La Forge de Vulcain

Book Series infobox
Series = Yoko Tsuno
Name = La Forge de Vulcain
Type = Comics
Author = Roger Leloup


Background = Orange
Released = 1973
Genre = Bande dessinée
Pages =
Publisher = Dupuis
Last Book = "L'Orgue du Diable"
(1973)
This Book = "La Forge de Vulcain"
(1973)
Next Book = "Aventures électroniques"
(1974)

"La Forge de Vulcain" ("Vulcan's Forge") is the third book from Yoko Tsuno comic book series written by Roger Leloup and published in 1973. (ISBN 2-8001-0668-9)

tory

An oil platform near Martinique is threatened by some unnatural tidal activity ever since one of the drilling attempts yielded a crystalline, strongly magnetic and near-indestructible ore. The material closely resembles that of an orb Yoko was given by Khany as a farewell gift in "Le Trio de l'étrange". Yoko immediately sets out to Martinique, with a skeptical Vic and Pol in tow.

Just as they are filled in by the oil company's manager, the platform's supply helicopter arrives with the need for a laser cutter and its operator. Since the latter is not available, Yoko offers to help out. Since the pilot doesn't agree, she hangs herself onto the helicopter's skid until he is convinced.

At the platform, Melville, the chief engineer, reluctantly tells her that a strange capsule with a man inside got snagged on one of the support beams, but the waves render an approach impossible. Yoko, however, suggests to pump drilling mud onto the water to calm them, and after Vic and Pol have been brought in for help, she manages to open the cabin and recover its heavily injured and unconscious occupant - a Vinean. Just as Yoko attempts to explain about the alien race living under the face of the Earth, a Vinean transporter suddenly comes out of the ocean and lands upon the platform. One of its passengers is Khany, Yoko's Vinean friend.

The reunion, however, is overshadowed by a dire warning: The drillers have damaged a pipeline transporting magma, which was to serve the Vineans - under Karpan's direction - in a gargantuan project: they are raising an ancient submerged volcano's plug to create a new continent; the plug is pushed towards the surface with fresh magma. The lava escaping from the broken pipeline threatens to ignite the oil well above it, triggering an artificial tsunami which would devastate Martinique. Karpan, however, believes that this catastrophe will only serve both to accelerate the project (by taking the islands after the tidal wave has decimated the population) and to intimidate the Terrans; he does not acknowledge that the Vineans will certainly be wiped out as well. Khany and some of her trusted operatives are working to prevent that, but they also require Yoko's help, mostly because of her ability for flexible thinking.

After Yoko has convinced Melville to give them 24 hours' grace, the trio takes off in the transport and descends into the depths of the Earth through an artificial whirlpool. Khany's attempts to throw off Karpan's Security forces - including using a Yoko look-alike -, however, prove to be in vain, and soon she and Yoko are chased by the guards all across the lava-conducting facilities. Some of the things the two have to do in order to escape are hijacking a laser driller and using emergency sleds to escape into a cavern filled with huge medicinal mushrooms. Also, Yoko gets to meet several highly intelligent Vinean children (engineers in training) and receives several electric stun capsules for self-defense.

Reuniting with their friends, Yoko and Khany use a secret entrance to gain entry to the main facilities for the operation: the central control and the magma filtering facility. As it turns out, the only way to stop the lava flow into the damaged pipeline is to force Karpan into shutting it down or hijacking a filter block filled with magma and empty it over the pipe's power cables. Yoko fashions herself a bow and arrows to deliver the stun capsules at a greater range (as depicted on the cover), and with these weapons she, Vic and Khany manage to enter the filter crane and overpower its operator; then they drive the crane to central control, where Karpan is at the present.

The crane halts before the main control booth, but despite the threat Karpan does not relent; he also informs them that the disaster will occur in two days anyway and that it will take longer to cool the magma, so blackmail is pointless. Impulsively, Yoko releases the clamps holding the filter block, which crashes onto the other pipelines and breaks them, flooding the central control hall with lava. In response Karpan shuts off the area and prepares to release sulphuric gasses, intending to suffocate them all. When the chief supervisor protests that he is endangering the Vinean workers, Karpan cold-bloodedly kills him.

The crane operator, however, intervenes; by closing the crane's pincers around the control booth, he crushes it, taking some wreckage and Karpan with him, then he drops the villain into the lava. However, this does not resolve the actual problem, and so the conflicting Vinean fractions unite to avert the impending disaster. But to stop the catastrophe more radical measures have to be used: the hydrocarbon gas (which is created by the heated oil) must be released into Earth's atmosphere to relieve the rising pressure in the oil field. Since the gas would escape into the atmosphere unchecked and trigger a vast explosion upon being ignited, Vic suggests torching it off as it escapes. Yoko, Vic, Pol and Khany return to the surface to carry out the plan, and a laser shot from Khany's transporter creates a column of fire several miles high.

After the operation is successfully executed, Khany announces a plan which incorporates the return of the Vineans to their home planet, but she parts with the promise not to leave before seeing Yoko and her friends again.