Considered huge then and now with a gross tonnage of 53,329 and measuring 990 feet in length with a 101-foot beam, she was not the world's largest liner. At the time of her construction the Queen Mary outweighed her by over 30,000 tons and the Queen Elizabeth was forty-one feet longer. The Cunard Line Queens may have provided a more ornate and baroque atmosphere, but the American ship's lack of rich wood paneling and fancy decor in favor of tasteful restraint, and her speed and safety were the elements that set the United States apart from her contemporaries. Unlike foreign competing liners, the Big U, as her crew had affectionately called her, gave her passengers 694 unusually spacious staterooms and air conditioning. Nineteen elevators carried passengers between the decks. Besides the usual gift shops, they could enjoy three libraries and two cinemas and could worship in a chapel.

But her two greatest assets were a military secret at the time of her building and operation. Not until several years later did it become known that she could be converted into a military transport capable of carrying 14,000 troops within a few weeks. Powered by eight massive boilers creating superheated steam, her four Westinghouse-geared turbines could put out 240,000 horsepower, 60,000 for each of her four propeller shafts, and drive her through the water just under fifty miles an hour. She was one of the few liners that could slip through the Panama Canal, charge across the Pacific to Singapore and back to San

Francisco without refueling. In 1952, the United States won the prestigious Blue Riband, awarded for the fastest speed across the Atlantic. No liner has won it since.

A decade after she left the shipyard, she had become an anachronism. Commercial airplanes were already becoming competition to the famed greyhounds of the sea. By 1969, rising operating costs and the public's desire to reach their destination in the shortest time possible by air, spelled the end for America's greatest ocean liner. She was retired and laid up for thirty years at Norfolk, Virginia, before eventually finding her way to China.

Borrowing a pair of binoculars, Pitt studied the huge ship from the bridge of the Oregon. Her hull was still painted black, her superstructure white, her two great, magnificent funnels red, white and blue. She looked as magnificent as the day she broke the transatlantic record.

He was puzzled to see her ablaze with light. The sounds of activity echoed across the water. It puzzled him that Qin Shang's shipyard crews were working on her around the clock without any attempt at secrecy. Then, curiously, all sounds and activity suddenly stopped.

The pilot nodded at Cabrillo, who rang the ancient telegraph to STOP ENGINES. Unknown to the pilot, the telegraph was nonfunctional and Cabrillo muttered orders through a handheld radio. The vibration died, and the Oregon went as quiet as a tomb as she slowly moved forward under her own momentum. Then the command came for slow astern, followed shortly by all stop.