The frame was stuck tight. "We need the pulser," said Henry.

Richard touched his arm. "I don't think we want a beam anywhere near it."

It was large, almost two meters long, maybe half as wide. Sandy and Richard tried to pry it loose.

It did not give.

"This is not going to work," Sandy said. "Even if we get it out, it's too big to take back up the tunnel." She looked at it in the lamplight. "How about just taking the chases?"

"Why the chases?"

Maggie's voice crackled. "Because that's where the type is set."

Hutch broke in. "It's about to get wet up here. If you're planning on leaving, this would be a good time."

Henry measured the chases with his hands. "We'll still need to widen the exit," he said.

"How about just taking a good set of holos?" George suggested.

"No help," said Maggie. "We need the chases. And we need the type. We're going to have to do a major restoration if we're ever going to read those."

Henry was playing his light around the room. "Should be some type trays around somewhere."

"Forget it." Richard tugged at the chases. "Sandy's right. Let's make do with what we've got."

"If there's more type down there," said Maggie, "it would be nice to have it. The type in the chases will be pretty far gone."

"Goddammit, Maggie," Hutch exploded. "You want the type, go down and get it yourself."

The common channel went silent.

"Okay, let's do it," said Henry. "Cut it. We've no time to be particular." The particle beam ignited.

George cut with a will. He broke the press apart and dragged the chases free.

"Sandy," said Henry, "get to the top of the shaft and be ready to haul when we're clear of the tunnel. Richard, why don't you go up and give Hutch a hand? No point in your hanging around."

"You'll need help with these things," he said. "I'll wait."

Henry nodded. "Okay." He checked the time. "We can manage it."

"Hurry up," said Maggie. Henry remembered an incident years before when a football had rolled onto an ice-covered lake and the older boys had sent him out to recover it. Hurry up and throw it in, they'd cried, before you fall through.

0935 hours.

The tide sucked at the Tower. There were a couple of icebergs on the horizon. The coastal peaks glittered in the sunlight.

Hutch, angry, close to tears, swung the winch out, hooked a ten-pound ring weight to the cable, and punched the button. The ring fell into the sea, followed by fifteen meters of line. The shuttles lay side by side in the water. Carson stood on Alpha's wing, rocking gently with the motion of the waves. "This is crazy," he said. "I can't believe this is happening."

It was a gorgeous day, clear and gold. The hour before the end of the world.

Four of Quraqua's flying creatures, animals that resembled manta rays, flowed in formation through the sky, headed north.

"Maybe," he said, "we should talk to Kosmik."

Hutch stared at the cable.

Inside the military chapel, George, Richard, and Henry had completed their work and started down the tunnel at last.

Kosmik Station. 0945 hours.

Truscott stood behind Harvey Sill with her arms folded. Her face was dark with anger. "Any progress yet?" she demanded.

"Negative." Harvey pressed his earphones tight. "They're still on the surface."

"Can you tell what's happening?"

"They're in the tunnels. That pilot, what's-her-name, is pretty upset. She's got something going for her, that one. But I don't know what it's about. It's even possible this stuff is all prerecorded to drive us nuts."

"You've gotten paranoid, Harvey. Have you asked them what their situation is?"

Sill shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I thought it would encourage them if they thought we were worried."

Truscott was beginning to feel old. "Harvey, get them on the line."

"Might not have to. Incoming from the Wink shuttle." He put it on visual. "Go ahead, Alpha."

The woman pilot looked down at him. "We've got an emergency, Kosmik. Please let me speak with Dr. Truscott."

The director stepped forward. "I'm here. What's the problem?"

"We still have people in the tunnels. They aren't going to make it out before the deadline."

"Why not?" Truscott bit off the words, like pieces of ice.

"They were trying to finish up. Sorry. I don't have control over this. Can you delay the firing?"

Truscott let her hang a moment. "How long?"

"An hour," Hutch said. She sounded desperate. "One hour."

"You have any idea how much trouble this makes for us? What it costs?"

"Please," said Hutch. Her eyes were wet and red. "If you go ahead, you'll kill them."

She let the pilot see her contempt. "One hour," she said, finally. "And that's it."

Hutch nodded, and looked relieved. "Thanks."

When the link had been broken, Sill said evenly, "That's a mistake."

"We'll argue about it later. Get the word out. Tell everyone to stand down. One hour."

Kosmik Ground Control South, Aloft. Friday; 0954 hours.

The first white lamp lit. The nuclear weapon at Delta Point had just armed.

lan Helm sat in the right-hand seat of his shuttle. No clouds obscured his view. The south polar ice sheet spread out below him, from the ridges along the Koranda Border, which masked the line of the northernmost volcanoes, to Dillman Harbor, where they'd set up the first base camp two years ago. He remembered standing in that great silence, cold even through the Flickinger field because his heating unit had malfunctioned, warmed rather by the exhilaration of the moment, by the knowledge that he would one day annihilate this ice continent, melt its mountains and its foothills, fill its valleys and rills with steam and rain. In a single glorious sequence, he would convert this wasteland into the stuff of regeneration. No one would ever really give him credit, of course. Caseway and Truscott would take all of that. And they deserved it; he didn't begrudge them their due. He was satisfied that the design was his. And the finger on the detonator.

"lan." A green light flashed on the instrument panel. "Sill's on the circuit. Wants to talk."

The blue and white glare from icecap and ocean hurt his eyes. Helm looked at his pilot. "Jane," he said, "do we have a disconnect?"

She frowned. "Just pull the plug."

He yanked it out. "Let everybody know that we're worried about the possibility of bogus instructions. Set up a code word. No one is to accept a transmission without it."

"What code word?"

He thought briefly. "Fidelity." Jane looked troubled. "I'll put it in writing."

"Truscott won't be happy."

"I'm saving her from herself," he said.

Two more lamps blinked on. One at Little Kiska close to the pole, and the other at Slash Basil inside a volcano.

"Eventually, she'll thank me."

LIBRARY ENTRIES

The velocity of a tsunami equals the square root of gravitational acceleration times the depth of the water. Depths in the ocean surrounding the southern icecap on Quraqua are relatively modest; the velocity of the wave could be expected to diminish in the narrow confines of the Yakata. Calculation shows that a major tsunami, traveling at the unlikely average speed of 850 kilometers per hour, could not reach the Temple within four hours. At WOO hours, Jacobi was correct in believing he still had a substantial safety margin from waves originating at the ice pack.

However, in their concern about tsunamis, the Academy team overlooked a more immediate danger: shock waves triggered by the collapse of the ice pack would travel at 7.1 kilometers per second, arriving at the Temple area in about six minutes.

A major fault, running east to west across the Yakata, would react to the shock waves by triggering a seismic response. This secondary earthquake would almost certainly generate sea waves. It was these waves which struck the coastline approximately eleven minutes after the initial detonation.