An odd vibration roused Perry Bergman from a restless sleep, and he was instantly filled with a strange foreboding. The unpleasant murmur put him in mind of fingernails scraping down a blackboard. He shuddered and threw off his thin blanket. As he stood up, the vibration continued. With his bare feet on the steel deck, it now reminded him of a dentist’s drill. Just beneath it he could detect the normal hum of the ship’s generators and the whir of its air conditioning fans.

“What the hell?” he said aloud, even though there was no one within earshot to provide an answer. He’d helicoptered out to the ship, the Benthic Explorer, the previous evening after a long flight from Los Angeles to New York to Ponta Delgada on the Azorean island of San Miguel. Between the time zone changes and a long briefing about the technical problems his crew was experiencing, he was understandably exhausted. He didn’t like being awakened after only four hours of sleep, especially by such a jarring vibration.

Snatching the ship’s phone from its cradle he punched in the number for the bridge. While he waited for the connection to go through he peered out the porthole of his V.I.P. compartment on his tiptoes. At five foot seven Perry didn’t think of himself as short, just not tall. Outside, the sun had barely cleared the horizon. The ship cast a long shadow across the Atlantic. Perry was looking west over a misty, calm sea whose surface resembled a vast expanse of beaten pewter. The water undulated sinuously with low, widely separated swells. The serenity of the scene belied the goings-on below the surface. The Benthic Explorer was being held in a fixed position by computer driven commands to her propellers as well as to her bow and stern thrusters over a portion of the volcanically and seismically active Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a twelve-thousand-mile-long, jagged range of mountains that bisects the ocean. With the constant extrusion of enormous quantities of lava, submarine explosions of steam, and frequent miniearthquakes, the submerged cordillera was the antithesis of the ocean surface’s summer tranquillity.

“Bridge,” a bored voice responded in Perry’s ear.

“Where’s Captain Jameson?” Perry snapped.

“In his bunk as far as I know,” the voice said casually.

“What the hell is that vibration?” Perry demanded.

“Beats me, but it’s not coming from the ship’s power plant if that’s what you’re asking. Otherwise I would have heard from the engine room. It’s probably just the drilling rig. Want me to call the drilling van?”

Perry didn’t answer; he just slammed the phone down. He couldn’t believe whoever was on the bridge wasn’t moved to investigate the vibration on his own. Didn’t he care? It irked Perry to no end that his ship was being operated so unprofessionally, but he decided to deal with that issue later. Instead he tried to focus on getting into his jeans and heavy wool turtleneck. He didn’t need someone to tell him the vibration might be coming from the drilling rig. That was pretty obvious. After all, it was difficulty with the drilling operation that had brought Perry here from Los Angeles.

Perry knew that he had gambled the future of Benthic Marine on the current project: drilling into a magma chamber within a seamount west of the Azores. It was a project that was not under contract, meaning the company was spending instead of being paid, and the cash hemorrhage was horrendous. Perry’s motivation for the undertaking rested on his belief that the feat would capture the public’s imagination, focus interest on undersea exploration, and rocket Benthic Marine to the forefront of oceanographic research. Unfortunately, the endeavor was not going as planned.

Once he was dressed, Perry glanced in the mirror over the sink in the cubbyhole bathroom. A few years ago he wouldn’t have taken the time. But things had changed. Now that he was in his forties, he found that the tousled look that used to work for him made him look old, or at best, tired. His hair was thinning and he required glasses to read, but he still had a winning smile. Perry was proud of his straight, white teeth, especially since they emphasized the tan he worked hard to maintain. Satisfied by his reflection, he dashed out of his compartment and ran down the passageway. As he passed the doors to the captain’s and first mate’s quarters, Perry was tempted to pound on them to vent his irritation. He knew the metal surfaces would reverberate like kettledrums, yanking the sleeping occupants from their slumbers. As the founder, president, and largest shareholder of Benthic Marine, he expected people to be more on their toes while he was on board. Could he be the only one concerned enough to investigate this vibration?

Emerging onto the deck, Perry tried to locate the source of the strange hum, which was now merged with the sound of the operating drill rig. The Benthic Explorer was a four-hundred-fifty-foot vessel with a twenty-story drilling derrick amidship that bridged a central bay. In addition to the drilling rig, the ship boasted a saturation diving complex, a deep-sea submersible, and several remote-controlled mobile camera sleds, each mounted with an impressive array of still cameras and television camcorders. Combining this equipment with an extensive lab, the Benthic Explorer gave its parent company, Benthic Marine, the ability to carry out a wide range of oceanographic studies and operations.

Perry saw the door to the drilling van open. A giant of a man appeared. He yawned and stretched before hoisting the straps of his coveralls over his shoulders and donning his yellow hard hat, which hadSHIFT SU -PERVISOR written in block letters over the visor. Still stiff with sleep, he headed in the direction of the rotary table. He was obviously in no hurry despite the vibration coursing through the ship.

Quickening his pace Perry caught up to the man just as two other deckhands joined him.

“It’s been doing this for about twenty minutes, chief,” one of the roustabouts yelled over the noise of the drilling rig. All three men ignored Perry.

The shift foreman grunted as he pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves and blithely walked out across the narrow metal grate spanning the central well. His sangfroid impressed Perry. The catwalk seemed flimsy and there was only a low, thin handrail to block the fifty-foot drop to the ocean surface below. Reaching the rotary table, the supervisor leaned out and placed both gloved hands about the rotating shaft. He didn’t try to grip it tightly but rather let it rotate across his palms. He cocked his head to the side while he tried to interpret the tremor transmitted up the pipe. It took only a moment.

“Stop the rig!” the giant shouted.

One of the roustabouts dashed back to the exterior control panel. Within a moment the rotary table came to a clanking halt and the grating vibration ceased. The supervisor walked back and stepped onto the deck.

“Chrissake! The bit’s busted again,” he said with an expression of disgust. “This is fast becoming a goddamned joke.”

“The joke is that we’ve only drilled for two or three feet in the last four or five days,” the remaining roustabout said.

“Shut up!” the giant intoned. “Get the hell over there and raise the drill string to the well head!”

The second roustabout joined the first. Almost immediately there was a new sound of powerful machinery as the winches were engaged to do the foreman’s bidding. The ship shuddered.