by Len Wein
“ ’At a boy, ye’re doin’ fine,” Banshee cheered him.
“Not you, too,” Cyclops objected, starting forward. “Come on, we have to . . .”
“Look out, laddie!” Sean exclaimed, ignoring Scott. One of the students had picked up a chair and was moving up behind Wolverine. With a whoop, Banshee launched himself across the floor, tackling the student. His momentum threw them both against a table and brought it crashing to the floor.
“Way to go, Irish!” Wolverine congratulated his teammate, then turned his attention back to the fracas.
Cyclops, seeing that he now had two problems to contend with instead of just one, started forward, intending to break up the fight. “Listen, Logan, the professor just called an urgent meeting . . .” Banshee’s opponent, reeling backward, staggered against Scott, knocking him against the bar. As he stumbled, his glasses slipped off his nose, into the wreckage at his feet. “My glasses!” he exclaimed, closing his eyes at once. “Sean! Logan! I’ve lost my glasses. You’ve got to help me find them!” He dropped onto the floor and began groping blindly forward. Wolverine, seeing his team leader down on hands and knees took advantage of the situation, sending a student staggering backward to trip over Scott.
Afraid that at any second the crimson force rays might come exploding past his closed lids, Cyclops clapped both hands over his eyes and stumbled for the door. As he made his way out into the night air, he heard a hoot of derisive laughter from Wolverine.
“Come on, now,” Banshee admonished the Canadian. “That’s the lot of ’em.” He walked over to the fireplace and scooped up Cyclops’ glasses. In the distance now they could hear sirens wailing. He bolted for the door; Wolverine, who stopped long enough to snatch up his discarded Stetson, followed in his wake.
They found Scott just outside the door, his hands still over his eyes. “Here ye are,” Sean patted him on the shoulder and handed him his glasses. “We found ’em for ye.”
“ ‘My glasses! Oh, Sean, Logan, I’ve lost my glasses,’ ” Wolverine mocked, as Scott slipped them on. “Move it, you two,” he added, heading for his car. “The heat’s gonna be here any second.” Banshee, after one look at Cyclops’ face, wisely elected to ride with Wolverine.
Wolverine’s spirits seemed to have been raised considerably by the brawl. He didn’t speak much on the way home, but he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, humming the jukebox tune he’d found so annoying earlier.
“Ye’re feelin’ mighty pleased with yerself, aren’t ye?” Banshee remarked.
“Sure. Why not? I did okay. You didn’t do half bad either, now that I think of it. It was worth the whole hassle just to see Mr. High-an’-mighty Summers go running out o’ there like a pansy, with his hands over his eyes.” Wolverine glanced at the reflection in the rearview mirror, of the second limousine following them.
“Now ye ain’t bein’ fair,” Banshee objected. “The professor called a meeting over a half hour ago, an Scott came to get you, without a word to anyone. He’s goin’ to be in trouble when he gets back.”
“Yeah,” Wolverine agreed. “For about thirty seconds. Till he tells ol’ Skinhead it was my fault, as usual.” He settled back into silence, refusing to speak again. When they reached the school, he pulled the car into the circular driveway, parking directly in front of the door. As he and Banshee were getting out, the second car pulled up, stopping at a speed that scattered gravel in every direction.
Cyclops got out without speaking to either one and preceded them into the house. Rushing to keep up, Banshee and Wolverine followed him. They maintained a swift pace as they went through the main hallway and across the normal section of the house. It was only after they got into the wing where the equipment and hardware were kept that Scott slowed down, walking gingerly, trying to make as little noise as possible. The others followed his example.
When the latecomers slipped into the computer room, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Storm were already in their seats, listening to Xavier lecture. He interrupted himself as he noted their arrival.
“I called you here at ten o’clock. You three are late.”
Cyclops, caught in the act of trying to sneak into an empty seat, stopped and looked up. “Yes, sir.”
“You’ve already missed my analysis of this afternoon’s test, as well as your grades. Is there any explanation?”
