The sea moaned around with many voices - but to Gascon they all cried "Despair!" Trapped at the bottom of the ocean when disaster struck, and his world was drowned, Gascon was left to mourn the passing of mankind, and to send forlorn messages on his useless telex in the vain hope that someone somewhere would answer. And one day an answer came...which plunged Gascon into a vortex of horror and suspense which nearly cost him the last shreds of his sanity. A sentient robot called Clavelle...the twisted Arcadians and the monsters they planned to loose upon the surface...the Marins, dwellers in and rulers of the Deeps...the savage birds, creatures from a waking nightmare...