"We can't."

"What do you mean?"

"Try for yourself, Mr Quicksilver," Mr Wates said.

Ulysses tried the comm-alert for himself. There was the click of the b.u.t.ton being depressed but nothing more, not even static. Ulysses tried again, pushing the b.u.t.ton harder this time. Still nothing.

"It would appear that ship-wide communications throughout the Neptune have failed," Mr Wates explained.

"Which only goes to prove that this is not some static problem, but that the crisis is worsening the longer we remain trapped down here," McCormack added for emphasis.

"Okay, so what you're telling me is that we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way - ourselves?"

McCormack nodded, turning his attention back to the plan.

After some minutes huddled deliberation, recalling to mind what they had learnt from the AI the last time they had been able to communicate with it, Ulysses and the Neptune officers came up with something approximating a modified escape plan.

"So, I ask again, McCormack, what now? How are you going to get us out of here?" Major Horsley said.

"Our target destination is still the sub-dock," the captain began.

"But that's b.l.o.o.d.y well down at the bottom of the ship and you keeping taking us further and further away from it!"

"I realise that, Major," McCormack pointed out, with all the patience he could muster, "but it's the only way. There are no other usable lifeboats in reach of our current position. That hasn't changed."

"Look, we're going to work our way towards the rear of the ship," Ulysses said, taking over explaining the plan, "and go through the engine halls to the sub-dock."

"But I thought the engines were on fire!" Miss Birkin suddenly spoke up in alarm.

"Only some of them, Miss Birkin," McCormack stated. "And there's always the possibility that some of the fires might have burnt themselves out by now, starved of oxygen."

"Starved of oxygen?" Professor Crichton exclaimed and took another pull on his hipflask.

"It's all right because when we open the bulkhead door through to the engine hall it will let in the air from the rest of the ship. We're not going to suffocate down here on top of everything else," McCormack said giving a snort of mirthless laughter.

It still took another few minutes of encouraging, fear-allaying and cajoling before the party was ready to continue. During all that time, Harry Cheng and Mr Sin kept themselves to themselves at the periphery of the group, neither offering advice or criticism. The double agent's face was knotted in concentration whilst his silent aide, seemingly unperturbed by the unfolding disaster, was happy simply to follow Cheng's instructions.

With all brought to order, the group of desperate VIPs followed the captain's lead now in the opposite direction to which they had been travelling, heading towards the stern of the ship. However, it was not long before they came to a sealed door at the end of the smashed and shattered remains of what had once been one of the bars.

"I know where we are," Thor Haugland suddenly piped up. "Captain, you can't be serious?"

"Oh but we are, Mr Haugland," Ulysses said with a hard smile, "there being no other way."

"What's the problem?" Lady Denning asked. "Where are we?"

Captain McCormack pulled open the door. "Here," he said.

With everyone straining to peer through the doorway, but without any of them wanting to take a step forwards, the Neptune's honoured guests gazed at the awesome vista before them.

What was probably most incredible to them of all, Ulysses considered, was the fact that the dome over the Promenade Deck was still intact, considering what had befallen the ship in the last few hours. This probably came only slightly ahead of the fact that the party leaders were planning on taking them out across the Promenade, along its entire length to the far side, when there was nothing but the oppressive blackness of the deep ocean above their heads, the same ocean that was exerting immense hydrostatic pressures on the Neptune now trapped on the sea-bed.

"We're going out there?" John Schafer asked, and from the earnest looks the rest of the VIPs threw Captain McCormack and Ulysses, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one who was wondering whether their next course of action was such a good idea.

"Well, technically we won't actually by going 'out' at all," Ulysses said, trying to allay their fears.

Lady Denning took a step towards the opening, peering up into the darkness above the ship, almost as if she was looking for something. Lights were still shining on the Promenade Deck but their halo of illumination only penetrated a little way out into the trackless depths of the ocean. "But if we go out there," she said pointedly, "whatever it was that brought the ship down - and which might well be waiting for us, out of our immediate field of view - will see the movement and be drawn back to the ship in search of prey."

There was a sudden rumbling judder and every member of the escape party, except for the wheelchair-bound Carcharodon, was forced to grab hold of somebody, or something, for support.

"What was that?" Crichton snapped, darting eyes shooting paranoid glances at all of them, comforting himself with the next breath with another swig from his flask.

"That was why we don't have any choice but to cross the Promenade," Captain McCormack explained. "The Neptune is still flooding even as we stand here deliberating as to whether we should take the quickest route to get off this ship."

"If we hang around here arguing the toss for much longer it won't make any difference what we decide," Ulysses added bluntly. "And there won't be much time for regrets either as the Neptune goes over the brink and into the trench."

Almost as one, the party shuffled towards the open doorway, steeling themselves for their flight along the length of the exposed Promenade.