Wolverine braced himself to receive the blame, then gaped as Cyclops replied, “I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Banshee . . . Wolverine?” Both of them muttered something noncommittal. “Well, since it doesn’t seem to have meant much to any of you, I’m sure you won’t mind that I’m changing all three of your grades to ‘F.’ ”
Still staring at Cyclops, unable to fathom what their teammate’s motive had been in shielding Wolverine, all of the X-Men missed seeing the pleased smile that belied Xavier’s harsh words.
“We have a grave problem to consider,” he continued. “Something happened today that makes me suspect that the safety of this entire planet may be in dire jeopardy. Indeed, unless we act quickly, nuclear war may result.” He paused to let his last words sink in.
“What is it, Professor?” Colossus asked. “What has happened?”
“Today, a multinational missile test was scheduled,” Xavier replied gravely. “The first part was held this morning, at a test site in the southwestern United States. The rocket they launched bore a nuclear warhead, and it was guided by the most sophisticated control and safety systems ever devised. Yet, in full view of over thirty witnesses, that missile deviated radically from its intended course, veering to a spot over twenty miles away before spontaneously crashing and exploding. And throughout the test, despite the missile’s failure to respond to them, the control devices and abort mechanism were operating perfectly.”
“Sabotage, Herr Professor,” Nightcrawler told him promptly.
“Yes, Kurt, that’s what the authorities were afraid of, and so they warned the Russians before the second test. As a result, their missile was checked scrupulously, immediately before it was fired from a submarine in the Pacific Ocean. They found it and all of its controls to be in perfect working order. However, it, too, failed to respond to its controls once it was in the air. It turned off course and exploded a hundred miles off the coast of Japan. The Japanese government, understandably, is in an uproar.”
“But, who would have access to both an American missile and a Russian submarine?” Nightcrawler faltered. “Two saboteurs . . . ?”
“Assuming that the access existed,” Xavier prodded him gently, “who would have the motive for such an act?”
“Someone who wants war,” Cyclops suggested.
“That is precisely what the authorities are concerned about,” Xavier agreed. “In order to prevent any further disasters, all use and testing of atomic weapons has been suspended, around the globe, by international agreement, pending further discussion.”
“I don’t get it!” Nightcrawler exclaimed. “None of us wants war, of course, but why do you say this is a problem for the X-Men?”
“Hey, come on, now,” Wolverine drawled. “We wear the white hats, remember? Fighting for peace, truth, an’ justice wherever we go.”
“I think the problem is a little closer to home than you realize,” Storm chided him. “Think. We’re talking about atomic warfare. That will mean fallout. And the increased radiation may mean an increase in the number of mutants and harmful mutations.”
“Very good, Ororo,” the professor remarked. “But I’m interested in the problem because it may concern us even more directly than that.
“All this afternoon and evening, experts have debated about what could have caused malfunctions in both missiles, if they rule out the unlikely possibility that both were tampered with. The most likely cause of trouble would be a radio signal strong enough to override the guidance systems, but so far there’s been nothing to indicate the existence of such a signal. The second possibility is that a magnetic disturbance affected th
e missiles’ performance. Magnometers in the regions detected some irregularity in the earth’s magnetic field during this morning’s test.”
“What would cause a change like that, Professor?” asked Cyclops.
“There are always minute diurnal fluctuations in the field’s intensity and in the locations of the north and south magnetic poles. Of course, such variations, by themselves, wouldn’t be enough to significantly alter the course of one missile, let alone two.
“Sun spots generally have a dramatic effect on all forms of terrestrial radiation and energy, particularly magnetism,” Xavier continued, “but observatories haven’t recorded any unusual sun-spot activity in days.
“And so this evening, armed with what I’d learned from the authorities, I came down here and activated Cerebro. The computer picked up a new reading . . . here.” As Xavier spoke, he moved his wheelchair toward the console and flipped a button. One of the lights on the world map, up in the Arctic Circle, flickered on, very faintly.
