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At the end of the passageway was the door to the engine and generating room. They took up positions opposite each other along the bulkheads and approached the door. From ten feet away they could hear the faint murmur of voices. Their eyes met for a brief instant. For a few moments, Pitt put his ear to the steel door and listened. The voices seemed to be taunting and heavy with scorn. Occasionally came the sound of laughter.
Pitt pushed the long metal door handle a fraction of an inch. It moved noiselessly. He made a mental note to thank Chief Engineer House for having the hatch door latches oiled periodically. He eased the handle downward with infinite slowness so it wouldn't be noticed on the other side. When the handle reached the end of its stop, he gently cracked open the door the way he'd have done it if he knew that inside were a dozen alien monsters who digested humans for nourishment.
They clearly heard the voices now. There were four of them. Two came from strangers, but the other two were as familiar as his own. Pitt's heart leaped within his chest. The voices were not indulging in idle conversation. The two unknowns seemed to be taunting the others.
"Won't be long now and the whole lot of you will see what it's like to drown."
"Yeah, it's nothing like falling asleep in the Arctic," said his partner nastily. "Your head feels like it's being filled with exploding firecrackers. Your eyes pop from your head. Your ears burst like they were punctured with icepicks. Your throat feels like it's being torn out and your lungs feel like they're being swabbed with nitric acid. You'll have a blast."
"You sick scum," spat Captain Burch.
"Talking like that in front of women, it only proves that you're nothing but a bunch of degenerate animals," came the voice of Chief Engineer House.
"Hey, Sam, did you know you were a degenerate?"
"Not since last week."
The last remark was followed by deep laughter.
"You kill us," said Burch angrily, "and every investigative force in the world will surely track you down and hang your butts higher than a kite."
"Not without evidence of the crime," the hijacker called Sam said with a sneer.
"You'll just be another one of the thousands of ships that sailed off and were lost with all hands."
"Please?" came the voice of one of the female scientists. "We all have loved ones at home. You can't do this terrible thing."
"Sorry, lady," said Sam coldly. "To the people who pay our wages, your lives aren't worth two cents."
Sam's partner said, "Our crew should be coming aboard in another half hour." Then he paused and looked beyond Pitt's vision. "Two hours after that, you NUMA people will get to study all them denizens of the deep first hand."
From his limited view through the crack in the hatch, Pitt could see that the hijackers were holding automatic weapons in the ready position. Pitt nodded at Giordino. Both men crouched forward and prepared for a fight, as they opened the door and walked in the engine room shoulder to shoulder.
The two hijackers sensed the movement behind them, but they didn't bother to turn, thinking it was their friends showing up early for the execution. Sam said, "You guys are early. What's the rush?"
"We've been ordered to set a course for Guam," said Giordino, in a reasonably good imitation of the hijacker with the gravelly voice.
"That's it," said Sam, laughing. "You people better start praying. It's almost time to meet your maker-"
That was as far as he got. Giordino picked him up off the deck by his head and smashed it against a bulkhead, as Pitt whipped his .45 in a sidearm swing against the other guard's jaw, sending him crumpling in a heap on the deck.
Then it was fiesta time. Saturday night all over again. All that was missing were the balloons and champagne.
They were all there. Sitting on the floor around the ship's generators with their legs chained together like galley slaves was the entire company of Deep Encounter. Their ankles were encased in steel bands attached to a long chain that was locked to the mounting of the main generator. Pitt made a quick count, while everyone sat there in shock at seeing the two men they'd thought were lost and gone forever. Burch, House, the crew and scientific team looked like they were in a dream. Then they began coming to their feet and were within a twinkling of launching into wild cheering when Pitt threw up his hands and hissed, "Quiet! For God's sake, remain silent or we'll have an army of armed guards rushing in here."
"Where in Hades did you come from?" asked Burch.
"From a very luxurious yacht," answered Giordino. "But that's another story." He looked at Chief Engineer House. "What have you got to cut the chain?"
House pointed to a side compartment. "In the toolroom. You'll find a pair of cable cutters hanging on the bulkhead."
"Release the crew first," Pitt said to Giordino. "We've got to get the ship under way before the hijackers come on board."
Giordino returned in thirty seconds and began feverishly cutting the chain. In the meantime, Pitt had rushed up to the outer deck and made sure the rescue had gone undiscovered. The decks of the pirate ship were still empty. As far as he could determine, they were all still in the mess room licking their chops like hungry hyenas, he thought, in happy anticipation of sending the Deep Encounter and its people to a watery grave.
When he returned, Chief House and his engine room crew were already manning the main control station in preparation for getting the survey ship under way. "This is where I leave you," he said to Burch.
The captain looked blank. Even Giordino turned and stared at Pitt queerly.
