Late summer in the Siberian Sea. Richard Mariner stands in the main control centre of Ice Station Zemlya, Russia's massive new floating nuclear facility. But there are dangerous undercurrents. The international team setting up Zemlya are riven with disagreement, and there has been a relentless series of apparent accidents. But as a huge ice storm whirls towards the platform, threatening to cast it adrift in US waters, Richard realizes that someone is plotting to bring about a nuclear catastrophe ...