Vostok

Gregory Smith, a researcher at Vostok Station, exited his well-insulated canvas tent and entered the freezing climate of Antarctica. The group of shelters that included his own made up East Camp, an American base of support for the program at the research station just a short stroll away. The environment here wasn’t something to be easily dealt with, as the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded at this location. He walked steadily over to another tent, his thick black hair blowing in the brisk wind. Unzipping the entrance, he slipped inside. The team’s head engineer, Robert Young , stood near the gray haired expedition leader, who was typing on a computer powered by a gas generator. Platon Sedov was exchanging messages with his colleagues in Russia. He typed rapidly, and he wore an exhausted and haggard look on his face. For twelve hours the middle-aged man had been busy at work.

“Engage the melter probe and prepare for the evacuation drill,” he demanded with a Russian accent. Young and Smith left the Russian to his work.

The engineer was working slowly, while Greg desired the task at hand to be swift and unproblematic. They entered the building and returned a minute later with the machine. It was a prototype for exploring through the driest of ice. About two and a half miles below the icy surface there was the biggest sub glacial lake in the world, which was the size of Lake Ontario. It was named Lake Vostok, which means “east” in Russian. Scientists at Vostok Station always thought that there were living microbes, or germs, in the lake and desired to confirm their theories for the sake of science. After drilling thousands of feet into the arctic subterranean, plans were made to reach the lake and uncover what may be down there. There was a fear of contaminating the lake with the drill and its contents, so the cryobot was suggested. It was a newly created prototype that would reshape science for years to come. The procedure was cancelled due to a disagreement among the scientists. Now it was very different.

A meteor was going to hit the location in a very short amount of time. The station was going to be completely and utterly destroyed and the lake was going to vaporize from the intensity of the heat given off by the meteorite. The scientific community was absolutely puzzled by this unfortunate and unlikely event about to take place, however they did not act upon it. As these three devoted people were busy performing their scientific duties, all of the others were packing up their things to leave because they believed that the meteorite was going to land before the cryobot reached the lake to take a sample of its water.

Young squatted on the ice next to the hole that was drilled over the past years. He flicked the power on and the robot vibrated uncontrollably. It was malfunctioning. “It was tampered with. Apparently somebody here doesn’t want us to continue,” he said peculiarly. He turned his head towards the main building.

They both knew why the act was done. There were people at the station who feared that if the water was breached, then a toxin would rise from the depths and possibly kill those who were near the hole. It was a very reasonable suspicion, but not regarded as a likely possibility.

Examining the mechanisms inside, he pulled out what looked like a piece of rubber. The cryobot stopped its movement. The trick wasn’t cunning after all. The individual most likely wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, so he used whatever was readily available. He didn’t pack the rubber in enough, making it easy to pull it out. Security might have been on his tail after he found the machine, giving him just enough time to get out of there. Theories started to race through Smith’s mind, an instinct he developed back in school. Young hooked the machine to a communications and power cable, which was tightly wrapped around a wheel. After he flicked the switch on the wheel, it unwound the cable at a speedy yet sufficient pace.

An explosion sounded in the direction of East Camp. They ran over to the scene where tents were ablaze with fire. Highly flammable, each was heavily coated with a sweltering fire. In the hues of different shades of red and orange there was a moving object coming out of one of the tents. Once away from the entrance, the moving object fell down on the ground and rolled back and forth. Once the flames were extinguished by the ice, a figure stood up and shed his blankets. Sedov may have been in his negative years, but he was still very crafty and exceedingly intellectual.

“Who did this?” Smith asked.
“That is not important. We must evacuate the perimeter immediately,” Sedov said sternly. Young snapped to his command. He ran over to the back of the main building and revved up the helicopter’s engine. He was a certified engineer and pilot of aircrafts. The others had been leaving Vostok Station over the past weeks, leaving no reason to think about their safety.

Once in the rear of the craft, Sedov grabbed the device used for controlling the speed and the direction at which the machine was going. Smith proceeded into the copter and found a laptop computer on the floor. He plugged it into the electrical outlet. There came up a green tinted screen, and on that a picture appeared. It was the feed from a GPS satellite that centered in on the two and a half miles of ice, with a dot resembling the cryobot. It had already passed the midpoint of its journey.

The helicopter lifted into the evening sky and shifted forward. They were going to make it, but the sample may not. That depended upon the mission leader, who had complete control over the rest of the mission. He stared at the screen for the whole time they were in flight. Fifteen miles away from the station, they landed. They departed the craft and stood as the sky darkened into a shade of black. Their Russian leader seemed tense, but less distraught than when the expedition had begun. It was a tremendously short mission, but his career depended on it. He would be ridiculed if they were to fail.

As soon as the robot would reach the lake, it would release a hydrobot, which was a small submersible. Afterwards it would acquire a water sample and abandon the lake. The team could see the massive meteor enter Earth’s atmosphere, which would burn up a significant amount of its rock. The cryobot reached the lake and freed the hydrobot. It entered the lake and no sooner exited. The machine intercepted it and raced towards the surface at a fifteen degree angle. It was going to be close. Nearly ten minutes later, the meteorite crashed into the Earth’s ice-covered crust. The automaton was still sailing through the ice. The team wore satisfied grins. Science would value their discovery more than they would ever recognize. It could spark new expeditions on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, and would change their lives for the years to come. They were heroes of science.

For the next eight minutes Smith and Young watched their leader spread the good news to some of his equals around the world. It was a victory to be celebrated with vodka and lager. He switched the screen back to the feed. The machine was near. He decreased its speed by a significant amount and logged off. Giving the control device to Young, Sedov gazed at the millions of luminous stars.

“Out of all the mysteries in the world, so few have been unraveled. Such things make people wonder about the Earth that they live in and the billions of stars that appear before their very own eyes. That is science,” Sedov explained.

“Whenever a scientist discovers a piece of the universal puzzle, it is called fact. Once you understand that fact is the most mystical concept of all, you have solved one of the mysteries of the universe,” he said.

The automaton reached the surface. Sedov calculated its angled path accurately. Young walked over to the spot and opened the panel that housed the sample. He took the beaker out and raised it above his head.

“Here it is!” he exclaimed. The Russian professor hobbled over to him but slipped on the ice at about halfway. Smith helped him up as Young came over to their location. He gave Sedov the sample, and seconds after it slipped from his wet hands. Young dropped to his knees and stared at the ground.

Not long after the beaker shattered, bands of extravagant colors appeared on the dark horizon. It was aurora australis, the Southern Lights. They occurred in the polar regions, and scientists theorized that they were caused by Earth’s magnetic field. But Smith couldn’t understand why a member of the scientific community would try to delay them and bomb the camp. The Russian’s carelessness with the sample was another subject to contemplate.

“Perhaps some mysteries of the universe will never be solved,” Sedov said as the luminescent wonders flashed in a spectrum of pure anonymity.