He grabbed Kinsman around the ribs and lifted him off the ground.

"Hey, Pete, whoa!" Kinsman laughed.

With his bare feet on the grass again, Kinsman said, "I was afraid you wouldn't be coming."

"What? Miss the birthday celebration of my fellow Lunik? My friend?"

Nodding toward the two women, Kinsman said, "You seem to have a few friends of your own."

"Hah! Secret police. They have come to spy on you and keep an eye on me."

The women smiled and tried not to look uncomfortable.

I wonder how much truth there is to what Pete's saying? Kinsman asked himself. Is he trying to warn me about something?

Time was almost meaningless in Antarctica. It was daylight. It had been so since September and would continue to be so until March.

The coldest air on Earth settles atop the mile-high plateau that rims the South Pole. Dense, frigid, this high- pressure air spills down the plateau walls like an invisible waterfall. Invisible, but palpable, audible. It howls across the glaciers and snowfields with gale force, driving blizzards whenever there is moisture aloft.

This day the sky was clear, the air utterly dry. Still 304

Lieutenant Commander Richards shivered inside his electri- cally heated parka. The wind cut through the hooded suit with remorseless indifference.

Richards stood outside the big crawler, mentally count- ing the days until he would be relieved of duty and on his way back to civilization. Like most of the men who served under him—scientists and Navy alike—he had grown a shaggy beard during his months in Antarctica. Now it was flecked with ice, condensed and frozen from the moisture of his own labored breath.

One of the enlisted men slowly approached him, so heavily muffled in his parka and hood that Richards could not identify him until he was only a few paces away. Even then his goggles hid most of his face.

"Sir, the scientists say we're right on top of a big deposit. Scintillation signals are very strong and getting stronger as we head northwest."

Richards nodded. "Very good. Can we track the signals from the crawler, or do we have to stay on foot?"

"Looks like they wanna stay on foot, sir. They're picking up rocks and jabbering among themselves."

Inside his hood Richards scowled. "Damnation. I'm going inside to make a radio check."

Richards watched the sailor trudge back to the group of geologists clustered around a big rock outcrop, bending or kneeling like fur-wrapped pilgrims who had finally arrived at their shrine.

The valley was dead dry, one of those strange Antarctic deserts. No snow, no vegetation of any kind, not even soil. Nothing but rocks and gravel and more rocks. Some scientists had said the area was like the planet Mars, and suggested that astronauts bound for that distant planet could do their training here. White-topped mountains glistened all around them in the howling wind, poking their sparkling peaks into the painfully bright sky. But here in this bone-bare valley there was no water, not even frozen. No life of any kind. Except the duty-driven Americans, searching for coal depos- its to feed the voracious cities back home.

Slowly, stiff with cold, Richards walked back to the crawler. His boots crunched on pebbles. The metal rung of the ladder felt burning cold even through his heavy gloves. 305

He clambered up and pushed through the hatch, into the rear compartment of the mammoth vehicle.

Warmth. Glorious soaking thawing warmth. He pulled off the gloves and pushed down his hood and reveled in its glow. It took half an hour and several cups of coffee before Richards began to feel human again. He sat alone in the driver's cab, parka off, boots planted directly in front of the heater outlet. He finished his radio check with McMurdo and settled back in the big padded driver's seat. He could watch the geologists from here.

Suddenly they all gathered together in a tight knot. Richards sat up straight and watched through the bulging bug-eyed windshield of the crawler. They were pointing at something and talking animatedly about it- Heatedly. Arms waving and gesticulating. One of them pointed to the crawler and then off to the sawtoothed horizon. He detached himself and sprinted for the crawler.

Puzzled, Richards pulled himself out of the seat and ducked through the hatch into the rear compartment, where the bunks and galley and worktables were. The outside hatch opened, letting in a slug of frigid air. The man was the same sailor who had spoken to Richards before. Pushing his goggles up to reveal bloodshot wide eyes, he said excitedly, "Sir, they've found a marker out there! Made of metal. Russian writing on it."