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The passengers from Polar Queen had been fed and bedded down in comfortable quarters charitably provided by the crew and scientists, who doubled up Doc Greenberg exae or trauma He was also relieved to find only a few cases of mild colds but no evidence of pneumonia In the ship's biolaboratory, two decks above the ship's hospital, Van Fleet, assisted by Maeve Fletcher, was perforuins and seals they had airlifted from Seymour Island in the helicopter The bodies of the three dead were packed in ice until they could be turned over to a professional pathologist

Pitt ran his eyes over the huge twin bows of the Ice Hunter She was not your garden-variety research ship but one of a kind, the first scientific vessel entirely co with input froh on parallel hulls that contained her big engines and auxiliary e rounded superstructure abounded with technical sophistication and futuristic innovations The quarters for the crew and ocean scientists rivaled the staterooile looking, but that was a deception She was a workhorse, born to ride shest sea Her radically designed triangular hulls could cut through and crush an ice floe four meters thick

Admiral James Sandecker, the feisty director of the National Underwater & Marine Agency, followed her construction froe around Greenland He took great pride in every centi white superstructure and turquoise hulls Sandecker was a ress, and nothing had been spared in Ice Hunter's construction nor her state-of-the-art equipument the finest polar research ship ever built

Pitt turned and refocused his attention on the ie beamed down from the satellite

He felt al day, but one filled with every e saved the lives of over twenty people and sorrow at seeing sodead almost as far as the eye could see This was a catastrophe beyond co was out there A hideous presence that defied logic

His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Giordino and Captain Dempsey as they stepped out of the elevator that ran froh fifteen decks to the bowels of the engine room

"Any glimpse of Polar Queen from the satellite cameras?" asked Dempsey

"Nothing I can positively identify," Pitt replied "The snow is blurring all i

ing"

"What about radio contact?"

Pitt shook his head "It's as though the ship were carried away by aliens from space The communications room can't raise a response And while we're on the subject, the radio at the Argentinean research station has also gone dead"

"Whatever disaster struck the ship and the station," said Dempsey, "et off a distress call"

"Have Van Fleet and Fletcher uncovered any clues leading to the cause of the deaths?" asked Pitt

"Their preliminary examination shows that the arteries ruptured at the base of the creatures' skulls, causing he"

"Looks like we have a thread leading froht," Pitt said philosophically