Abduction [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEAn odd vibration roused Perry Bergman from a restiess sleep, and he was instantiy filled with a strange foreboding. The unpleasant miirmur put him in mind of fingernails scraping down a blackboard. He shuddered and threw off his thin blanket. As he stood up, the vibration continued. With his bare feet on the steel deck it now reminded him of a dentist's drill. Just beneath it he could detect the normal hum of the ship's generators and the whir of its air conditioning fans."What the hell?" he said aloud, even though there was no one within earshot to provide an answer. He'd hehcoptered out to the ship, the Benthic Explorer., the previous evening after a long flight from Los Angeles to New York to Ponta Delgada on the Azorean island of San Miguel. Between time zone changes and a long briefing about the technical problems his crew was experiencing, he was understandably exhausted. He didn't like being awakened after only four hours of sleep, especially by such a jarring vibration.Snatching the ship's phone from its cradle he punched in the number for the bridge. While he waited for the connection to go through he peered out the porthole of his V.I.P. compartment on his tiptoes. At five foot seven Perry didn't think of himself as short, just not tall.