"Did you see the size of that pit from the air?" Dr. Wendell asked the other geologist. "Its radius is almost a kilometer, and G.o.d knows how deep it is!"
The Norwegian nodded, but said nothing. Dr. Wendell rambled on. "I was here when it began to open. The phenomenon was quite rapid. It swallowed Dyer camp in minutes. The pit seems bottomless, but can"t be more than three kilometers deep - "
"It is far deeper than that," the mysterious Dr. Birchwood said cryptically.
"So you"re a geologist, then?" Dr. Wendell pointedly asked the thin scientist who stumbled across the ice field at his side.
"I think this conversation had better wait until we"re all comfortable," Toby Nelson warned, glancing at some of the other men from McMurdo. They had stopped their work and were watching the newcomers with mounting curiosity.
Finally, Dr. Wendell pulled aside a flap to reveal a door set into the wall of the thermal tent. All the men stepped through to the structure"s surprisingly comfortable - and surprisingly warm - interior. After the men loosened their parkas, Dr. Thorsen proceeded to boot up Dr. Wendell"s computer. The geologist looked on, annoyed that the man was handling his equipment.
"There is something I want you to see before we continue our discussion, Dr. Wendell," Toby Nelson announced, looking at the computer screen over the Norwegian geologist"s shoulder. Everyone watched in silence as Thorsen inserted a disk into the computer"s drive and activated the data.
"At my base near the Bellingshausen Sea, we have pioneered a process of creating three-dimensional images of the Earth"s interior," said the Norwegian, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Three-dimensional imaging helps us find underground fields of oil, and clues us in on just how hard that oil would be to retrieve. It is a very useful and very accurate procedure."
Finally, a Petramco logo appeared on the screen, and they were into the program.
"Six days ago, we began to pick up strange seismic vibrations, as if something was moving through the Earth"s crust," Dr. Thorsen continued.
The bearded Norwegian ceased typing for a moment. "I believe you picked up those same vibrations a few days ago," he said to Dr. Wendell, who nodded in reply.
"My computers stored all the data from the seismic event, and, with the help of our imaging system, I was able to create a computer-generated picture of what was moving underground."
"An image?" Dr. Wendell exclaimed skeptically. "A picture of an earthquake?"
"Not an earthquake, Dr. Wendell," the Norwegian replied. Then he tapped several keys.
A map of Antarctica appeared on the screen. A red line traced the movement of the tectonic activity from its point of origin - the pit outside - to the point where the object moved out of range of Dr. Thorsen"s seismic monitors. The movement went under the South Pole, across the other side of the Antarctic continent, and under the Bellingshausen Sea.
"What is it?" Dr. Wendell asked finally.
Toby Nelson stepped in front of the Norwegian. "Before he answers you, doctor, I have to ask that you keep what you are about to learn to yourself for the time being."
Dr. Wendell, now thoroughly perplexed, nodded. Then he repeated his question to Dr. Thorsen.
The Norwegian geologist tapped a few more keys. "This is what my three-dimensional imaging system came up with," he announced.
Dr. Wendell"s jaw dropped when he saw the image on the computer monitor. At first the shape looked like a rocket ship, but as the computer program moved around the object, more details emerged.
"It looks like some kind of creature," Dr. Wendell exclaimed. "A living thing!"
"It is a living thing," Dr. Max Birchwood replied.
Dr. Stanley Wendell turned and faced the thin man. "You"re not a geologist, are you?" he stated.
"No, sir, I am not," the other man replied, smiling. "I"m a kaijuologist."
"A kaijuologist!" Wendell cried, fully aware of the meaning of the name for one of the youngest sciences. "Then you study -"
"That"s right, doctor," Birchwood interrupted. "I study monsters."
For a moment, everyone in the tent was silent. Then Dr. Wendell pointed to the computer screen again.
"Where is that thing going?" he asked. Dr. Birchwood shook his head.
"I don"t know where it"s going," he answered solemnly. "But I know where it is."
The kaijuologist glanced at his watch. "Right about now, if its course and speed have remained the same, the creature is somewhere under the Andes Mountains."
In the Peruvian Andes ...
The two enemy scouts who were carrying AK-47s dropped like rag dolls under a hail of bullets fired from the Peruvian regulars waiting in ambush. The third scout, who had been clutching the RPD, died harder. His body was held erect for a few seconds as round after round struck him. The man"s body jerked from the impact, and he finally dropped the machine gun. Then he simply fell to the ground in a tattered heap.
