Ice Will Burn

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
"Ice Will Burn"
Episode no.	H00616-94028
Airdate	September 26, 1996
Chief locations	Northeastern Siberia 165.23E, 71.56N (7,536 miles)
Vehicle(s)	Quest Jet
Writer(s)	Peter Lawrence Michael Ryan Story by Peter Lawrence Ben Schwartz
Guest roles	Frank Welker (Sled Dog / Polar Bear / Radio Voice) Tara Charendoff (Kazrina) Jim Cummings (Florid Face / Yagor / Captain James) Carolyn Seymour (Aleutian Woman / Mother) Chick Vennera (Gustavo Arollo) Michael Stanton (Additional Voices)
Episode sequence	Expedition to Khumbu <--> Future Rage
Other episodes

On a delivery mission for Dr. Quest in Siberia, Jessie Bannon and the Quest Jet fall to the earth and break through the ice to land in a massive underworld, where she is hailed as the one who will restore a volcano's heat.

Plot Summary

Teaser

The Quest Jet

Over a frozen hill on the snow-covered permafrost of Sibera, Race Bannon appears in front of a surface submarine; the captain greets him. Race notes that he needs a landing strip made for his daughter Jessie Bannon, who is flying in on the Quest Jet. She's on her way to Dr. Benton Quest's research station, where the rest are the team are staying, to deliver a translation device on which she's tuned up the phonetic drives. As Dr. Quest thanks her, the Quest Jet experiences flame outs in both engines as the fuel lines are frozen. Gustavo, the pilot, tries to initiate emergency restart procedures, but they fail as Jessie straps herself in to the back. He is forced to set the plane down on the ice, and manages a decent landing before the huge sheet of ice beneath the plane breaks, sending the Jet tumbling down a huge system of caverns.

Act One

Jessie and Kazrina

Race is crushed by the apparent loss, and declares that he's going to find her; Benton and the rest offer to help, and they depart in huge snow machines to find her. Jessie finds herself hanging upside down in the wreck, and undoes her seatbelt; she discovers Gustavo dead in the cockpit. Race drives like a madman across the ice until finding the hole, then brakes and barely stops at the edge. Benton chastises him for nearly getting himself killed, and Race remarks that they have no time to argue. In the pit, Jessie buries Gustavo and encounters a wild dog. She prepares to throw a rock at it, but a native emerges from the trees and takes the dog, apparently to return to her camp. Jessie notices that she looked at her bracelet, and lays it on the rocks for her. The woman returns, and Jessie lays a translator earpiece for her, donning one on her own ear as well. The woman speaks that she visioned Jessie's coming in a dream, and that she would save the great fire.

Kazrina's ancestor

Jessie asks where they are, and the woman is surprised that the "fire-bringer" does not know such a thing. She explains that this is the inner world, and that up there lies the outer world, where Jessie came from and where inner worlders cannot return. She states that her people lived on the outer world in a village initially, and that her ancestor was part of them and had the gift of precognition. They lived in a miserable place, and one nights the tsar's men ravaged and set aflame their dwellings. Her ancestor escaped, and returned to find their smoldering remains; she told them of her dream about the inner world and led them across the ice until a patch collapsed beneath them, transporting them to their current habitat. Jessie walks with the woman and finds that the geothermal energy from a volcano nearby has created its own ecosystem under the ice. At the rim of the caldera, the headman prepares to hurl a child into the fire to appease it and return the heat to the villagers. He stops when the woman arrives with Jessie, proclaiming that she is the fire-bringer. Jessie equips him with a translator and tells him she is not the bringer of fire, and he orders the woman thrown in as a sacrifice and final gesture in extinguishing her family line as the last descendant of the "witch" who brought them to the inner world.

Act Two

Yagor is incredulous

Jessie stops the cruel ritual by shooting a flare gun and declaring herself to be the fire-bringer after all. Above ground, Race and Jonny Quest rest within sleeping bags on the ice, and Jonny assures Race that Jessie will be all right. Jessie speaks with Kazrina, who notes that no one ever escaped save her ancestor, who after being exiled to a cave used sharp rocks to climb the cliffs. However, the ice cliffs are now bowed over rather than straight, provoking Jessie to think of another way out by riding thermals emanating from the volcano. She scours the crash site for a few tents as Yagor decides that the "witch" and the fire-bringer must be purged from their camp. They ransack and burn her cabin as Jessie and Kazrina struggle to build a balloon out of the plane's materials. They see the angry crowd and must buy some time; Jessie activates the engines, which blows inflates their dirigible. Jessie fires a flare gun to hold away the marauders, but they continue unabashedly until one holds down the balloon from taking off. Jessie pelts him with a rock, releasing the balloon as the jet below explodes. Race sees smoke coming from the hole, and manages to grab the rope with help and pull down the balloon. Kazrina finds another woman who shares her ancestor, as her family line was created when the ancestor climbed out of the ice pit. As they reunite the ancestor's locket, Jonny and Race express their thanks that Jessie is all right.

Notes

Quotes

Jonny and Jessie

• Hadji - "I knew that I should have ridden with Dr. Quest!"

~

• Yagor - "Are you, or are you not the firebringer?"
• Jessie - "Not unless you're the tsar of Russia."
• Yagor - "See!! I have the power to make demons speak the truth!"

~

• Race - "I feel so helpless. And what if Jessie does, too?"
• Jonny - "Helpless isn't a word I would use to describe the Bannon family."

~

• Hadji - "You drive as badly as Race does, Jonny!"

~

• Jessie - "If you believe in anything—anything at all—pray that the fuel lines aren't still frozen."

~

• Jonny - "Jeez, Jess. I guess all that Bannon hot air finally came in handy. Man, am I glad you're all right."

Trivia

• The Quest Byte features the deletion of a Surd virus. The scene of two wireframe models in a bubble is taken from the virtual file finder sequence from Heroes.
• According to Hollywood Reporter Ratings Note, this episode's premiere drew 650,000 viewers.

From: Episodes