The Pod had a hydroponics, too. But this one was different. It was just behind the kitchen where Bill Masters made the best food Felix had ever eaten.
Felix had been to the Pod’s hydroponics several times, and to his complete mystification, it was just a line of tanks full of green and stinky water. Nothing horrible or scary about it at all. Not like the tanks aboard Ashanti that seemed to reek menace.
He was just leaving hydroponics, stepping out into the bright and big hallway that ran through level one. The lights here amazed him. As did being outside. Outside light—coming from the sun they called Capella—hurt his eyes. And he’d got something called a “sunburn” on his skin from the boat ride he’d taken with Mother.
In the hall, walking aimlessly, was Sheena. She was his best friend. Probably because she was seven, and every year for almost a month they were the same age before he got older. Sheena had red-gold hair that hung down her back. Her parents had let her grow it when most everyone on Ashanti had to either shave their heads or keep their hair short. And even though he was older, she was taller than he was by about five centimeters. He knew because he and Sheena had measured it on the living quarters bulkhead in Ashanti.
“What are you doing?” she called. “You can’t be in hydroponics. They might throw you in.”
He gave her a grin, thumped his chest. “Naw. I had to take a mug of tea in to give to Tobi Ruto. Bill Martin asked me to. Tobi can’t get away because of some stirring thing he has to do in the tanks. Something with algae. You do know what algae is.”
Sheena screwed up her nose, which she always did when Felix annoyed her. “I do so. Mom talks about it a lot.”
Sheena’s mom was Vik Lawrence. She did stuff with tiny living things that could only be seen under a microscope. Felix knew what a microscope was now. He’d seen the big white one in Vik’s lab. It made little things big enough to see.
“Algae only lives in hydroponics,” Sheena said with absolute assurance. “That’s why Mom was down in Ashanti’s hydroponics so much. She was always trying to keep it alive.”
“Yeah, well, it’s in the oceans here, too.”
“Is not.”
“Is. I’ve seen it.” He lifted his fingers. “I wasn’t s’pposed to, but I caught some out in the ocean. It was in the water. It makes your fingers tickle for a long time.”
Sheena’s blue eyes were giving him that suspicious look. She did that a lot given the tricks he played on her when he could. “No, it doesn’t.”
“If we could see the water, I could point it out.”
“Bet you can’t.”
“I could. If they didn’t have the hatch locked we could go out on the seatruck dock and see some. It’s probably just floating like it was out where we left the buoy.”
She gave him that familiar I-don’t-believe-you stare. Said, “You’re lying, and I can prove it.”
“How?”
“’Cause I can show you, liar.” She turned. “I know how to get down to the Underwater Bay. Kel showed me.”
Kel was her father. He was the pod engineer. Knew how it all worked and made sure that everything, like the air conditioning, the pumps, and stuff ran. For some reason, she never called him Dad. He was always Kel, and he seemed to like it that way. Some people whispered that Kel wasn’t really her father, that it had been Dek. But who cared who anyone’s father really was? They were all Maritime Unit. That was what mattered.
Sheena started off in an exaggerated walk, her steps almost stomping. Felix followed, watching the dress she wore jerk back and forth, and hearing Sheena’s homemade shoes clap on the deck.
At the companionway stairs, she stopped before the pressure hatch that led down to the Underwater Bay. With sure fingers, she punched in a 7-6-7-8 code. The hatch clicked, and Sheena reached up to wrestle the dogging latch open.
“We’re not supposed to go down there,” Felix told her. “Not without a grownup.”
Sheena turned on him, jabbing a finger at his nose, which she always did to make him mad. “Told you there’s no algae anywhere but the hydroponics tanks. You don’t want to go ’cause there’s no algae!”
“Would you know algae if you saw it?”
“Sure! It’s green and slimy.”
“Well, the algae here is kind of green-blue. I know ’cause Mom told me what it was when I caught it.”
“Then prove it!” Sheena jammed her fists against her hips the way her mother did when she was making a point.
“But we’re not supposed to go down there!”
