Two hundred feet away, a small wooden packing crate bobbed lazily on the swells. It was a common type of crate, one of empty thousands that float in cast-off neglect on every sea and waterway of the world. To the casual eye, at least, it looked like ordinary flotsam; even the stenciled letters that advertised "THIS END UP" pointed incongruously downward toward the seabed. There was, however, one thing that made this particular crate quite different; it wasn't empty.

There must be a better way, Pitt thought wryly from inside the box as a wave bumped it against the top of his head, but at least this was a damn sight better than swimming in plain view when the morning light appeared. He took a mouthful of salt water and coughed it out. Then he puffed lightly into the mouthpiece of his flotation vest, increasing his buoyancy, and returned his gaze to the ship through a jaggedly cut peephole.

The Queen Artemisia lay silent, only the faint hum of her generators and the slap of the waves on her hull betrayed her presence. Gradually the sounds faded away and the ship became a part of the silence. For a long time Pitt listened, but no other sounds traveled across the water to his bobbing outpost. No footsteps on a steel deck, no masculine voices shouting commands, no clank of human-operated machinery, nothing. The silence was total and very puzzling. It was like a phantom ship with a phantom crew.

Then starboard anchor was down, and Pitt made his way toward it, slowly pushing the box from within. The light breeze and the incoming tide worked in his favor, and soon the box gently nudged the anchor chain. He swiftly removed the U.S. Divers airtank and attached its backpack webbing through one of the big steel chain links. Then using the regulator's single air hose as a line, he slipped his fins, mask and snorkel over the second stage mouthpiece and let the whole package dangle just beneath the surface.

Pitt grabbed the chain, looking up at the seemingly endless links that vanished into the darkness, and felt like Jack climbing the beanstalk. He thought of Teri, lying asleep in a cozy bunk back on the First Attempt. He thought of her soft and fluid body and he began to wonder what in hell he was doing here.

Teri had wondered too, but over a different question. "Why take me to a ship? I can't go out there and meet all those brainy scientists looking like this." She lifted the hem of her transparent negligee, displaying her legs to the thighs.

"Oh what the hell," Pitt laughed. "It'll probably be the sexiest thing that's happened to them in years."

"What about Uncle Bruno?"

"Tell him you went shopping on the mainland. Tell him anything, you're over twenty-one."

"I guess it would be fun to be naughty," she giggled. "It's just like a romantic adventure story in the cinema."