Perry chewed the inside of his cheek while he mulled over Mark’s concern. He began to wish he’d never heard about Sea Mount Olympus, which was the name the crew had given the flat-topped, underwater mountain that they were trying to poke a hole into.

“Have you mentioned this to Dr. Newell?” Perry asked. Dr. Suzanne Newell was the senior oceanographer on the Benthic Explorer. “Has she seen this radar data you’re talking about?”

“Nobody’s seen it,” Mark said. “I just happened to notice the shadow on my computer screen yesterday when I was preparing for your arrival. I was thinking about bringing it up at your briefing last night but decided to wait to talk to you in private. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a bit of a morale problem out here with certain members of the crew. A lot of people have begun to think that drilling into this guyot’s a bit like tilting at windmills. People are starting to talk about calling it quits and getting home to their families before the summer’s over. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.”

Perry felt weak-kneed. He pulled Mark’s chair out from his desk and sat down heavily. He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, hungry, and discouraged. He could kick himself for betting so much of his company’s future based on so little reliable data, but the discovery had seemed so fortuitous. He’d felt compelled to act.

“Hey, I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news,” Mark said. “We’ll do what you suggested. We’ll try to get a better idea of the rock we’re drilling. Let’s not get overly discouraged.”

“It’s kind of hard not to,” Perry said, “considering how much it is costing Benthic Marine to keep the ship out here. Maybe we should just cut our losses.”

“Why don’t you get yourself something to eat?” Mark suggested. “No sense making any snap decisions on an empty stomach. In fact, I’ll join you if you can wait for me to shower. Hell! Before you know it we’ll have some more information about this crap we’ve hit up against. Maybe then it will be clear what we ought to do.”