Misty was aching to see what was happening, but there was room for only one person at a time in the hatch tower. She could only sit and wait anxiously while Pitt tried to contact the vessel, and for Giordino to tell them whether they were about to be saved or not.

"They haven't seen us," Giordino groaned between shouts across the water and wildly waving the flashlight. The beam barely cast a glow. The batteries were about gone. "They're passing us by."

"Hello, hello, please respond," Pitt implored.

His only reply was static.

Disappointment settled over the submersible like a soaking blanket, as Giordino watched the lights begin to fade into the darkness. No one on the passing vessel had seen them, and with a sinking heart he could only watch it continue on its course toward the northwest.

"So near, yet so far," he murmured dejectedly.

Suddenly a voice cracked over the submersible's speaker. "Who am I talking to?"

"Castaways!" Pitt snapped back. "You sailed right past us. Please reverse course."

"Hold tight. I'm coming around."

"He's turning!" Giordino shouted happily. "He's coming back."

"Where off my bow are you?" the voice shouted.

"Al!" Pitt yelled up the hatch. "He wants a position."

"Tell him to steer twenty degrees to his port."

"Steer twenty degrees to your port and you should see us," Pitt relayed the message.

After a minute, the voice said, "I have you now-a dim yellow glow about a hundred yards dead ahead."

The approaching boat's owner switched on an array of exterior lights. One was a large spotlight that swept the surface of the water before finally stopping on Giordino, still waving the flashlight like a madman in the hatch tower.

"Do not be alarmed," came the voice again. "I will pass over you and stop above your little tower when it is aligned with my stern. I've dropped a ladder for you to climb aboard."

Pitt missed the rescuer's meaning. "Pass over?" he repeated. "I do not read you."

There was no reply, only Giordino's baffled voice, shouting. "I think he means to run us down!"

Pitt's first thought was that they had been found by someone out to kill them, maybe even the same group behind the man who had tried to murder Kelly Egan. He put his arms around Misty. "Hold on to me for the collision. Then hurry through the hatch before we go under. I'll you push through."

She started to say something, but then buried her face in his chest as his strong arms embraced her. "Call out when you're sure of a collision!" he ordered Giordino. "Then jump clear!"

Giordino prepared to launch himself out of the hatch tower as he stared aghast at the brightly lit vessel bearing down on him. It looked like no oceangoing yacht he'd ever seen. It was shaped like a great green-and-white manta or devil ray, with its cephalic forward fins encircling its huge plankton-gathering mouth. A wide sloping deck on the bow swept up and around a large arched picture window and then past a circular wheelhouse.