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"Kurt's right The instrumentation on this ship can tell you the color of a tube worm's eyes at a thousand fathoms," Zavala added

Adler chuckled "Deep-ocean biology isn't my area of expertise, but I wasn't aware those remarkable creatures had eyes"

"Joe is exaggerating, but only a little bit," Austin said with a s case for those who argue that hu their feet wet Instead of being cra coffee while the side-scan fish does all the work for us"

"And what do you think, Kurt?"

Austin pondered the question "There is no doubt that someone like Joe can build an underwater robot vehicle that can be progra you your newspaper and slippers"

A brilliant ned and directed the construction of numerous underwater vehicles, manned and unmanned, for NUMA

"Funny you should n that will do all that and arita too"

"Joethe walls of the survey center "But what's er for the one quality that will keep the hu like an unused limb Adventure"

Adler s to NUMA for help Austin and Zavala were obviously sharp-eable in arcane areas of ocean research But with their athletic bearing, quick huood-natured camaraderie the two NUMA hteenth-century swashbucklers than the seagoing academics he was used to, with their fussy intensity and taciturn personalities He lifted his coffeein a toast

"Here's to adventure," he said

The others raised their s "Maybe it's tinments Team," Austin said

An urgent buzzing frohter

Austin set his coffee aside and stepped over to the sonar screen He watched the display for a few seconds His lips widened in a smile and he turned to the professor "You said earlier that you'd like to assess the dae to the Southern Belle before you tell us about the theories you've been toying with"

"Yes, that's right," Adler said "I'm hopeful that I can learn why the Belle went down"

Austin swiveled the screen so that the professor could see the spectral i on the ocean bottom five hundred feet below