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It was a crazy ga the divers Pitt hoped to raise the cable enough to lift the diving bell off the wellhead structure To do so, the welding shed would act as a lift bag and pull the cable to the surface

Pitt maneuvered the submersible until it hovered just above the shed

“You sure you want to park it here?” Giordino asked

“We ive it a boost See if you can grab hold of it”

Giordino reached out the manipulator arm and latched onto a knuckle in the shed’s peaked roof Pitt purged the ballast tanks A wall of rising bubbles obscured their view and any sensation of ital readout held steady, then began decreasing a foot at a time

He grinned “We’re ”

Peering into the distance fro bell, Fletcher saw the subhts illuminated a shts of the sub with it

Little did Fletcher knoas attached to the rising structure

Using the weight of the subed to keep the shed level as it filled with gas and attained buoyancy More i the steel lift cable beneath it As the structure ascended, the sea pressure would dias inside the shed to expand With luck, the expanding gas would provide the needed lift to offset the groeight of the cable

“Five hundred feet,” Giordino said “We’re riding a regular freight elevator”

“Feels more like a mechanical bull” Pitt jockeyed the submersible to one side He had to constantly work the thrusters to keep the shed’s roof level If the shed tipped, the gas would escape and the whole works would plummet to the seabed

The odd asse higher, the expanding helium ultian to bulge as the expanding gas sought its escape, strea out of every crevice, as well as the open door The shed’s ascent accelerated, pushing the submersible with it

The Sargasso Sea had been alerted to stand clear but at the ready Pacing her stern deck, Kevin Knight stared at the water A disruption caught his attention and he watched as a circular froth erupted A few seconds later, the bright yellow NUMA sub co on some sort of structure that resehtly and the subnized it as the welder’s shed from the Alta

At Pitt’s direction, the Sargasso Sea moved in quickly and snared the looped cable with a crane and hook The structure was hoisted onto the stern deck as a waiting throng of crewmen secured the cable with clamps and braces The loose end was unwound from the shed and fed onto a drum winch that had been cleared of its own cable

As the winch began reeling in the cable, the ship’s lift crane deposited the welder’s shed over the side and retrieved the submersible