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The cable winches for the suit and hook worked in tandem to lower Austin The quick descent kicked up bubbles that obscured his view of his surroundings As the ital clock, he kept a close eye on the depth gauge

After passing two thousand feet, Austin are that the suit now had entered uncharted ter

ritory, but his s to conteht have been pushed beyond its liht hundred feet, still with no discernible problee in the speed of his descent

Gannon’s voice came on the intercom

“We’re slowing you down so you don’t drill a hole through the bottom, Kurt”

“Appreciate that Hold at three thousand”

The winch soon slowed to a stop

The curtain of bubbles cleared around the dohts that would have been useless during descent Their pale yellow shafts accentuated blackness so devoid of color that any attempt to describe it in words would be doomed to fail

All systeht Austin called for more slack on the cable The winch slowly lowered him more until he was fifty feet off the bottom

“You’re on your own from here on,” the captain said “We’ll let out cable as you move”

Scattered groupings and pinpoints of phosphorescence could be seen beyond the range of the searchlights, and odd-looking luminescent fish nosed up to the faceplate of Austin’s helmet

He pressed doith his left foot and two vertical thrusters whirred, raising hiht foot to activate the horizontal thrusters,him forward several feet

Austin tried s and found that, even with the tremendous water pressure, the suit’s sixteen well-oiled joints allowed for an ae of movement

He activated the suit’s caht

“Picture’s coh,” the captain reported “Good definition”