Dragging our duffle bags, we waddled like penguins to an awaiting bright red truck as our team of Chinese technicians loaded the crate containing the Barracuda onto a sled.

The Hägglund was a Swedish snow vehicle with cab space for eight passengers and a trailing sled that could tow up to two tons. Powered by a Mercedes turbo diesel engine, the truck rode on four rubber tracks and a loose suspension system that gave us a nauseating herky-jerky ride, made worse by its twelve-mile-an-hour maximum speed.

Forty torturous minutes later, we arrived at the dome.

The structure that housed the expedition was a three-story-high, three-hundred-fifty-foot-in-diameter geodesic dome, its gold-painted roof composed of an array of trianglular panels that were far more stable than the standard rectangular-cut structures. Highly resistant to snow, ice, and wind, the dome needed no internal columns or interior load-bearing walls, and required less power to heat than box architectural designs. Erected using prefabricated components, it could be disassembled if need be and moved quickly, which was a major consideration when taking into account the fact that Vostok’s waters were spread out over 6,060 square miles. Different sections of the lake could produce vastly different discoveries—and life-forms.

Finding life in Vostok depended on two major issues. The first dealt with how the lake had formed. Was it simply a basin that had filled with meltwater fifteen million years ago, or had it been a flourishing natural lake that rapidly froze over during Antarctica’s last major climate change? Geologists examining satellite photos generally agreed that Vostok’s shape and location rendered it a natural rift lake, formed thirty million years ago when tectonic forces had split open to forge a long, narrow water basin. Surrounded by the East Antarctic highlands, Vostok’s surface waters would have frozen over quickly when temperatures dropped, potentially entrapping its aquatic life-forms.

This led to one of the key questions our expedition had been organized to answer: had complex life-forms survived?

Most species found on Earth rely on food sources dependent on photosynthesis, the process by which plants make energy from sunlight. Vostok’s waters were isolated in darkness, and yet in both the deep ocean and certain rift lakes, unique ecosystems had evolved based on a process by which certain microbes created energy through a chemical reaction called chemosynthesis. The process began when geothermal vents released superheated chemical-laced waters rich in hydrogen sulfide into the lake or sea. Chemosynthetic microbes spawn microbial mats, which in turn feed plants and grazers such as snails, limpets, and scaleworms. Fish consume the grazers, predators eat the fish, and suddenly you have the foundation of an entire ecosystem devoid of sunlight.

Our truck parked before the main entrance of the dome—a prefabricated aluminum structure that served as a weather room. Grabbing our gear, we braved the wind for another twenty strides and hurried inside, our boots tracking snow onto the rubber mats.

A sign was posted in English, Chinese, German, and French: