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why you would be out here again, at this same
spot."
    "You're a born liar, sir," quipped Rodrigo.
    "Why, thank you, Senor Quintas. I then explained how Henry had wanted to join us for
the final leg of the expedition, stubborn as he is."
    "Did he believe you?" I asked.
    "I couldn't be certain, but he is diving tomorrow morning, whether we like it or not."
    "In that case..." I waited until the faces of my four friends turned to me with quizzical
expressions. "...tonight it is, then."
    Rodrigo shook my hand enthusiastically, while the others, after silent deliberation, gave
merely noncommittal nods.
    "You don't share my urgency?" I asked.
    "Not at all," replied Sam. "But we know how much this means to you. You've always
said you want to experience something unequivocal. Well, we're not about to stand in your way now. That would be rather unsporting of us, old boy."
    Ethel put her arms round her husband then said to me, "Go get 'em, tiger."
    * * * *
    The fidgety slumber of the ocean tossed moonlight fragments over the entire midnight
expanse. Three black shapes shrank as they drifted away from us, toward the submerged
machine. Sublimely camouflaged, they were my friends and guarantors: Dumitrescu, Rodrigo
and Sam.
    Ethel opened my water-tight plastic carrier and dropped something inside. It was
wrapped in a small towel.
    "You'll thank me for this, I promise," she said, pulling the cord tight and handing me the
now heavier bag.
    I strained to find the right words. "You're sure you don't want to come?" was the best I
could muster.
    She kissed me on each cheek, before ruffling my hair. "I'm sure. Don't worry, you'll find
what you're looking for someday, Lord Basingstoke."
    I climbed down the steel ladder at the boat's stern, blew her a final kiss goodbye and
slipped into the cool ocean. I glimpsed Ethel, barely distinguishable from the enveloping night, as
I took my last unfiltered breath of 1979. Was that what she saw me as--a lonely figure, without
any real definition?
    Perhaps she understood what I did not.
    The four of us were careful not to switch on our torches until we were well underwater.
Stealth was our ally. I led the descent, closely followed by Rodrigo, who readied a fistful of flares
at my signal. The topography had etched itself onto my memory. We were very close to our
destination. Indeed, the first flare vanished for a moment and then spun into a new trajectory as it
fell.
    Bullseye!
    Rodrigo needed no further instruction. Ensuring each of his flares fell at a comfortable
distance from the anomaly, he soon arranged a perimeter of light around the site of sand and flat
rock.
    As much as I love diving, it can be an immensely frustrating experience. I wanted to talk
my friends through each step of my discovery, but I could not say a word. They were
mesmerized--who wouldn't be--but I would have given anything to hear what they were
thinking.
    One by one, they traced the streamlined exterior, negotiated their way through the legs of
the craft and followed my lead into its belly. Gone was the turquoise pigment which had lit my
earlier meddling. In its place, a faint amber skirt enwrapped the lower half of the chamber.
    It is hard to imagine how we must have looked, huddled together in the time machine,
pouring over the indecipherable panel of functions by torchlight. We hardly moved for
twenty-five minutes. None of us dared risk breathing the unknown pocket of atmosphere; all of us were
transfixed by this otherworldly creation in its tactile glory. Yet, what chance had we to adjust,
literally standing in the future, by way of the past?
    Sam switched off his torch and bade us do the same. The flares had long since expired.
We were in utter darkness. A power cut at home can't compare, as the sensation is usually
grounded by a familiarity with one's surroundings. Here not even the air could be trusted.
    It quickly became clear what Sam had done. Glancing down to the panel, I noticed a
faint aqua-blue glow highlighting two of