By early afternoon they had passed the shelf and were speeding eastward through the Atlantic depths. Vegetation disappeared and the sea life seemed far less luxuriant, although the boys frequently sighted schools of fish.
A few hours later the glow of daylight from above faded. Tom and Bud switched on their head lamps to pierce the darkness. Occasionally these were turned off while the boys triggered their undersea-light switches and enjoyed the eerie radiance that lighted up the sea all around them.
Long after midnight, while Bud was taking his turn at sleeping, Tom’s jet suddenly sputtered and slowed.
Tom was alarmed. “My battery power must be conking out!” Worried about Bud, he hastily switched on the sonarphone. “Bud! Wake up!” There was no response. Turning, he saw that the head lamp on Bud’s trailing figure was dimming. Quickly Tom yanked the nylon towline.
Instantly Bud was alert. In a moment he became aware that neither of them was moving. Realizing that they had to reach the surface, Tom signaled for the two to adjust their density controls. As they 10 AQUATOMIC TRACKER
neared the surface, the boys’ heads suddenly felt woolly and their hearts began thudding, indicating a loss of oxygen supply through the recircula-tory breathing tubes. They stripped off their hoods as soon as their heads broke water.
THE DROWNING ROMAN 11
“Wow!” Bud gasped. “What happened to our reserve batteries?”
“Must be dying too-they should have cut in automatically,” Tom replied.
12 AQUATOMIC TRACKER
“But we had the battery power checked out-how could it have gone dead?”
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