As we continued our ascent, sonar revealed the lake’s surface had been replaced by a thick algae mat that carpeted Vostok’s lake for miles.

“This is bizarre,” I said. “A kelp forest is usually rooted to the bottom. This forest is upside down. Its holdfast is growing out of the geothermal soil and algae that has accumulated along the surface.”

Ben kept the Barracuda eighty feet beneath the mineralized surface, fearful of the Valkyrie units becoming entwined in long strands of kelp.

Everywhere we looked, there were fish.

Hundreds of Miocene rockfish dominated the shallows, their six-foot-long frames carrying a good hundred pounds. They must have been blind, for they remained unaffected by our exterior lights. Their thick hides were a bright orange, rendering the inverted vines a Miocene pumpkin patch.

“This is incredible. Ming, I hope you’re getting this. Ming?”

I turned to find her chair spun around as she hovered over the rear instrument panel. “It was recording perfectly until a few moments ago, but now the image is pixelating.”

“It must be that magnetic interference. We’re probably close to the plateau.”

“Good,” Ben said. “Once we cross the plateau we’ll be in the northern basin, and the magnetic interference should pass. Looks like we won’t be getting there along the surface, though. Guess it’s back down to the basement.”

“Wait,” I said. “Are you able to get an atmospheric pressure reading?”

“Give me two minutes.”

Before I could object, Ben had powered up the Valkyries, igniting the kelp strands in front of us. Within seconds we were rising through clear water, the lasers evaporating plants and barbequing fish as they burned a hole through the soil-covered surface.

Ming was livid. “You maniac. Look what you did!”

“What did you want me to do? We needed a place to surface, now we have one. No one needs to know.”

“That is not the point. We did not journey into this pristine environment to destroy a fifteen-million-year-old ecosystem.”

“Don’t go all PETA on me, Ming. So I fried a few fish. Big deal. The dead will be eaten, and the algae will grow back.”

Before she could retort, the Barracuda’s bow punched through the smoldering mattress of vegetation. The sub leveled out in the midst of a midnight fog swirling beneath a cloudlike ceiling of ice at least twenty stories high.

While Ben swore at the ice sheet and Ming swore at Ben, I used my night-vision binoculars to survey our new surroundings.

We were surrounded by a thick, undulating bed of vegetation. To the north the surface layer progressively expanded into a dark, lumpy moss and what appeared to be tens of thousands of snakes. After adjusting my focus, I realized they were roots growing out of the marsh. With no sun to reach for, the growths had twisted horizontally into thick briar patches, nourished solely by the chemosynthetic-rich soil.