Avp 2004 9

Lex and Miller heard shouts as they emerged from the frozen mess hall. "Over here! You're not going to believe this." It was Sebastian calling. Hearing him, Quinn and his partner Connors dropped what they were doing. Weyland hurried forward, too, with Max Stafford at his side. Lex's gaze followed the billionaire as he moved across the snow-covered ice. He was moving with some difficulty, she noted. He seemed breathless and was leaning heavily on his ice pole. Yet when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its forcefulness. "What is this, Dr. De Rosa?" Sebastian led all of them around the corner of a dilapidated processing factory and pointed. There, in the ice, was a gaping hole ten feet across. The pit was perfectly round, and if there was a bottom, it was lost in the shadows far below. Perplexed, Weyland looked at Quinn, then at the mobile drilling platforms that were still being unpacked and assembled.

"How the hell did this get here?" Quinn crouched on one knee and examined the pit. "It's drilled at a perfect fifty-five-degree angle." He pulled off his bulky glove and ran his hand along the sides of the shaft. The icy walls were perfectly smooth-almost slick to the touch. Lex peered over Quinn's shoulder. "How far down does it go?" Sven ignited a flare and tossed it into the pit. They watched it bounce off the smooth walls and fall for many seconds, until the flare's phosphorescent brilliance was swallowed by the dark. "My God," Weyland said softly. Max Stafford looked at Dr. De Rosa. "Are we expected?" Weyland dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. "It must be another team. I'm not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Maybe the Chinese ...the Russians ..." "I'm not so sure," said Lex, staring into the abyss. "What other explanation could there be?" Weyland insisted. Lex looked around at the ghost town and the barren glacial ice fields all around it. "Where is their base camp? Their equipment? And where are they?" Max Stafford shrugged. "Maybe they are already down there." Once again Quinn crouched down to examine the mouth of the shaft. "Look at the ice. There are no ridges, no bore marks.

The walls are perfectly smooth-this wasn't drilled." "How was it done?" asked Lex. Quinn looked up at Lex. "Thermal equipment of some kind." Weyland nodded. "Like yours." "More advanced," Quinn replied. "Incredibly powerful. I've never seen anything like it." Quinn activated his flashlight and turned its beam on a building close to the pit. A large circular hole had been cut into the structure, vaporizing the stout wooden walls and melting the metal machinery inside the building. It was clear from the trajectory that whatever had cut through the ice had also sliced through the structure. "I told you I'm not the only one with a satellite. It must be another team," said Weyland. He glanced at Quinn. "Whoever it is, they clearly have better equipment than we do." "Listen," Quinn replied, standing up to the billionaire. "Whoever cut this, sliced through pack ice, the building, the beams and the solid metal machinery. We should find out what cut this before we proceed." Max Stafford locked eyes with Quinn. "And I thought you were the best." Quinn bristled. He rose, squarely challenging Stafford. "I am the best," he said. Weyland stepped past Quinn and stared into the pit. "They must be down there." Lex examined the ice at the mouth of the hole. "No. Look at the ice. There's no ridges ... nobody's been down there."-Chpt.11 pgs.104-105-106