Agent Shield and Spaceman

“Yep, I think they spotted us,” Frankie said, leaning over the steering wheel. The idling diesel engine rumbled beneath the seat, but at least the heaters of the soviet snow tank still functioned, filling the cabin with enough warmth to prevent further frost bite. While they waited for the sorceress to regain consciousness, Marcus decided they would wait inside the snow tank. They found a map inside the cabin, along with a fat book of instructions written in Cyrillic. Neither spent much time looking at it. The engine worked. The steering wheel worked. If they encountered any problems on ice sheet, they would probably die. No sense wasting time puzzling out instructions on the cup-holders. Frankie suspected that before too long they might have visitors. During their brief hike to the snow tank, he had seen the glow of a distant explosion and a trail of greasy smoke marking the crash site of the C-130. Even in the vast wasteland of Antarctica, that would have to attract attenti...

The form of the Delta Omega base came before its function. The shape, the massive disk lying on the flat uninterrupted plane, appealed immensely to its architect Igori Splendov. How had this come to be? Igori was unable to answer. He saw limitless possibilities in the disk, the power of the curving walls. There were the several appealing and beautiful mathematical concepts embodied in its form. Why its very circumference contained his favorite number, pi. In contrast to the United States with its polygonal military hive, the USSR would have the more human, the more enlightened, wheel. There was something rational, welcoming, and universal about this shape. He would explain this to anyone who’d listen. He saw a modular living space to open up the wastes of Siberia. He saw smaller disks submerged beneath the arctic ice, silently monitoring enemy submarines. Disks could be brought to the moon, transported to the Mare Traquillitatis one wedge at a time. No matter how cold the environm...