Part 1: Peril from the Past.
A great flash of electricity ignites a chemical dump and spreads poisonous smoke over N'Yark. Realizing the death gas will spread their way, Samson, Mentor and Sharmaine go down beneath the city, where hey enter a bomb shelter. Originally, this passage to escape had been blocked, until the arrival of a Stone Crushing Eagle smashed part of it open. Because there were no existing stairs, Samson carried his friends hand over hand down an elevator shaft to the bottom.
Here they find Dr. John Pitt, an scientist from the 20th century, and Mentor revives him with a stimulant. Back in pre holocaust times, volcanic gas with anesthetic properties had seeped into his shelter through a crack and put him into suspended animation. Mentor enlists his aid in solving the poison gas problem not knowing that Pitt is a coward at heart.
Later when a cloud of the poison nearly takes them, Pitt uses their only gas mask. Samson admonishes him because Pitt should have given the mask to Sharmaine. Samson blew the gas away by waving a giant leave.
Not wanting the restrictions that his new companions have imposed on him, Pitt tries to flee the area, taking with him his invaluable personal gas mask, but Sharmaine stops him with her bow. After many dangerous encounters, they reach the tunnel that goes under the New York Harbor to the island where the chemical plant is. On the way Pitt admits that back in the late 20th Century he saved himself during the nuclear attack by keeping others out of the shelter for fear the radiation would have entered the shelter had he opened the door to let the others in.
Part 2: The Desperate Mission
Pitt and Mentor get a huge dump truck running and use it to travel down the tunnel.; Outside they are attacked by a Horned Rhinophant but Samson defeats it. The truck gets stuck on some loose sand, and to provide traction to the wheels so he can help push it, Samson spills coins under the wheels. Mentor points out to Pitt that coins are worthless in the world now.
They reach the chemical fire. They try using the truck to dump rocks on the fire to smother it, using Pitt as the driver, but the truck falls in. Samson held the truck up long enough for Pitt to escape from the cab. The fire is so hot it that melts the rocks and the truck.
Pitt gets the idea to dump radioactive materials into the fire to change the gas to a harmless one. Pitt remembers where a helicopter is, and when they get it working he tries to escape again. Sharmaine anticipates his cowardice and has hidden in the helicopter with her bow. She forces him to land again.
They know that there are some barrels of radioactive material in the harbor. Samson dives into the water and brings them up (staying under 20 minutes) after fighting a Lightning-Bolt Eel, which dies from radioactivity leaking from a barrel it damaged. Samson is not hurt and brings the barrels up.
Using the helicopter they transport a huge bundle of barrels to the fire. They drop the bundle, but it sticks on the soft surface of the melting slope and won't roll down into the fire. Someone has to get those barrels into the fire, but whoever goes down to do so will be exposed to huge amount of deadly radioactivity when the barrels hit the fire. Samson volunteers, trusting that his natural resistance to radioactivity may keep him alive. Suddenly, the helicopter lurches, and Pitt falls out and finds himself near the barrels.. He is hurt, but has enough strength to use an axe to cut the cable holding the barrels together. Individually they roll into the fire. Pitt knows that, "When the drums melt, the radioisotopes will split the sulfurous molecules into harmless atoms! Then there will be nothing for the fire to feed on."
It works; Pitt dies from the released radioactivity.
Mentor flies the helicopter back to safety, but it breaks down.
He makes a rough but safe landing. The menace of the poison gas is
over.
copyright by Rod Hunsicker 8-2-98
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