Gronquist shouted something, but the words were cut off as the flat side of a runner unerringly caught him on the shoulder, knocking him off the snowmobile. He was thrown in a wide arc like a demolition ball about to smash a wall. The hood of his coat was jerked back and the ice rose up and struck his unprotected head.

Lily's arms were torn from around Gronquist's waist as he vanished into the darkness. She thought she might be thrown clear. The sled missed her, crashing to a stop a few meters away, but the snowmobile had other ideas. Without Gronquist's hands on the clutch lever and throttle, it came to a stop, teetering precariously at a forty-five-degree angle, engine popping at idle.

It hung there for a brief moment, and then slowly heeled over to one side, falling on Lily's legs from her hips down and pinning her helplessly against the ice sheet.

Hoskins and Graham were not immediately aware of the accident behind them, but they were about to run into a disaster of their own. After covering another two hundred meters, Graham turned, more out of curiosity than intuition, to check how far they had outdistanced Lily and Gronquist. He was surprised to see their light hewn far to the rear, stationary and pointing downward.

He pounded Hoskins's shoulder and shouted in his ear, "I think something's happened to the others."

It had been Hoskins's original intention to find the depression in the ice carved by the plane after it touched down and then follow it to the final crash site. His eyes were straining to penetrate the gloom beyond when Graham interrupted his concentration.

The words came indistinct over the growl of the snowmobile's exhaust. He twisted his head and shouted back at Graham.

"I can't hear you."

"Something's wrong."

Hoskins nodded in understanding and refocused his attention on the terrain ahead. The distraction was to cost them. Too late, he glimpsed one of the troughs gouged by the landing gear almost as he was on it.

The snowmobile flew over the two-meter opening in the ice and became airborne. The weight of the two riders forced the nose to dip down and it collided against the opposite wall with a sharp crack like the blast of a pistol. Fortunately for Hoskins and Graham, they were pitched over the edge and onto the ice surface, their bodies tumbling crazily as if they were cottonstuffed dolls thrown across a waxed floor.

Thirty seconds later a stunned Graham, moving like a ninety-year-old man, stiffly lifted himself to his hands and knees. He sat there dazed, not fully aware of how he got there. He heard a strange hissing sound and looked around.

Hoskins was sitting in an upright position, doubled up in agony with both hands tightly pressed against his groin. He was sucking and exhaling air through clenched teeth while rocking back and forth.

Graham removed his outer mitten and lightly touched his nose, It didn't feel broken, but blood was flowing from the nostrils, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. A series of stretches indicated all joints were still mobile, all limbs in place. Not too surprising, considering the heavy padding of his clothing. He crawled over to Hoskins, whose tortured hissing had become a string of mournful groans.

"What happened?" Graham asked, regreuing such a stupid question the instant he uttered it.

"We hit a gash furrowed in the ice by the aircraft," Hoskins managed between groans. "Jesus, I think I've been castrated."

"Let me have a look." Graham pried away the hands and unzipped the front of Hoskins's jumpsuit. He took a flashlight from a pocket and pushed the switch. He could not suppress a smile. "Your wife will need another excuse to dump you. There's no sign of blood. Your sex life is secure."

"Where's Lily . . . and Gronquist?" Hoskins asked haltingly.

"About two hundred meters back. We've got to make our way around the ice opening and check out their situation."

Hoskins rose painfully to his feet and hobbled to the edge of the ice break. Amazingly, the snowmobile's headlamp was still burning, its dim glow playing on the bottom of the flord while backlighting the bubbles that traveled up six meters to the surface. Graham walked over and peered down. Then they looked at each other.

"As lifesavers," said Hoskins dejectedly, "we'd better stick with archaeology-"

"Quiet!" Graham snapped suddenly. He cupped his mittens to his ears and turned from side to side like a radar dish. Then he stopped and pointed excitedly at flashing lights in the distance. "Hot damn!" he shouted.

"There's a helicopter coming up the fjord."

Lily floated in and out of reality.

She could not understand why it became increasingly difficult for her to think straight. She lifted her head and looked around for Gronquist. He lay unmoving several meters away. She shouted, desperately trying to get a response, but he lay as though dead. She gave up and gradually entered a halfdream world as her legs lost all sensation of feeling.

Only when she began to shiver did Lily realize she was in a mild state of shock.

She was certain Graham and Hoskins would return any moment, but the moments soon grew into painful minutes, and they did not show. She felt very tired and was about to gratefully slip away into sleep when she heard a strange thumping sound approaching from overhead. Then a dazzling light cut the dark sky and blinded her eyes. Loose snow was kicked up by a sudden windstorm and swept around her. The thumping sound died in intensity and a vague figure, encircled by the light, came toward her.

The figure became a man in a heavy fur parka who immediately summed up the situation, took a strong - grip on the snowmobile and heaved it off her legs to an upright position.

He walked around her until the light illuminated his face. Lily's eyes weren't focusing as they should but they stared into a pair of sparkling green eyes that took her breath away. They seemed to reflect hardness, gentleness and sincere concern in one glinting montage. They narrowed a fraction when he saw that she was a woman. She wondered dizzily where he came from.

Lily couldn't think of anything to say except, "Oh, am I ever glad to see you."

"Name's Dirk Pitt," answered a warm voice. "If you're not busy, why don't you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Lily looked up at Pitt, trying to read him, not sure she had heard him correctly. "I may not be up to it."

He pushed back the hood of his parka and ran his hands up and down her legs. He gently squeezed her ankles. "No apparent breaks or swelling,"

he said in a friendly voice. "Are you in pain?"

"I'm too cold to hurt."

Pitt retrieved a pair of blankets that had been pitched from the sled d you get here?"

he asked her.

"I'm one of a team of archaeologists doing an excavation on an ancient Eskimo village. We heard the plane come up the fjord and ran out of our hut in time to see it land on the ice. We were heading for the crash site with blankets and medical supplies when we . . ." Lily's words became vague and she weakly gestured toward the overturned sled.

"We?"

In the light from the helicopter Pitt quickly read the accident in the snow coating the ice: the straight trail of the snowmobile, the abrupt swerve around the severed aircraft wing, the sharp cuts made by the runners of the out-of-control sledonly then did he glimpse another human form lying nearly ten meters beyond the wing.