They arrived at the R&D complex and Astrid escorted her guests to her lab on the fourteenth floor of the main building. Leading them over to one of the workbenches, she gestured with a flourish at the robot arm resting upon it. It was obviously made of the same bluish silver material as Robot Valerie, though it was larger than her arms.

“It doesn’t look like a prosthetic at all,” said Mrs. Bonnefoy. “It just looks like an arm, only made of metal.”

“It’s actually a polycarbonate,” said Astrid, “but I guess that’s not really important. Shall we try it out?”

“What do I have to do?” wondered Captain Bonnefoy.

“Take off your shirt,” said Astrid. “And before you get too excited, it’s going to be tomorrow before you’ll be able to control it.”

“Tomorrow? I was expecting that it would take weeks or months.”

He handed his shirt to his wife. Astrid picked up the robot arm and carefully fitted it onto the end of his damaged limb.

“Now we just power it up,” she said, opening a small compartment and pressing a button inside.

There were a series of beeps and hisses, followed by a thunk.

“It’s connecting, and will map out the nerves in your arm. When we hear a series of…” Four or five beeps sounded. “There we are. It’s mapped. Now just sit here and I’ll hook up some sensors to your temples. This way, we can map out the entire command structure by copying the way your brain works.”

“You’re not going to fry my brain or anything, are you?” he asked.

“You would be surprised at how often I’m asked that,” said Astrid. “Now just sit still for about five minutes.”

“All done,” she said, a short while later. “Now it will take up to twenty-four hours for the computers inside the arm to sort and file all the brain information it’s downloaded. At some point, the arm should just start working like a regular arm.”

“This is so exciting,” said Mrs. Bonnefoy.

“Since you’re here, why don’t I show you around the place?”

Astrid gave them a tour of the R&D department, at least those areas of it that weren’t involved in classified work and then they walked across to the design building and visited Mr. Brown’s studio, where large scale mock-ups of Astrid’s space plane and electric racecar awaited her approval.

“I think they look pretty good,” said the girl inventor. “What do you think?”

“I think they’re the coolest things ever,” said Bree Bonnefoy.

Back at the main building, they stopped at the cafeteria for sandwiches and soft drinks. Halfway through the meal, the captain suddenly exclaimed, “Look!” He reached out with the robotic arm and slowly picked up the saltshaker from the table.

“Good. It’s starting to adapt,” said Astrid. “Remember, it won’t be fully functional for a while yet. Just keep calm and carry on, as the British say.”

“I can feel the salt shaker!” said Bonnefoy. “I can actually feel it.”

“Yes, well, the arm has sensors that will relay information to your brain. It’s nothing like your natural arm of course. I mean human limbs have thousands of nerve endings instead of a few dozen sensors. Still, it should help to have some tactile and temperature feedback.”

“It’s a miracle,” he said.

“If it is,” said Astrid, “then it’s a miracle of superconductive microprocessing and about $175,000 worth of engineering.”

“You don’t seem to be very happy to be going home,” Christopher told her that evening at dinner. “I had a great time these past few weeks, but I’m not ashamed to say that I miss my mom and dad, and my room, and my own bed.”

“I miss my parents too,” said Astrid. “I miss Toby… and um, all the gang. It’s just that there’s so much going on and it’s all coming to a head so quickly.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Paige.

“She’s talking about Maxxim Industries,” explained Christopher.

“Well, you just have to trust your parents to take care of that.”

“Letting other people take care of things isn’t the Astrid Maxxim way,” he replied. “Or haven’t you been paying attention these past eight or nine years.”

“You aren’t going to get yourself into trouble, are you Astrid?” asked Paige.

“Again,” said Christopher. “Have you been paying attention?”

“My father always say decide what you do, then do,” said Océane. “He say do not worry. It does not help.”

“That’s good advice,” said Astrid. “And it sounds just like something Dr. Feuillée would say.”

When they returned to their rooms, Astrid searched through her luggage and found her cell phone. The battery was completely dead, so she plugged it in through her travel voltage converter. As soon as she did, it rang, startling her.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Astrid.”

“Hi, Mom. Shouldn’t you still be in bed there?”

“No, it’s morning here, very early morning.”

“Oh, okay. Well it’s good to hear your voice. I’m looking forward to getting home.”

“I’m sure you are,” said her mother, taking a tone that usually meant Astrid was in some kind of trouble. “I just received a call from the campus main gate. They have a Captain David Bonnefoy there, saying that you invited him to see you in your lab. I told them I didn’t know anything about it, because I don’t.”

