The next morning after breakfast, Denise and the two Valeries joined Astrid and Océane at the Maxxim home. They all put on their swimsuits and hung out by the pool. Though they spent a little while swimming and diving, except for Robot Valerie who wasn’t able to go in the water, they mostly just sat out soaking up the sun. Even Astrid, who didn’t really believe in tanning, wanted a little color after more than a month with very little sunlight whatsoever.

“It’s been so boring around here without you,” Denise told her. “Nobody even tried to kill me.”

“I knew you’d miss me when I was gone,” said Astrid.

“Who says I missed you? I happen to like boring.”

“Don’t listen to her,” said Robot Valerie. “She complained the whole time you were gone.”

“And she didn’t have anyone to text to,” added Regular Valerie, “because Mama makes us turn off our phones at night.”

“That isn’t true,” said Denise. “Alicia Noble and I spent many hundreds of hours texting back and forth about whether or not she should buy a new dress and what color it should be. I eventually convinced her to get the bright pink dress in the window at the Main Street Dress Emporium.”

“You don’t mean that very frilly, gauzy thing that they displayed for the senior prom, do you?” wondered Astrid. “I didn’t think that was very attractive.”

“I know,” smiled Denise. “It’s hideous.”

“Why would you do that to Alicia? She’s always been pretty nice.”

“She’s jealous,” said Robot Valerie. “She’s still mad because Christopher took Alicia to the Junior Prom.”

“I’m not jealous,” said Denise, but her face broke out into an evil grin.

“I’m glad I’m not your enemy,” said Astrid. “Or a, you know, casual acquaintance.”

“Astrid,” called her father from the back door. “Come in here please.”

Astrid followed him into the family room and the other girls came along too. The television was on but paused. When Astrid was in the room, her father picked up the remote and pressed play. A news story continued about the robot arm that Astrid had developed. So many scientific and technological developments came out of Maxxim City that all of the major news networks had reporters stationed there. That they had found something out about her project wasn’t a surprise, but that they had fairly extensive background information about Captain Bonnefoy and video of him and his family at Joyland the day before was.

“Is this all accurate?” asked Dr. Maxxim.

“Pretty much, I guess.”

“I say this all the time, but I’ll say it again Astrid. I’m impressed. You have a knack for seeing the possibilities in your inventions. This is pretty incredible— incredible in a good way.”

“There’s a bad incredible?” wondered Denise.

“Your mother might be upset about not controlling the story or having a proper announcement,” continued Astrid’s father, “but this is a truly wonderful invention.”

“Thanks Dad.”

“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.

“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.”