"I've got to see for myself."
"Good luck," Gunn murmured, and then he quickly turned away and mounted a ladder leading from the moon pool.
Pitt and Giordino settled into the side-by-side, aircraftstyle armchairs. The engineers swung the top half of the sphere closed against the watertight O-ring and tightened the clamps.
Giordino began going through the predive checklist. "Power?"
"Power on," affirmed Pitt.
"Raho?"
"Are we coming in, Rudi?"
Loud and clear," Gunn answered.
"Oxygen "Twenty-one-point-five percent."
When they finished, Giordino said, "Ready when you are, Sounder."
"You're cleared for takeoff, Deep Rover," Stewart replied in his usual ironic tone. "Bring back a lobster for dinner."
Two divers stood by in full gear as the platform was slowly lowered into the sea. The water surged around the Deep Rover and soon enveloped the sphere. Pitt looked up into the shimmering lights of the moon pool and saw the wavering figures leaning over the balconies. The entire company of oceanographers and crew turned out for the dive, hovering around Gunn and listening to the reports from the sub. Pitt felt like a fish on display in an aquarium.
When they were fully submerged, the divers moved in and unhitched the submersible from its cradle. One of them held up a hand and gave an
"Okay" sign. Pitt smiled and answered with a "Thumbs up," and then pointed ahead.
The handgrips on the end of the amirests guided the manipulators, while the armrests themselves controlled the four sters. Pitt took a Deep breath and controled the rover as if he were a helicopter pilot. A slight pressure on his elbows and she rose off the cradle. Then he pushed his arms forward and the horizontal stablizers eased her ahead.
Pitt moved the little craft off the platform about thirty meters and stopped to assess his compass bearing. Then he engaged the vertical thrusters and began the descent.
Down, down the Deep Rover fell through the dimensionless void, the darkening water burying her in its depths. The vibrant blue-green of the surface soon turned to a soft gray. A small, one-meter blue shark swam effortlessly toward the sub,
circled once and, finding nothing inviting, continued its lonely journey into the fluid haze.
They felt no sense of movement. The only sound came from the soft crackle of the radio and the pinging of the locator beacon. The water became a curtain of black surrounding their small circle of light.
"Passing four hundred meters," Pitt reported as caln-Ay as a pilot announcing his flight altitude.
"Four hundred meters," Gunn repeated.
Ordinarily the wit and the sarcasm would have bounced off the interior of the submersible to pass the time, but this trip Pitt and Giordino were strangely silent. Seldom during the descent did their conversation run more than a few words.
"There's a real sweetheart," said Giordino, pointing.
Pitt saw it at the same time. One of the ugliest of the deep's resident citizens. Long, eel-shaped body, outlined by luminescence like a neon sign. The frozen, gaping jaws were never fully closed, kept apart by long, jagged teeth that were used more for entrapping prey than for chewing them. One eye gleamed nastily while a tube that was attached to a luniinated beard dangled from its lower jaw to lure the next meal.
"How'd you like to stick your arm in that thing?" asked Pitt. Before Giordino could answer, Gunn broke in. "One of the scientists wants to know what you saw."
"A dragonfish," Pitt replied.
"He wants a description," said Giordino.
"Tell him we'll draw a picture when we come home," Pitt grunted.
"I'll pass the word."
"Passing eight hundred meters," Pitt reported.