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Max spoke over his shoulder frootten you as close as I can while still giving you room to open the belly hatch You’ll have to swi Little Geek now”

A couide the re its battery-powered propellers The ROV, connected to the sub by a fiber-optic control cable, was the size of a suitcase and had been specially outfitted with a mini-sonar Juan and Linc would swi would be displayed on their augh additional fiber-optic lines linked from their suits to Little Geek

With the full-face masks on, Juan and Linc would be able to talk to each other and to Noh the comm link in the ROV

Once they had their heavy gear on, Juan and Linc entered the airlock Linc’s bulkenough for it to cycle and fill ater

When it had equalized with the river water, Juan opened the hatch and lowered hi His feet touched the muck of the riverbed before his head was out of the airlock, which meant the depth was no more than fifteen feet He inflated his buoyancy vest so that he could float Otherwise, the chain mail suit would anchor him to the bottom

He grabbed a handrail on the side of Little Geek and attached his fiber connection As soon as Linc was on the opposite side, Juan said, “We’re ready to go” The ROV whirred into

As they’d expected, visibility was poor, even with the headlamps Juan could see Little Geek and make out the shape of Linc next to hinal sent out by the ROV was too high pitched for the hu because Juan could clearly see the contours of the river botto at a movie special effect

“There’s the bow,” Linc said

A remnant of the Salacia’s prow jutted out of the silt Its raly well preserved after two thousand years The floodplain’s clay that had covered the ship obviously did a fine job of protecting it from rot

They passed over a large cache of ancient weaponry that Juan would have loved to examine if they had more time Swords, spears, and arroere exposed, and Juan was sure there were more artifacts still to be uncovered

They continued on to the center of the ship, and Juan could now see the pile of amphorae that poked out of the silt It looked like they had been painstakingly dug out to e to them as they were prepared for collection

“Okay, Stoney,” Juan said “You can stop here”

Little Geek came to a halt and settled onto the riverbed They would have to search carefully now by hand,sure not to puncture the beeswax lids on the ceramic jars

“You start on that side,” Juan said, “and I’ll begin over here”

Using his dive light, he peered at the first amphora, but there was no lid on it Same with the second one The third had a lid, but it said “HERBIS”