Then the center of the darkness dropped suddenly and a massive wound appeared in the ocean. It was quickly expanding in size, and would reach them within seconds.

Trout's hand instinctively reached for the throttle just as invisible fingers of current reached out from the widening gyre and began to pull them back toward the yawning black void.

The great gaping cavity that had opened in the sea was visible only for an instant before it disappeared behind a mounding circle of foam. Tatters of spume flew off the top of the sudsy crest. An intense, briny odor saturated the air as if the Zodiac were suddenly in the midst of a huge school of fish.

The NOAA ship was moving toward the Zodiac. People lined the rail. They were pointing and waving their hands.

The boat was on the verge of extricating itself from the sticky currents when a big sea broke over the blunt bow and they lost headway. Trout's jaw tightened. He cranked the throttle up as far as it would go and pointed the bow away from the cauldron. The motor revved to near-valve-popping levels. The boat lurched as if it had been given shock treatment. The Zodiac gained a yard or two before being snatched again by the powerful tentacles of current that were generated around the huge whirl.

A rumble issued from the bowels of the sea, the sound so over-powering that it drowned out the desperate roar of the straining motor. The air was filled with a great vibration as if hundreds of pipe organs were set on low end. Thick, milky mist issued from the hole in the water. Making the scene even more unreal was the laser show overhead. The dancing lights had changed in color from silver to blue and purple.

The boat scudded into a tightening spiral as it was dragged into the encircling belt of foam. There was no chance of escape. The Zodiac was lifted to the top of the roiling ridge of white water, now around six feet high, where it was buffeted and rocked with such violence that Gamay was almost thrown into the sea.

Trout released the wheel and lunged for Gamay. His strong fingers caught the fabric of her foul-weather jacket and he pulled her back into the boat. It was no longer safe to stand. They dropped to their hands and knees and grabbed onto a safety line attached to one of the inflatable-hull tubes.

The Zodiac was fully in the grip of the moving ridge of gleaming white water. As if the constant pitching and yawing weren't enough, the boat spun like a drunken ballet dancer.

The punishment continued as the boat was carried along the roiling ridge of foam. On one side was the sea. On the other, a great whirling funnel whose black walls sloped at a forty-five-degree angle. The sides of the whirlpool looked as hard as glass.

The boat teetered dangerously at the top of the foaming wall and then slid into the great whirling funnel of black water. The fierce current whipping around the wall of the whirlpool surpassed the pull of gravity. The boat's descent ended about twenty feet below the shiny rim of froth. Caught by the centrifugal force like the ball in a spinning roulette wheel, the boat began to go round and round the funnel.

The Zodiac hung at a forty-five-degree angle, its flat bottom parallel to the slanting surface, with the port side lower than starboard. The bow pointed forward as if the boat were still moving under its own power.

The Trouts twisted their bodies around so that their boots were wedged under the downhill pontoon. They looked down into the whirlpool. It was at least a mile in diameter. The funnel slanted sharply, and the bottom was hidden behind the swirling clouds of thick mist that rose from the churning water. Light passing through the mist had created a rainbow that arced over the maelstrom as if nature was trying to moderate its raw display of power with delicate beauty.

Without a stationary reference point, it was impossible to determine how fast they were moving or how many times the Zodiac had made the circle. But after several minutes had passed, the rim seemed higher. It became painfully obvious that the boat was descending even as it was hurled forward.

Trying to reorient herself, Gamay glanced up at the circle of sky wheeling far above. She saw movement at the rim of the whirlpool and pointed with her free hand.

Trout wiped the water out of his eyes. "Oh hell," he said. "It's the Franklin."

The vessel was at the edge of the gyre, its stern protruding into thin air from the ridge of foam. The ship disappeared after a moment. Seconds later, it returned to view, only to disappear again.

The Trouts forgot about their own misfortune. From the ship's peekaboo performance, it was apparent that the Franklin had been caught in the swirling currents generated by the vortex and was being drawn into the funnel.

The ship oscillated back and forth in a deadly game of tug-of-war as the propellers came out of the water and the vessel lost way. The ship would tilt, the propellers would catch and the vessel would rise up and over again in a bucksaw motion that went on for several minutes. Then the entire length of the vessel was drawn over the lip and into the cauldron. The ship's bow was higher than the stern. It hung there as if stuck by glue.

"Go, baby, go … !" Trout yelled.

Gamay gave him a quick glance, even smiling briefly at the unusual display of emotion, before she, too, joined in the cheering.

The smooth water behind the ship boiled as if someone had turned the burner on high. The engines were doing their work. The propellers biting into the slanting sides of the funnel, the ship inched its way painfully toward the rim again, settled back, shot upward at an angle, was buried by the foam, then gave a mighty surge that carried it over the lip.

This time, the ship disappeared for good. The Trouts cheered, but their celebration was tempered by their own sense of loneliness and impotence against an unstoppable force of nature.

"Any ideas about how we get out of here?" Gamay shouted.

"Maybe the whirlpool will end on its own."

Gamay glanced down. In the few minutes they had watched the ship struggle, the boat had dropped at least another twenty feet.

"I don't think so."

The water had lost its India ink cast, and the slick black sides had picked up a brownish tinge from the mud being scooped up from the bottom. Hundreds of dead or dying fish whirled in a great circle like confetti caught in a windstorm. The damp air was thick with the smell of brine, fish and bottom muck.

"Look at the debris," Paul said. "It's rising from the bottom."

Wreckage was being churned up from the floor of the sea in the same way a tornado picks up objects and lifts them in the air. There were splintered wooden cartons, plywood, hatch covers, scraps of ventilators, even a damaged lifeboat. Much of the material sank back into the vortex, where it was regurgitated and destroyed with the same effect as if it were at the bottom of Niagara Falls.

Gamay noticed that some pieces, mostly small, were heading up toward the rim. "What if we jump into the water?" she said. "Maybe we'd be light enough to rise to the top like that stuff."

"No guarantee we'd ascend. More likely, we'd get sucked farther into the whirlpool, to be ground up like hamburger. Remember that the first rule of the sea is to stick with your boat-if possible."

"Maybe that's not such a great idea. We've dropped lower."

It was true. The boat had slipped farther into the whirlpool.

A cylindrical object was working its way up the side of the whirlpool. Then several more followed.

"What's that?" Trout said.

Gamay wiped away the moisture from her eyes and looked again, at a point twenty feet ahead and slightly below the Zodiac. Before becoming a marine biologist, she had been a nautical archaeologist, and immediately recognized the tapered ceramic forms with their greenish gray painted surfaces.