In northern Greenland, the mountains stand like a wall along Victoria Channel, whose straight course marks the line of the great Baffin Fault.
Mentally haunted by a spectre of the dead man, Brothers decides he must detonate an atomic device to obliterate the crevasse, along with any implicating evidence of self-imposed incompetence - and the outpost, as well - to purge himself of his emotional anguish.
When Hamilton's administrative assistant, Ingrid, who had earlier expressed her love for the doctor, reads his notes that were taken prior to the experiment, she learns of the possible exchange of minds between the two men.
And then, like so many of Man's inventions, it can be used either to save lives or destroy them, to make men sane or to drive them mad, to increase human understanding or to betray it.
By itself, the instrument is nothing, until you add the human factor.Author Kevin J. Anderson later wrote a prose sequel to the episode entitled "Memories on Ice".