It took me a few minutes to blurt out the answer, my voice sounding muffled against the tinnitus. “Quantum physics… string theory. The alignment of the ten dimensions.”

String theory was an attempt by physicists to find a single equation that would unite gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. While these fundamental forces acted separately, quantum physicists believed that moments after the Big Bang these phenomena were unified through interacting strings. For their theory to make sense, existence needed either ten or eleven dimensions, with six of them curled up or compactified.

The icon Ben had photographed appeared to fit that description.

I stared at the image, my mind growing desperate.

Whatever was buried beneath the snow and rock appeared to have a power source, and power was what I needed right now.

What the hell? Freezing to death seemed a better way to die than suffocating in the dark surrounded by dead bodies.

First order of business: get out of this borehole and back into the lake.

Activating the aft camera, I zoomed in on the funnel of ice below the sub. To my surprise, the shaft had already frozen over.

I powered up the Valkyries. The lasers melted the ice ahead of the sub, but with the borehole clogged with ice, the lake and its pressure had been effectively cut off, holding me eighty-seven feet above Lake Vostok.

“I’m trapped!” I pounded my fists against the armrests, constricted by the nylon rope still tied around my chest.

The animal caught in the trap will chew its own foot off to survive…

I stopped, my mind racing.

I’ve had crazy ideas before, and almost none have ever worked out. The last crazy idea had occurred two years ago in Loch Ness when I decided the creature needed to be set free.

Correction: My last crazy idea had occurred to me when I yanked out the sub’s umbilical cord, severing my communications with Vostok Command.

Shut up and do the math. It’s eighty-seven feet down to the lake. The rope was eighty feet. That’ll leave you seven feet short, plus another few feet to bait the trap.

Step One: Attach one end of the rope to the sub’s tailfin.

Locating my spiked boots, I struggled to get them over my toes, which had become painful pins and needles. Loosening the rope from around my chest, I positioned it around my waist and then climbed back to the third seat, trying my best to avoid looking at Ming as I popped the cockpit hatch.

A shrill whistle greeted me, the pressure howling up through the borehole loud enough for even my damaged ears to hear. A cold spit of moisture rose with the updraft, convincing me the ice below hadn’t fully solidified.

That was encouraging.