He got up, put on swimming trunks, and duck trousers over them. He slipped into a sweat shirt and went upon deck. Deirdre hailed him. "Good morning! Everybody's over at the tracking station, arguing about the bolide that went over last night. According to the radar, it plunged into the sea, miles and miles away." "What should it have done?" asked Terry. "I'm not familiar with meteorites. Are they planning to dive for it?" "Hardly!" Deirdre laughed. "It landed in the Luzon Deep." She waved a hand in an inclusive gesture. "This island's on the brink of it. A bathyscaphe might go down there--in fact, I think it's scheduled; you know, the one I said was coming to Manila on the oceanographic ship? A bathyscaphe can go that deep, but it's not likely to hunt for meteorites." "Ah," said Terry judicially. "Then what difference does it make where it hit?" "It didn't fall the way it should have," said Deirdre. "It was spotted by space radar away out, and they tried to compute its path, but they figured it wrong. Now they're trying to make it come out right by allowing for the effect of the earth's magnetic field on a metal meteorite. They're arguing and waving equations at each other." "Let them," said Terry. "I have trouble enough with fish. Do you think I could borrow a boat?" "We've always been able to," said Deirdre. Then she added, "I've kept your breakfast hot. While you eat it I'll get a boat." She went below, and instants later was up again. "I have a feeling," she said, "that something interesting is going to happen. I'll be back." She swung lightly to the wharf and headed for land. Terry went below, to find his breakfast laid out on the cabin table. He settled down to it, but first pulled a book from the shelves. It was a volume on oceanography, and its pages showed that it had often been referred to. He found the Luzon Deep described. Its area was relatively small, a mere ninety-mile-long chasm in the sea-bed. But it was second only to the Mindanao Deep in its soundings, and a close second at that. Its maximum depth was measured at twenty-seven thousand feet. Over five miles. There was a mention of Thrawn Island as being on the very edge of the Deep. According to the book, the island was the peak of one of the most precipitous and tallest submarine mountains in the world. Three miles from where Thrawn Island lay, there were soundings of twenty-eight thousand feet and upward. This depth extended as a trench.... The staccato roaring of an outboard motor sounded some distance away. It bellowed toward the yacht, swung about, and cut off. Terry gulped down his coffee and went abovedecks, just as Deirdre was fastening the small craft alongside the yacht. "Taxi?" she asked amiably. "I got the boat. Where to?" Terry swung down and took the steering grip. He headed the boat away. There was a box for bait, a few fishing lines, and even two highly professional fish-spears on board. Fishing was not necessarily a sedentary pastime here.