Exhaustion and a steady ride had gotten the better of me. I opened my eyes, stunned to find the nose of the Barracuda beached before a restless herd of sea elephants. Having fallen asleep before reaching the plateau, I don’t know how I had managed to cross the Livyatan melvillei nursery without disturbing the females. Perhaps they had been feeding when I had passed through the channel. Perhaps it was divine intervention. But somehow I had made it all the way back to the bay.

Climbing over my seat into the aft compartment, I searched the backpacks for supplies. I had my climbing axe, magnetometer, three flashlights, and, to my surprise, Ben’s sensory device. Leaving the Colonel’s instrument behind, I packed the other items into my bag, along with water, snacks, and the two iPhones. Gingerly sliding my thawed feet into my climbing boots, I zipped up my jacket, secured my facemask and hat, and bound and wrapped every inch of exposed flesh before slipping on my gloves. Ready for the cold, I popped open the cockpit’s hood.

Vostok greeted me with a golfball-sized chunk of hail that splattered across the Barracuda’s bow.

I dragged, pulled, and pushed the sub out of the water and onto the beach, then resealed the hatch, having decided to leave the bow lights on. Yes, I needed to conserve the batteries, but power was useless if a six-ton sea elephant decided to squat on my submersible as a nest.

Locating Ben’s and Ming’s imprints in the snow, I followed the tracks to the northeast.

The path my deceased companions had used on their return to the sub kept to the coastline as it circled the island around to the east, then south. Though a bit longer, it was far easier to negotiate, and even as I began the ascent up the base of the mountain, the snow accumulation at its worst was only calf-deep. The fog bank was barely intrusive.

What did I expect to find? An ancient spaceship? A gateway to a parallel universe? To be honest, I had no clue. All I knew was that Ben and everyone else in charge of this expedition had gone to great care and expense to access this snow-covered mountain, and I needed to know why.

I had crossed the fissure and had reached the base of the mountain when I remembered the magnetometer. Retrieving it from my backpack, I powered it on.

What in the hell…

The instrument registered 305,000 nanoteslas, a huge jump from the reading I had taken hours earlier on the shoreline with Ben and Ming.

Seeking answers, I pocketed the device and gripped my axe. Approaching an exposed section of rock, I repeatedly struck the volcanic geology with the spiked end of the climbing tool. A dozen whacks and I had chipped away an eight-inch-wide, six-inch-deep divot. Turning on my flashlight, I shined the light upon the hole.