Dr. Huxley released the two divers at seven thirty the following morning. Cabrillo went straight to his cabin, noting that the weather was picking up and causing a pronounced roll as he walked the corridors. He’d spent thirty minutes in the tiny shower closet in the decompression chamber to warm up, so he took another brief shower and shaved using the same straight razor his grandfather had used for forty years as a barber. After patting both the blade and his face dry, he threw on a touch of aftershave, dressed in chinos and a black mock turtleneck, and headed to the mess for breakfast. He stopped first at his desk for his tablet to check their position and noted they were making good time on their rendezvous with the Emir’s yacht, the Sakir.

He took a table in the middle of the dining room and had barely settled before Maurice poured him coffee in a bone china cup.

“Good morning, Captain.” As an ex–Royal Navy man, the chief steward didn’t abide by the team’s corporate structure and never referred to Juan as Chairman. The Oregon was a ship. Cabrillo was in charge. He was, therefore, Captain. “No ill effects from your adventure?”

“Other than a sore back from sleeping on a lousy cot, I’m fine. Thank you.” He sipped at the strong coffee with appreciation. “And now I’m even better. Whatever you bring me for breakfast, double the amount of sausage, please.”

“Have you checked your cholesterol recently?”

“Hux cleared me for double rations of morning pork just last week.”

“Very good, Captain.”

Eric and Mark entered the sedate dining room with the propriety of charging rhinos, spotted the Chairman, and rushed right over. Both wore the same clothes they’d had on the night before and had the wired jittery look of people about to overdose on caffeine.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Juan said broadly. “What has you two buzzing like a couple of bees?”

“Red Bull and research,” Mark replied.

Cabrillo dropped his pretense of disinterest and asked, “What is that material?”

Eric spoke first. “Something that was just discovered a few years ago.”

“It’s a metamaterial,” Mark said as if that was an explanation.

“That means . . .”

“It’s a material engineered almost at a nanoscale. Its design is what gives it its unique properties, like manipulating light or sound waves.”

“Think of the egg cartons garage bands put up to deaden echoes in their practice spaces. Multiply that by a hundred, and then shrink it down to the nanoscale. The material maintains the precise angles to deflect about anything you want.”

“Would it deaden sound?” Cabrillo asked, thinking he understood.

“Absolutely, only in frequencies we can’t hear.”

Juan realized he didn’t get it at all. “What’s the point?”