Atlantis Found

Pitt cranked the steering wheel to its stop and sharply turned the Snow Cruiser into the canyon. The cliffs rose ominously above the ravine, their height escalating until the sun's light paled the deeper they drove into the mountain. Fortunately, the twists and turns were not severe, and the Snow Cruiser was able to deftly navigate her bulk around and through them. Pitt's only worry was that they'd find nothing but a rock wall, and then have to back the vehicle through the canyon, since there was no room to turn her around. A quarter of a mile from the canyon's mouth, Pitt braked the vehicle to a stop before a solid wall of ice.

It was a dead end. Disillusionment circled their minds.

They both stepped down from the Snow Cruiser and stared at the vertical sheet of ice. Pitt peered down at the tracks that traveled up the canyon and stopped at the wall. "The plot thickens. The Sno-cat could not have backed out of here."

"Certainly not without making a second set of tracks," observed Giordino.

Pitt moved until his face was inches from the ice, cupped his hands around his eyes to block out the light, and stared. He could make out vague shadows beyond the ice barrier. "Something is in there," he said.

Giordino gazed into the ice and nodded. "Is this where somebody says, `Open Sesame'?"

"No doubt the wrong code," Pitt said pensively.

"It has to be a good three feet thick."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Giordino nodded. "I'll stay on the ground outside and cover you with my Bushmaster."

Pitt climbed back into the Snow Cruiser, shifted the gear lever into reverse, and sent the vehicle back about fifty feet, keeping the tires in the packed depressions made by the Sno-cat for better traction. He paused, grasped the wheel tightly in both hands, and burrowed down in the seat, in case the ice should crash through the windshield. Then he shifted into first and jammed the accelerator pedal flat against the floorboards. With a roar from its exhaust, the big mechanical goliath leaped forward, gathered speed, and then smashed into the frozen wall, rumbling the ground beneath Giordino's feet.

The ice exploded and shattered into a great splash of glittering fragments that showered over the red Snow Cruiser like so many glass shards from a fallen crystal chandelier. The sound of the impact came like a giant gnashing his teeth. At first, Giordino thought the vehicle might have to ram the thick, solidified ice wall several times before breaking through, but he was almost left behind as it bulldozed its way through on the first try and disappeared on the other side. He chased after it, gun cradled in his arms, like an infantryman following a tank for cover.

Once through, Pitt brought the Snow Cruiser to a halt and brushed the glass from his face and chest. A large block of ice had burst through the center windshield, narrowly missing him before it fell to the floor and shattered. His face was cut on one cheek and across the forehead. Neither gash was deep enough to require stitches, but the blood that flowed made him look as though he were badly injured. He wiped the crimson from his eyes onto his sleeve and looked to see where the Snow Cruiser had come to rest.

They were sitting inside a large-diameter ice tu

"You look bad," he said, attempting to help Pitt from the driver's seat.

Pitt gently pushed him away. "It's not nearly as bad as it looks. We can't afford time for a clinical repair. You can patch me up with that old first-aid kit in the crew cabin. In the meantime, I vote we follow the tu

Giordino knew it was senseless to contest the issue. He dropped down to the crew cabin and returned with a first-aid kit that hadn't been opened since 1940. He cleaned away the congealing blood on Pitt's face, then smeared the cuts with the antiseptic of the era, iodine, whose sharp sting had Pitt cursing in no quiet tones. Then he dressed the skin cuts. "Another life saved by the capable hands of Dr. Giordino, surgeon of the Antarctic."

Pitt looked into the face that was reflected in a side-view mirror. There was enough gauze and tape to cover a brain transplant. "What did you do?" he asked sourly. "I look like a mummy."

Giordino feigned a hurt look. "Aesthetics is not one of my strong points."

"Neither is medicine."

Pitt gu

"What do you make of that?" he said, pointing to the pipe.

Giordino stepped from the Snow Cruiser, squeezed himself between the front tire and the pipe, and laid his hands on it. "Not an electrical conduit," he a

"If it's what I think it is…" Pitt's voice dropped portentously.

"Part of the mechanism to break loose the ice shelf," said Giordino, finishing his friend's train of thought.

Pitt stuck his head out his window and stared back into the long tu

"An inconceivable feat of engineering to bore a tu

"Inconceivable or not," said Pitt, "the Wolfs did it. You must remember, it's much easier to bore a tu

"What if we cut a gap in the line and stop whatever activation system they've created to split off the ice shelf?" asked Giordino.

"A break might trigger it prematurely," answered Pitt. "We can't take the chance unless we find ourselves left with no other alternative. Only then can we risk dividing the line."

The tu

While Pitt focused on keeping the Snow Cruiser from brushing against the unsympathetic ice, Giordino sat in the passenger seat, his rifle propped on one knee, eyes fastened as far as the headlights could throw their beams, watching for a sign of movement or any object other than the seemingly unending pipe with its intersecting tubes that ran down into the floor and through the roof of the tu

The ominous fact that the tu