There was another groan and the sub-liner moved again. This time some among the party lost their balance altogether and even Jonah Carcharodon had to grab hold of something to stop his chair rolling backwards through the wreckage of the bar.

Was this it? Ulysses wondered as he held tight to a steel pillar. Had they dallied too long? Was the Neptune even now making her very final voyage to the utmost depths of the Pacific Ocean?

The seismic rumblings abruptly subsided and the ship settled down again. The polished boards of the Promenade Deck, incongruously marked out for traditional deck games, still stretched out ahead of them, only now they would have to ascend to the stern of the ship. The prospect seemed even more daunting to the already strung-out escapees, but there was no other option open to them.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Captain McCormack declared, "it really is now or never."

And so, without needing any further encouragement, the party of VIPs and a.s.sociated hangers-on began their ascent of the Promenade Deck.

Mr Wates and the Purser led the way, with the wrung-out Dr Ogilvy taking the mantra of 'every man for himself' as his personal ideology, followed by an almost equally desperate Professor Crichton. Then came the trio of John Schafer and the two women in his charge, the role of chaperone having noticeably switched, and after them Lady Denning and Major Horsley. Ulysses and Nimrod insisted on helping the reluctant Miss Celeste push her employer's chair up the incline, making an otherwise virtually impossible task that much easier. Then came Thor Haugland, closely followed by Captain McCormack, and last of all the odd couple of Harry Cheng and Mr Sin, at a discreet distance.

When the party hadn't yet covered half the distance they needed to to get to safety, feeling a resurgence of that oh-so familiar itching inside his skull, Ulysses looked up.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" he gasped, pupils dilating in terror.

Something was approaching out of the darkness of the deep above them, preceded by a glowing azure light. Something monstrous, a malign shadow uncoiling from out of the abyssal black of the smothering ocean. Something that was heading straight for them.

Hearing Ulysses' expletive, close behind him, McCormack looked up. The colour drained from his face in an instant as his eyes locked onto the horror torpedoing out of the black murk towards the Promenade Deck.

He gasped, his lilting Scots voice no longer calm: "We're going to need a bigger sub!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The Nature of the Beast Emerging from the sucking black void, to Ulysses' eyes the monster looked primarily like a giant squid. Only the creatures he had seen pictures of, when they were washed up dead on the sh.o.r.es of Greenland or hauled up in the nets of a j.a.panese fishing trawler, even with their tentacles extended, had been no more than fifty feet in length. As the creature torpedoed towards the stricken Neptune, Ulysses took a rough guess and decided that this beast was at least two hundred feet from tentacle tips to the end of its arrowhead tail.

But there was so much more wrong with it than just its grossly exaggerated size. As the squid-beast sped towards the sub-liner, homing in on the movement of the figures it must have detected fleeing along the brightly lit Promenade, the image of its horrific, unreal form was seared onto Ulysses' retinas. He could still see it now, in his mind's eye, as he turned his attention back to the matter of escape; although now it had become the more immediate need of escaping from the coiling clutches of the squid-monster closing on the Neptune, than the longer term plan of escaping on one of the stricken liner's submersibles. And was that really an option now, with their worst fears realised in the form of the savage, hungry sea-beast?

It was the sea-devil all of them must have imagined when Ulysses had spoken of being trapped between the Devil and the deep blue sea. Although it looked like an overgrown squid - Architeuthis Giganticus rather than just Architeuthis Dux - it was far more than simply an overgrown mollusc. To begin with, too many clutching tentacles reached from the appalling head of the creature, with the length, strength and size of ship's cables, ma.s.ses of puckered, grey suckers opening and closing like a myriad foully kissing mouths.

The monster also lit the way before it, a bioluminescent lure, the kind Ulysses would have expected to see projecting from the head of a deep-sea angler fish, pulsing with blue light, ever darting ahead of it, like some herald-symbiote with a mind of its own.

And it was not only the lure that the beast had borrowed from that deep-sea dwelling genus of fish. In the split second that Ulysses' spied the creature for the first time, as its tentacles had spread wide, no doubt preparing to seize the ship once again in its leviathan clutches, its mouth parts had been exposed. Instead of a h.o.r.n.y beak, angler fish jaws, wide enough it seemed to swallow small ships whole, stretched even wider, to dislocating proportions.

And the creature didn't only come armed with deadly natural weapons; it was armoured too, as if anything in the oceans could possibly threaten a monster like this! A crustacean-like sh.e.l.l covered the squid-thing's back, from the top of its soft head to its tail. What kind of freak of nature was it?

Was it of nature at all?

Time slowed, the rising plane of the Promenade extending elastically before Ulysses, as he realised how far they still had to go to reach safety. And even if they made it through the double doors ahead of them, would they really then be safe? The monster had had its part to play in crippling the ship and sending it to the bottom of the sea, leaving them all teetering between life and death on the knife edge precipice of the yawning Marianas Trench.

