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"It's like working under a hundred running faucets down here Water is gushing in everywhere I doubt if the pumps have the capability to handle it That's all I can tell you until I sound the hull"

"What about injuries?"

"We were catapulted around like drunken gymnasts I think Jackson has a broken knee, and Gilmore a skull fracture Beyond that, a few battered eardru of bruises"

"Come back to me every five enerators turning"

"I don't have to be reo"

"You got the idea"

Pitt crammed the phone in its receiver and looked worriedly at Heidi Gunn was kneeling over her, cradling her head in his arainst the chart table, barely conscious, staring through vacant eyes at her left leg It lay at a queer angle

"Funny," she whispered "It doesn't hurt a bit"

The pain would coht Pitt Already her face was flour-white from shock He took her hand

"Just lie still until we can get a stretcher"

He wanted to say more, to comfort her, but there was no tiuished interruption of Hoker's voice

"The board is out" Hoker was fighting to recover, picking his fallen chair off the deck, staring dumbly at his darkened console panel and monitors

"Then fix the daot to knohat happened to the underwater crew"

He took a headset and patched himself into all the stations of the Ocean Venturer On and below decks the scientists and engineers of NUMA began pulling their senses together and toiling like madmen to save their ship The more seriously injured were carried to the hospital bay, where they soon overfilled the facilities and were placed in rows outside in the hallway Those who did not have critical jobs labored to tear aside the wreckage of the derrick or seal the cracks in the hull as they stood in waist-high frigid water A teao below

Thein as Pitt directed the recovery A still bewildered radio operator turned to him "Just in from the captain of the Phoenix He wishes to knoe need assistance?"