"'It is not known whether all the prefabricated huts, in which the expedition members lived, have been destroyed.

"'Drift Ice Station Zebra, which was established only in the late summer of this year, is at present in an estimated position of 85° 40'N., 21 °30'E., which is only about three hundred miles from the North Pole. Its position cannot be known with certainty, because of the clockwise drift of the polar ice pack.

"'For the past thirty hours long-range supersonic bombers of the American, British and Russian air forces have been scouring the polar ice pack searching for Station Zebra. Because of the uncertainty about the drift station's actual position, the complete absence of daylight in the Arctic at this time of year and the extremely bad weather conditions, they were unable to locate the station and forced to return.'"

"They didn't have to locate it," Rawhings objected. "Not visually. With the instruments those bombers have nowadays, they could home-in on a hummingbird a hundred miles away. The radio operator at the drift station had only to keep on sending and they could have used that as a beacon."

"Maybe the radio operator is dead," Hansen said heavily, "Maybe his radio has broken down on him. Maybe the fuel that was destroyed was essential f or running the radio. All depends what source of power he used."

"Diesel-electric generator," I said. "He had a standby battery of Nife cells. Maybe he's conserving the batteries, using them only for emergencies. There's also a hand-cranked generator, but its range is pretty limited."

"How do you know that?" Hansen asked quietly. "About the type of power used?"

"I must have read it somewhere."

"You must have read it somewhere." He looked at me without expression, then turned back to his paper.