''Come on!" Ulysses shouted, urging Nimrod, and the unnerved Miss Celeste to draw on hidden reserves of strength.

As he and Nimrod pushed as hard as they could, adrenal glands flooding their bodies with their oh-so necessary secretions once more, practically carrying Miss Celeste along with them, as well as the chair, Ulysses fixed his eyes on the way ahead.

Directly in front of them Major Horsley was helping Lady Denning on her way, the pair of ageing adventurers huffing and puffing their way up the deck, neither daring to stop in case their feet lost their grip on the wax-polished boards or, Heaven forbid, the monster caught them. Ahead of them, John Schafer was offering all the encouragement he could to his darling dear heart and her aunt, for them to keep going - apparently neither of the women having yet seen this new threat - keeping them focused on reaching the doors. But all his good works might prove to be for naught, if Professor Crichton had anything to do with it.

The emeritus professor was stumbling forwards but with his gaze directed back up over his shoulder, unable to tear his eyes from the squid-beast. He was gabbling to himself, his face white as an albino sea slug, apparently calling on the aid of the Almighty to get them out of this mess with cries of "Oh, G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d!" and whimpered sobs of "What have we done?"

As the two officers leading the escape party raced ahead to get the doors open, leaving a moaning Dr Ogilvy to struggle on as best he could alone, Ulysses could not help looking back at the approaching leviathan in the face of Professor Crichton's inability to take his eyes off the thing. He instantly wished he hadn't.

It was nearly on them, tentacles already reaching out over the steel-gla.s.s bubble of the enclosed deck, mouth agape, javelin-sharp fangs like drawn-out steel fish hooks, poised ready to spear them and draw them into its hideous maw. Ulysses fancied he caught a glint of evil intent in the huge, watery eyes looking at him through the gla.s.s shield.

"Herregud," Ulysses heard Thor Haugland utter in appalled Norwegian behind him, "det er Kraken!"

Of course, Ulysses thought, Haugland had given their tormenter a name: the Kraken, the many-legged sea monster of sea-faring legend, the horror that pulled ships beneath the waves and devoured their crews whole. Until that moment Ulysses would have put sea-dogs' tales of the Kraken down to a combination of ways of explaining away good old-fashioned shipwrecks and the discovery of creatures such as the giant squid lurking within the deeper oceans. Only now, he wasn't so sure.

Constance screamed. She too had now seen the beast. Schafer pulled her close, urging her onwards, almost dragging her with him in her shocked state. Constance's maiden aunt didn't need any such encouragement; she had picked up her skirts and was sprinting away up the deck like a fell runner, bony ankles and varicose veins visible now beneath her fussy petticoats.

"Don't stop!" Ulysses found himself shouting. "Just keep going. It's going to be all right!"

In a cruel contradiction of Ulysses' words, a shuddering crash shook the escapees' world as the Kraken slammed into the dome of the Promenade Deck. The force of impact rocked the ship, which shifted still further to port, and sent the VIPs tumbling sideways. It was not as bad as the shaking they had received when the Neptune had first started to sink, when it had felt like their whole world was turning upside down, but it wasn't far off. Carcharodon's chair, suddenly losing all forward momentum, slid sideways into a bench which caught Nimrod, Ulysses and Miss Celeste, who ended up in the unimpressed butler's lap.

The Neptune moved again beneath them, rocking back to starboard. Ulysses found himself suddenly looking up through the latticework of the dome above him. Where on the night he and Glenda Finch had experienced the thrill of a controlled submersion they had seen first the stars of the Milky Way and then the closing, plankton-rich waters of the Pacific above their heads, now all he could see was the horrid flesh of the underside of the Kraken as it, again, took the Neptune in its unnatural embrace.

He could see spongy grey flesh - the colour of drowned sailors - and warty black hide, like the scale-less skin of abyssal-dwelling hunter-fish, lit by the yellow light of the humming deck lights. Fissures, like lipless mouths dotted the belly of the beast in curious arcs, describing large parabola scarring, which might almost have been bite marks. Other things clung to the vast body of the leviathan that might have been lampreys or remora sucking fish, or some deep-sea evolutionary offshoot.

Following the dorsal line of the monster, Ulysses' eyes fell on the impossibly large teeth of the beast as they scratched against the reinforced dome with a sound like iron nails sc.r.a.ping on plate gla.s.s. The unpleasant noise not only set teeth on edge but also hearts racing and backbones p.r.i.c.kling with fear.

"Come on! We can't hang around here!" Carcharodon shrieked, feeling more helpless than ever.

"Indeed," Ulysses agreed, pulling himself to his feet again, using the magnate's wheelchair for support.

