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Looking at the tiny speck against the infinite desolation, it was impossible for any of them to believe there were two living, breathing men inside it. The moving projection seemed so real, they had to fight to keep from reaching out and touching it.
Their thoughts varied to the extreme. DeLuca imagined he was an astronaut peering down at life on an alien planet, while Morton was reminded of watching a truck on a highway from an aircraft flying at thirty thousand feet. Sandecker and Giordino both visualized their friend struggling against a hostile atmosphere to stay alive.
"Can't you rescue them with your submersible?" queried Morton.
Giordino clutched the rail around the display table until his knuckles went ivory. "We can rendezvous, but neither craft has an air lock to transfer them from one to the other under tons of water pressure. If they attempted to leave Big John at that depth, they'd be squashed to a third their size."
"What about hoisting them to the surface with a cable?"
"I don't know of a ship equipped to carry six kilometers of cable thick enough to support its own weight and that of the DSMV."
"The Glomar Explorer could do it," said Sandecker. "But she's on an oil drilling job off Argentina.
Impossible for her to cut off operations, re-equip, and get here inside of four weeks."
Morton began to understand the urgency and the frustration. "I'm sorry there is nothing my crew and I can do."
"Thank you, Commander." Sandecker sighed heavily. "I appreciate that."
They all stood silent for the next full minute, their eyes focused on the image of the miniature vehicle as it crept across the display like a bug climbing the side of a culvert.
"I wonder where he's headed," murmured DeLuca.
"What was that?" asked Sandecker as if he had suddenly awakened.
"Since I've been tracking him, he's been traveling in a set direction. He'll go into a series of switchbacks when the slope steepens, but after it flattens out again he always returns to his original course."
Sandecker, staring at DeLuca, suddenly knew. "Dirk's heading for high ground. Lord, I almost wrote him off without considering his intentions."
"Plot an approximate course destination," Morton ordered DeLuca.
DeLuca programmed his navigational computer with the data, then eyed the monitor, waiting for the compass projection. The numbers flashed almost instantly.
"Your man, Admiral, is on a course bearing three-three-four."
"Three-three-four," Morton repeated firmly. "Nothing ahead but dead ground."
Giordino looked at DeLuca. "Please enlarge the sector ahead of the DSMV."
DeLuca nodded and broadened the display area in the direction Giordino requested. "Looks pretty much the same except for a few seamounts."
"Dirk is making for Conrow Guyot," Giordino said flatly.
"Guyot?" asked DeLuca.
"A seamount with a smooth summit," Sandecker explained. "A submarine volcanic mountain whose top was leveled by wave action as it slowly sank beneath the surface."
"What's the depth of the summit?" Giordino questioned DeLuca.
The young navigation officer pulled a chart from a cabinet under the table and spread it across the transparent top. "Conrow Guyot," he read aloud. "Depth three hundred and ten meters."
"How far from the DSMV?" This from Morton.
DeLuca checked the distance with a pair of dividers against a scale at the bottom of the chart.
"Approximately ninety-six kilometers."
"At eight kilometers per hour," Giordino calculated, "then doubling the distance to allow for uneven terrain and detours around ravines, with luck they should reach the top of Conrow around this time to
