Steve Alten - Vostok

Ming was dressed in her bodywear and looked incredible. Her technical team led us to the gantry where the Barracuda was suspended horizontally in its harness with the acrylic cockpit open. We climbed into our assigned seats while our techs plugged the hoses from our uniforms into their appropriate sockets.

True held up his iPhone to snap a photo. “For Brandy and William… and the Inverness Courier .”

For some reason, my thoughts turned to my old science teacher, Joe Tkalec.

True clicked off a few shots. “Oh, and ye’ll be happy tae learn tha’ Susan found me the perfect job. I’m working with the team that’ll be sealing yer borehole. I equate it ta givin’ Antarctica a suppository, followed by a frosty enema chaser.”

“You’re a class act, Finlay True MacDonald.”

We both smiled, but there was a look in my friend’s eyes that I’d not soon forget. It was the same look of worry I had seen moments before he launched me into the depths of Loch Ness.

Ming was a combination of nervous and giddy. Before settling into her cockpit, she offered each of us a yellow pill. “It’s just a little something to relax you. After all, there’s nothing for us to do during the descent, which will take hours.”

Having still not fully recovered from the Valium, I passed.

Ben pocketed his.

The three of us went through our checklists with the Mission Control techs while a small crowd gathered outside the gantry fencing. At 10:05 a.m. we received clearance to launch. We rotated our seats one hundred and eighty degrees to face astern.

Our pod’s hatch was sealed, causing my heart to flutter. A moment later the gantry activated, rotating the harness vertically so that the Barracuda ’s nose was pointed at the ice, placing us on our backs like astronauts launching into Hell. We adjusted our harnesses, tightening any slack.

“This is Vostok Command. Captain Hintzmann, you have clearance to activate your Valkyrie lasers.”

“Roger that, Vostok Command. Activating Valkyrie units on my count: Three… two… one… activate.”

The two tubes on either side of the sub ignited, the lasers’ heat reflecting crimson against the ice, which was already steaming. We dropped two feet, then two feet more so that we were now ground level. Then we slipped beneath the ice, continuing a rough, herky-jerky descent as the frozen surface crackled and screamed in protest beneath the intense heat.

A borehole gradually opened beneath us. The melt and drop averaged four to six feet every ten to twenty seconds with an occasional stomach-wrenching drop into free fall.

I turned in my seat to take a look below. The ice bled like a fading sunset, slush splattering against the cockpit windshield. Every once in a while a dark pocket would open and we’d drop twenty feet, only to stop suddenly, the jolt absorbed by our cushioned bucket seats.

I checked our depth gauge after thirty minutes: 1,029 feet.

Vostok was 13,100 feet beneath the ice. At our present rate of descent, we wouldn’t reach the lake for another seven and a half hours.

Ben’s voice came over my headset. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ll need some aspirin before this journey’s through. How’s Ming?”

“Sleeping like a baby. I meant to ask you; Dr. Ahmed claimed there was air in Vostok — how is that possible?”

“It’s the sheer mass of the ice sheet. The pressure squeezes oxygen and nitrogen molecules trapped in the ice below and releases them into the lake. Vostok has been experiencing this gas exchange for millions of years. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found pockets of atmosphere. Of course, if there are any organisms alive down there, they would have adapted to this unique oxygen—”

“Enough already, you’re wearing my brain out. I’m popping one of Ming’s pills. Wake me when we get there.”

He was snoring less than ten minutes later.

The slush washing against the bow settled into a soothing rhythm. Curling on my side, I closed my eyes…

The wind whipped through the Great Glen, lapping white water across Loch Ness’s foreboding surface .

True helped me with the dive suit, a heavy contraption that seemed more suited for space. “I’m beggin’ ye, Zachary, don’t go down there. Jist marry my sister and leave the Highlands behind ye forever .”

“The creature’s trapped, True. I need to free it or kill it. It’s the only way to get these night terrors to stop .”

“All right, then. Find the entrance to that underground river and use yer explosives before that thing gets a whiff of ye.” True double-checked my dive suit, then peered into my helmet. “For a runt, ye got big balls. Better grab hold of ’em .”

He disconnected my support cable, and down I went, dropping through Loch Ness’s frigid waters like an anchor. The beam from my forward light cut through the darkness, revealing a tea-colored world, but everything seemed to be spinning .

“Speak to me, Zachary .”

“Dizzy, I’m just a little dizzy .”

“That’s because yer spinning on yer cable. Look inside yer headpiece. Just below yer lower jaw you’ll see a set of gauges. Check yer compass, it’s in orange. It shows direction and course, sort of like a submarine. Press on your thrusters and come to a complete stop. Then call out yer depth to me .”

“Two hundred thirty feet .”

“Have ye stopped spinning?”

“Yes .”

“Good. Now ease off the thrusters and continue descending while callin’ out yer depth .”

“Four-sixty. Five hundred feet. Five-forty—”

“Don’t get cocky. Keep it slow and steady. What do ye see?”

“Not much. Even using my light, visibility’s less than fifteen feet. Outside the beam, the water’s pitch-black. I just passed seven hundred feet. The water temperature’s a chilly thirty-eight degrees, but I’m fine. I can see the bottom. It’s a muddy, flat expanse littered here and there by petrified clumps of Scotch pine. The trees are embedded in the soot, belching streams of gas. Their branches are covered in plankton. They’re reaching out for me like the rotting arms of Loch Ness’s dead…

“Jesus, what am I doing down here?”

“Jesus, Zach, whit are ye doing down there?”

My eyes snapped open, True’s voice beckoning in my ear. “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. Where are we?”

“Fifty feet from splashdown. Command shut yer sub down half an hour ago. The borehole’s checked out solid above ye. I imagine they’ll be allowing you tae proceed.”

“Ben, wake up. We’re here.” I kicked the back of his seat with my foot. “Ming, you awake?”

She yawned and stretched as our headsets reverberated in our ears. “ Barracuda , this is Vostok Command. We’re ready for you to reignite the Valkyrie units. Are you ready to make history?”

Ben responded with a yawn. “Roger that, Vostok Command. Reigniting Valkyrie units on my mark. Three… two… one… ignite.”

“Confirm ignition. Forty feet until splashdown … ”

“Zach, activate our exterior lights.”

“Twenty feet … ”

“Hey, Zach, since you’re in the nose cone, I guess that technically makes you the first man down. Since Ming’s the first woman, where does that leave me?”

“Playing for sloppy seconds, I guess.”

“Ten feet until splashdown. Here we go, people. Eight… five… two … ”

With a final craaaaack the layer of ice beneath us peeled away, and suddenly we were free-falling backward in darkness. My stomach lurched and my heart pounded in my chest as I waited for a splashdown that wasn’t coming.