Trapped deep beneath the Arctic icesheet, a revolutionary Russian exploration vehicle and her desperate crew await rescue. Hopes are rekindled by word that famed American Tom Swift will attempt to reach them in his own remarkable invention, the icecraft.The rescue effort is imperilled by a world threat the young inventor had thought forestalled, a molecular menace spreading itself uncontrollably among the silicon microchips that sustain the technology of modern civilization. Defying all attempts at containment, the technoplague looms over a monumental project, Tom's solarplane -- an unmanned sky raft larger than an ocean liner, designed for unending flight in the ionosphere. Vital to progress in taming global warming, the mammoth solarplane is a tempting and vulnerable target for a web of conspirators who strike without warning with murderous efficiency. The baffling threats and scientific mysteries pursue Tom and his friend Bud beneath polar ice, in solar space, on Russia's fantastic stratosphere station, and at last in the high ionosphere -- where Tom must win a deadly duel in a world where the stars never dim!