A Caribbean Crisis

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Six miles above the ocean bedrock of the Caribbean, the research ship Gorgon rolled gently in the blazing heat of the mid-afternoon.

Overhead the sky was a limpid sapphire blue. And beneath the ship's keel - more than thirty thousand feet down on the ocean floor - lay the Tanangas Deep: the deepest marine valley known to man.

It was a moment of history.

On the squat research ship, derricks stretched outwards over the starboard bow, giving the vessel a slight list.

Suspended over the water from the derricks hung the most unearthly object ever seen East of Cape Canaveral.

A great, bloated melon of crystal-steel blazing off the fire of reflected sunlight; an orb of metallic splendour which hung like a man-made planet, barely ten feet from the surface of the glassy sea.

Upon it, perched like grotesque frogs, two men balanced themselves - waiting.

On the deck of the research ship, half-blinded by the sunlight reflected from the giant globe, brown-skinned men sweated to manoeuvre the derricks.

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