“The signal is so weak,” Storm murmured, frowning. “All of us register much more strongly than that. So do all of your old students.”
“I’m not even certain that this signal and the missile accidents are related,” Xavier admitted. “But we may be dealing with a new mutant, or with a latent mutant whose powers are becoming manifest. It’s possible that whoever it is doesn’t realize he or she has been affecting missile shots.”
“What is up there, anyway?” asked Colossus.
“Very little . . . It’s not really a land mass at all. Just a tremendous ice floe that’s frozen together for the autumn and winter. All you’ll find up there at this time of year, besides the rare animals and native hunters, are teams of meteorological researchers, working at weather stations that drift along atop the ice.”
“Ice floes an’ Eskimos, huh?” Wolverine scoffed. “Is that what you figure we got here, a mutant eskimo? Want us to go get him and ask him to join up? That’d really make this team international.”
“That is for you to find out,” Xavier told him, clicking off the computer, “as soon as you’re all in uniform. Our private plane is already fueled and waiting.
“Good luck, my X-Men!”
The shadow of the X-Men’s sleek modern plane, following them on the surface of the ice beneath, dipped sharply into a crevasse and then popped back up onto the surface. It was about ten the next morning. Except for one brief refueling stop, the X-Men had been in flight since the end of their meeting with Xavier. Cyclops, as always, was piloting the plane. Wolverine, looking out the window, shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun on snow and remarked, “Boy! That’s bright! You know. Bub, I’ve never envied you havin’ to wear that visor, but right now, with you flyin’ this crate, I’m real glad you got it on.”
“That’s nice of you, Wolverine,” Cyclops observed sarcastically, as he checked his instruments.
“That sure is a lot of nothin’ out there,” Wolverine continued. “I thought I’d be glad to see Canada again after being away all these months, but this is one part of it the government can keep!”
“Oh, do not say that,” Colossus objected. “It is . . . very beautiful.”
“Now, don’t go tellin’ us it reminds ye of dear old Siberia,” Banshee warned him. “We all know ye’re from a different part o’ Russia.”
“Yes, but once, when I was a child, my family rode the Trans-Siberian Railway . . . It was very . . . I did not know that from the air, a sight like this could be so . . .” Peter stammered, unable to find the English words to describe the way the icy wastes moved him.
“Magnificent?” Nightcrawler suggested. “Yes, and cold! Cyclops, where are we?”
“We passed the Boothia Peninsula about five minutes ago. Now were getting close to the north magnetic pole.”
“Look there!” Colossus exclaimed, pointing out a window at a small encampment of tin huts. It was far behind them almost before his companions had spotted it. “It is one of Professor Xavier’s weather stations.”
“Speakin’ o’ weather,’ Banshee remarked, “Ororo’s been awfully silent for the last hour or so. What’s with you, lass?” He turned to look at her, sitting by a window, her eyes dark and faraway.
“Don’t break her concentration,” Cyclops advised. “She’s been controlling the weather around the plane, directing blizzards and ice storms away from us so it’s safe to fly. In fact, if we didn’t have her along, there’d be no point in coming this far north. It’s way below zero down there, and there are high winds. I don’t know about Kurt and Peter—neither of them has what you’d call normal skin—but without special cold-weather gear, you, I, and Wolverine would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Storm can prevent that by raising the temperature just high enough for us to survive without the risk of starting to thaw things out around us.”
Impressed, all of her teammates turned to look at Storm. She still had that same distant look in her eye, as though she were communicating with something outside of the plane, but she acknowledged that she’d heard the praise by smiling.
“It’s good to have people smoothing the way for us,” Colossus declared. “Storm up here in the skies, and Professor Xavier down on the ground, making everything good with the authorities.”
“Sometimes I wonder just how he goes about ‘making everything good’ for us,” Nightcrawler chuckled.
“I don’t know what you mean . . .”
“Think about it, Peter. Anytime he needs information about something highly classified, anytime he wants to send us anywhere, he always seems to get security clearance for it.”
