A scientist reports to a stunned world: "The whole earth may be shrivelling up like a punctured balloon." The flight from cities at high altitudes--whose nitrogen gas accidentally released from the earth's core is gathering to cause mass death--to the coastlines creates political chaos and violent anarchy. But worse is in store for mankind--for the coastline holds only temporary haven. ... The great oceans of the world are about to deliver destruction on a scale never before envisioned even in nightmares of nuclear holocaust. Two men and two women in a flimsy yacht in the Pacific may hold the key to the earth's survival . . .
