Wind gusts above 40 knots had been battering the station for the past two days, hindering drill operations and putting everyone on edge. Boredom set in once the dataflow dried up. Lake Pell lay unseen beneath more than four kilometres of Antarctic ice, totally shut in on itself, as it had been for perhaps 20 million years. The ecosystem that existed in its depths was potentially more revelatory than that of Lake Vostok, the first sub-surface Antarctic lake to be explored. It was a place no less alien than the ice moons of Jupiter.

Extreme biology was the name of the research game these days. With the Icecutter mission even now in orbit around Europa and already engaged in exploratory operations, everyone in the Lake Pell Project here on Earth felt an increased urgency to find examples of terran-based life able to survive in such a hostile environment. Discovering life deep beneath the ice, trapped there since prehistoric times, would strengthen the hand of those who argued it could also shed light on what might exist in the icy oceans of Europa. This was the last chance for an Earthbound team to make a difference.

"Not going to happen, Nadya." Jess Aquilera leaned back in his swivel chair, exuding an air of condescension. "And don't expect our relationship to affect the decision."

The older woman leaned across his oh-so-tidy desk. "All I expect is to be treated like an fully fledged member of this research team - which I am, as my contract clearly states."

Jess snorted. "I think you'll find your contract specifies ecological analysis, not exploratory heroics."

"Sometimes they're the same thing."

"I'm afraid that I'm in command here, Nadya, and discretion is mine." He frowned. "Try and be reasonable. At this stage a physical incursion into the lake isn't something I'd let anyone undertake, let alone an 83-year-old."

"Eighty-four, thank you." She straightened, settled her jumper across her shoulders and brushed a few errant strands of red hair from her forehead. "I hope ageism isn't creeping into your judgements, my lad. You know the legislation as well as I do. Besides, I'm fitter than you are."

"We know next-to-nothing about conditions down there," he growled, ignoring the jibe. "None of the distance-analysis systems registers anything useful. No seismic or radiant imaging, nothing. We still don't have a clue."

"That's why it's so interesting, Jess, and why someone has to go down and look. The robots simply go offline. It needs human interaction."

Discovering that he had been elevated to Team Leader had come as something of a shock to both of them, though Nadya suspected that Jess relished the role reversal. But he was a seasoned administrator with geological training, so it shouldn't have been surprising that he'd end up in this position; it wasn't a job Nadya ever had the slightest intention of taking on, her seniority notwithstanding.

"Being reasonable isn't always useful, Jess."

"You're not going," her son said coldly, and returned to his paperwork.

Good sense rarely drove scientific enquiry. They all had their reputations to think of. For Nadya, it meant everything. She had dedicated her life - long and endlessly enhanced - to defining Earthly ecosystems as metaphors for "life sites" on alien worlds, and had no intention of giving up on it now. In many ways, the metaphor was more important than the reality. Jess was paid to be cautious; at her age, Nadya felt, caution was a luxury easily dispensed with.

"There's something strange going on down there," muttered Deran Tan, a data analyst with no hair and large eyes artificially dyed to match his habitually red socks. "Sub-nuclear scans are giving some decidedly goofy readings, though they're so tenuous it's hard to draw conclusions that go much beyond fantasy."

"Goofy?" Nadya peered over his shoulder at the 3D images hovering in front of him. "What sort of goofy?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Sector S3 of Pell is full of QGP."

Quark-gluon plasma. Dark energy. She stared at him in surprise. "I thought QGP confined its theoretical presence to the beginning of time."

He grinned. "Quite so. I'm not aware of anyone locating the Big Bang in an Antarctic lake."

Nadya studied the meaningless worm-scrawls floating above Tan's desktop.

"So what makes you think it's QGP?"

"I don't. But if I did, the deductions would come via left-field interpretation of those gravitational anomalies," his short, stubby finger poked at a series of pixel trails rising and falling with an indecisive nervousness that annoyed her, "and a rather odd extrapolation by WIMP detection software. It gives S3 a space-time distortionary character like nothing I've seen before."

"Hmm. Have you told Jess?"

"Nothing to tell. It's meaningless, Nadya - the data-flow's all over the place. I might as well tell him I'd seen the Loch Ness Monster down there."

She laughed. "He'd probably be more interested in that. What if it is QGP?"

He shrugged. "I'll ask you an even more interesting question. What if the dark energy concentration we're detecting indicates a hard spatial distortion?"

"A wormhole?"

