"For your peace of mind," Sandecker said patiently, "Pelholme turned its aerospace technology toward the sea ten years ago. Since then, they've constructed four underwater environmental laboratories and two extremely successful submersibles for the Navy."
"They'd best have built this one good," Merker said. "I'd be most distressed to find that it leaked at fourteen thousand feet."
"Scared shitless, you mean," Giordino mumbled.
Munk rubbed his eyes, then stared at the floor, as though he saw the bottom of the sea in the carpet. When he spoke, his words came very slowly "Is this trip really necessary, Admiral?"
Sandecker nodded solemnly. "It is. Oceanographers need a picture of the structure of the Lorelei's flow pattern to improve their knowledge of deep-ocean circulation. Believe me, this mission is as important as the first manned orbit around the earth. Besides testing the world's most advanced submersible, you'll be visually recording and mapping an area never before seen by man. Forget your doubts. The Sappho I has every safety feature built into her hull that science can devise. You have my personal guarantee of a safe and comfortable voyage."
That's easy for him to say, Giordino thought idly. He won't be there.
24
Henry Munk shifted his muscular frame to a different position on a long vinyl pad, stifled a yawn, and continued to stare out the Sappho I's aft viewport. The flat, unending sediment was about as interesting as a book without printed pages, but Munk took delight in the knowledge that every tiny mound, every rock or occasional denizen of the deep that passed beneath the thick plexiglas had never before been seen by man. It was a small but satisfying reward for the long, boring hours he'd spent scanning an array of detection instruments mounted on both sides above the pad.
Reluctantly, he forced his eyes from the viewport and focused them on the instruments the S-T-SV-D sensor had been operating constantly during the mission, measuring the outside salinity, temperature, sound velocity, and depth pressure on a magnetic tape; the sub-bottom profiler that acoustically determined the depth of the top sediments and provided indications of the underlying structure of the sea floor's surface; the gravimeter that ticked off the gravity readings every quarter mile; the current sensor that kept its sensitive eye on the speed of the Lorelei Current and direction; and the magnetometer, a sensor for measuring and recording the bottom's magnetic field, including any deviations caused by localized metal deposits.
Munk almost missed it. The movement of the stylus on the magnetometer's graph was so slight, barely a tiny millimeter of a squibble, that he would have missed it completely if his eyes hadn't locked on the recording mark at exactly the right moment. Quickly, he threw his face against the viewport and peered at the sea floor. Then he turned and yelled at Giordino, who sat at the pilot's console only ten feet away. "All stop!"
Giordino spun around and stared aft. All he could see were Munk's legs; the rest of him was buried among the instruments. "What do you read?"
"We just passed over something that's metallic. Back her up for a closer look."
"Easing her back," Giordino said loudly so Munk could hear.
He engaged the two motors mounted on each side of the hull amidships, and set them at half-speed in reverse. For ten seconds, the Sappho I caught in the two-knot force of the current hung suspended, reluctant to move on her own. Then she began to forge backward very slowly against the relentless flow. Gunn and the others crowded around Munk's instrument tunnel.
"Make out anything?" Gunn asked.
"Not sure," Munk answered. "There's something sticking up from the sediment about twenty yards astern. I can only see a vague shape under the stern lights."
Everyone waited.
It seemed an eternity before Munk spoke again "Okay, I've got it."
Gunn turned to Woodson. "Activate the two stereo bottom cameras and strobes. We should have this on film."
Woodson nodded and moved off toward his equipment.
"Can you describe it?" Spencer asked.
"It looks like a funnel sticking upright in the ooze." Munk's voice came through the instrument tunnel disembodied, but even the reverberated tone could not disguise the excitement behind it.
Gunn's expression went skeptical. "Funnel?"
Drummer leaned over Gunn's shoulder. "What kind of funnel?"
"A funnel with a hollow cone tapering to a point that you pour stuff through, you dumb rebel," Munk replied irritably. "It's passing under the starboard hull now. Tell Giordino to hold the boat stationary the second it appears under the bow viewports."
Gunn stepped over to Giordino. "Can you hold our position?"
"I'll give it a go, but if the current starts swinging us broadside, I won't be able to keep precise control and we'll lose visual contact with whatever that thing is out there."
Gunn moved to the bow and lay down on the rubber sheathed floor. He stared out of one of the four forward viewports together with Merker and Spencer. They all saw the object almost immediately. It was as Munk had described it simply an inverted bell-shaped funnel about five inches in diameter, its tip protruding from the bottom sediment. Surprisingly, its condition was good. The exterior surface of the metal was tarnished, to be sure, but it appeared to be sound and solid, with no indication of flaking or heavy rust layers.
"Holding steady," Giordino said, "but I can't guarantee for how long."
Without turning from the viewport, Gunn motioned to Woodson, who was bent over a pair of cameras, zooming their lenses toward the object on the sea floor. "Omar?"
"Focused and shooting."
Merker twisted around and looked at Gunn. "Let's make a grab for it."
Gunn remained silent, his nose almost touching the port. He seemed lost in concentration.
Merker's eyes narrowed questioningly. "What about it, Rudi? I say let's grab it."
The words finally penetrated Gunn's thoughts. "Yes, yes, by all means," he mumbled vaguely.
Merker unhooked a metal box that was attached to the forward bulkhead by a five-foot cable and positioned himself at the center viewport. The box contained a series of toggle switches that surrounded a small circular knob. It was the control unit for the manipulator, a four-hundred-pound mechanical arm that hung grotesquely from the lower bow of the Sappho I.
Merker pushed a switch that activated the arm. Then he deftly moved his fingers over the controls as the mechanism hummed and the arm extended to its full seven-foot reach. It was eight inches shy of the funnel in the sediment outside.
"I need another foot," Merker said.
"Get ready," Giordino replied. "The forward movement may break my position."
The funnel seemed to pass with agonizing slowness under the manipulator's stainless-steel claw. Merker gently eased the pincers over the lip of the funnel, and then he pressed another switch and they closed, but his timing was off; the current clutched the submersible and began swinging it broadside. The claw missed by no more than an inch and its pincers came together empty.
"She's breaking to port," Giordino yelled, "I can't hold her."
Quickly, Merker's fingers danced over the control box. He would have to try for a second grab on the fly. If he missed again, it would be next to impossible to relocate the funnel under the limited visibility. Sweat began erupting on his brow, and his hands grew tense.
He bent the arm against its stop and turned the claw six degrees to starboard, compensating for the opposite swing of the Sappho. He flipped the switch again and the claw dropped, and the pincers closed in almost the same motion. The lip of the funnel rested between them.