"There are still a few features left that I can match on the plans," she said, her face set in concentration. "Come to a halt in another thirty feet."

Pitt lay on his stomach and peered through the bottom view port as Giordino covered the distance and then stopped the sub. It hung as if levitating over the space once occupied by the Emerald Dolphin's nondenominational chapel. The only distinguishing evidence that indicated they were in the right area were melted floor mountings in rows that held the pews.

Pitt leaned over the small console that contained the controls for the manipulator arm. With a light touch of the knobs and levers, he began moving the articulated arm downward until it began probing and sifting through the charred debris with its mechanical fingers.

Clearing a ten-foot-square area and finding nothing of interest, he glanced at Giordino. "Move us five feet forward."

Giordino complied and sat patiently until Pitt asked him to maneuver the sub to another search grid. There was little conversation while each man became engrossed in his own tasks. Thirty minutes later, Pitt had sifted and examined most of the chapel area. As luck would have it, he found what he was looking for in the last grid. A strange-looking substance lay in a tiny twisted lump on the deck. The object or substance, less than six inches in length and two inches wide, did not have the usual heat-fused look to it, but rather it appeared smooth and rounded. Its colors were odd, too. Instead of black or scorched gray, it had a greenish tint to it.

"Time is up," Giordino warned. "We don't have much oxygen in reserve to reach the surface safely."

"I think we may have found what we came for," said Pitt. "Give me another five minutes."

Very tenderly, he worked the fingers of the manipulator and slowly eased them under the peculiar material half buried in the ashes. When the object was delicately gripped, Pitt fingered the controls and lifted it free of the incinerated debris. Next he pulled back the mechanical arm and cautiously set the payload into the artifact basket. Only then did he release the fingers and pull back the arm to its locked position.

"Let's head for home."

Giordino sent the submersible into a slow, gliding 180-degree turn and aimed it back through the shopping avenue area.

Abruptly, there was a clunk sound and the submersible jerked to a stop. For a moment, neither man spoke. Misty's hands came together against her breasts in sudden fear. Pitt and Giordino merely looked at each other and briefly dwelled on the possibility that they might be irreversibly trapped for eternity in this hideous place.

"I do believe you struck something," Pitt said casually.

"It would seem so," Giordino replied, about as agitated as a three-toed sloth who didn't like the taste of a leaf he was chewing on.