Miss Celeste having extricated herself from his lap, Nimrod a.s.sisted his master in getting the billionaire moving again. Carcharodon's PA relented at last and seemed happy just to follow at their heels and worry about getting herself to safety as quickly as possible.

"Here, let me help."

Glancing to his left, Ulysses saw that the two Chinamen had caught them up. And now it was Harry Cheng's turn to insist on helping with Carcharodon's chair. Mr Sin lumbered a few feet behind, looking, for the first time since Ulysses had met him, scared and out of breath.

Another sound echoed through the enclosed s.p.a.ce of the Promenade. At first it didn't even register with Ulysses or anyone else, or so it seemed from their lack of reaction. It was only when he felt his sixth sense flare hotly behind his eyes that he realised that something even worse was about to befall them. It was a creaking, popping sound. There it was again. And again.

And now others could hear it too, curiosity flickering across already stricken expressions. And now there came a more sustained metallic groaning. And now the cascading water splash and splatter of rainfall, inside the enclosed Promenade Deck, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

"It's rupturing," Ulysses said, as much to himself as anyone, as the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle all came together in his mind. "The dome's rupturing! Run!"

The sound of water was getting louder now, the pitter-patter quickly becoming a pouring sound, like a waterfall emptying into a swimming pool. Salty spray splashed into Ulysses' eyes, making him wince, as another rivet popped free and a pane of toughened gla.s.s fractured, allowing the first trickles of seawater in before the unbelievable tonnages of ocean pressing down on the ship found them. If nature abhorred a vacuum, the sea here seemed to abhor a breathable atmosphere.

Within seconds more panes shattered and torrents of water rushed into the enclosed s.p.a.ce from a dozen different points of entry. Now that the hungry sea had found a way in, there was no stopping it.

Mr Wates and the purser stood at the now open doors at the opposite end of the Promenade, practically hanging from the handles to help heave the fleeing VIPs through one after another. The doctor was already through. So too were Schafer, Constance, Miss Birkin, and McCormack. Professor Crichton and Major Horsley were helping Lady Denning through even now, their feet splashing through the first surges of water splashing up the deck towards them.

Ulysses, Nimrod, Jonah Carcharodon in his chair and Miss Celeste bounced over the threshold together, the writer Haugland flinging himself in after them.

Ulysses turned to a.s.sist those at the door. Mr Wates and the purser pulled themselves inside, ready to pull the sealable bulkhead doors shut securely behind them and keep out the rising tide of frothing seawater. There were only Harry Cheng and Mr Sin still to come through.

Cheng was now at the threshold, hair flat to his head, shirt and trousers soaked through. Mr Sin was only a few slippery feet behind him.

But there was something else in there with them now as well. A snaking tentacle, like some huge, snub-nosed sea-worm, wending its way towards them, writhing and flexing as if guided by a instinctive sentience all of its own. The Kraken was determined not to let its prey get away.

Someone screamed having caught sight of the probing squid-limb. And in that fatal second, the hulking Chinaman, terror writ large across his blunt features, stopped and turned. With an uncoiling lash, quick as a striking cobra, the tentacle extended, curled precisely around Mr Sin's waist and legs and then, just as quickly, pulled back. The chinaman, an eye-popping look of terror on his face, was dragged into the surging flood, silvery bubbles escaping from his mouth in a silent scream. Then, there above them beyond the ruptured bubble of the Promenade, was the monster's dreadful fang-lined maw, gaping open, ready to receive the tasty morsel.

There was nothing anyone could do for him.

"Close the doors!" Captain McCormack ordered as the water lapped at the sill of the doorway and Harry Cheng hurled himself past the threshold.

The two officers did as their captain commanded, shutting out the sight of the glorious Promenade being swallowed by the ocean, shutting out the rush and roar of the hungry sea, shutting out the monster that would devour them all.

They also shut in the wailing of the terrified Constance Pennyroyal and her aunt, shut in the mumbled entreaties of a biologist to the G.o.d he had foresworn, shut in the frustrated raging of the shipping magnate as he bellowed at his wretched a.s.sistant who had sought to do nothing but save his sorry skin.

And so seventeen became sixteen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Sea Dog's Tales With the bulkhead door to the Promenade Deck closed, the last chapter in the life of Mr Sin was closed with it.

Two were lost to them now. First Dexter Sylvester, with the catastrophe of the plummeting chandelier and now Mr Sin, Harry Cheng's right-hand man, taken by the beast. Two gone from the total party of eighteen survivors who had made it up until the moment when the ship touched rock bottom amidst the silt and skeletal remains of a million animals upon the ocean floor. They had thought things bad enough when they found their luxury cruise ship dropping into the fathomless depths like a stone, only at the time they had not realised that their greatest trials still stood ahead of them.