“Oh, well I did sort of invite him,” said Astrid. “I didn’t set a specific day though. I thought I would contact him when I got back.”

“Why exactly is he here and why are you contacting grown men to come and visit you?”

“He’s just there to help me with an experiment. Can you arrange for him to stay at the Maxxim City Hotel for a few days? I’m sure he won’t mind staying over. He probably has his wife and his sister with him too, so maybe a suite.”

“I’m not very happy about this young lady. I have a great deal on my plate right now and I don’t have time to clean up after an absent-minded girl genius.”

Astrid and Christopher continued their work aboard Amphitrite, learning a great deal about oceanography, marine biology, undersea seismography, global weather patterns, and other related topics. They made one other scuba dive, but experienced no adventure quite like the one with the amorous seal. They also made a dive in the mini-subs, sailing in and among the icebergs. It was a crystalline wonderland. They also endured two days of extremely rough seas.

Astrid received video calls from home about every other day, as did Christopher. She spoke to her parents often, though conspicuously absent from their conversations was any news of Maxxim Industries and its financial situation. She also spoke several times with Denise and the two Valeries, and once to Austin. She talked several times at length with Maxwell Bauer. Sadly there were no more calls from Toby. Five days after her underwater adventure, Astrid received a call from Connor Brown at the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

“Hello Miss Maxxim. I just wanted to let you know that my idiot… my movie director has found the site of your great-grandfather’s camp. He also discovered what it is that’s under the ice.”

“It’s not a shape-changing alien, is it?” she asked.

“No. It’s gold—possibly a lot of it. Of course currently the United Nations prohibits any mining beyond simple research on the continent. That being said, your family might have some claim to it, based on your great-grandfather’s discovery. It will probably take years to figure out the legality of it all.”

“Well I don’t want any of it. My feeling is that rather than destroying the fragile ecosystem of Antarctica, it should be left there for posterity. If, in the future, technology is developed to safely mine it, then the money from the sale of the gold should be set aside for the preservation of the continent.”

“I agree with you completely, Miss Maxxim, but can you speak for your whole family?”

“I can on this,” she said.

“Excellent. I’m going to pass all this up to the politicians. In the meantime, our movie director, Bart Greenwood is his name, wondered if you wanted to visit the site. I have his coordinates.”

Even with the drysuit on, when Astrid jumped into the water, the cold was like a kick in the chest. She couldn’t ever remember being that cold; even standing in the Antarctic night while Remie repaired the ice sensor. A minute later though she forgot the temperature as what seemed like a hundred penguins shot past her. They looked more like they were flying than swimming and soared along at incredible speed. Her eyes followed them and she saw more in the distance, along with a large dark patch in the water.

“That’s a bait ball,” said Dr. Feuillée’s voice over the radio. “It’s a huge cloud of krill. We’re going to swim over toward it. I want to remind you to be on your toes. There could be other creatures arriving to feed on the krill or the penguins and some of them can be dangerous. If you see something, report it, and then swim back toward the ship.”

They swam about a hundred meters until they could make out the enormous cloud of life, though it was only possible to identify it as krill by the few stragglers that swam closer to the humans. They proved to be the luckier members of their species, since the penguins left them alone, either because of their proximity to people, or the bird’s desire to scoop up more than one at a time.

“Keep a sharp lookout for orcas,” said one of the crewmen, Astrid couldn’t tell which one.

“I thought killer whales didn’t come in close to the ice,” said Christopher.

“That’s true in the arctic,” said Dr. Feuillée, “but down here we have a different and much larger population and they have taught each other to hunt far into the ice flows.”

“They aren’t dangerous to humans are they?” wondered Astrid.

“There’s no recorded case of an orca attacking a human in the wild. Still, they are powerful wild creatures and it is good not to take that for granted.”

Only a few seconds later, Astrid caught her first glimpse of an Antarctic mammal swimming underwater. It wasn’t a killer whale though, but a seal. It was about seven feet long, with fur that was almost white.

“Crabeater seals,” said Dr. Feuillée. “They don’t eat crabs though. They eat almost exclusively krill.

Soon there were dozens of lightly colored seals, pausing only briefly to eye the strangers before shooting into the cloud of krill. Then Astrid saw another seal. This one had to be at least ten feet long, with spotted fur, and was much heavier than the crabeaters. She recognized it as a Weddell Seal. She looked around but didn’t see any others like it.

“We have only about ten more minutes,” said Dr. Feuillée. “Lucas, Emma, and Enzo are going in with me for some closer shots. You kids stay back here with Hugo.”

