“I come from a tiny village in northern Canada. It's pretty remote, on a big lake, and usually it's pretty quiet up there. A few months ago, my mother wrote me a letter saying someone had bought a huge tract of land across the lake from the village. Big corporation, she thought. I hope to work against overdevelopment of the Canadian wilds when I get out of college, so I got really interested when she said they were building night and day on the lake. Helicopters and float- planes were coming in at all hours. I asked my mother to keep me up to date, and the last time I heard from her was more than two weeks ago. She was really worried.” “About what?” Austin said.

“She didn't say, only that it had something to do with the stuff going on across the lake. So I got worried and went home to take a look-and my family was gone.”

“You're saying they disappeared?” Austin said. Nighthawk nodded. “Everyone in the village had vanished.” “Canada's a big place, Ben. Where was your village located?” Nighthawk glanced at Ryan. “In good time, Kurt,” Ryan said.

“Tell Mr. Austin what happened next, Ben.”

“I went looking for my family,” Nighthawk continued. “I found them being kept prisoner on the other side of the lake. Guys with guns were forcing the men from my village to work, clearing land around a big building.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“I never saw them before. They were dressed in black uniforms.” He looked at Ryan for encouragement, then went on. “It's crazy, but when we got there-”

“We?” Ryan said, "Josh Green, my next in command, went along with

Ben. Don't be afraid to tell Mr. Austin everything you saw, no mat- ter how wild it seems."

Nighthawk shrugged. “Okay, then. When we first got there, we didn't see anything but forest, except for where they were clearing. Then this huge building suddenly appeared out of nowhere.” He paused, waiting for Austin to reply with disbelieving laughter.

Austin kept his blue-green eyes leveled. “Go on,” he said, his face impassive.

“That's it. Instead of trees, we were looking at a giant dome. Josh and I thought it looked like an Eskimo igloo, only hundreds of times bigger. While we were watching, the top of the thing opened like this.” He cupped his hands to form an open clamshell. “Turned out it was a hangar for a blimp.”

Austin said, “Something like the Goodyear blimp?” Nighthawk screwed up his mouth in thought. "Naw. Bigger and longer. More like a rocket ship. It even had a name on the fin. Niet- zsche. )

“Like the German philosopher?”