Machine guns raked the ranks of the terrorists as they ran across the floor of the valley, searching for cover. Most of them dropped instantly, ripped apart by the merciless firepower. A few of them managed to return fire as they took cover.
Finally, several terrorists found sanctuary behind the stone ruins at the opposite end of the valley. It was then that Colonel Torres detonated the Claymore mines he had planted behind those ancient stones for just such an event.
With an ear-shattering blast, the mines exploded. Most of the remaining terrorists were killed in the explosion. One of the men staggered out from behind the rocks, his hands in the air.
Colonel Torres raised his handgun and shot the man in the head.
Sean Brennan felt sick. He"d seen dead men since arriving in Peru, but it was usually long after the battle. He never actually saw people die before - not like this. These men were shot like fish in a barrel.
For a moment, Brennan forgot the victims of their terrorism and felt pity for the men being slaughtered in the valley. But then - suddenly - the rock in front of his goggles exploded. Dust and shards of rock covered his face as bullets ricocheted around him and his friends.
Then Sean heard a sound like a watermelon being struck by a hammer. Turning, he saw Corporal Franks drop to the ground, gasping as if he"d been punched in the gut. Bob Bodusky leaped to the fallen man"s side.
Then Brennan focused his night-vision goggles on the ridge above his men. In the darkness, he could see the heat images of several terrorists, shooting down at the Americans from the ridge above them. Through the night-vision goggles, the flashes from the muzzles of their guns looked like bright explosions.
Brennan immediately grasped the situation. It looked as if two groups of terrorists were moving into the valley at the same time, perhaps for a meeting. And the groups were coming from two different directions.
Now one group of terrorists was above the American soldiers, raking their lines with gunfire.
For a moment, the raw recruits panicked. Their squad leader was down, and Colonel Briteis was with the Peruvians. They suddenly realized there was no one among them to give orders.
Sensing what had to be done, Sean Brennan mastered his fear, lifted his M-16, and squeezed the trigger. A second later, one of the figures on the cliffs above them dropped to the ground, his AK-47 falling from dead fingers. The other terrorists on the ridge above scrambled for cover.
"Rocco!" Sean cried, pointing at the cliff. "Blast them!"
"Right!" Johnny Rocco cried. The private quickly lifted the muzzle of his powerful M-60 light machine gun and turned around to face the threat at the squad"s rear. Aiming carefully, he began raking the ridge with gunfire.
Sean Brennan saw two more men fall from their perch above them. The rest disappeared over the edge of the ridge.
"Cirelli! Guyson!" Brennan ordered. "Circle around the hill and hit them from behind ... and don"t let any of them get away!"
Instantly, the two privates ran off to obey Brennan"s commands.
Down in the valley, the shooting behind him caught the attention of Colonel Torres. His men were still mopping up in the valley, however, and so he did not join the battle on the ridge. Torres figured that the Americans could handle the rearguard action. Colonel Bright Eyes had a different reaction. He turned and ran up the hill toward his soldiers, ducking behind stone ruins and hugging the ground the whole way.
By the time the officer reached his troops, the battle was over. The terrorists who had tried to ambush the ambushers were all dead or heading for the hills with Cirelli and Guyson in pursuit. Brennan and Colonel Briteis heard the bark of distant gunfire - M-l6s - and then silence. A few minutes later, Cirelli and Guyson returned. They had snuffed two more fleeing terrorists.
"Medic! Medic!" Bob Bodusky cried as he crouched over the fallen form of Corporal Franks. But just as a Peruvian medic rushed up the hill to aid the wounded American, the ground began to tremble. Soon the hills were shaking, and rocks and dirt were raining down on the soldiers from the cliffs above.
Sean Brennan dropped to the ground as the earthquake continued to roll the ground underneath him, shaking the very earth beneath all of their feet.
In Wilkes Land ...
With the exception of Dr. Thorsen, the team that had arrived on the orange Chinook helicopter departed an hour after they arrived - just as soon as the helo was refueled and serviced. Dr. Wendell tried to get more information about the thing detected moving underground, but Dr. Birchwood, the kaijuologist, was not exactly forthcoming with the facts.
Dr. Thorsen tried to be helpful, running his computer model several times for Dr. Wendell to study. But in the end the American geologist was more puzzled than ever.
