“Can you give us five more minutes?” Austin pleaded.

A pause. “I'll give you ten, but one second more and we learn to walk on water.”

Austin asked the pilot to do his best and squinted into the glare, thinking about the line from the old sailors' prayer: Oh Lord, Thy sea is so great and my boat so small. Zavala's voice broke into his reverie. “Kurt. Check this out at two o'clock.”

Austin shifted to the opposite side of the cabin and followed Zavala's finger with his eyes. A large, dark object was silhouetted against the sea's surface a couple of miles away. The pilot had picked up Zavala's alert and pointed the chopper's sharp nose at the object. Soon the full light of the sun fell upon a blue-green hull and the letters NUMA painted in black amidships.

“It's the Sea Hunter,” Austin said, recognizing the ship's features.

“I don't see a wake,” Gunn observed from the cockpit. “She seems to be dead in the water.”

The helicopter angled down until the water was a sparkling blur. They soared over the ship's mast, then wheeled around and hovered. Upturned faces and hand waves would have greeted a normal flyover. Nothing stirred, except for the desultory flutter of the ship's flags. The pilot moved the helicopter forward until it was directly over the ship. He tilted the aircraft first one way, then the other, so those on board could look straight down. Powered by the twin turbos, the rotors made a horrendous racket.

“We're making enough noise up here to wake King Neptune,” Gunn said. “I don't see one damned person. No anchors over the side. She looks like she's drifting.”

“Can you try them on the radio?” Austin said.

“I'll give it a shot.”

The pilot reported no answer from the ship. “Wish I could set this bird down for you,” the pilot said. “Deck is too cluttered with junk.”

A research vessel was basically a floating platform that allowed scientists to drop various ocean-probing instruments or submersibles over the side. Dozens of different research projects might be in progress. The decks were designed for flexibility, with cleats and bolt eyes where equipment could be fastened down with cable or chain. Sometimes ship containers were brought aboard to use as extra lab space. The Argo's deck was relatively uncluttered, allowing use of the helicopter pad. But the Sea Hunter had installed labs on the space normally used for chopper landings.

Austin scanned the deck and focused on a cargo container. “How low can you get us?” he said.

“Maybe thirty or forty feet. Any lower and the rotor might hit a mast. It could be tricky.”

“Does this aircraft have a winch hoist?”

“Sure. We use it on short hops for carrying stuff that's too big to fit in the chopper.”