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that had scoured the sea-floor. To her, the purpose of the ocean was for
cruising, and to supply sushi.
She padded barefoot into the small bathroom, and switched on the light.
Digging through her toiletry bag, she came up with her manicure set and began
to clean her nails.
Yuck! This job is disgusting. You could plant potatoes in the blob I just
excavated from under my thumbnail!
And then the blob twinkled.
Huh? Adriana blinked.
It was a tiny particle in the dirt, about half the size of a grain of sand.
It was bright yellow, and when it caught the light, it gleamed.
She looked closer. Not yellow, exactly. More like gold.
Intrigued now, she spread a tissue on the counter, popped the dirt onto it,
and used an eyebrow tweezers to separate the shiny fleck from the rest of the
material.
It was very shiny and soft, too. The sharp tweezers could not cut the
particle. Strong pressure just left an indentation.
Her breath caught. This didn't just look like gold; it was gold!
She finished cleaning her nails onto the tissue, and examined the results.
Only dirt. Head spinning, she sat down on the edge of the tub, trying to sort
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out her thoughts. The dirt under her nails came from carrying Iggy's camera
array. That was mud dredged up from the sloping ocean floor near the second
debris field fromNuestra Señora . How could it be a coincidence a tiny piece
of gold from the very spot where they suspected a vast treasure lay hidden?
But Spanish gold came in bars, coins, great decorative chains. This was
barely larger than a particle of dust.
When the answer came to her, it brought with it so much adrenaline that the
feeling was closer to terror than understanding. She leaped to her feet,
unable to contain the excitement within one body.
"Star! Star !!"
At a quiet corner table in the Poseidon cafeteria, the four interns met with
Captain Vanover.
Dante stared at the tiny fleck on Adriana's fingertip. "That's not treasure!
That's a molecule!"
"It's agold molecule," Star said in irritation. "And keep your voice down."
"Itis pretty small," Vanover pointed out. "I can't explain it, but I guess
there's a chance it occurs naturally."
"I thought so too," said Adriana. "But then I remembered something I read on
the Spanish government web site. All treasure arriving in Spain from the New
World was heavily taxed.
But you could never know how much more was smuggled in to avoid the taxes.
And the easiest treasure to sneak past the authorities was gold dust."
"Yeah," said Kaz dubiously, "but onepiece ?"
Star took up the explanation. "Think about what happens when a boat sinks. It
creates a whirlpool effect, like theTitanic . Something as light as gold dust
would get sucked up into the whirlpool, and end up spread out all over the
bottom around the wreck."
"So we tried a little experiment," Adriana took up the tale. "We pulled all
our muddy clothes out of the hamper. And there was another speck on Star's
shirt." Her eyes shone. "We're not wrong about this. The debris field we
photographed last night has the treasure in it thereal treasure! We can't
get at all that dust, but the rest of it is lying there, just waiting to be
claimed!"
Dante choked back a whoop. "I can't believe it! We found it! It's ours! Now
all we have to do is figure out how to bring it up."
"Not so fast," the captain said seriously. "What we saw last night was at
three hundred and fifty feet. And that was just the top of the debris field.
Who knows how much farther down the slope the treasure could be? There's no
way I can let you kids even you, Star dive so deep."
Star's jaw stiffened. "That's not your decision to make! No offense, Captain
you've been great to us. But we're talking about a billion dollars here!"
"It isn't worth a dime if you get yourself killed going after it."
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Dante was horrified. "You mean we're just going to leave it there?"
"Calm down," Vanover soothed. "There are ways to salvage things from deep
water. It's possible, but it's tricky. And you have to know exactly what
you're doing. Take it easy. We've got time. Cutter's looking in the wrong
place; and he doesn't know that you guys are looking at all."
Kaz and Dante exchanged a worried look. "That's not exactly true," Kaz began
slowly. He told the others about finding the footprints on the cabin floor in
front of the bell. "We have to assume it's Cutter," he finished. "Who else
could it be?"
Star looked alarmed. "That's trouble. If he sees us nosing around the second
debris field, we'll be leading him right to the treasure."
Captain Vanover looked like a man who had just made up his mind. "All right
here's what we're going to do. Poseidon maintains a research sub calledDeep
Scout . I'm going to requisition it, and we're all going down there. If we can
snag a piece of that treasure and match it to the cargo list on the web site,
we can file a claim on the wreck with the International Maritime Commission."
He made eye contact with all four. "Then it won't matter what Cutter knows.
It'll be our prize, not his."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
If a bubble helicopter married a submarine, their offspring might look very
much like the DSVDeep Scout . A gleaming sphere made of clear acrylic sprouted
from a titanium hull that was pockmarked with lights, cameras, and other
instruments. Six folded manipulator arms gave the submersible an almost
insectlike appearance.
"Isn't she beautiful?" crowed Captain Vanover.
"No," said Dante with conviction.
"I guess not," the captain conceded. "But she'll take us where we need to go.
Besides, this boat is usually booked six months in advance. You kids have no
idea how many favors I had to call in and people I had to lie to in order to
get us on the schedule on such short notice."
Deep Scoutsat on the launch deck of its support vessel.Scoutmaster was a much
larger ship than theHernando Cortés or thePonce de Léon . It had to be to
house the crane mechanism required to place the deep-sea vehicle in the water,
and to pluck it out again when the mission was done.
Kaz's head was spinning by the end of the handshakes and introductions. "It
takes this many guys to run one little submersible?" he whispered.
"Most of these areScoutmaster's crew," Vanover replied. "But there's always a
tech on board monitoring the sub's every move. Remember,Deep Scout was built
to explore the ocean floor at depths of up to two miles." Seeing Dante turn
gray, he added quickly, "We won't be goingthat far down."
Vanover left them and climbed the metal ladder to the big ship's towering
bridge. It was his job to direct Scoutmaster's captain to the correct
coordinates where Dr. Ocasek's camera array had spotted the second debris
field.
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Dante leaned against the rail, observing the beehive of activity. "You think
we're going to have to split the money with all these people?"
Adriana was disgusted. "Is that all this is to you? Money?"
"Yeah, well, maybe those of us who don't already have one-point-two billion
dollars are kind of looking forward to seeing how the other half lives," Dante
shot back.
Her eyes narrowed in anger. "You have no way of knowing how much my family
has or doesn't have."
"You don't have to apologize for being rich."
Dante insisted. "But don't act all superior because you're in this for pure
archaeology. It's easy to be high-minded when you don't need the money. I do."
"I don't care about the money," Star put in grimly. "I just want to see the
look on Cutter's face when we show up with that treasure. Us the losers he
picked because we wouldn't be a threat& thecripple who couldn't possibly
dive& " Her voice trailed off, but her eyes were blazing. "I just want to see
that."
Money. Science. Revenge. Kaz marveled at the different reasons his fellow [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
