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good deal more agility than Perry had exhibited. She'd even managed to do it with the two large books in hand. She proceeded to hand them to Perry.

"I brought these for you," she said. "The thick one is on oceanic marine life and the other is on marine
geology. I thought it might be fun for you to look up some of the things we'll be seeing. We don't want you to get bored."
"That was thoughtful," Perry commented. Little did Suzanne realize, he was far too anxious to be bored. He felt the way he did when he was about to take off in an airplane: There was always the chance that the next few minutes would be his last.
Suzanne sat down in the starboard pilot's seat. Soon she began flipping toggle switches and calling out the results to Donald. It was apparent the two worked as a team. Once Suzanne joined in the predive check, haunting pinging sounds began reverberating through the confined space. It was a unique sound that Perry associated with old World War II submarine movies. Perry shivered again. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to think about his childhood trauma of being pinned under the covers by his brother. But the ploy didn't work. He looked out the view port to his left and struggled to comprehend why he felt he was making the worst decision in his life by taking this short, routine dive. He knew it wasn't a rational feeling since he recognized he was with professionals for whom this dive was commonplace. He knew the submersible was reliable and that he'd recently paid for an overhaul.
All at once Perry started. A masked face had materialized literally before his eyes. An involuntary, pitiful squeak escaped from Perry's lips before he realized he was looking into the face of one of the submersible's handlers who'd entered the water with scuba equipment. A moment later Perry saw other divers. In a slow-motion underwater ballet the divers quickly detached the handling lines. There was a knock on the outside of the hull. The Oceanus was on its own. "All-clear signal received," Donald said into the radio mike. He was talking to the launch team supervisor on the fantail. "Request permission to power away from the ship." "Permission granted," a disembodied voice responded. Perry felt a new linear motion add to the passive roll, yaw, and pitch of the sub. He pressed his nose against the view port and saw the Benthic Explorer move out of his field of vision. With his face still pressed against the Plexiglas he looked down into the oceanic depths where he was about to descend. The sunlight did strange visual tricks as it refracted off the undulating water surface above, making him imagine he was staring into the maw of infinity. With another shiver Perry acknowledged he was as vulnerable as an infant. A combination of vanity and stupidity had drawn him into this alien environment in which he had no control of his destiny. Although he was not religious, he found himself praying that the little underwater cruise would be short, sweet, and safe.
CHAPTER FOUR
"No contact," Suzanne said in response to Donald's question whether the sonar echo sounder showed any unexpected obstacles beneath the Oceanus. Even though they were bobbing around in open ocean, part of the predive check was to make sure no other submarine craft had surreptitiously moved under them.

Donald took the VHF radio mike and established contact with Larry Nelson in the diving van. "We're
clear of the ship. Oxygen is on, scrubbers are on, hatch is closed, underwater phone is on, grounds are normal, and the echo sounder is clear. Request permission to dive." "Is your tracking beacon activated?" Larry's voice questioned over the radio. "That's affirmative," Donald said.
"You have permission to dive," Larry said with a small amount of static. "Depth to the well head is nine hundred ninety-four feet. Have a nice dive." "Roger!" Donald said.
Donald was about to hang up the mike when Larry added, "The DDC is nearing depth so the bell will be starting down ASAP.