The substance they had retrieved from the wreck had been carefully removed from the basket soon after breaking the surface and placed in a plastic bag. With nothing but time on their hands, they spent endless hours speculating about its chemical composition.

"How far have we drifted?" Misty asked for the hundredth time, shading her eyes from the glare as she spoke to Pitt at her feet below the hatch.

"Almost thirty-two miles southeast by east since this time yesterday," he answered.

"At that rate we should make the coast of South America in another six months," she said grimly.

"Either there or Antarctica," muttered Giordino.

"We've been there," said Pitt. "I've never developed a fondness for vacationing in the same place twice."

"I'll make your feelings known to the wind and currents."

"Maybe we could rig a sail with the floor mat," said Misty.

"With ninety-five percent of their mass underwater, submersibles aren't known for their ability to sail before the wind."

"I wonder if Admiral Sandecker is aware of our situation?" said Misty softly.

"Knowing him as we do," said Pitt confidently, "I'll bet he's moving heaven and hell to launch a search-and-rescue operation."

Giordino was curled up in his seat, dreaming of a thick porterhouse steak, medium rare. "I'd give a year's pay to know where Deep Encounter is at this moment."

"No sense in rehashing that mystery," said Pitt. "We won't have a clue until we're fished out of the sea."

The fourth day broke under gloomy skies. The routine never varied. Catch water if possible, catch fish if possible, and search the horizon. Conditions did not worsen, nor did they improve. Each person stood a two-hour watch. The hatch tower of the submersible only protruded four feet above the water, so the person on duty usually got soaked when the swells slapped over the top rim. Giordino dropped all the weights, but the heavy mass still tended to pull the craft under the crest of most waves. The little sub rolled sickeningly, but fortunately its crew had long ago become immune to mal de mer, all three having spent nearly half their lives at sea.

Pitt fashioned a spearhead by carving with his Swiss army knife on the plastic back of a clipboard that Misty had used to make notes. During Giordino's watch, he speared a three-foot white-tipped shark. A bland-tasting feast soon followed, washed down with their last pint of water.

During Misty's watch, an aircraft flew within a mile of the drifting submersible. Despite her frantic waving of the floor mat, the aircraft continued on. "It was a rescue plane," she cried, barely holding back her emotions. "He flew right over and didn't see us."

"We're awfully hard to spot," Pitt reminded her.

Giordino nodded in agreement. "They'll never detect us from an altitude much more than five hundred feet. Our hatch tower is too tiny. From the air we're as obvious as a flyspeck on a barn door."