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referring to Western Light's side scan sonar that had been put on-board the USS Marysville .
    Vander was from the old Navy, assigned to push around research barges in the twilight of his career.  In his day, oceanography meant Seechi discs, and sounding wires.  The most exotic items in his arsenal were things like bucket thermometers and Roberts-type current meters.
    Having signed aboard during the waning days of the big one, Vander served aboard almost every class of warship in the Navy except submarines.  "I like to sleep with my portholes open," was his standard reply. 
    High-tech, space age gizmos were better left to the eggheads like Evans.  Vander could drive his boat and put her exactly wherever the scientists wanted her.  Despite his rough hewn exterior or, maybe because of it, Vander was an expert mariner.
    "Sir - that contraption may look awkward, but it has some of the fanciest electronics any ocean going instrumentation package has ever seen."
    Vander continued staring out over the bow of the Marysville , oblivious to the techno-jargon that Evans was engaged in.  Evans, sensing that the Captain's interest was probably out of boredom, rather than a thirst for knowledge, turned to the ship's navigator who stood at the map table and started plotting transits that would coincide with his route on the over flight of the Lockheed P-3B Orion many months before.
    Finally, the Nematode was ready to be deployed and with a splash, Nematode was committed to the deep.
    "Here's hoping it ain't Russian," whispered Sevson to himself.

    1600 Hours: Tuesday, October 4, 1967: Aboard the Marysville Over the Hatteras Abyssal Plain

    The sound of the sonar systems filled the darkened instrumentation room on-board the U.S.S. Marysville as she maintained a straight heading under the skillful watch of Captain George Vander.
    Up on the bridge behind Vander, Evans poured over the charts with Vander's navigator.  Using dividers and rulers to plot their current position, Evans satisfied himself that their course was exactly the same course the Lockheed P-3B Orion had flown months before.  The task was not that easy.
    Consider trying to remotely tow a car using a cable deployed from an airplane over three miles up and several miles ahead.  A rather formidable job that challenged even the time-tried skills of Vander, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and a steaming cup of hot black coffee in his weathered left hand.
    In the instrumentation room, several levels below deck, designed to be at the center of gravity of the vessel, Mike, McHugh, and Sevson crowded behind the Western Light sonar technician. The only moving thing in the tight cabin was the greenish trace on the cathode ray tube as it displayed the line by line return of the side scan sonar.
    The only sounds other than the "blips" made by the sonar in the darkened room were the scratchy noises made by the pen registers as they recorded the images now being laid out on the cathode ray tube or CRT.  If it weren't for the soft rolling of the Marysville , there would have been no indication that Mike was even at sea.
    The trace on the sonar's oscilloscope held steady, a faint greenish line followed the brighter green dot that ran left to right across the circular screen.  Except for occasional jiggles of the trace, which could be accounted for by changes in the local magnetic background of the ocean bottom, nothing unusual had occurred. 
    "Any more theories on the magnetic anomaly, Bob?" asked Sevson.
    The ever present half smoked cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth, McHugh was absorbed in thought.  The stale cigar smoke competed with the sweet smell of "Barking Dog" tobacco emanating from the corn-cob pipe in the corner of Sevson's mouth.  The tinfoil packet from which Sevson constantly refilled his pipe had the subtext, "Barking Dogs Never Bite."
    Absentmindedly, McHugh replied, "Nothing radical, Tom.  If it is Russian, then we are in deep trouble.  We