The four researchers swam toward the feeding penguins and seals, lighting up the dark water with massive movie lights attached to the cameras. Astrid and the others did as directed but having nothing to do but watch the filming from a distance gave her time to remember just how cold she was. She was starting to feel a dull ache in her fingers and toes.

Suddenly a cloud passed over her. She looked up and for a second she thought the Weddell Seal had returned to give her a second look. Though it was about the same size and color, this was not the same seal. Instead of the friendly smile common to most pinnipeds, this creature had a mouth full of sharp teeth that would have put a Siberian tiger to shame.

“Leopard seal!” called Hugo, with a hint of panic in his voice.

Before anyone could do or say anything else, the sea mammal shot down toward them like a rocket. It opened its mouth and latched onto Astrid’s right foot, dragging her along like a big dog would drag a play-toy. Though she flailed her arms and kicked her feet, she was unable to get away, or even slow her descent, and the leopard seal dragged her down into the depths.

The flight to Dr. Feuillée’s ship was beautiful. The sky behind them was black, but the sky in front of them was appropriately a lovely French blue. Below them the white of ice and grey of shadow was unbroken as they left the edge of the continent and soared above the frozen ocean. They were more than 150 miles from land before the ice shelf broke into thousands of floating icebergs of all shapes and sizes.

There wasn’t much talking along the way. The pilot spoke only French, and though Christopher remembered more of the language than Astrid did, it wasn’t really enough to carry on a conversation. Between the youths from Maxxim City, there was little need to talk, though they did point out groups of penguins and seals resting on some of the flatter surfaces below.

At last the helicopter circled around and Astrid saw Dr. Feuillée’s ship. It was as gleaming white as the Eurocopter or any of the icebergs between which it rested. On the aft deck was a round landing pad with a large black cross on it. The pilot landed at the exact center of the pad. Astrid had to give him credit, when she stepped out and realized just how much the ship was moving while he set down. It rocked end on end a bit, but much more from side to side.

“Astrid! Christopher!” called Dr. Feuillée, running up to them. “Welcome to Amphitrite. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Thanks, Dr. Feuillée. We’re glad to finally be here.”

A pair of ship’s crew gathered the luggage from the aircraft and carried it toward the closest hatch. The French oceanographer led the two teens along behind them.

“I’ll show you to your cabins. You might want to take a nap.”

“I’m not tired,” said Astrid. “But I wouldn’t mind freshening up.”

“Of course.”

The cabins were very tiny, only about four feet wide and eight feet long— barely big enough to fit a small bed and their luggage. However, each had its own connecting bathroom, with a toilet, tiny sink, and a very tiny shower stall. Astrid had just come out of her bathroom when there was a knock on her cabin door. When she opened it, a body shot in and grasped her around the neck.

“Astrid! Vous êtes ici!”

“Océane. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I am had to coming for…l’école.”

“You had to come for school? Isn’t school out now in France?”

Océane just stared at her with frustration written on her brow.

“Never mind,” said Astrid, giving the French girl a hug.

Océane was Dr. Feuillée’s fourteen-year-old daughter. She and Astrid had met several weeks earlier in Hawaii when Astrid was constructing her undersea dome. She was about an inch taller than Astrid and almost as thin as Denise. Her pleasant face was framed in short black hair, cut in a cute little wedge.

“I go to Maxxim City, USA with you.”

“You’re coming back with us? Fantastic!”

“Problème, Remie,” she said upon her return.

“Problem?” wondered Christopher. “What’s wrong?”

“One of the sensors isn’t working. It’s probably frozen. Maybe we can fix it. In any case, we’ll have to go out and get the reading on site.”

“All right,” said Remie. “Who’s going with me?”

“Christopher and I will go,” said Astrid.

Astrid and Christopher, bundled up to the fullest, climbed into the cab of the same large tractor in which they had been driven to the base the day before. They took their places behind the driver’s seat, now occupied by Remie. Nathan, down on the hanger floor, pushed the lever to open the great door and the tractor rolled out into the icy darkness.

It wasn’t snowing, but it seemed to be as the wind whipped tiny flakes of ice into the air in the beams of the ten great spotlights that led them through darkness. For the most part, the ice was smooth and the great tractor ground straight into the night.

“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” said Remie. “This sensor is only four miles from the base.”

“It seems like a long way,” said Astrid, “especially if you were by yourself.”

“We’ve got the radio. If something happens to the tractor, we can call for help. Don’t worry.”

