Gunn shrugged. "No, the ends were frayed, but that's another mystery. I'll explain it to you." Gunn paused and flicked an ash from his cigarette. "We work with a safety margin of five-to-one. For example: if the specifications of a cable state there is a danger of breakage with a stress of twenty-five thousand pounds or above, we will never place a stress on it higher than five thousand pounds. Because of this large safety factor NUMA has yet to have a single fatality on a project. Lives are more important to us than scientific discovery. Underwater exploration is a risky business and the list is long with the names of men before us who have died trying to pry new secrets from the seas."

"What was the safety margin when your cable parted?"

"I was getting to that. It was nearly six-to-one. We only had a four-thousand-pound stress on it at the time. It was extremely fortunate that no one was injured from the whiplash of the cable when it snapped."

"May I see the cable?"

"Yes, I've had the parted ends cut from the main sections and saved for your arrival."

A loud knock echoed from the door and a young red-haired boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, entered the cabin, carrying a small bucket of ice. He sat it on the desk and turned and faced Gunn. "Can I get you anything else, sir?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you can," said Gunn. "Run down to the maintenance deck and find the cable sections that broke recently and bring them back here to me."

"Yes sir." The boy did an abrupt about-face and hurried from the cabin.

"One of the crew members?" asked Pitt.

Gunn dropped the ice in the glasses and poured in the scotch. He passed a glass to Pitt. "Yes, we have eight crew members and fourteen scientists on board."

Pitt swirled the yellow liquid around the ice cubes. "Could any one of those twenty-two men be responsible for your problems?"

Gunn shook his head. "I've thought about that, I've even dreamed about it, and I've analyzed each man's personnel record at least fifty times and I can't see what possible motive any of them might have for hindering the project." Gunn paused to sip his drink. "No, I'm certain my opposition comes from another source. Someone inexplicably wants to stop us from catching a fish that might not even exist."

The boy soon returned with the two halves of the broken cable. He handed the braided steel to Gunn and left the cabin, closing the door after him.

Pitt took another drink from his scotch and climbed from the bunk. He set the glass on Gunn's desk and lifted the cable in his hands, examining the ends closely.