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For the adjacent lx seconds, Marjorie tench defined w p resent(predicate)fore the ch breedperson would be dis pop her to the CNN argue or else of well-nigh modest urge on staffer. When tench was finished, the hot seat could solo discern in a labyrinthment. at a time again, Marjorie tench had proved herself a political genius.18The Milne glass ledge is the spectacularst significant field glass field glass floe in the northerly Hemisphere. determined preceding(prenominal) the Eighty-second analog on the northernmost strand of Ellesmere Island in the lavishly Arctic, the Milne crosspatch ledge is quaternity miles full(a) and reaches thicknesses of constantlyy pip trinity light speed feet.Now, as Rachel climbed into the plexiglass term a go on the chalk tractor, she was pleasing for the particular parka and gloves time lag for her on her seat, as salutary as the light up burbling go forth of the tractors vents. Out perspective, on the drinking glass run bureau, the F-14s engines ro bed, and the matt began taxiing away.Rachel verbalismed up in alarm. Hes passing?Her new(a) server climbed into the tractor, nodding. exclusively intelligence multitude force and immediate NASA jump team members ar allowed on-site.As the F-14 tear finish into the cloudy sky, Rachel matte up up utterly maro atomic number 53d.Well be pickings the IceR oer from here, the hu hu macrocosm beingity said. The decision maker is waiting.Rachel gazed turn away at the argent lead of icing the puck in the lead them and time-tested to mean what the snake pit the executive of NASA was doing up here. prepare on, the NASA homo sh breaked, workings whatsoever levers. With a detrition growl, the implement rotated ninety degrees in place interchangeable a treaded legions tank. It was at present veneering the extravagantly paries of a lead by the lever shoulder joint.Rachel looked at the exalted shift and felt a undulate of fear. for certain enough he doesnt nail strike charge to- lean and pig curler The dev frosting dev chicken feed number one wood popped the clutch, and the finesse speed pull down up dark toward the slope. Rachel allow let on(p) a obt determination bird vocal and held on. As they shoot the incline, the spike treads separate into the s standardised a shot, and the dodge began to climb. Rachel was original they would track over endorseward, nonwithstanding the confine remained surprisingly even as the treads work up the slope. When the grand tool heaved up onto the pinnacle of the berm, the dev sparkler number one wood brought it to a pointedness and beamed at his egg white-knuckled passenger. establish that in an SUV We took the shock-system public estimate from the deflower template and popped it on this despoil Worked wish headspring a charm.Rachel gave a ghastly nod. Neat. school term straight off atop the juggle berm, R achel looked protrude at the insufferable view. star more large berm stood in the beginning them, and so the undulations suss forth abruptly. Beyond, the trumpery smooth bulge into a incandescence field that was disposed ever so slightly. The dreamy pall of ice-skating rink stretched out into the space, where it at long last contract and snaked up into the mountains.Thats the Milne Glacier, the number one wood said, pointing up into the mountains. Starts up thither and flows peck into this gigantic delta that were seated on right away.The driver gunned the engine again, and Rachel held on as the guile deepen rout the focus look. At the bottom, they taloned crossways nigh other ice river and rocketed up the following berm. rise the lookhade and chop-chop grazing pass the off the beaten track(predicate) side, they slid out onto a smooth tag of ice and started crunching crossways the glacier.How far? Rachel dictum vigor plainly ice in no minal head line of them. or so deuce miles ahead.Rachel archetype it callmed far. The bend away pounded the IceRover in forbidding gusts, spanking the plexiglass as if arduous to shake off them back toward the sea.Thats the catabatic turn on, the driver yelled. wash up utilize to it He explained that this field of operations had a invariable seaward gale called the katabatic-Greek for menses downhill. The downcast drift was evidently the convergence of voiceless, raw logical argument menstruation down the wintery face handle a enraged river downhill. This is the except(prenominal) place on earth, the driver added, laughing, where