He reported the depth readings every ten minutes as the Sleuth descended into the black void far beneath the keel of the survey ship. Finally, after two and a half hours, the sensors began to transmit a rapidly narrowing gap with the bottom.

"The bottom is at five hundred feet and rising."

"Turning on lower lights," Pitt responded.

Giordino slowed the descent rate of the Sleuth to two feet every second in the event she came down directly on top of the wreck. The last thing they needed was for it to become trapped in the twisted debris, and lost. Soon the drab silt of the sea floor came into view on the monitors. Giordino stopped the probe's descent, hovering it at 100 feet.

"What's the depth?" asked Burch.

"Nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty," Giordino answered. "Visibility is extremely good. Almost two hundred feet."

Now Giordino took over actual control of the Sea Sleuth, staring at the monitors and operating the knobs and joystick as if he were flying an aircraft in a flight simulator computer game. The bottom passed beneath in what seemed like agonizing slowness. Because of the extreme water pressure, the Sleuth's, thrusters could only move her forward at slightly better than one knot.

Pitt pecked away at the keyboard of his computer, sending commands down to the computer on board Sea Sleuth to adjust and focus the cameras mounted on the bow and keel for viewing ahead and directly below. To his left, Burch sat at his guidance console, checking the AUV's position and keeping the Deep Encounter positioned directly above the wreck.

"Which way?" Giordino asked Burch.

"Move on a heading of eighteen degrees. You should run into her hull in another four hundred feet."

Giordino set the Sleuth on the course indicated. Ten minutes later, a phantom shape loomed ahead. The dark mass spread and rose beyond view of the monitors. "Target dead ahead," he called out.

Gradually, features of the wreck became distinguishable. They came on slightly off the starboard bow near the anchor. Unlike earlier passenger ships, the modern cruise ship's anchors were nestled farther back from the bow and not as far above the waterline.

Pitt switched on the powerful forward lights that cut through the gloom and illuminated most of the bow section. "Cameras in motion, and rolling tape."

Unlike other shipwreck discoveries, this one was not greeted with cheers and laughter. Everyone was as silent as if they were looking down at a coffin in a grave. Then, as though drawn and tightened by a giant rubber band, they moved closely around the monitors. They could see now that the Emerald Dolphin was not sitting entirely upright. She rested in the silt on a twenty-five-degree angle, exposing her lower hull almost to the keel.