Steve Alten - Vostok

Touching a gloved finger to my running nose, I realized I was bleeding from both nostrils. Using my scarf, I wiped the goggles clean and put them on, then pinched my nose to stop the bleeding.

The crevasse appeared to circle the base of the mountain. A fog had formed, generated by the warm air escaping from the rift. The mist was so thick that my light couldn’t penetrate it, but the sound did.

The growl was guttural, a predatory snarl that snapped my head around.

Heart pounding in my chest, I stared at the wall of fog that separated the edge of the crevasse where I now stood from the base of the mountain. I heard the animal’s clawed feet moving over the rocks as it approached. I sensed its enormity as its front paws crushed snow. It was tracking my scent, drawn to my blood.

Cold sweat beads dripped down my face. I reached for the climbing axe resting by my right thigh and gripped its handle in both gloved hands.

Batter up, Zach. Just like hitting a fastball .

The next sound that came was a bloodcurdling cry, accompanied by quick strides through the snow that backed me toward the crevasse.

I saw the beast charge out of the mist—

And jumped!

I don’t know how far I fell. All I know is that one minute I was falling feet-first and then I jerked to halt as something large and musky and covered in fur hurtled past me, howling as it clawed at the sheer vertical walls of the rift.

I heard it hit the ground below, the impact followed by a second and more solid whump , which drove the air from its lungs and the life from its body. Its death silenced the fissure, save from my own strained wheezing.

Reaching out, I managed to dig my spikes into a ledge, relieving the stress of the noose around my upper body. Still gripping the flashlight, I aimed its beam below.

The animal had struck the bottom of the chasm and had broken through to an immense cavern running below the crevasse. Even more bizarre, the hole it had opened up was radiating light. I removed my night-vision goggles, the luminescence appearing violet.

Reaching for the GPS instrument in my jacket pocket, I set the device to take Geiger readings and held it out, fearful of radiation.

The needle never moved.

Had it not been for that mysterious vein of light, I would have climbed out of the fissure and set off for the rendezvous point.

But why rush back? Hadn’t I come to Vostok seeking knowledge about our past, looking for undiscovered life-forms? I was in no immediate danger. Vostok Command was certainly monitoring my vital signs through the sensory junctions of my ECU jumpsuit. And the Colonel wouldn’t allow Ben to leave without me.

Climb down, take a quick look, and then leave .

I looked up, inspecting the interior of the crevasse through my night-vision goggles. The rift narrowed considerably to my left, enough so that I could wedge my body between the two walls and free climb up using my axe and cleats. That was important, as I might need the rope to climb out of the cavern. That meant climbing out of the crevasse, freeing the rope, and climbing back down to explore the subterranean opening, a chore that exhausted me just thinking about it.

Climb out and reevaluate .

I plunged the spiked end of the axe into the rock wall and, using my cleats, squeezed my way up the narrower section of the chasm, testing my climbing abilities. With a bit more effort than I’d anticipated, I reached the top and pulled myself over the ledge, breathing hard. My quads had done the brunt of the work, and my legs were shaking with the effort.

Surrounded by the dense fog, I was also vulnerable to another attack.

Shyte or git aft the toilet, Wallace .

Using the blade of the axe, I sliced through the last forty feet of rope, leaving the rest intact to ascend the embankment. Gathering up the line, I shoved it in my pack and eased myself feet-first over the ledge of the fissure.

Going down proved far easier than climbing up, and within ten minutes I was standing about fifty feet below the surface. Lying on my belly by the edge of the seven-foot-long hole, I removed my goggles and ducked my head inside. It was a vast ice tunnel, its walls perfectly circular and radiating blue.

Blue? I thought it was violet? Had the color changed, or was it my perspective?

My first impression of the cavern tagged it as an ancient lava tube that most likely led to the base of the mountain, an extinct volcano.

I estimated the drop from the bottom of the crevasse to the bottom of the ice tunnel to be thirty feet. Getting down was easy, getting up would be a bitch. The rope wasn’t exactly the kind I had been forced to climb as a teen in gym class, and bundled in extreme weather gear, already exhausted, left me with a nightmarish thought of being stranded in a damn ice tunnel.

Having already cursed my own stupidity back in the sub when we nearly suffocated, I thought was why risk it?

But what about that blue glow?

Triboluminescence is a geological feature of both sphalerite and tremolite. Friction applied to these two minerals actually causes the rocks to glow. It was certainly feasible that the lava tunnel was composed of one or both of these minerals, and that the blue hue was simply caused by the surrounding ice thawing and refreezing, something that had occurred God knows how many times since Vostok had been sealed.

Satisfied with my game of cause and effect, I stood to begin my ascent when the tunnel’s luminosity changed from its blue hue to emerald green.

Dumbfounded, I knelt by the hole and looked inside again. There was no mistaking it, the color had changed.

Lucky bastard… looks like you’re going in .

Removing the rope from my backpack, I tied a grapefruit-sized knot at one end and then wedged the ball inside one of the narrow gaps chiseled into the bottom of the rift. I tested it and the anchor passed. Still hesitant, I tied another eight knots in the rope to give myself something to grip during my climb.

Satisfied I could negotiate the climb, I dropped the line into the ice tunnel. It came up short, but it was a manageable reach.

Grabbing hold of the first knot down, I lowered myself through the hole, climbing down hand over hand like I used to do in tenth-grade phys. ed. So intent was I on not falling that I only took in my surroundings once my spiked boots hit bottom.

The curved tunnel walls dwarfed me. One end ran south in the direction of the bay, the other north toward the mountain.

Two paces to my right was the dead animal.

It was four-legged and gruesome. Half the size of a bear, it had thick reddish-brown grizzly fur but was more dog-like in its appearance, with canine teeth that stretched outside its jowls, a long rodent-like tail, and limbs designed for lumbered sprints through the deep snow.

I confirmed its identity as an Amphicyonid , an extinct species of bear-dog. It was an apex killer during the Miocene. The males were bigger and nastier than the females, and this one must have weighed between two and three hundred pounds.

Ignoring the urge to check its sex, I gazed from one end of the luminescent-green tunnel to the other. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was the high oxygen content, but choosing a direction seemed a mental chore I hadn’t the strength to complete. So, I yelled out, “Which way, José?”

The tunnel to the north brightened from green to light green to yellow.

What? It’s communicating with me using the colors of the electromagnetic spectrum .

Stepping over the dead predator, I headed down the northern section of the shaft, feeling lightheaded and a bit like Alice as she made her way into the rabbit hole. Of course, Alice’s rabbit hadn’t tried to bite her head off.