Vostok (19 page)

Ming was livid. “You maniac. Look what you did!”

“What did you want me to do? We needed a place to surface, now we have one. No one needs to know.”

“That is not the point. We did not journey into this pristine environment to destroy a fifteen-million-year-old ecosystem.”

“Don’t go all PETA on me, Ming. So I fried a few fish. Big deal. The dead will be eaten, and the algae will grow back.”

Before she could retort, the
Barracuda
’s bow punched through the smoldering mattress of vegetation. The sub leveled out in the midst of a midnight fog swirling beneath a cloudlike ceiling of ice at least twenty stories high.

While Ben swore at the ice sheet and Ming swore at Ben, I used my night-vision binoculars to survey our new surroundings.

We were surrounded by a thick, undulating bed of vegetation. To the north the surface layer progressively expanded into a dark, lumpy moss and what appeared to be tens of thousands of snakes. After adjusting my focus, I realized they were roots growing out of the marsh. With no sun to reach for, the growths had twisted horizontally into thick briar patches, nourished solely by the chemosynthetic-rich soil.

Farther out still, I saw the dark silhouette of a rise.

Ben and Ming were still arguing in my headphones, distracting my thoughts. “Enough,” I yelled, silencing the voices in my ears. “Ben, I thought the plateau that divides the lake’s northern and southern basin was underwater.”

“Depth is seven hundred feet, according to Vostok Command. Why?”

“Because there’s a ridge out there preventing us from entering the northern basin, and it’s definitely not submerged.”

My two shipmates located their binoculars and panned the northern horizon.

Ming didn’t seem too surprised. “At least three nations studying Vostok claim the lake has islands and tides. Perhaps these radar scans were completed at low tide and confused the partially submerged ridge for islands.”

Ben angrily shoved his binoculars back in their pouch. “Maybe Vostok does have tides, or maybe somebody just screwed up. If a high tide is coming, it’d better get here soon. Otherwise we have about nine and a half hours to figure out how to cross a land bridge in a submersible.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “The external air pressure has dropped again, this time from thirty-nine hundred psi to just over four hundred. That’s a massive pressure differential.”

Ming theorized. “The geothermal vents heated the water. The warmth melted the ice, which carved out the bottom of the ice sheet, creating more air space. That space filled with compressed
oxygen and nitrogen particles, which are perpetually being squeezed to the bottom of the glacier. It is this atmosphere that is counteracting Vostok’s external pressure.”

“That doesn’t explain the magnetic interference that’s scrambling your cameras. Ben, as much as I’d like to believe in the tides, I think you’d better take us deep. Maybe we can find an underwater passage that leads into the northern basin.”

The
Barracuda
slipped beneath the algae mat and descended.

Dancing in and out of our exterior lights was bio-diversity on a scale I had never seen before. There was the kelp forest—a million inverted olive-brown tentacles swaying with the current. Then there were the kelp-feeders—anchovies and mollusks, along with countless other dark creatures. Finally, there were the packs of carnivore fish, their presence attracting a few rogue predators.

Perhaps it was to keep Ming on his good side, but Ben made a special effort to maneuver the sub so as not to disturb the wildlife. At one point he even diverted from our descent so that Ming could collect samples of kelp and several anchovies using a vacuum tube.

Having acquired living specimens seemed to lighten Dr. Liao’s soured demeanor.

It took Ben twenty minutes to dive beyond the olive-brown tentacles of algae into open water.

For a long moment we hovered, gazing at the abyss. Particles of brown soot and debris floated past our lights like dark, mesmerizing snowflakes. My eyelids grew heavy. I yearned for sleep.

“Guys, I’m wiped. Maybe we ought to sleep in shifts.”

“Go on, Doc. I just popped a caffeine pill.”

“Get some rest, Zachary. I will monitor the sonar array.”

The
Barracuda
leaped ahead, jumping from three knots to twenty within seconds. Brown flakes flew past the acrylic glass like a dirty blizzard.

Settling back in my seat, I closed my eyes…

“This anomaly is so large that it cannot be the product of a daily change in the magnetic field
.”

—Michael Studinger,
NASA project scientist mapping Lake Vostok’s magnetic anomaly

PING
.

PING… PING… PING
.

The acoustic disturbance jump-started my heart like a bad alarm clock. Locating my headset, I spoke into the mouthpiece, the soothing calm of my catnap eradicated. “What’s wrong? Ben, why are you pinging?”

“We’ve reached the southern face of the ridge. You were right; the plateau runs straight up to the surface. Ming suggested we go active on sonar to see if we could find a breach in this underwater gauntlet.”

I stole a quick glance at my control console. The depth gauge read 817 feet. Using my night glasses, I glanced out to starboard. We were heading west, moving parallel to an imposing cliff face covered in algae.

“How much of the plateau have you surveyed on sonar?”

“Only about four miles, but we’re pinging every three hundred feet. All this algae deadens the sound.”

