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“Of course What do you wish to say?”

Pitt had already picked up a pad and pencil off desk “I’ll write everything down including na

When Pitt finished he passed the pad to Zac “Ask them to forward their reply to the First Attempt I’ve add NUMA’s radio frequency”

Zac scanned the pad “I don’t understand your motives”

“Just a wild hunch” Pitt poured another shot Metaxa in his glass “By the ill the Queen Artemisia make her detour by Thasos?”

“Howbut how do you know that?”

“I’m psychic,” Pitt said briefly “When?”

“Toly “Sometime between four and five AM Why do you ask?”

“No reason, just curiosity” Pitt braced himself for the burn and downed the drink The jolt was al away the tears that burst from his eyes

“My God,” he whispered hoarsely “That stuff goes down like battery acid”

13

The eerie, phosphorescent froth gradually diht up and do of Queen Arte ship slowly lost way and came to a stop Then the anchor clattered down into ten fatho a black silhouette resting on an even blacker sea It was as though the Queen Artemisia had never been

Two hundred feet away, a s crate bobbed lazily on the swells It was a common type of crate, one of elect on every sea and ay of the world To the casual eye, at least, it looked like ordinary flotsam; even the stenciled letters that advertised “THIS END UP” pointed incongruously doard toward the seabed There was, however, one thing that made this particular crate quite different; it wasn’t empty

There ht wryly froainst the top of his head, but at least this was a da light appeared He took a htly into thehis buoyancy, and returned his gaze to the ship through a jaggedly cut peephole

The Queen Arteenerators and the slap of the waves of her hull betrayed her presence Gradually the sounds faded away and the ship beca time Pitt listened, but no other sounds traveled across the water to his bobbing outpost No footsteps on a steel deck, noco The silence was total and very puzzling It was like a phantom ship with a phantom crew