Steve Alten - Vostok

I caught a fleeting glimpse of coastal marshlands on our right just before the Barracuda ’s keel slapped down hard against the unyielding chaos of roots and sulfur-rich soil carpeting the surface.

With the sub resting on its belly, the lasers burned nothing but air and darkness.

We were marooned.

Before I could contemplate our situation the vegetation mushroomed as the creature’s snout, skull, and upper body breached beneath us.

Purussaurus!

My brain went numb as the forty-ton caiman thrashed and rolled and obliterated the mattress of minerals, churning millions of years of growth into liquefied muck.

Our vessel slipped sideways back into the swamp and found water. Ben slammed his right foot to his pump-jet propulsor controls, sending us into a barrel-rolling descent just as an eight-foot-long lower jaw snapped at our starboard wing, its fangs catching only vegetation.

The Valkyries opened a sizzling path in the olive-green kelp forest as we zigged and zagged our way through an underwater maze of jungle.

Following our trail, the Miocene monster stalked us like a hungry tiger.

Glancing at my sonar screen, I saw where Ben was headed and nodded tersely.

Fifty yards… thirty …

The giant caiman’s frightening head, as big as a tractor trailer, closed on our aft monitor.

Twenty yards… ten…!

We swerved to starboard, and the creature turned with us, its head rolling sideways as its jaws widened—

Crunch !

The Purussaurus engulfed the dead juvenile sea cow, along with the two whitetip sharks that were feeding upon its gushing remains. The giant croc slowed to swallow its meal, circling its kill zone lest another challenger enter.

Ben laid back in his seat, sweat pouring down his face. “Take over, Zach. Shut down the lasers. Keep us heading west. Ming… I deserve a bonus.”

The Chinese beauty leaned over her console and kissed his forehead.

I engaged the controls and shut down the Valkyries, my eyes catching the air supply gauge as it inched below seven hours.

We were down to five hours and twenty-two minutes when Ming and I heard the faint sound of rushing water over our headphones. Sonar tracked the sound to the west where a channel of current appeared to be rushing inland. The surface above us had no vegetation, the waves far too violent to allow anything to accumulate.

I roused Ben from his sleep. “We found something, a channel running inland. If the river cuts across the plateau it could empty into the northern basin.”

“What happens if it strands us in the shallows and we beach? You want to be the one who gets out and pushes?”

Ming interjected, her tone soothing. “Ben, we have followed the plateau for twenty miles. From the satellite images we know the rise is at least thirty miles wide. Perhaps there is another inlet somewhere, but if we do not begin crossing the plateau soon we will run out of air.”

The pilot nodded. “I’ll take the conn. Zach on sonar. Once we move into the channel, I want you to go active to gauge the depth. If it seems deep enough we’ll give it a shot. If not, we head back and continue the search. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Ben took a moment to relieve his bladder using his plastic-bottle urinal. Then, taking over as pilot, he ascended the sub into the channel.

We surfaced into a swiftly moving deluge, driven by ten- to twelve-foot waves that lifted our craft and nearly tossed us over the first curl.

Ben accelerated ahead of the next swell, offering us a glimpse of what lay ahead.

The water was being channeled between two headlands, seven- to ten-story cliffs that jutted out into the lake. The waterway was as wide as an eight-lane highway, but its length and depth were impossible to gauge.

I waited until we were closer to the whitewater entrance before going active on sonar.

The acoustic PING rippled across the channel, its reverberations painting the waterway’s topography. The river swept inland another half-mile before the shallows appeared, where the depths reduced from seven hundred feet to eighty-five feet — certainly deep enough to accommodate our tiny sub.

The sonar signature disappeared into white noise as the river turned to the northeast.

Ben kept us in the middle of the channel. Volcanic cliffs rose to either side of the sub, waves crashing against the base of the plateau.

As we ventured farther inland, a blip appeared on my screen as something massive rose off the bottom.

“Zachary, what is it?”

“From its size, I’d guess another Purussaurus , or maybe the same one. It’s still in the vent field, but it’s ascending toward the channel.”

Ben cursed under his breath. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

The Barracuda accelerated through the chop, our propeller’s signature lost in the whitewater.

“Talk to me, Zach. Can that croc follow us inland?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean it will. The entrance is plenty deep. I can’t see anything beyond the first curve. It’s getting a bit rough topside.”

“Got it.” Ben dove the sub, killing our external lights in favor of his night-vision goggles. A Miocene river bed appeared below us in bright green, littered by harrowing outcroppings and boulders that churned the surface at twenty-three knots.

My pulse raced as the Purussaurus entered the channel.

We followed the waterway inland for several miles, the canyon’s walls gradually settling along either side of us into a rocky embankment, the volcanic rock slick with algae.

The sound of rushing water grew louder in my headphones until I was forced to pull them away from my ears. “We’re either approaching rapids or the dispersal zone of a waterfall. Can you back us off?”

“Negative. We’re caught in its vortex. There’s no room to come about. Hold on, boys and girls, we’re going through.”

A thunderous echo of water reverberated through the Barracuda as the river curved to the east, slinging us sideways and grinding the keel against unseen rock as we spun downstream through subglacial rapids, the whitewater tossing our submersible about like a log.

Closing my eyes, I held on in the turbulent darkness, waiting for the sudden rush of freezing water as our inverted cockpit repeatedly bashed against unseen rocks. I thought about Brandy and William and cursed the selfish decision that defied my own fear and intellect. Most of all, I cursed Angus for having manipulated me.

Who was I kidding? The decision to accept the mission had been mine to make. I had forfeited happiness for a shot at immortality, and for that I would pay the ultimate price.

Emptiness replaced fear as I realized I’d never hold my beautiful bride again, never play ball with my son, never walk him to school or watch him grow up or graduate or raise a family of his own. With my death, those responsibilities and the rewards that came with parenthood would be passed on to his mother and whomever she chose to fill the void I was about to leave in her life.

These toxic thoughts were shunted as an unseen force drove us bow-first into the river bed. I heard Ming cry out as the sub’s tail rose behind us, the river pinning us upside-down at a nauseating angle for untold torturous minutes.

Locating our exterior lights, I powered them on to reveal our bow now wedged tightly in an underpinning of rock and held fast by the force of the current. Through my moans and the thunderous current, I heard Ben yell, then felt his grip on my shoulder. “Release your harness and climb up here with me and Ming.”

With trembling fingers I pried open the latch to my harness and tumbled out of my seat onto the now-slanted roof of the acrylic pod. Crawling on my belly, I made my way into Ben’s cockpit.