“I know you think you piloted the Barracuda through a subglacial river. I’m also certain you’re convinced that when you ran out of river and found yourself trapped, you were able to use the lasers to create your escape. But it never happened.

“That river you saw on the satellite chart, it wasn’t complete. To make it out through the Amery Ice Shelf, you would have needed a hundred Valkyries powered by a small nuclear power plant. Not to mention air. The most you had left while the umbilical was still attached was twelve hours. Even with two completely functional lasers fed by an endless surface supply of power, it would have taken you eighty hours to cover eight hundred miles through near-solid ice. So how did you do it? How did you manage to get to Prydz Bay and the airfield at Davis Base to board your father’s chartered jet, which just happened to be there to whisk True and his crocodile egg to safety?”

“I don’t know. I was out of it. I spent a month in the hospital. I remember bits and pieces, but the rest is a blur. Yet I was there, and I’m here. I didn’t die. You can’t go from being trapped beneath the ice to Davis Station without the journey in between.”

“Or maybe you can. Have you ever heard of quantum tunneling? No? When we examine the inner workings of an atom, we know that it is about 99.99 percent empty space. In fact, all matter is mostly empty space. So why, then, if that’s true, can’t we walk through walls? The reason is electrons. Electrons are tiny, but they pack a strong negative charge. These electrons are continuously moving around the circumference of the atom at the speed of light, repelling each other. It’s their repelling charge that prevents us from walking through walls. Did you know we go through our entire lives without ever actually having touched anything? When we stand, the electrons in our shoes repel the electrons in the floor, levitating us about a millionth of a centimeter. Of course, you already know that from having spent the last seven years marketing an alien electron generator.

“Quantum tunneling is the quantum mechanical process by which a particle can pass between two separate points without passing through all the intermediate points. Extraterrestrial aircraft move from point A to point B in the blink of an eye, appearing to stop on a dime when in fact they’re quantum tunneling. Oh, yes, we know a great deal about our alien visitors, and I want to share everything with you.”