its hook and activated the preset frequency to the other mobiles. "Gamma to Mobiles zeta and delta."

"Foster here, sir," came the immediate reply, followed by a woman's voice saying,

"Mobile delta. Chapman."

"This is Straker. Solar activity is rising; we can expect even local communications to be unreliable."

"Mission is still go, sir?" a Jamaican accented male asked loudly from off- mike.

Straker nodded invisibly to his listeners. "Still go. We're not going to let a little bad weather prevent us from taking advantage of this situation. That doesn't mean we have to be reckless. I want each mobile to maintain visual contact at all times. We can't afford to get lost when or if that storm breaks."

The acknowledgements were immediate. Straker rehung the mike and leaned back against his leather seat, depositing his cigarette stub in an ashtray. "That's it. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we're committed."

Relaxed before the action started and visibly enjoying himself, Freeman nodded. "Nice to hunt a Ufo that isn't hunting us back."

"I'll believe that when I see it." The Commander tugged at the collar of his heavy black sweater, releasing a strand of blond hair. "And do we need that much heat? It's a steambox in here."

"You can be jolly well grateful we've got heat at all," the other retorted, making no actual objection when Straker turned the blower down. He tapped a gauge on the panel approximately halfway between both men. "External temperature is eighteen below, winds gusting up to forty knots. Not a place I'd choose for holiday."

The inhospitable exterior did nothing to dampen the intensity with which Straker regarded the outside world. A spark of eagerness lighting his characteristically impassive face, he leaned forward, propping himself against the cool glass and staring into the heavy clouds. "We're not here for a holiday, Alec. We're here to win a war."

***