Lisa furrowed her brow. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to prejudice your examination of the Nautilus. If there was any other explanation, I wanted you to find it.”

Lisa’s cheeks grew red. “Jesus Christ, you know me better than that. Either way, I would have been just as thorough.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Lisa scooted out of the sub. Jack helped her onto the ladder. Her eyes flicked toward the admiral, then back to Jack. “Charlie is still holed up with George, studying that secret disk of yours. I’m going to find out if they’ve learned anything.” She shoved past. “You really should have told me, Jack.”

“What do you think it means?”

Lisa shrugged. “Beats me, but it’s worth checking out.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Robert, the marine biologist, crawled from under the sub’s tail. “All the seals check out fine, Jack. If you want to take her for another dive, you should have no problems.”

Jack nodded, distracted. “Robert, could you keep the admiral company for a few minutes? I have some brandy in the cupboard under the microwave.”

“Yeah, I know where it’s at. But what’s up?”

“We’ll fill you in with the details as soon as we have any,” Lisa answered, casting an angry look at Jack. She moved off.

Jack called across the deck to Admiral Houston. “I’ll be right back!”

He was answered with a nod and a dismissive wave.

Jack followed Lisa to the lower deck hatch. She descended the steep stair ahead of him, back stiff. This first of the lower levels contained Robert’s wet lab, the ship’s library, and Charlie’s tiny work station. Below were the crew’s cabins.

Lisa led the way through the wet lab to Charlie’s smaller compartment. She knocked on the steel door.

“Who is it?” Charlie called out to them.

“Lisa and Jack! Open up!”

After a short pause, Jack heard the locks unlatch and the door creak open slightly. Charlie peered out at them. “Just making sure you’re alone.” He sounded excited. The geologist pulled the door the rest of the way open. “C’mon inside…you have to see this.”

“You found something?” Jack asked as he and Lisa entered.

“Oh, yeah, mon, you could say that.”

The geology lab was no bigger than a single car garage, but every square inch was utilized. Equipment and tools were stacked neatly on shelves and counters: rock saws, drills, sieves, scales, magnetometers, even a complete ASC Core Analysis System. Jack was ignorant of most of the equipment’s use. This was Charlie’s domain.

With a dual doctorate in geology and geophysics, the Jamaican geologist could have taught at any university. But instead he ended up on Jack’s boat, doing his own research. “I didn’t earn my degrees to hole up in no classroom,” he had explained seven years ago, eyes bright with excitement. “Not when there is so much to explore out here. The deep ocean seabed, Jack! That’s where the Earth’s history and future are written. Down there! It’s waiting for someone to read it. And that someone is me!”

As Jack entered the lab now, he saw the same excitement in Charlie’s eyes. The geologist waved them over to his worktable. A television and video recorder had been set atop it.

Crouched before it was the ship’s historian. The professor leaned only a few inches from the video screen, squinting through his bifocals. George scribbled on a pad. “Amazing…simply amazing,” he mumbled as he worked.

Jack and Lisa moved to either side of him, trying to get a better look at the monitor. “What did you find?” Jack asked.

George finally seemed to realize their presence. He turned, his eyes wide. “You have to go down there again!” he said in a rush, clutching Jack’s sleeve.

“What? Why?”

“We should start at the beginning,” Charlie interrupted. He pointed the remote, and the video image reversed. On the screen, Jack watched the view of the crystal spire vanish into the ocean gloom. Once he’d rewound it far enough, Charlie stopped the DVD and allowed it to play forward. The obelisk slowly reappeared as Charlie spoke. “You were right, Jack. The crystalline substance appears natural. I’ve analyzed the video closely, and from the fracturing of the planes and uniformity of light refraction, it must be a spike of pure crystal.”

“But what type? Quartz?”

Charlie tilted his head, watching the video. “No. That’s just it. I don’t know. At least not yet. But I’d sell the Fathom for a sliver of it.”

“So you think it’s something new?”

The tall Jamaican nodded. “Nowhere on this planet is there an environment like the one down there.” Charlie tapped at the screen. The sub slowly circled the spire, showing the brilliant shaft from every angle. The video image was crisp and detailed. Flawless. There was no sign of the interference that was described topside. “At these extreme pressures of seawater and salinity, who knows how crystals might grow?”

Jack sat on one of the stools. He leaned closer to the screen. “So what you’re saying is that we’re the first people ever to see such a crystal creation?”

Charlie laughed, drawing Jack’s eye away from the screen. “No. I’m not saying that, mon…I’m not saying that at all.” Charlie manipulated the remote’s shuttle, slowing the recording.

Jack watched the spire slow its spin as the submersible finished its circuit. Charlie stopped the video just as the sub’s xenon headlamps began to swing away. Jack remembered this was the moment when he had turned back to continue his search for the black boxes. He had been looking elsewhere and missed what his camera picked up next.

With the light cast at an angle across the nearest plane of the obelisk, slight imperfections could be seen marring its crystalline surface.

“What is that?”

“Proof that we’re not the first to discover this crystal.” Charlie played with the remote and zoomed in on the imperfections. The image swelled on the monitor. The imperfections grew into rows of tiny markings, too regular and precise to be natural. Jack leaned in closer. Though the enlarged video image was fuzzy, there was no mistaking what he was seeing.

George spoke it aloud, voice hushed with awe. “It’s writing. Some type of ancient inscription.”

“But at those depths?” Jack stared in disbelief. Etched deep into the crystal were blocks and rows of tiny iconlike images: animals, trees, distorted figures, geometric shapes.

Jack could not dismiss what he was seeing. Each symbol was carved into the smooth surface, then filled with a shiny metallic compound. It was no optical illusion.

It was ancient writing…on a spire two thousand feet underwater.

Karen held her penlight above her head as she fought the growing depth of the water. She slogged forward, the water now past her waist. She shrugged the equipment bag higher on her shoulder, trying her best to keep it dry, but the heavy weight kept pulling toward the rising seawater. When would this passage end? How long was it? Up and down the passage the echo of pouring water filled the tunnel.

Behind her, she could hear Miyuki struggling. The Japanese professor was smaller than her, the water up to Miyuki’s breasts. She half swam to keep up.

At last Karen saw her penlight illuminate another wall ahead, something different than this endless passage. “I think we’ve reached the end.”

She moved faster. The tunnel ended at a staircase, its steps climbing up. It reminded her of the staircase that had led them down here. She reached the first step, almost trip-ping over it since it was under the black water. Catching herself on the smooth wall, Karen stumbled up the steps and dragged herself out of the flooding passage.

She turned to help Miyuki, and both women climbed several steps until exhaustion dragged them down. They sat on the dry stairs, panting, shivering.