The propeller re-engaged, the spinning blades halting our descent.

I heard Ben wheeze a pained breath.

“This is Wallace. Quit your head games, Colonel. Captain Hintzmann’s in no shape—”

“Captain Hintzmann is dead.”

“What?” Unbuckling my harness, I stood on my seat and leaned over to check on Ben. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes glazed over. I checked his neck—no pulse.

I flopped back in my seat, feeling numb. “Take me home… please. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Glad to hear it, Dr. Wallace. Did you know the captain and Dr. Liao were working together?”

Don’t tell him about the photos.

“What do you mean by working together? Aren’t we all working together?”

“You’re lying, Dr. Wallace. I think you know exactly what I mean.”

Damn uniform. It’s registering my heart rate. Vacendak’s using it like a lie detector. Don’t get excited. Take slow easy breaths. Answer in truths that keep him off-balance.

“Yeah, so they had sex. So what? We thought we were going to die. Why do you give a shit? Don’t tell me you’re a jealous lover.”

I climbed back to Ming’s cockpit and glanced outside the ship at the tailfin. The umbilical gave the Colonel complete control.

Was there any way to disconnect it?

“Zachary, when you ventured down that crevasse, what did you find?”

“I didn’t venture, I fell.”

“And?”

“The crevasse led down to an old magma tunnel.”

“Nothing unusual?”

“There was a glow, I went to check it out. It was caused by a vein of sphalerite. It’s a mineral that, under pressure, creates its own illumination. The force of the crevasse opening generated friction. By the time I left, it was dark.”

“I see. And this glowing tunnel, where did it lead?”

“It dead-ended at volcanic rock. Why are you asking me this?”

I gripped the seat, clenching my teeth as the propeller ceased and the sub dropped another thirty feet.

“Are you insane? Bring me back up to the surface, you psychopath!”

“Zachary, did you know that the suit you are wearing contains sensors that allow us to track all sorts of things. For instance, changes in your blood pressure told us the moment you had descended another two atmospheres to access that tunnel. Thirty-three minutes elapsed between the time you went down and whe you climbed back up.”

“Now you’re judging my climbing skills?”

The rope!

Climbing back into the third seat, I removed the eighty-foot coil of nylon from Ming’s backpack.

“Time, Zachary, can be deceiving. As you probably know, time is a concept limited to our physical third-dimensional perspectives. It doesn’t exist in a fourth-dimensional vortex—say, a wormhole. Or, theoretically, a vessel capable of interstellar travel.”

“Colonel, no offense, but if you want my opinion about quantum physics, we could just as easily have this conversation back in the dome.”