Hollis circled a crack in the hull, then settled on a field of rivets and portholes. When her greatgrandfather last visited the wreck, the plain of steel had been a cliff, with portholes looking out instead of up. Now the vessel was almost entirely buried, lying on her port side with prow bent at a crazy angle.

E Deck starboard lay directly underfoot. A halfdozen hoses ran into it, gently suctioning the rooms clean, excavating the ship like an open pit mine. Siphons unveiled glittering brass fixtures. Anything that had not been appetizing to woodboring mollusks or iron-oxidizing bacteria had aged scarcely more than a week during 164 years in the deep freeze of the Grand Banks. Silver had not tarnished, Mr. Hart’s claim checks and immigration papers were still readable, and the cheeses, though waterlogged and salty, were still edible.

Hollis scrawled an order on her notepad, releasing forty robots from a basket under the viewports. Small crablike contraptions with overgrown paddles, they scrambled purposefully through open portholes. One of them paused at a golden ring lying on the outer hull. Hollis called the machine back with ring in tow, and got a close-up through the cameras.

There was a small seagull engraved on one side, and a date: 1975.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Jonathan Wayville demanded.

“You tell me,” said Hollis. “You’re the expert.”

4

The Night Lives On

Virginia, was descending the eastern face of Sri Lanka’s mile-high city tower when Jonathan Wayville called with the latest update from the Titanic. She had been getting up every morning before dawn during the past two weeks, and on those days when the air was clear to the horizon, she packed her officeware into a carry-bag and breakfasted in the botanical gardens at the base of Demon Rock. With a little trial and error, she had succeeded in synchronizing the maglev elevator’s descent with the Earth’s rotation, allowing her to hold the tip of the rising Sun on the horizon and stretch the “green flash” out to a long, steady glow that was more beautiful than the most brilliant emerald she had ever seen. Today’s hold was the best yet, and the very last thing she wanted was an interruption from one of her authors.

“We’re having a very rewarding night,” a voice called from inside her carry-bag. She pulled out the notepad and popped it open. The liquid crystal screen displayed a golden ring with raised letters:

East Rockaway High School
Class of 1975

Virginia’s concentration on the maglev controls lapsed, and in that instant the Sun phased from green to yellow, and became a rising red hull.

“Damn you, Wayville,” she whispered.

“One of Ballard’s people left a class ring here during the second expedition,” said Jonathan. “This must be the one mentioned in Ballard’s memoirs. All he said was that there was a brief ceremony involving the casting off of rings. I think there was some sort of story associated with it—something sad, like a burial at sea, as near as I can—”