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"Think how common the world would be without us."
Sandecker made no reply. He moved up to the window and stared inside the tank at the ceramic model of the Titanic. Silverstein moved up behind him. "She's a fascinating subject, no doubt of it."
"Strange thing about the Titanic, " Sandecker said softly. "Once her spell strikes, you can think of nothing else."
"But why? What is there about her that grips the imagination and won't let go?"
"Because She's the wreck that puts all the others to shame," Sandecker said. "She's modern history's most legendary yet elusive treasure. A simple photograph of her is enough to pump the adrenaline. Knowing her story, the crew who sailed her, the people who walked her decks in the few short days she lived, that's what fires the imagination, Silverstein. The Titanic is a vast archive of an era we'll never see again. God only knows if it is within our power to bring the grand old dame into daylight again. But, by heaven, we're going to try."
36
The submersible Sea Slug looked aerodynamically clean and smooth from her outside, but to Pitt, as he contorted his six-foot-two frame into the pilot's chair, the interior seemed a claustrophobic nightmare of hydraulic plumbing and electrical circuitry. The craft was twenty feet long and tubular in shape, with rounded ends like its lethargic namesake. It was painted bright yellow and had four large portholes set in pairs on its bow, while mounted along the top, like small radar domes, were two powerful high intensity lights.
Pitt completed the checklist and turned to Giordino, who sat in the seat to his right.
"Shall we make a dive?"
Giordino flashed a toothy smile. "Yes, let's."
"How about it, Rudi?"
Gunn looked up from his prone position behind the lower viewports and nodded. "Ready when you are."
Pitt spoke into a microphone and watched the small television screen above the control panel as it showed the Modoc's derrick lift the Sea Slug from her deck cradle and gently swing her over the side and into the water. As soon as a diver had disconnected the lift cable, Pitt cracked the ballast valve and the submersible began to sink slowly under the rolling, deep-troughed waves.
"Life-support timer on," Giordino announced. "An hour to the bottom, ten hours for the search, two hours for surfacing, leaving us a reserve of five hours just in case.
"We'll use the reserve time for the search," Pitt said.
Giordino knew well the facts of the situation. If the unthinkable happened, an accident at twelve thousand feet, there would be no hope of rescue. A quick death would be the only prayer against the appalling suffering of slow asphyxiation. He found himself actually amused at wishing he was back on board the Sappho I, enjoying the uncramped comfort of open space and the security of her eight-week life-support system. He sat back and watched the water darken as the Sea Slug buried her hull in the depths, his thoughts drifting to the enigmatic man who was piloting the craft.
Giordino went back with Pitt to their high-school days, when they had built and raced hot rods together down the lonely farm roads behind Newport Beach, California. He knew Pitt better than any man alive; any woman, for that matter. Pitt possessed, in a sense, two separate inner identities, neither directly related to the other. There was the congenial Dirk Pitt, who rarely deviated from the middle of the road, and was humorous, unpretentious, and radiated an easygoing friendliness with everyone he met. Then there was the other Dirk Pitt, the coldly efficient machine who seldom made a mistake and who often withdrew into himself, remote and aloof. If there was a key that would unlock the door between the two, Giordino had yet to discover it.
Giordino turned his attention back to the depth gauge. Its needle indicated twelve hundred feet. Soon they passed the two-thousand-foot mark and entered a world of perpetual night. From this point downward, as far as the human eye was concerned, there was only pure blackness. Giordino pushed a switch and, the outside lights burst on and sliced a reassuring path through the darkness.
"What do you think our chances are of finding her on the first try?" he asked.
"If the computer data Admiral Sandecker sent us holds true, the Titanic should lie somewhere within a hundred-and-ten-degree arc, thirteen hundred yards southeast of the spot where you reclaimed the cornet."
"Oh, great," Giordino mumbled sarcastically. "That narrows it down from looking for a toenail in the sands of Coney Island to searching for an albino boll weevil in a cotton field."
"There he goes again," Gunn sa
id, "offering his negative thought for the day."
"Maybe if we ignore him," Pitt laughed, "he'll go away."
Giordino grimaced and motioned into the watery void.
"Oh sure, just drop me off at the next corner"
"We'll find the old girl," Pitt said resolutely. He pointed - illuminated clock on the control panel. "Let's see, it's oh-six-forty now. I predict we'll be over the Titanic's decks before lunch, say about eleven-forty."
Giordino gave Pitt a sideways look. "The great soothsayer has spoken."
"A little optimism never hurts," Gunn said. He adjusted the exterior camera housings and triggered the strobe. It flashed blindingly for an instant like a shaft of lightning, reflecting millions of planktonic creatures that hung in the water.
Ten thousand feet and forty minutes later, Pitt reported to the Modoc, giving the depth and the water temperature thirty-five degrees. The three men watched fascinated as a small angler fish, ugly in its stubby appearance, slowly swept past the viewpoints; the tiny luminous bulb that protruded from the top of its head glowed like a lonely beacon.