"This is all too much to absorb," Dr. Wendell complained. "When I was younger, science made sense. Nowadays ..." His voice trailed off as he threw up his arms in exasperation.
"It is a new age, Dr. Wendell," Dr. Thorsen announced gravely. "An age of monsters -"
The Norwegian geologist"s thought was cut short as the ice beneath the tent began to tremble. The tremor lasted only a few seconds, but it was long enough to unnerve the two scientists.
Just then, the flap to Dr. Wendell"s tent was flung open.
"Dr. Wendell!" cried a technician from the video tent. "Come quick! Something is moving down in the pit."
The two men zipped their parkas and ran from the tent.
The camp was already in chaos when the tremors began anew. Men were moving quickly away from the abyss, and the edges of the pit were crumbling even more. Each section of ice that dropped into the hole widened the pit even more.
"I think we"d better move the camp!" Dr. Wendell cried as he watched the rope fence around the hole being swallowed - along with several cameras on tripods that had been positioned around the pit.
As the tremors continued, the American geologist grabbed Dr. Thorsen by the shoulder. "Come with me!" he cried, leading the Norwegian to another tent that was surrounded by a cl.u.s.ter of communications antennas.
Bursting into the tent, Dr. Thorsen saw a technician sitting at a control panel. Above the man was a bank of large color television monitors. They were all filled with static.
"Are the cameras still working?" Dr. Wendell demanded. The man nodded his head excitedly.
"The power line was temporarily cut," the technician answered. "I"m just getting the electronic system back on-line now."
A moment later, the monitors sprang to life.
The three men gasped in awe and shock when the cameras revealed what was moving deep inside the abyss.
"Get on the radio and call McMurdo," Dr. Wendell commanded the technician. "I"ve got to report this."
As the technician tried to raise their home base, Dr. Thorsen and Dr. Wendell gazed at the thing inside the abyss.
"It"s like a nightmare come true," Dr. Thorsen muttered. "Such a thing should not be alive."
"And it came out of the same pit as the other creature," Dr. Wendell added.
"I"ve got McMurdo!" the technician cried, thrusting the microphone into Dr. Wendell"s trembling hand. The scientist took the mike and began to speak in an even, professional tone.
"There is something inside the pit," he reported after identifying himself and ordering the technician to record the conversation.
"It is, as far as I can make out, a living creature," Dr. Wendell said into the microphone. "The thing is moving upward - I"m not sure how - but it looks as if it is flying. I estimate that in about ten seconds it will break the surface."
When the technician heard that, he paled, but remained at his control board.
"The creature is light blue in color, with golden scales running down its belly. It has a beak for a mouth, and that beak has metallic-looking spikes on either side of it.
"The creature has only one red eye, which runs across its entire face. It has curved claws on the end of its arms. There are wings, too, on the creature"s back."
Outside the tent, Dr. Wendell could hear the panicked voices of the other men in the camp. The earth began to quake more violently. Suddenly, a shrill, almost mechanical cry cut through the Antarctic day.
Dr. Wendell stepped closer to the door, peering outside as he continued to file his radio report.
"The creature is making a terrible noise, like an electronic squawk. The sound is quite piercing."
The ground began to roll violently, and Dr. Thorsen was dashed to the floor of the tent. Dr. Wendell gripped the edge of the door and continued to speak in a cool, professional voice.
"The thing is near the surface. It"s coming up now."
Back at McMurdo, a radio technician and two other men listened to the scientist"s report with mounting anxiety. Secretly, Dr. Birchwood and Tobias Nelson felt that he and the rest of the men at the pit were doomed.
Fortunately, the conversation was being taped, and Dr. Max Birchwood was enough of a scientist not to interrupt the flow of information. As they listened, Dr. Wendell continued to speak.
"It is moving to the surface!" Dr. Wendell announced, his electronically distorted voice finally showing some sign of the tension he no doubt felt.
"The creature seems very large. The ground is trembling more violently now. I don"t know how much longer I can maintain this radio link -"
Then the three men in the radio room heard the shrill cry of the creature Dr. Wendell was describing. The sound, even transmitted over hundreds of miles by radio, was truly terrifying and utterly unearthly.
"It is coming up now ... Almost to the surface ... Oh, my G.o.d!" Dr. Wendell cried as fear and horror overwhelmed him.
"It"s ... it"s gigan -"
Then Dr. Wendell"s radio went dead.
9.
THE WAR AGAINST HUMANITY.