Slowly, Giordino maneuvered the sub upward without dropping any more weights, using only the thrusters. As soon as they reached the deck Misty had indicated, he hovered the Navigator for a minute while both men stared inside the wreckage, now illuminated by the four forward lights. Melted pipes and electrical wiring hung down like distorted tentacles. Pitt turned on the camera systems and began recording the mess.

"We'll never get around that," said Giordino.

"Not around," Pitt contradicted, "but through. Run our bow against those pipes dead ahead."

Without argument, Giordino eased the submersible into a maze of melted pipe that hung down from the ceiling of the deck above. The pipes parted and crumbled as if they were made out of poor-quality plaster of Paris, sending out a cloud of ashes that the sub easily slipped through.

"You called that right," muttered Giordino.

"I figured they'd be brittle after being subjected to the intense heat."

They soared though the charred wreckage of the shopping avenue. Nothing was left of the open three-deck avenue of stylish boutique shops. They had all burned to nothingness. Blackened and warped bulkheads were all that remained to indicate where they once stood. Giordino cautiously navigated around and over the piles of debris that rose like a range of hills covered with jagged black lava rock.

Misty felt an eerie feeling, more so than the men, knowing they were moving through space where men had strolled and relaxed while women shopped; where children had laughed and run ahead of their parents. She could almost imagine seeing the ghosts stalking the avenue. Most of the passengers had cheated death and were now on their way home, taking memories that would haunt them the rest of their lives.

"Not much to look at," said Giordino.

Pitt gazed at the desolation. "No shipwreck treasure hunter will ever waste his time and money on this ruin."

"I wouldn't bet on it. You know how it goes. Twenty years from now, someone will claim the ship went down with a million dollars in cash in the purser's safe. Fifty years later, it will be rumored as fifty million dollars in silver. Then in two hundred years, they'll say she went down with a billion in gold."

"Intriguing, when you consider more has been spent searching for gold under the seas during the last century than has ever been found."

"Only the Edinburgh, Atocha and Central America truly paid off."

"Exceptions to the rule," said Pitt.

"There's more treasure in the sea than mere gold," said Misty.

"Yes," Pitt replied, "treasures yet to be discovered that did not come from man."

They stopped talking as several fallen beams blocked their way. Carefully, Giordino threaded the Navigator through the maze, scraping the paint on the sled runners. "Too close," he sighed. "Now the trick is to get back out."

"Coming to the site of the chapel," Misty notified them.

"How can you tell in this mess?" asked Pitt.