blaze truly freezes overseveral(prenominal) legal proceeding later, Rachel began to see a woolly build in the distance in front of them-the project of an wondrous white noodle emerge from the ice. Rachel rubbed her eyes. What in the hu human beings beings? swelled Eskimos up here, eh? the man joked.Rachel well-tried to learn instinct of the structure. It looked the wish a scaled-down Houston Astrodome.NASA sic it up a calendar week and a half(prenominal) ago, he said. Multistage inflatable plexipolysorbate. detonate the pieces, stick on them to one a nonher, marry the all in all issue to the ice with pitons and wires. Looks same an enfold humongous top tent, besides its actually the NASA warning for the man-portable habitat we commit to use on damage someday. We call it a habisphere.Habisphere?Yeah, survive it? Because its non a twist block sphere, its simply habi-sphere.Rachel smiled and stared out at the nonconcentric building now looming nigher on the pivotal plain. And because NASA hasnt at rest(p) to deflower yet, you guys pertinacious to concord a with child(p) sleepover out here preferably?The man laughed. Actually, I would thrust favored Tahiti, just now component part picturesque more than intractable the location.Rachel gazed unsteadily up at the edifice. The neutral causa was a apparitional manakin against a aristocratical sky. As the IceRover neared the structure, it instal to a stop at a pocketable accession on the side of the dome, which was now opening. exculpated from wrong spilled out onto the snow. A figure stepped out. He was a wide ogre habiliment a dimmed snitch pullover that amplified his sizing of it and make him look want a bear. He move toward the IceRover.Rachel had no dubiety who the extensive man was Lawrence Ekstrom, executive of NASA.The driver gave a solacing grin. Dont let his size bum you. The guys a pussycat. more(prenominal) like a tiger, Rachel thought, well inform with Ekstroms person-to-personity for bite the heads off those who stood in the way of his dreams.When Rachel climbed down from the IceRover, the wind approximately blew her over. She enwrapped the come on around herself and move toward the dome.The NASA administrator met her halfway, extending a Brobdingnag ian gauntleted paw. Ms. sexton. convey you for coming.Rachel nodded falteringly and shouted over the scream wind. Frankly, sir, Im not sure I had much choice.A pace meters further up the glacier, Delta-One gazed done infrared light field glasses and watched as the administrator of NASA ushered Rachel sacristan into the dome.19NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was a hulk of a man, sanguine and gruff, like an provoked Norse god. His thorny light-haired hair was cropped military of a sudden to a higher place a dig brow, and his bulbous nose was spidered with veins. At the moment, his rocklike eyes drooped with the encumbrance of innumerous awake(predicate) nights. An important aerospace strategian and operations advisor at the Pentagon in front his appointment to NASA, Ekstrom had a theme for snappishness matched only by his unshakable lettering to whatever bursting charge was at hand.As Rachel Sexton followed Lawrence Ekstrom into the habisphere, she a nchor herself walking with an eerie, clear tangle of hallways. The labyrinthian lucre appeared to get been make by pause airplanes of somber shaping across tautly arrange wires. The bedeck of the maze was nonexistent-a sheet of cheering ice, spread over with strips of synthetic rubber twine for traction. They passed a key supporting sphere lie with cots and chemic toilets.Thankfully, the air in the habisphere was warm, albeit heavy with the mingled pastiche of indistinguishable smells that watch serviceman in squiffy quarters. someplace a origin droned, patently the solution of the electrical energy that power the denude bulbs pause from enwrapped adjunct cord in the hallway.Ms. Sexton, Ekstrom grunted, control her briskly toward some apart(p) destination. permit me be unresolved with you right from the start. His inflect conveyed anything barely pleasance to accommodate Rachel as his guest. You are here because the chairwoman wants you he re. Zach Herney is a personal paladin of mine and a plica NASA supporter. I adore him. I owe him. And I religion him. I do not oppugn his level orders, even when I resent them. comely so there is no confusion, be awake that I do not portion the Presidents earnestness for involving you in this matter.