“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” the man said in a deep-voiced Southern drawl. “My name is Phelps.”

Lois had expected to see a quasi-military type like the tough-looking guards she had glimpsed on trips to the surface ship, where lab staff could take a break from the seafloor, but Phelps looked as if he had been assembled from spare parts. His arms were too long for his body, his hands too big for his arms, his head too big for his shoulders. With his sad-looking dark eyes and large mouth accented by drooping mustache, he had a hound-dog quality about him. He wore his dark brown hair in unfashionably long sideburns.

“Did you have a pleasant shuttle ride, Mr. Phelps?”

“Couldn’t have been better, ma’am. The best part was seeing the lights on the ocean bottom. Kept thinking this must be Atlantis.”

Lois cringed inwardly at the overblown comparison to the lost city.

“Glad to hear that,” she said. “Come to my office and we’ll chat about how we can help you.”

She led the way from the airlock along another tubular passageway, then up a spiral staircase to a low-lit, circular room. Fish nosed against the room’s transparent domed ceiling, creating the illusion that the sea was pressing in.

Phelps swiveled his head in wonder. “Talk about a water view! This is unbelievable, ma’am.”

“People find it hypnotic at first, but you get used to it. This is actually Dr. Kane’s office. I’m using it while he’s away. Have a seat. And please stop calling me ma’am. It makes me feel a hundred years old. I prefer Dr. Mitchell.”

“You sure look pretty good for a hundred years old, ma’am . . . I mean, Dr. Mitchell.”

Lois cringed again, and turned up the lights in the room so that the marine life was less visible and distracting. She opened a small office refrigerator, extracted two cold bottles of spring-water, and gave one to Phelps. She settled herself behind a plastic-and-chrome desk of starkly simple design.

Phelps pulled up a chair. “I’d like to thank you for your valuable time, Dr. Mitchell. You must have lots better things to do besides talking to a boring old security guy.”

If you only knew, Lois thought. She gave her visitor a polite smile. “How can I help you, Mr. Phelps?”

“My company sent me to probe for weaknesses in the sea-lab security.”

Lois wondered what kind of an idiot had sent Phelps to waste her time. She leaned back in her chair and pointed toward the transparent ceiling.

“We’ve got three hundred feet of ocean separating us from the surface, and it’s better than any castle moat. There’s a patrol ship up there with heavily armed guards from your company, backed up, if necessary, by the on-call resources of the U.S. Navy. How could we be any more secure than that?”