They had barely finished talking when they saw a blinking red light in the distance. Turning just a bit to the right, the Frenchman brought the vehicle to a stop right beside it. The light was atop a large blue box-shaped piece of equipment roughly the size of Astrid’s walk-in closet at home.

“It looks like the Tardis,” said Christopher.

“Yeah, it does,” agreed Astrid.

“This is just the control box. The sensors reach down through about 40 meters of ice and into the rock below.”

“Won’t the movement of the ice break them?” asked Astrid.

“Eventually, though the ice doesn’t move as much here as it does closer to the Ross Shelf.”

They left the tractor’s engine running and climbed out into the freezing air. Remie led them to the control box and opened a panel. He flipped several switches and then opened an interior door to check a row of circuit breakers. After flipping several of them, he pulled one out and replaced it from a small stack of them just inside the compartment. Once he did so, a bank of lights came on and he began closing the device back up.

“I can’t believe how cold it is,” said Christopher. “We’ve been out here seven minutes and I’m frozen through, even with all these layers of clothes. Look at this.” He pointed to the ice on the fur around his hood where the moisture from his breath had frozen.

“Makes you rethink global warming, eh?” asked Remie.

“Of course not,” he replied. “Humans add almost 30 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere each year.”

“Good man. You’re right of course. Measurements of the ice here show that it is almost an inch thinner than last year. That may not sound like much, but it is year after year, and the change is increasing.”

“How can you put 30 billion tons of anything anywhere and not expect it to make an impact?” wondered Christopher. “Don’t you agree, Astrid?”

The girl inventor didn’t answer. Christopher turned to see her looking out into the frozen darkness.

“What’s up?”

“I was just thinking,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t watched The Thing.”

The jet aircraft bounced and slid as it landed on the runway of smoothed ice. But at last it came to a stop, and as soon as it did, the hatch just behind the cockpit was opened. The two teens from Maxxim city were ushered to the doorway, where they looked out into the darkness to see a massive tractor, covered in huge lights, rolling across the ice and snow toward them. It came to a stop right next to the plane and a set of four steps was raised up to the bottom of the hatch.

“You two take care not to freeze,” said the flight attendant as first Astrid and then Christopher climbed down the steps.

A figure just as wrapped up as they were awaited them on a metal walkway that led around the cab of the huge tractor. With a wave, this person led them to the cab door and guided them inside. There was a seat in front for the driver and in the rear, two bench seats, facing toward each other. Astrid and Christopher sat down on the bench seats as the door slammed shut.

“Hey guys!” said a cheerful voice from beneath the layers of fur and insulation. “Let me pull this buggy back out of the way so they can take off.

The great tractor rumbled and growled as it was backed about fifty yards from the aircraft, which had never stopped its engines. The plane turned quickly around, and with a throaty whine, shot down the runway and off into the darkness.

“Welcome to the Antarctic Circle,” said the tractor driver. “We had about twelve minutes of daylight today, but you missed it.”

“Are you Australian?” asked Christopher.

“No, I’m a Brit. I’m here working with the Frenchies. Melanie Kincaid.” She stepped around the seat and shook hands with both of them. “You cold yet?”

“Actually, I feel pretty comfortable,” said Astrid.

“Not bad in here. Still, we don’t want to get stuck and have to walk home.”

The cab door opened and another figure climbed in.

“Bonjour,” said the newcomer.

“This is Nathan,” said Melanie, pulling her outer hood back to reveal from forehead to chin a pretty, freckled face.

“Nathan Oliver,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“This is Christopher Harris,” said Astrid, “and I’m Astrid Maxxim.”

“So, it really is you,” said Melanie. “We heard you were coming, but we didn’t quite believe it really.”

Teen inventor Astrid Maxxim is back in her third adventure as she makes a journey to the bottom of the planet to uncover the secrets of a mysterious lost expedition. Meanwhile, troubles plague her friends and family as a hostile takeover threatens Maxxim Industries. Join Astrid and her friends as she faces the frozen dangers of the Antarctic, wild animals, mad bombers, and corporate high finance.

Astrid Maxxim and the Antarctic Expedition is available for nook at Barnes and Noble for just 99 cents.

Teen inventor Astrid Maxxim is back in her third adventure as she makes a journey to the bottom of the planet to uncover the secrets of a mysterious lost expedition. Meanwhile, troubles plague her friends and family as a hostile takeover threatens Maxxim Industries. Join Astrid and her friends as she faces the frozen dangers of the Antarctic, wild animals, mad bombers, and corporate high finance.

Get Astrid Maxxim and the Antarctic Expedition in any ebook format at Smashwords for just 99 cents.