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Giordino guided the crawler across the steel deck footings, now absent the inlaid teak that originally graced the ship He battled with the crawler’s low level of lighting and an annoying time delay between his movements on a joystick and the device’s reaction, but he soon had it scurrying about the wreck

The Maine’s re steel, the decks starkly empty The robot crept into the stern superstructure, which had housed the officers’ and captain’s quarters Where paneling and carpet once covered the interior, now there were only gray steel bulkheads Most of the hatch doors had been dogged open, allowing free view of the e dead

Giordino maneuvered the crawler down a companionway to the berth deck and into an empty wardroohting fixtures that still clung to their ceiling e stone, Giordino guided the crawler back to the main deck and exited the aft structure He had bypassed the engine rooreed were unlikely storage places for the stone

“I think we’ve seen all there is to see” He stretched the tired fingers that were operating the joystick

“Nothing re the stone,” Dirk said “It probably didn’t survive the explosion”

Suuess we’ll never know the full Aztec tale” She turned to Giordino “Thanks for the effort, Al If nothing else, you’ve captured soon”

“All in a day’s work,” he said, sharing in their disappointment

“How are you going to get your crawler back?” Dirk asked

“I’ll send it walking toward Key West If we’re still in the neighborhood in a few days, we can pick it up on the fly”

As he spoke, the crawler caught a leg on a twisted ventilator that was pressed against the aft superstructure Giordino had to reverse course in order to free the device

“Hold up” This ca silently behind the others, watching the video

“Go back to where you got hung up”

Giordino reversed the crawler a few steps “So catch your eye?”

“There, against the bulkhead Can you zoom in with the camera?”

Giordino nodded and tapped a keystroke The video display enlarged, revealing a ed ventilator