“Kurt!” The Russian was shocked. “You aren’t accusing the professor of controlling the minds of the authorities?”
“Well . . . I didn’t mean that . . . it just occurred to me that sometimes he might make . . . suggestions to them . . . with his mind,” Nightcrawler stammered lamely. “What’s wrong with that, if he does?”
He never got to hear the reply, for, at that second, the plane gave a tremendous lurch. All of the X-Men pitched violently forward against their safety belts as Cyclops wrestled with the controls.
“What’s happenin’?” Banshee yelled.
“I don’t know,” Cyclops replied through clenched teeth. “It’s as if something down on the ice has seized the plane and is pulling it down. I can’t make it respond to the controls. Storm, can you stop us?”
Before he’d completed the question, Storm was out of her seat, making sweeping gestures with her hands. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Scott, but whatever power has us is stronger than I am. I’ve summoned up a wind to slow our descent, but that’s all I can do.”
“Good work,” Cyclops congratulated her. “Come on, now, everyone! Let’s do this the way we practiced it.” He, Wolverine, and Banshee turned toward the sides of the plane, ripping holes in the fuselage with force beam, claw, and sonic waves. Colossus was beside them and helping in the few moments it took him to convert from flesh to armor, punching holes with his bare hands. When the openings were large enough, all four scrambled out of the body of the plane, onto the wings.
Nightcrawler, seeing that his teammates were safely outside, teleported to join them, and Storm flew after. She extended one hand to Wolverine and the other to Nightcrawler and lifted them off the wing. Banshee, a less powerful flier, grabbed Cyclops with both hands and did likewise. Colossus simply jumped, smashing into the snowy surface at roughly the same time that their plane, which had plummeted swiftly once Storm stopped supporting it, crashed and exploded several hundred yards away.
Colossus’ powerful body was uninjured by the impact of his fall. Unfortunately, the ice he struck, without the support of land underneath, was not. A gaping crack, filled with water, opened beneath Peter, but before his heavy metal form could sink, Storm and Banshee, who’d already put the rest of the team safely on the ground, flew to the rescue. Their combined strength was enough to raise him onto solid ice.
“Gott in himmel,”
Nightcrawler murmured, the expression in his glowing eyes one of awe as he surveyed the walls of ice that rose a hundred feet on either side of them, “where are we?”
“Inside a crevasse,” Cyclops explained. “But I’m more interested in why we’re here. What made us crash like that?”
“Over here, Bub,” Wolverine called. “I think I found something.”
He was pointing to a metal structure near one icy wall: a smooth, unmarked dome, perhaps fifty feet in diameter. “What’s that thing? And what’s it doin’ down here?”
Banshee and Storm flew up, with Colossus following on the ground. When the whole team was together, they approached the dome and began walking around it, seeking an entrance. Storm and Banshee examined it from the air.
“Do you think this is what made us crash?” asked the Russian.
“Ye got me,” Banshee replied, landing. “Scott, do ye think it could be what we came up here to find?”
“There’s only one way to tell,” Cyclops answered grimly, pressing the control stud at his temple and activating his visor. The protective red panel began to move upward. When it was open, the force rays from Cyclops’ eyes flashed outward to strike at the gleaming surface of the dome. The beam coruscated around the building without doing any appreciable damage. “I don’t understand it,” Cyclops said. “The beam’s not doing a thing . . . It’s as if it weren’t quite touching the metal.”
“I will touch the metal,” Colossus told him. “I will open the dome. Save your eye beams for whatever you find inside.” Stepping forward, he punched the metallic surface. The sound of impact rang and resounded off the walls of the miniature ice valleys, as Colossus struck again and again.
“Hey, Kurt,” Banshee muttered, “why don’t ye save us all some time an’ grief, an’ just teleport inside that thing?”
“That is a good question,” the German conceded. “Now I have one for you. What happens to me if I materialize inside that thing, and it’s made of solid metal?”