Ming set off another ping. I switched my headphones to SONAR, following the rippling sound wave on my monitor as it reflected off the plateau, my eyes catching a blip dancing in and out along the right edge of my screen.

“There’s something registering on our acoustic periphery.”

“Tell me it’s an underground river.”

“Sorry. It’s a biologic. Not a small one, either.”

“How big?” Ming asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe ten meters. It’s about a kilometer to the west, hovering along the face of the plateau close to the surface. But stay calm. For all we know, it could be a giant sea cow. They were pretty common during the Miocene.”

“A sea cow? How do you know that? Did you hear it mooing?”

“Take it easy, Ben. The way it’s moving along the rock face suggests it’s a plant-eater.”

Ben stared hard at his sonar screen. “Ming, ping again.”

The
gong
raced out in all directions, the reflection appearing on our monitors. A bright line swept clockwise across the grid, illuminating the blip to the west—along with a second object rising slowly away from the bottom a thousand yards south of our position.

Oh, hell
.

“Zachary?”

“Yes, Ming, I saw it. Ben, bring us as close to the plateau as you can, then ascend the sub so that we’re on an intercept course with that first blip. Ming, no more pings.”

“That second blip—it’s a predator, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“How big?”

“Trust me, Ben, you don’t want to know.”

Ben quickly closed the distance to the plateau so that the sub’s starboard tailfin was within six feet of the rock face. Keeping our speed at fifteen knots, he ascended the
Barracuda
steadily from its eight-hundred-foot depth, his voice grumbling in our headphones. “I took this mission hoping to find fifteen-million-year-old mollusks, not thirty-foot lake carnivores.”

“The thirty-footer is a vegan. It’s the second creature we have to worry about.” My eyes remained focused on the second blip on
the monitor, still rising beneath us.

Ben would not let up. “You’re assuming it’s a predator. Tell me why.”

“It moves like a carnivore. I think it’s been stalking us. It’s also fifty to sixty feet long, which renders it a threat.”

“Another eel?”

“No, Ming. Eels prefer the cold. This creature was warming itself in the vent field like a reptile raising its body heat in the sun.”

Ben veered us away from an outcropping of rock. “Bastard, you know what this is. He knows, Ming.”

I ignored him, my attention focused on the second blip, which had suddenly increased its speed. “It’s making its run. Okay, the first blip is grazing beneath the surface about a thousand feet to the west. Ben, you need to circle it without spooking it.”

“What the hell for?”

“There’s an old saying: when a hungry bear chases you through the woods, you don’t need to be faster than the bear to survive—”

“—you just have to be faster than the next guy. Doc, I like the way you think.” Ben accelerated after the first blip as the second blip accelerated after us.

We were two hundred feet below the surface, kelp whipping past our acrylic glass dome, when we heard a distinct cry over sonar.

“What the hell was that?”

“That, Ben, was the other guy. Come to course three-zero-three. Range to target is 260 feet.”

He accelerated.

Three minutes later we sighted the first blip. It was moving through kelp ninety feet below the algae-covered surface. An adult female, she was thirty-two feet from her snout to her whale-like fluke, her bulbous body weighing well over ten tons. Her calf was a
third her girth, its bulk partially obscured in a cloud of its own blood.

“It appears to be a giant manatee.”

“Same family, Ming. Essentially, it really is a Miocene species of sea cow.”

“Look at those sharks circling below. All that blood in the water is like a dinner bell.”

“The mother is trying to push her calf back to the ridge.”

“She’ll never make it,” I muttered.

As we watched, an eleven-foot bull shark darted in from below like a missile and savagely tore a hunk of blubber from Junior’s gushing belly. The calf cried out again, its almost human-like wail magnified in my headphones. Dozens of sharks were now circling below, hundreds of salmon soaring in and out of the chaos of blood and blubber to snap up morsels.

It was a Miocene feeding frenzy.

Then the second creature arrived, and this one scared the Highlands out of me.

“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change
.”

—Lewis Carroll

“Ben, it’ll be focused on the calf’s blood, so move us away slowly. Ben, are you listening?”

Maybe it was the unnervingly quick exodus of the other predators; maybe it was the fear experienced during our confrontation with the eels, but instead of heeding my advice Ben opened the engine up full-throttle.

As I feared, our sudden movement attracted the trailing predator.

Hugging the plateau, Ben raced the sub to the west, and the creature closed the distance from below.

Ming tracked it on her aft camera, the image partially scrambled from the magnetic interference. “Ben, it’s gaining. Do not slow down. Why are you slowing down?”

“Outcroppings. I can’t react that fast.”

“Then move us away from the ridge!” I yelled.

“I can’t. It has the angle. It’ll cut us off. How close is it now?”

“Eighty feet.”

Ming screamed, “It’s coming up beneath us!”

Ben pulled back hard on his joystick, accelerating toward the surface at a steep angle as he ignited the Valkyries. The twin lasers burned through the thick ceiling of vegetation and suddenly we were airborne, soaring high over the algae-infested lake.

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.