In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, a huge spaceship is discovered resting on the ocean floor.

Rushed to the scene is a group of American scientists who descend together into the depths of the sea to investigate this astonishing discovery.

What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old...

Has the ship come from an alien culture? From a different universe? From the future? Why, initially, are there no creatures on the sea floor, and then, suddenly, swarms of "impossible animals" of whole new species? Who-or what-is transmitting messages onto the scientists' computer screen...messages that grow increasingly hostile? What is the giant, perfect, metallic sphere-clearly not made by man, and seemingly impenetrable by him-that they find inside the spaceship? And-most crucially-what is the extraordinary, the terrifying power that threatens their undersea habitat, and their very lives?...

Here is Michael Crichton at the top of his form-his most exciting, most suspenseful, most ingenious novel since The Andromeda Strain