Star laughed in his face. “Like you could cut open a fish without fainting.”
“I did once,” Adriana informed them. “Actually, it was at a resort, so the staff did all the gutting and cleaning. But I watched.”
They settled in for a long wait on the cramped station. The water outside the viewing ports darkened from blue to black as night fell. There was still no sign of Dr. Delal.
Adriana sprang to her feet. “I’ll call topside.”
Star grabbed her arm. “They’ll just order us to stay put again.”
“Which is exactly what we’re doing,” agreed Kaz. “So what’s the problem?”
“She probably just decided to hold off until morning, and they forgot to tell us,” said Star. “Which means we’ll sit here all night and lose our only chance to check out the wreck site when Cutter isn’t there.”
Dante stared at her. “You mean a night dive? Now? When we’re all alone?”
“You think some scientist could help us if we ran into Clarence out there?” Kaz said.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Dante demanded.
Star paced the narrow aisle, her limp exaggerated by the cramped quarters. “We’ll give it till midnight,” she decided. “Then we dive — Dr. Delal or no Dr. Delal.”
At eleven-fifty-five, with no sign of the scientist, they dressed out and shrugged into the awkward double-tank setups.
The fifteen-minute half-mile ride to the wreck site was becoming familiar, Adriana reflected as she clung to the handles of the DPV. There was the coral head that reminded her of the Eiffel Tower, and the colony of tentacled anemones that resembled a field of powder-blue flowers. A little farther along, her headlamp illuminated the “lobster sponge,” a titanic red sponge that was used as a hiding place by several clawless Caribbean lobsters.
I’m starting to recognize the fish too. The thought seemed crazy. But no — there was the barracuda that was missing the top half of its crescent tail. It was exciting, almost like running into an old friend.
I wonder if he knows us too — “Hey, it’s those losers on the dive scooters. Who taught them how to swim?”
She became all business when they reached the wreck site. She worked tirelessly, stuffing her bag until it was bursting with coral-encrusted artifacts. The passion of her own efforts didn’t surprise her. She loved this stuff. But she was amazed at the enthusiasm the others put into the job. It was backbreaking work, even underwater, where the blocks of limestone weighed much less than on dry land. At such a level of exertion, a diver sucked air at double speed, and soon Star was tapping her on the shoulder. Their backup tanks were down to half full. It was time to return to PUSH.
The trip home was a pleasantly exhausted one. Their DPVs worked a little slower from the weight of bags jam-packed with artifacts.
As she glided through the black water in her cone of light, her mind toyed lazily with the puzzle of the shipwreck. A Spanish vessel, almost certainly. Maybe even one of the fabled treasure galleons — the time period seemed about right. But where was the treasure? Surely Cutter couldn’t have it all. That much silver and gold would sink the Ponce de León. And how did the bone handle fit in?
Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. She knew, for example, that English cannons were common on foreign ships. Was it really so weird that a Spaniard had acquired an item that had once belonged to an Englishman with the initials JB?
Something was wrong. Up ahead, she could see Star turning around. That was when Adriana realized that she had noticed none of the usual landmarks on the return trip. She checked her dive watch. They had been on the move for twenty minutes, maybe more. They should have reached the habitat by now.
With a feeling approaching fright, she realized they were lost.
CHAPTER NINE
Frantically, Adriana ransacked her mind for any clue as to where they had veered off course. Somehow, they must have skirted the circle of navigation lines that stretched out from PUSH like the spokes of a wheel. But how far back? And in what direction?
Star tried to quell the panic that was swelling in the group. She gestured emphatically at her headlamp. The message was clear. Search for the habitat, but stay in sight of the others’ lights.
Okay, Adriana told herself, you’ve got air left. That was if she didn’t squander it by breathing too fast. They retraced their steps a few hundred feet and fanned outward, scouring the bottom for the white ropes. The beam of Adriana’s torch cast a ghostly oval over the reef, but she saw nothing but coral, sponges, and the occasional fish.
Come on! Where is it?
She took a quick inventory of her dive mates, now distant glows in the darkness. How would she even signal the others if she found something? Would a short, sharp shout into her regulator reach them?
It won’t make any difference if we can’t find something to shout about.
She could feel her gas running low now. There was still plenty to breathe, but it took more effort to suck it out of the tank. A check of the gauge drew a wheezing of shock from her. It was under 100 psi — at this depth, three minutes, tops! And she was gasping, devouring what little supply she had left.
Control yourself!
It was easier said than done. The full impact of their situation pressed down on her like the immense weight of the ocean. She couldn’t shoot for the surface even if her tank ran bone dry. None of them could. The interns had been living at sixty-five feet for three days. Their bodies were saturated with dissolved nitrogen. A quick ascent would bring out millions of tiny gas bubbles, turning the blood into a lethal froth — a case of the bends so severe no one could survive it. Above lay only death.
But I’ll suffocate!
Her face distorted by horror, she spun around to warn the others. Her panorama of black ocean revealed two sets of lights.
Two?!
Off to her left bobbed the interns’ headlamps. And there, approaching fast from the right, were five more.
A rescue team?
But how did they know we were in trouble?
Right then, she didn’t care. She pointed her DPV in the direction of the newcomers and took off.
As she closed the gap, she realized that she was advancing toward not a group of rescuers, but a single diver.
Dr. Delal! She came after all! And when she saw we weren’t at the station, she went looking for us!
The newest aquanaut wore a headlamp and had strapped hand lights to both ankles and wrists to catch their attention in the dark sea. She looked bigger than Adriana remembered her — probably from the magnifying effect of the water.
Adriana drew a shallow, painful suck from her mouthpiece. Her gauge showed zero. She inhaled again —
Nothing! Terror twisted her insides. The tank was bone dry!
With two powerful kicks, the aquanaut was upon her. The newcomer wore smaller wing tanks affixed to arms and legs. Confident hands snapped one of the wings onto Adriana’s regulator.
Air! The metallic tang of that first compressed lungful was the most delicious taste she could remember.
“Thank you!” she panted into her mouthpiece.
Her savior was already steaming for the other three interns. Adriana followed. Even on her scooter, she had trouble keeping up with Dr. Delal’s powerful kicks.