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“Xavier?” Phoebe woke him. He’d been dreaming, the same dream about his father again. Though this time, he was somewhere deep and dark that suddenly became bright when he woke. “We’re nearly there.”

He sat up and looked around. The others were asleep. He checked his watch—five in the morning, London time.

“Did you sleep?” he asked Phoebe.

“No,” she replied, “but don’t worry about me. It’s you and the others that need rest.”

“You’re worried about Alex,” Xavier said, “in Antarctica.”

Phoebe nodded. “Yes.”

“Any word?” Xavier said. “Any trace of him?”

Phoebe shook her head. “We have some information, but it’s not enough. Jedi’s looking, Shiva too. A few search and rescue crews from bases down there have been out. But the storm is getting closer.”

“Sorry.” Xavier could see that Phoebe was tired and pale from being so stressed. “Phoebe, Alex will be OK. He’s there, at the end. I know it.”

“You dreamed it?”

“Yes,” Xavier replied. “The Professor too. We are all there at the Gate.”

Phoebe nodded and said, “Thank you, Xavier. And I want to believe that. But you know dreams can change—as things change in real life, so they change in dreams.”

“Not this one,” Xavier said. “He’ll be there. You’ll see.”

Phoebe allowed herself a small smile. “And the thirteenth Dreamer? Have you seen who that is?”

“No … but then that’s not
my
job,” Xavier said, and Phoebe laughed.

ALEX

It was the movement that woke Alex. At first he’d thought it was a dream, a dream where he was flying high above the snow, close enough to the sun so that he was warm. But it wasn’t warm. It was cold. He was hungry. He was alone.

But then he heard a voice. “Alex …”

Alex felt as though he were floating between the dream world and the waking one, not all awake yet, not asleep either. It was cold. He concentrated on keeping warm.

“I’ve found him! Over here!”

Dr. Kader?

“Alex!”

Alex opened his eyes. Blinding white light crashed in.

“Am I …?”

“Alex!” Ahmed said again.

Alex squinted against the sun to see Dr. Kader pulling him from his snow cave.

“Am I … dreaming?” Alex asked as he looked around.

“No, no. This is quite real,” Ahmed said, smiling.

Relief flooded through him, almost making him pass out.

Not dying in a snow cave. Not today
.

But how—?

“You … Hans … the rope …” Alex said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Ahmed said. “And it’s quite alright. I’m certain I would have cut the ropes too in your position, ha! And we are all OK. Now, are you able to stand?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Alex said, slowly getting up and working the cold stiffness from his legs. Looking back inside his makeshift sleeping hole, he saw his backpack, which he’d used as a pillow, and the radio, still with its tall antenna poking up. “You traced the signal?”

Ahmed shook his head.

“Then how’d you find me?” Alex asked.

“Well,” Ahmed said, “remember those shots in the arm we all had on the way down here, the vitamin boosters?”

“Yeah …” Alex had a vague recollection of the medical they’d had on board the
Ra
.

That’s right, we did get shots! Huh, my brain has turned to mush out in the cold. Geez
.

“Turns out they included some kind of tracking device.”

“But why?” Alex subconsciously rubbed his arm where he’d taken the shot.

“For just this kind of situation, I would think.”

“Who were you calling out to before?” Alex asked.

“Over the other side, come look,” Ahmed said. He helped Alex shake out the numbness from his body and walked higher up the mountain. He motioned to the lip of a high stone ledge. Alex clambered up and looked down to the icy plain below. He squinted against the brightness of the day on the white surface, his hand raised against the fierce sunshine cutting through the clear sky.

A team was spread out on the snow plain below. Hans, unmistakable in his bright yellow snowsuit, stood near a heavy-lift aircraft on the ice—and a lot of guys in snowsuits, who’d been scouring the mountain looking for Alex and were now moving down to the aircraft.

“I found something, near a thermal spring,” Alex said, hoisting his backpack over his shoulder and following Dr. Kader down the mountain.

“So did we, Alex,” Ahmed replied. “So did we.”

As they approached Hans, Alex stopped at a hole that had been cut into the ice. How they’d cut it he was unsure, but it must have involved huge saws or something. It was about the size of a bus.

“Similar stuff to thermite,” Ahmed said. “Burns hot and fast, right down through the ice.”

Hans walked over to them, smiling broadly. “Alex!” he bellowed. “How marvellous to have found you once again. That was a lucky escape for all of us, eh? What an adventure!”

Lucky for me they don’t seem to be holding a grudge
.

“It’s good to see you too,” Alex replied. “But how did you—I mean …”

“How are we not all dead?” Hans said, laughing at Alex’s horrified face. “Lady Luck was on our side, my friend. After an exciting but horrifying slide down a very large crevasse, we landed in relative safety in a lower snow field. Our guide sustained a minor injury, but he’ll live.”

“Hans found some higher ground and radioed for assistance,” Ahmed added.

“I like to think of that as my hero hour,” Hans said, Ahmed rolling his eyes behind him. “But come, come, follow me,” Hans said, heading toward a ladder hooked over the hole in the ice. In the water a few metres below was the submersible.

Alex followed Hans and Dr. Kader down the ladder. With every rung he descended, Alex felt an ever-increasing weight sink into his stomach. Whether it was fear about what unknown dangers lay ahead, or if it was his dream of Sam, he was unsure. What he did know, what he was
certain
of, was that today would not end well.

