Aimee turned her head from Dr. Silex and looked down at the notes in front of her on the desk; she exhaled through compressed lips and suppressed a small shudder of revulsion.

Alfred interjected smoothly. “This is a critically important project, Aimee. We need scientists with a mix of chemical, geological and petrobiological expertise. In addition, your work on organic-petrochemical interrelationships and Dr. Silex’s research into stratigraphic imaging techniques makes you two the best qualified candidates.”

Alfred looked at Aimee sympathetically and went on. “The ionosphere down there suffers from a lot of magnetic disturbance, so we might just have total communications failure. Or maybe they’ve gone deeper into the caves and can’t get a message out. Of course, our objective is to bring them back, Aimee, but until we know for sure they have come to any harm, the project expedition remains scientific. Therefore, as the senior scientist, it will be headed by Adrian.”

“I like to think I’m more working with you rather than being assisted by you,” Silex said. “But I’ll pass the introduction baton on, and we can talk more later on.”

The young woman next to him broke into a wide smile. She had an open face and Aimee couldn’t help warming to her. “Hi, Dr. Weir, my name is Monica Jennings. It’s nice to meet you.” With her hair tied back and a spray of small freckles on her face she looked like a hundred other healthy young women Aimee saw playing volleyball or on the athletic track in campuses across America. Aimee smiled back and asked Monica to call her Aimee, then nodded for her to continue. “I’m here to get you down in the hole and navigate the belly of the beast. My specialty is twofold; I’ve climbed just about every significant mountain there is to climb, and there’s not much I don’t know about going up or coming down ice. But my real love is caving—I’m a spelunker.”

The young grad-student type next to Monica was looking at her admiringly. “Very cool,” he said. Aimee could tell he was already smitten by the rock climber. The young man cleared his throat, obviously nervous and introduced himself. “I’m Matt Kerns, Professor of Archaeological Studies at Harvard University. I specialise in ancient civilisations and protolinguistics, and ahh . . .” Matt looked around at his table companions. “And if this is just a plane crash into a hole in Antarctica, I don’t know why I’m here.”