“That’s a negative on the Oceanus,” he said. “But she’s been here.”

“That means there will be a change in the dive plan,” Larry’s voice answered. “Mr. Davidson wants red and green divers to proceed due west. Can you make out a scarp in that direction?”

“What the hell is a scarp?” Richard asked.

“It’s a wall or cliff,” Mark’s voice cut in.

“Yeah, I guess,” Richard said. He looked back out at the columnar ridge.

“Mr. Davidson wants you to proceed over the ridge,” Larry said. “How high is the ridge in relation to the bell?”

“About even,” Richard said.

“All right, swim over the ridge and see if you can make visual contact with the submersible. Mr. Davidson thinks there might be a crevice. And watch the temperature. Apparently there’s quite a gradient in the area.”

“Got it,” Richard said.

“Remember,” Larry added, “you’re limited to a one-fifty deep excursion dive. Don’t rise more than ten feet above the bell. We don’t want any bends to muck things up. Understood?”

“Got it,” Richard repeated. Larry’s admonitions were the standard for a saturation dive.

“ Bell diver,” Larry said, “the breathing mixture is to stay at one and a half percent oxygen and ninety-eight and a half percent helium. Do you copy?”

“I copy,” Louis said.

“One last thing,” Larry said. “Red and green diver, I don’t want any of you macho bums taking any chances, so be careful!”

“Check!” Richard said. He gave a thumbs-up sign for the camcorder’s benefit while making a scornful face at Michael and saying: “Telling us to be careful down here is like telling your kid to be careful before sending him out to play in the middle of the interstate.”

Michael nodded but he wasn’t listening. This part of the dive was serious. He was all business while attaching his umbilical and other paraphernalia. When he was ready Louis handed him his full face mask cradled in a bright orange fiberglass helmet. Michael held it under his arm to wait for Richard. Despite his extensive experience he always got butterflies just before entering the water.

Richard quickly followed suit with his equipment. Then he took two underwater lights, tested both, and handed one to Michael. When he was ready he nodded to Michael, and they both put on their helmets at the same time.

The first thing they checked after Louis opened the manifold was the gas flow. Next was the hot water, a necessary adjunct since the outside water temperature was only thirty-six degrees; it was difficult for a diver to work if he was cold. Finally they tested the communications and their sensor lines. When all was in order, Louis informed topside and asked for permission for the divers to enter the water.

“Permission granted,” Larry’s voice responded. “Open the hatch!”

With some difficulty and a lot of grunts Louis squeezed his bulky frame down into the trunk of the bell.

“My hat!” Michael yelled, although his voice was muffled by the sound of his escaping breathing gas.

Louis grasped the baseball hat and handed it up to Michael. Michael gingerly hung it on one of the many protuberances in the bell. He treated it as his most valuable possession. What he didn’t admit was that he considered it his lucky charm.

Louis undogged the pressure hatch and, with some difficulty, raised it. He secured it against the wall. Below, the luminous aquamarine seawater rose menacingly up through the trunk. All three divers breathed a silent sigh of relief when it predictably stopped just shy of the lip of the hatch. They all knew it would, but they also knew that if it did not there was no place to go.

Richard gave Michael a thumbs-up sign. Michael returned the gesture. Richard then carefully climbed down through the trunk. Once he was free he dropped out the bottom of the bell.

For Richard, getting out of the cramped bell was a relief he likened to being born. The sudden freedom was exhilarating. The only part of him that could sense the coolness of the water was his gloved hands. He scanned the area while adjusting his buoyancy. It took him only a moment to see the dark shape cruising just at the periphery of light. It wasn’t the submersible. It was a shark with luminous eyes. The length of the huge fish was more than twice the diameter of the diving bell.

“We got company,” Richard said calmly. “Toss down my rebar just in case and have Michael bring his.” Of all the fancy antishark paraphernalia on the market, Richard preferred a simple, three-and-a-half-foot metal rod. It had been his experience that sharks avoided the rod like the plague if it was just pointed in their direction. During a feeding frenzy he wasn’t as confident it would work, but in that situation, nothing worked one hundred percent.

Seconds later the rebar came down and clanked mutely against the rock. A moment later Michael’s legs appeared as he struggled out of the trunk. Once he was free the two divers made eye contact. Richard gestured in the direction of the shark, which now wandered into the light.

“Ah, it’s only a Greenland shark,” Richard said to Louis, who made sure Michael had heard it as well. Now Richard was even less concerned. It was a big shark, but not dangerous. He knew that another name for the monster was sleeper shark because of its sluggish habits.

After Michael made his adjustments Richard pointed toward the ridge. Michael nodded and the two started off. Both held their lights in their left hands and the rebars in their right. As accomplished swimmers they covered the distance in a short time without rushing. At a pressure of almost thirty atmospheres the sheer work of breathing the viscous, compressed gas sapped their energy.

Inside the diving bell Louis was frantically playing out both sets of tethers. He didn’t want to restrict the divers or give them too much slack lest they get tangled up. Until the divers got down to work the bell diver was a busy man. The job required concentration and quick reflexes. At the same time Louis was handling the lines, he had to keep his eye on the pressure gauges and the digital oxygen percentage readout. On top of that he was in constant communication with each diver and with diving control up in the diving van. To keep his hands free, a headset kept a tiny speaker in his ear and a microphone positioned over his mouth.

Out in the water the two divers swam to the top of the ridge and paused. At that distance from the diving bell the amount of illumination fell off sharply. Richard motioned to his flashlight and both turned them on.

Behind them, the diving bell glowed eerily like an orbiter nesting in a rocky, alien landscape. A stream of bubbles issued from the bell and dribbled toward the far-off surface. Ahead, the divers faced darkness fading to indelible blackness with only a faint hint of a glow when they looked up toward the surface almost a thousand feet above. In the back of their minds they knew the huge shark was somewhere just beyond their vision. Shining their lights forward provided meager cones of light that penetrated the icy darkness only forty to fifty feet ahead.

“There’s a drop-off beyond the ridge,” Richard reported. “This must be the scarp.”

Louis relayed the information up to the dive station. Although the dive control could listen to the divers and talk to them, Larry preferred to use the bell diver as an intermediary. The combination of the helium voice distortion and the noise of the divers’ breathing gas flow made comprehension by those up in the diving van extremely difficult even with the helium unscrambler on-line. It was much more efficient to use the bell diver since he was more accustomed to the speech distortions.

“Red diver,” Louis called out. “Control wants to know if you see any sign of the Oceanus.”

“That’s negative,” Richard said.

“How about a crevice or a hole?” Louis relayed.