Pat set down her cup. "The primitive people of the Earth were so badly decimated and fragmented, they kept no record of their activities for thousands of years. Except for the inscriptions by the Amenes, most of which were lost or buried, the only memories of the cataclysm that were passed down came by word of mouth. Only after the early Egyptians, the Sumerians, and the Indus civilization of India reinvented the written language did records and stories of the deluge begin to spread."

"Who knows what cities," said Pitt, "what palaces with their archaeological treasures lie scattered on the deep seafloor or buried under hundreds of feet of silt and rock? Except for the inscriptions left by the Amenes, we have no way of assessing the splendor of the distant past before civilizations began rebuilding themselves."

Friend had remained silent while each member of the group envisioned the nightmare. He let his eyes rove around the sitting area inside the command truck, curiously observing the expressions of abhorrence in their eyes. Only Pitt's eyes seemed to be composed. It was as if he was contemplating something much different, something far off in the distance.

"And thus ends the cataclysm," said Sandecker morosely.

Friend slowly shook his head. "I haven't yet come to the worst part," he said, his earlier smile gone. "Only in the past few years have scientists come to realize the major upheavals Earth has experienced in the past, with and without influence by objects from outer space. We know now that a significant impact by a large comet or asteroid has the capability to cause the earth's crust to shift. Charles Hapgood put forth the theory that because it literally floats on an inner molten core, the crust or shell, which is only twenty to forty miles thick, can and has rotated around the core's axis, causing great extremes in climate and the movement of the continents. It's called earth crust displacement, and its consequences can be catastrophic. At first, Hapgood's theory was laughed at by other Earth scientists. Then Albert Einstein focused his intellect on it and ended up agreeing with Hapgood."

"Sort of like the coating of Teflon around a soccer ball," suggested Yaeger.

"The same principle," Friend acknowledged. "Our computer simulation suggested that the impact exerted enough pressure to move the crust. The result was that some continents, islands, and other landmasses shifted closer to the equator, while others shifted farther away. The movement also caused the North and South Poles to shift from their former positions into warmer climates, unleashing trillions of tons of water that raised the surface of the oceans over almost four hundred feet. To give you an example, before the deluge, a man or woman could have walked from London across the English Channel to France without getting their feet wet.

"In the end, the whole world was rearranged. The North Pole that was in the center of Canada was now far to the north in what is now known as the Arctic Sea. Siberia also shifted north in an incredibly short time span, as evidenced by fruit trees with leaves and woolly mammoths that were found quick-frozen, with vegetation undigested in their stomachs that no longer grew within a thousand miles of that location. Because North America and most of Europe revolved south, the great ice age abruptly ended. Antarctica also shifted south, nearly two thousand miles from the region it had once occupied in the southern sea between the lower portions of South America and Africa."

"Was Earth's orbit affected?" Yaeger asked.

"No, the orbit remained on its present track around the sun. Nor was the Earth's axis altered. The equator remained where it had been since the beginning. The four seasons came and went as always. Only the face of the globe had changed."

"That explains a great deal," said Pitt, "such as how the Amenes could draw a map of Antarctica without its ice mass."

"And their city under the ice that the Germans discovered," said Pat. "Its climate was habitable before the shift."

"What about the Earth's axis of rotation?" queried Giordino. "Would that change?"

Friend shook his head. "Earth's tilt of twenty-three point four degrees would remain constant. The equator would also remain constant. Only the crust above the fluid core would move."

Sandecker said, "If we could get back to the comet for a moment, it's time for you to answer Dirk's question. Were the Amenes and the Wolf family right in predicting a cataclysmic collision with the twin of the comet that struck earth in seven thousand B.C.?"

"May I have another cup of coffee?" Friend asked.

"Certainly," said Loren, pouring from the pot on the center table.

Friend took a few sips and set the cup down. "Now, then, before I answer your question, Admiral, I'd like to describe briefly the new Asteroid and Comet Attack Alert System, which came online just last year. A number of telescope facilities and specially designed instruments have been set up in different areas of the world for the express purpose of discovering asteroids and comets whose orbits approach Earth. Already, astronomers manning the facilities have discovered over forty asteroids that will come unpleasantly close to Earth at some point within its orbit. But detailed calculations reveal that they will all miss by a comfortable margin in the years ahead."

"Have they known about the approach of the second comet," said Loren in dismay, "and suppressed any warning of the threat?"

"No," said Friend. "Though the astronomers agreed to keep news of such possible encounters secret for forty-eight hours, until computer projections could definitely say a collision was imminent. Only when they are certain a collision is imminent would news of the discovery be made public."

"So what you are saying-" said Yaeger.

"Is that there is no emergency."

Pitt looked at Friend. "Come again."

"The event in seven thousand B.C.," explained Friend, "was a million-to-one chance occurrence. The comet that struck Earth, and the comet that arrived a few days later and missed, were not twins. They were separate objects in different orbits that happened to cross paths with Earth at almost the same time. An incredible coincidence, nothing more."

"How soon is the second comet due to return?" Pitt inquired warily.

Friend thought a moment, then said, "Our best guess is that it will fly by no closer than eight hundred thousand miles from us- in another ten thousand years."

There came several moments of stunned silence, as perplexity flooded the minds of the people seated around Dr. Friend. Pitt swore softly under his breath. He stared steadily at Friend, as if attempting to read something in the astronomer's eyes, an uncertainty maybe, but there was none.

"The comet-" he began.

"Its name is Baldwin, after the amateur astronomer who rediscovered it," Friend interrupted.

"You say the Murphy comet and the second comet that the Amenes recorded are one and the same?"

Friend nodded vigorously. "No doubt about it. Calculations confirm that its orbit coincided with the comet that caused the cataclysm of seven thousand B.C."

Pitt glanced at Sandecker and Pat, then back to Friend. "There can be no mistake?"

Friend shrugged. "A margin of error of perhaps two hundred years, but certainly no more. The only other large object to enter Earth's atmosphere in recorded history was the one that flattened those eight hundred square miles in Siberia. Only now are astronomers beginning to believe that, instead of a colossal impact, it was actually a near miss."