"If it is," he grinned mischievously, "it's been there, totally cut off from everything, since Antarctica froze over!"

She shook her head in disbelief.

Later during that endless day, static-ridden reports fed direct from NASA confirmed that the unmanned Icecutter probe was nearing the end of its descent through Europa's crust, about to break into a saltwater ocean believed to exist beneath the alien ice of Jupiter's second-most-famous moon. Hearing the "historic" news made Nadya even edgier.

"I'm going," she grumbled to Tan.

"What?" He barely looked up.

"Into the lake. We can't delay any longer."

"You're kidding, right? Weren't you listening to what I said?"

She shrugged. "All the more reason to go, Deran."

Tan had known her for many years and her tone was more persuasive than his logic could ever be.

"I can't help you with that one, Nadya. Your chances of survival are too unethically low even for an unemotional objectivist like me."

She grabbed his shoulder so hard he winced. "So what if it's dangerous?" The damn anti-geriatric enhancements she had undergone would keep her functioning at a high physical level until the end, but the ultimate event horizon wasn't too far off anyway. "I want to do this. They wouldn't let me get in on Icecutter," she said, beginning to pace. "But that was okay. You know my real interests. Metaphor. That Antarctic lake is the one pure metaphor I've been exploring my whole working life. Let me end on a high, if I must end."

Tan shook his head. "What's the real down-to-the-bone reason? Is it Joe?"

Nadya sighed. "Okay, you monster. Drag my poor dead husband into this if you have to. I don't care. Joe died exploring Vostok and they still say it was a total waste of time. Jess included. I intend to go whether or not I get any help from you, Deran. My chances are better with you, though, don't you think?"

As she knew he would, he agreed to help, and to bring some of the others in. Inside an hour there'd be a window of opportunity, thanks to an incoming break in the storm. She'd have perhaps two hours after that to get to the fifth lock, before Jess did his rounds and noticed something was up. After that, bureaucratic hell would break loose - but if she were far enough into the automated airlock substructure, the CEO wouldn't be able to stop her.

"Okay," she muttered, "let's do it. Once in the lake, I'll phase information through subspace transbeam the whole time, while I can. Should give you some interesting data, whatever else happens. We'll circumvent the clouding as long as possible."

Tan nodded doubtfully.

Dark, thick water swirled around her, viscous, unreal. The shuddering of the sub unnerved her, but the readings she was sending back would more than compensate for any superficial damage to the expensive equipment. She'd be in trouble for insubordination, sure, maybe never work for the institute again. But she didn't care. After Icecutter, only the achievement would matter.

The depths of Lake Pell were weirder than they'd hoped for. Nadya couldn't see anything except a sort of patterned darkness, but according to Tan, glued to his instruments topside with the avid intensity of an übergeek, the energy readings she sent back were a bizarre stew of quantum anomalies. Nadya fancied she felt the weirdness of this environment in her bones, straining through her flesh like whispering from the sort of alien entity they'd always hoped to find.

The sub's engines spluttered, roared, shot her forward in one blistering moment of impossible acceleration, then cut back to normal. Her whole body ached and her awareness was so distended she felt stoned.

She glanced at the instrument panel. The station's beacon signal was gone.

"Deran!" she cried. "Tan, are you still there?"

All she got was white noise.

Team leader Jess Aquilera thundered about behind the huddled technicians, waving his hands in impotent fury.

"Why wasn't I told?" he shouted. "This needed authorisation. It'll mean your jobs, I swear it. If anything happens to her ... "

"We didn't realise ourselves till she was halfway down the pipeline," growled Haberfeld, not taking his eyes off the panel. "Then we were a bit busy."

"Busy! How could she activate the system without help? I don't believe it."

"It's easy, Mr Aquilera," Tan said in a reasonable tone. "It's all fully computerised and can be controlled from within the sub. She knows what she's doing. Besides, we don't run a military op here."

Aquilera slammed the Organiser he'd been carrying against the wall. "Get her out! That's all! Get her the hell out of there!"

"Can't, sir. She's cut external control."

"Then let me speak to her."

Tan shook his head. "No go, I'm afraid. Can't get through whatever energy field is operating down there. For a while we were getting voice, but it cut off. We can pick up some data inputs, through substructure line-flow, but that's it." His boss sank into an empty chair, grasping his forehead as though afraid it would explode. "At least we know she's still there, transmitting," Tan added. "She always claimed a human presence was what was needed. The data is incredible."

"I hope it's worth it." Aquilera looked up at him, fear in his eyes. "She's my mother, Mr Tan."