“Position marked,” the sub pilot called out.

“Position confirmed, continue,” the co-pilot replied.

Alex stared at the screen showing their progress through the ice. The sub’s powerful lights lit up the underside of the ice sheet, the world before them shining every shade of cold blue.

“Position marked,” the pilot said.

“Confirmed. Continue.”

They went on like that for ten minutes, plotting out their course slowly, following a route that they’d apparently taken a few hours before.

“It was incredible,” Hans said to Alex, seated facing him across the sub’s cargo area. “My team followed the overland route plotted in my grandfather’s log book and took measurements of the ice below. I believe it is navigable the whole way, under the ice, to the point marked.”

“So you’ve been under the ice?”

“No—not yet,” Hans replied. “We cut through the ice with thermite to meet up with the sub.”

Alex nodded, looking at the screen once more. The thought of untold tons of ice overhead sent a shiver through him.

It’s OK—I’ll be OK. I mean, I would have seen it, if I was crushed like an empty soda can, right? In my dream? Surely
.

Surely …

“It’s OK, Alex,” Hans said. “We’ll be there in—”

“Contact,” the pilot called. “Dead ahead.”

All eyes moved to the monitors. Up ahead, another light emerged from the shadowy underwater world.

“Undersea rover in sight,” the co-pilot announced. “Fifty metres. Continue on.”

Alex watched as a little underwater robot came into view.

“It scouted the way,” Hans said to Alex, not taking his eyes off the screen. “That’s how we knew we had the right place …”

“What did it find?” Alex asked.

Hans was quiet for a while, and then he broke into a huge grin and pointed at the screen. “That!”

Alex looked at the monitor and nearly choked in shock.

SAM

Sam paused in his climb and caught his breath. He looked back. At the base of the mountain, the snowcats were parked close together to make a sheltered space between them. The wind was strong but the mountain blocked the worst of it. The sky was clear.

So far
.

He looked up the mountain slope.

Lora was ahead of him, a GPS unit in her hand as she trekked to Alex’s last known location. Dr. Roberts was close behind her, with Jabari and a couple of Guardians. They’d all stopped and were looking at the ground.

Sam ran to catch up. They stood in a little semicircle, pointing at the ground and looking around. He pushed through to see what they were crowded around, the nerves in his stomach clenching at the thought of what he might see …

Nothing. Nothing but snow.

“What is it?” Sam asked. “What’s the big deal?”

“A sign,” Lora said, crouching down.

“We’re too late,” Jabari replied, pointing.

Sam could then see what they were looking at—a little snow cave. It was easy to miss, just a small hollow in the snow. But it was man-made.

“You think Alex did that?” Sam asked.

“He must have slept in there,” Lora said. She pointed, “Look!”

“What?” Sam said, seeing nothing but some little holes in the ground, as though someone had poked their finger into the snow at random intervals.

“It’s a constellation,” Lora said. “See?”

“Ophiuchus,” Jabari said, crouched down. “The thirteenth constellation.”

“Alex must have left it here as a sign, a marker,” Lora said.

Sam looked around, as though hoping to see Alex not too far away, wandering the mountain, ready to be rescued. But there was nothing but the white of endless snow and the contrasting grey of rocky mountain outcrops.

Jabari walked off to the north, watching the ground like a hawk.

“But …” Sam’s voice trailed off. “Where is he now?”

“I’m not sure …” Lora said, powering up the satellite phone to talk to Eva back at Crawley Station. Sam could hear her asking to relay the updated information to Jedi, who was doing everything he could to track Alex’s location. Sam could imagine that perhaps somewhere high overhead an imaging satellite was scouring the frozen continent, looking through powerful cameras for Alex.

Be like looking for a needle in a haystack or for a dot on the sun. Or a drop in the ocean
.

No. A speck in the snow—a single snowflake, somewhere on this icy, snow-covered continent
.

Sam looked down the slope to the three snowcats parked at the foot of the mountain range. The Guardians and station crew were fanned out, looking for any footprints that might show where Alex had gone. But Sam knew they wouldn’t have any luck. It was too flat and exposed down there—the wind would have covered any tracks by now. Even their own prints from just minutes ago were already virtually wiped out.

“Sam …”

He turned to see Jabari crouched away from the group.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

Jabari squatted close to the ground. “Footprints,” he said.

“Really?” Sam looked hard and perhaps, at a certain angle, he could just make out the shape of the dents in the frozen snow. But they didn’t really seem any different from the ground around them, the snow and ice blown and blasted by the weather. “You’re sure they’re footprints? Looks like, well, snow to me.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Jabari said. “And someone else was with him—someone came across from the other side of the mountain and found him. Someone heavier, but with smaller feet. See?”

Jabari carefully scooped out soft snow from the compacted-snow prints, revealing them with more clarity.

“So there is!” Sam could see it more clearly now. There were two sets of prints, the shoes close to the same size but one set was double the depth.

Hans? Is Alex captive—or is he working with him? Has my friend gotten too close to them these past weeks and become brainwashed by Hans’ goal of seizing the Dream Gate for himself?

“Can you track them?” Lora asked Jabari.

Jabari stood tall and nodded to her.

“Do it,” Lora said. “Check in on the radio every twenty minutes. We’ll take the snowcats and get around this mountain on the south side, since the tracks lead that way. Keep in touch and we will meet up on the other side.”