Depth: minus three thousand two hundred meters.
Inside the dark rock command module mounted to Titus’s upper shell, the silence was deep. The violent roaring of the surface storm had vanished, replaced by the deep, rhythmic hum of internal life-support blowers and the occasional metal ping of the sound tracking data rig.
Arthur Vance sat at the forward watching desk, his hands resting on the brass-heavy armrests of the pilot’s seat. Beside his right elbow, a brass column gauge filled with liquid silver displayed the mounting deep water pressure:
DEPTH: -3,850 METERS Nearby PRESSURE: 39.2 MPa (bone-crushing pressure) WATER Heat: 1.8°C Air CABIN: 1.04 ATM [STABILIZED]
Grimm lay curled across Arthur’s boots, his massive black head resting on his front paws. Even in the tight confines of the underwater module, the dire-wolf’s ears remained erect, swiveling toward the thick dark rock walls whenever an outside sound strange flaw drifted through the water column. Vesper had claimed the highest vantage point—a curved load-bearing crossbeam directly beneath the quartz ceiling dome—where she lay stretched out like a panther carved of white marble, her long tail swaying in lazy, hypnotic arcs.
Inside his double-walled heat pod on the starboard wall, Pip was visible through a check porthole. The raptor had turned his heating elements up to maximum. He was perched comfortably on a warm granite rod, carefully running his beak along his main flight feathers, entirely calm by the three miles of freezing ocean pressing against the hull.