"She's our colleague and friend. But it's what she wanted, at a deep level."

After a moment, Aquilera nodded.

"Sir?" Yukio Musaki was a junior communications cadet. "Incoming from NASA, sir."

"What the hell do NASA want?"

"They're requesting information on our current project, Mr Aquilera. Apparently the Icecutter orbiter is getting unexpected signals from Europa. You know the Icecutter probe itself has entered the sub-ocean..."

"Yes, but -"

"Well, signals it received contained patterns that aren't what they expected. They recalculated the planned trajectory. As the probe got closer to the source, NASA were able to boost the quality and define it. They claim they're receiving our subspace security code."

Aquilera stood. "Ridiculous. How could they receive anything of ours over that distance?"

"Don't know, sir. That's all they've said."

Tan interrupted. "I've got something, Mr Aquilera," he said dispassionately.

"Nadya?"

"It's odd. I think..." He paused. "Appears to be sent via a relay of some kind."

"Let me hear it!"

"Tan? Can you get anything from your end? There's something - something alive and very alien..."

A grinding noise cut through her words.

"I'm coming out..."

Silence. Then, "I can't seem to orient myself ... if you can hear me, activate a substrata beacon ... Wait! I'm picking up something ..." Roaring like the sound of a raging torrent thudded through the speakers.

"... I don't believe it ... Worms! Hundreds ..."

Once again there was silence, this time drawn out to suggest a finality they all wanted to ignore.

"Get her back, Tan," roared Aquilera. "Bring her back now!"

"But, sir, I don't think she's there any more ..."

Violent rips played havoc with the sub's computer systems. Navigational control disappeared. The steering mechanism strained against Nadya's grip, sending an arthritic twinge through her fingers. The sub shunted roughly to one side. "You're not coming through, Tan," she yelled into her mic. "Link-up's gone unstable. What's the story?"

No one answered. White noise hissed through her earpiece. The sub rolled. This time the current was visible on her view-screen - and it wasn't simply a surge in the black lake water. A sinuous shadow, unnervingly flat and solid, swept so close she could make out the dull pattern of vein-like markings on its skin.

"Tan! There's something here, something alive and very alien..."

The sub shuddered, metallic sounds grinding from its walls.

"I'm coming out," she shrieked, fighting with the controls. The mechanisms refused to respond. Around her, visible through the enhanced view-windows, dark waters swept as though composed of viscous streams of plasma.

Sonar roared, warning lights blinking frantically. Desperate, Nadya tried to find the way out. "Tan, I can't seem to orient myself ... if you can hear me, activate a substrata beacon..."

Vector lines appeared on the main screen. "Is that...?" Data analysis automatically flashed into her visual field. "I'm getting something ... it's a NASA signal! What the ...?"

More data, a rapid influx she couldn't make sense of. The sub pitched and tossed her around, seat restraints working overtime to keep her stable.

"I'm getting a visual. Up ahead ... Registering some sort of mechanism..."

The waters formed into a huge vortex, surrounded by a horde of sinuous shadows. "I don't believe it, Tan ... Huge flat worms! Hundreds of them. They seem to be ... I don't know ... shepherding the blackness..."

The whispering in her flesh intensified. Was something trying to reach her?

Spiralling currents grabbed at the sub. Nadya saw something ... a large metallic form... tumble past...

The blackness overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes, knowing it had come for her.

Human life in exchange for a cold, analytical machine they didn't want...

Aquilera pointed at the screen. "There she is! Override the controls. You must be able to override. Do it now!"

Tan studied the hovering pattern for a long moment, looked up ashen-faced. "Um, to do that, Mr Aquilera, we'll have to get a security authorisation from NASA."

Aquilera stared at the screen, mouth slack and eyes wide. "NASA?" He stared at Tan's impassive face. "It's not her? What's down there, Tan? What's in that damn lake?"

"We're receiving Icecutter's ID, sir."

Aquilera looked at him blankly.

"That's what's down there. Icecutter. The Europan probe is in Lake Pell!"

Jess Aquilera stood back, his legs weakening under him. He leaned against a chair-back for support.

"I've been getting readings lately that might indicate the presence of a dark energy wormhole, Mr Aquilera. In the lake. That could explain ..."

"A wormhole?" It was too much for Aquilera to process. "My god, Tan," he said instead. "If Icecutter's here, where the hell is Nadya?"

Tan raised his eyes toward the ceiling.

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