The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid Read Online Free PDF Page A

day,” Laszlo explained to Jesse. “If we waste their dives, we use up their available bottom time.”
    “And,” I added, “suppose you clear the wire only from the front half of the ship. You use the jacks to move the mast partly off the fore hatch. This will suggest to them that their target is in the forward hold, not in the after hold.”
    Lazslo’s grin broadened. He looked like a bloodthirsty idol contemplating an upcoming sacrifice.
    “They’ll spend all day getting into the forward hold and find nothing! ” he said. “Brilliant!” He nodded at me and gave his highest accolade.
    “Ernesto,” he said, “you’re an artist! ”
    *
    I spent the next day on the launch at the dive site, but I didn’t so much as put a foot into the water. Instead I watched the horizon for signs of the Ayancas— and there was a boat that seemed to be lurking between us and Hong Kong— while the mermaids and the off-duty Apollos swam about the boat and practiced their moves. The mermaids were even more listless, if possible, than the day before, and Laszlo felt obliged to offer them several sharp reproofs.
    When Laszlo and a colleague made their second dive to the wreck, the others happily called a lunch break. Someone turned a radio to a station filled with bouncy Cantonese pop music. The Apollos sat in the stern slathering on sun oil, performing dynamic-tension exercises, and quaffing drinks into which, to aid in building muscle, vast arrays of steaks and potatoes seemed to have been scientifically crammed.
    Since no one else seemed inclined to pay attention to the ladies, I perched on the forward gunwales with the mermaids and helped them devour some excellent dim sum that we’d filched from the kitchens of the Grand Dynasty Restaurant that morning.
    “So, how do you find the water ballet business?” I asked one of the mermaids, a nymph from Colorado named Leila.
    She took her time about lighting up a cigarette. “After Felicia and I came in sixth in the Olympics, we turned pro,” she said. “I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. You try cramming your lower half into one of those rubber fish tails for an hour a day.”
    “Yet here you are in the Pacific, on a beautiful sunny day, on a grand adventure and with the whole of Asia before you.”
    She flicked cigarette ash in the direction of the Apollos. “ That’s not what I’d call the whole of Asia.”
    “You’re not fond of your co-workers?” I asked. For it was obvious that the mermaids kept very much to themselves, and I’d wondered why.
    “Let’s just say that they and I have a different idea of what constitutes an object of desire.”
    “Surely they can’t all be gay,” I said, misunderstanding.
    “They aren’t,” Leila said. “But they are all narcissists. When I cuddle on a couch with a guy, I want him to be looking at me, not at his own reflection in a mirror.”
    “I take your point. Perhaps you ought to confine yourself to homely men.”
    She looked at me. “ You’re homely,” she pointed out.
    “As homely as they come,” I agreed, and shifted a bit closer to her on the gunwale.
    These pleasantries continued until Laszlo finished his dive and demanded more rehearsals. Since he had Total Artistic Control, there was little I could say on the matter.
    By the time the water ballet guys had finished all the dives safety procedures would allow, they’d prepared Goldfish Fairy to a fare-thee-well. The wire tangle had been shifted aft and, according to Laszlo, looked awful but would be relatively easy to clear when the time came. The mast had been partially shifted off the forward hatch, with the marks of the jacks plain to see, but the jacks themselves had been removed— if the Ayancas didn’t bring their own, they were out of luck.
    In a final bit of mischief, we shifted the buoy half a kilometer, then raced back to the Tang Dynasty just in time for our first show. Leila and I made plans to meet after the second