The Arctic north added another mystery to its history of explo- ration when a half-crazed German crawled out of the frozen tun- dra claiming that he was the sole survivor of an airship disaster.

Canadian authorities said the German, who identified himself as Gerhardt Heinz, was brought in by a group of unknown Eskimos who had apparently rescued him. The Times found Mr. Heinz in a hospital ward, where he died a short time later. In the interview, Mr. Heinz said,

"I was on a secret trip to the North Pole for the greater glory of the Fatherland. We landed at the pole, but on the way back, we sighted the wreck of a boat frozen in the ice. The captain insisted on landing on the ice to investigate. It was a boat of great antiquity, probably hundreds of years old. We removed a frozen body, which we placed in the airship cooler, along with some unusual items.

“After rising from the ice and traveling a distance, we experi- enced mechanical problems, and had to land. The survivors de- cided to try to cross the ice, but I stayed to guard the zeppelin. I was near death when the local natives found me, and I was nursed back to health.”

Mr. Heinz said that the natives spoke no English, but he learned that their name was 'Kiolya.' He said that they thought he was a god, having come from the skies, and when he requested through sign language that they bring him to the nearest settlement, they complied.

German authorities contacted by the Times said that they had no knowledge of Mr. Heinz nor of any dirigible voyage to the North Pole.

Austin asked Gleason to run off a copy of the article and thanked him for his time and information. “Sorry about your exhibition,” he said on the way out.

“Thank you.” Gleason shook his head. “It simply astounds me why they pulled up stakes so abruptly. By the way, have you heard about Senator Graham? That's another disaster. One of our strongest supporters.”

Austin said, “I think I saw Graham last night at the reception.”

“You did. While he was driving home to Virginia, his car was forced off the road by a truck. He's in critical condition. Hit-and- run.”

Sorry to hear about that, too.

“Damn,” Gleason said. “Hope it's not true about bad things run- ning in threes.”

“There may be a simpler explanation for your run of bad luck,” Austin said.

“Oh, what's that?” Austin pointed to the sky, and in all seriousness, said: “Toonook.”

NUMA 4 - White Death

27

ST. JULIEN PERLMUTTER stepped into his spacious Georgetown carriage house and cast an appreciative glance around at the hundreds of volumes, old and new, that spilled off the sagging wall shelves and flowed like a vast river of words, breaking off into tributaries that ran into every room.