“Be patient. You haven’t reached the extraction zone. Stay on course. The ice sheet will drop, and the external pressure will rise. When your gauge hits 3,100 psi, the ice sheet and the lake’s surface waters will be separated by less than five feet of air space. Dive the boat to a depth of three hundred feet, then ascend on a ninety degree vertical plane with both Valkyrie lasers on high. As soon as you pop up out of the water you’ll melt ice, and the external pressure will force the Barracuda up into the hole you’ve created and drive you straight up through the ice sheet. By the time the water freezes behind you and reseals the hole, you’ll be halfway home.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

The acoustic jolt was far more powerful than the others, reverberating inside my skull and throughout the Barracuda. I searched for the source on sonar, but it was too late.

The bull leviathan breached beneath the Barracuda and took the submersible sideways in its powerful jaws. I experienced the sensation of being lifted into the air as our exterior lights illuminated a pink mouth and rows of brown-stained teeth.

And then a deafening craaaaaack popped my eardrums, and a shock of icy water blasted me in the face as I was tossed sideways into death’s crushing embrace.

20

“Life, what is it but a dream?”

—Lewis Carroll

I opened my eyes to warmth and shadows, and then a single indigo candle flickered to life, revealing a wall of books and the alien resembling Joe Tkalec.

“Welcome back.”

“I died again, didn’t I?”

“A skill you have become quite adept at. So far you’ve bled to death in the ice tunnel, frozen to death resting in one crevasse, broken your neck when you fell into another, drowned twice, and now been eaten by a giant aquatic mammal. Six wavelengths, six multiverses to alter your destiny—all resulting in six deaths.”

“Maybe if you actually allowed me to retain the slightest bit of memory … ”

“Zachary, I’ve explained the rules regarding free will. Vostok is a test, to see if you are worthy of accessing the portal.

“Once more into the breach?”

“Isn’t there something you can offer me?” I asked. “The slightest clue? Even the real Joe Tkalec wouldn’t sit back and watch me suffer like this. I feel like an animal caught in a trap.”

“Then act like one! An animal caught in a trap would chew off its leg to free itself.”

“Is that it, then? Is that the secret to our survival as a species?”