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He saw Anderson speaking into the microphone that somebody had handed him. "If I were you, sir, I'd go down on the line."

"Just what I am doing, Chief. But I'll wear my flippers just the same."

Anderson strapped the large fins on to his bare feet, then made a thumbs-up gesture. Grimes replied in kind, leaned far back and then let himself fall. He knew that this unorthodox method of entering the water would not please the C. P. O. and, even as he hit the surface with a noisy splash, heard, through his helmet speaker, Anderson admonish the men, "Just because an officer does it that way you're not to. See?" The failure to place a hand over the microphone was probably deliberate.

He hit the water and, at once, started to sink. With his equipment and the disposable weights at his belt he had negative buoyancy. He looked up at the shimmering mirror that was the surface, broken by the black hull of the boat. Using his hands and feet he turned about his short axis until he was upright, saw the weighted line, pale-gleaming in the blueness. One tentative kick took him toward it. He grasped the rough-textured cord with one hand and hung there for a little while to get his bearings, to become acclimatized.

"Are you all right, Mr. Grimes?" It was Anderson, giving his famous imitation of a mother hen.

"Of course I'm all right, Chief."

The water was cool, but far from cold. And there was the exhilarating sensation of weightlessness. It was like being Outside in Free Fall but better, much better. There was the weightlessness but not the pressing loneliness, the dreadful emptiness. And the skin-tight suit was almost as good as nudity, did not, as did space armour, induce the beginnings of claustrophobia.

Grimes looked down.

Yes, there was the wreck, her canopy gaping open like the shell of some monstrous bivalve. Grimes hoped that it was not too badly damaged by the ejection; if it were not so, the task of sealing the ruptured hull would be much easier. Up through the gaping opening drifted a school of gleaming, golden fish. And that was a good sign; it meant that nothing larger and dangerous, even to Man, had taken up residence.

He relaxed his grip on the cord, felt it slide through his hand as he dropped slowly. Then, raising a flurry of fine silt, his flippered feet were on the bottom. He was about three yards from the sunken dynosoar.

"Calling C.P.O. Anderson," he said into the built-in microphone. "Making preliminary inspection." He heard the acknowledgement.

Clumsily at first, he swam the short distance. For several minutes he checked the canopy. Yes, it could be forced back into place and, where too badly buckled, welded over. If necessary, lines could be sent down from the boat to lift the valves to an upright position before their closure. Satisfied, he swam aft, closely inspecting the fuselage as he did so. He could find no damage on the upper surface; the damaged skin must be on the underside, buried in the silt. An air hose to blow the muck clear? Yes, but would it be necessary? After all, when expelled from the hull by air under pressure the water would have to have somewhere to go to, somewhere to get out from, and whatever holes there were in the plating could have been designed for that very purpose.

"Chief!"

"Yes, Mr. Grimes?"

"Tell your men to have the welding gear and the compressor and hoses ready. Then come down yourself as soon as you can."

"Coming, sir."

Something made Grimes look up. The big C. P. O. was already on his way, failing like a stone, weighted by the gear that he was grasping in both of his huge hands. Behind him trailed two of the air hoses and another cable, the power line of the welding equipment. Using his flippered feet only he controlled his descent, made a remarkably graceful landing not far from where Grimes was standing.

"And what do you have in mind, Mr. Grimes?" he asked.

"Get the canopy shut and sealed, Chief. Might run an air hose in at that point. Then blow her out, and up she comes."

"Up she comes you