“If you don’t go, it means you’re wrong. And you’re a liar.”
Felix made a face, his heart starting to pound. He stepped over, stared down the tunnel that slanted into the depths. It was called the tube. Feeling like he was going to die, he stepped onto the first step and started down. The adults were all in the cafeteria, doing some kind of planning meeting with maps and stuff. If he and Sheena went fast . . .
Committed, he hurried down the steps. Steps were still new. Until they’d shipped out of Ashanti, he’d never been allowed on them. Now they were a fun challenge to leap down one at a time.
And the tube was marvelous, a white tunnel that went down into the water. Curving, oval-shaped transparent windows in the sialon allowed him to see the underside of the Pod, and as he went lower, the water lapping around the tube. Then, underwater, he could see the reef, with all the living creatures and plants beneath the silverish patterns of the waves. Sunlight filtered through the water, shooting magical rays of light that glowed on the colorful creatures swimming around out there.
“Zambo!” he cried, staring up in awe.
“Wait ‘till you see the bottom,” Sheena pushed past him. “C’mon.”
She led the way, hopping down, step by step, to the pressure hatch at the bottom. Again, she entered a code. 5-3-3-5 this time. It took both of them to pull the latching dog around, and the heavy door let them into the pressure lock.
“Got to close the hatch behind us,” Sheena told him in her authoritative tone. “It’s going to hurt your ears as the lock pressurizes. See, the air pressure keeps the water out of the Underwater Bay.”
“I know that,” he retorted. “Like the escape module hatch on Ashanti.”
“That’s in space where air rushes out into vacuum. But this is underwater, otherwise the ocean would flood the Underwater Bay.”
With the first door closed, Sheena stood on tiptoes to press the big red glowing button.
A whooshing sound filled the air lock, and Felix made a face as his eardrums compressed. And then the button turned green. Sheena threw her weight against the dogging latch and managed to pull it to the open position.
Felix followed her out into a large room; his nose filled with the odor of salt and water. The walls were white, covered with equipment, lockers, monitors, benches with tools, diving suits, and helmets. The big yellow submarines rested on rolling cradles in the middle of the floor, their transparent round noses pointed at the water. In the glare of overhead lights, the curved sides gleamed with their bulbous tanks and pipes and frame-mounted lights. In front of the submarines was what looked like a square pool of water that opened to the sea. A line of UUVs rested on racks all the way to the far wall. Both the submarines and UUVs could be rolled forward on tracks and lowered into the water. Felix walked past the submarine’s clear nose and looked down through the still water, seeing the reef bottom below sloping away into a darker and translucent blue.
“Zambo!”
“They picked this place because the reef drops off. Like this.” Sheena had a serious look on her face as she held her hand vertically and made a slashing motion downward. “It goes way, way down really fast.”
Felix could believe it. He saw something long and thin flash through the depths. Thought it looked kind of like a big, pointed tube. And then it was gone.
�
�Okay, liar. Where’s the algae?”
Felix turned his attention to the glasslike surface. “Different water here.”
“Liar, liar!”
He wanted to hit her. Didn’t dare. Last time he’d got mad and socked her, she’d beat him up. Lara Sanz had come at his screams and howls, had saved him. And all it got him in the end was a day of ridicule and a terrible lecture from his mother about hitting anyone.
“Wait,” he pleaded, walking slowly along as he peered into the water. “I tell you, this isn’t the right kind of water. You need waves. And to be out in the launch.”
“Liar, liar!”
He made a face, getting ever more desperate as he searched his way along the edge of the pool. It had to be here. It just had to!
He could feel his fingers tingling, as if in memory of being in the launch. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together, feeling that oily texture, as if it were the day he and Mother set out the buoy. Absently he tried to scrub his fingers on his coveralls. He just couldn’t wipe off the oily stuff.
“We’re leaving!” Sheena called. “You had your chance. You were wrong. I was right!” She pirouetted around in the way she did to celebrate a victory. As she did, she sang,
“London Bridge is falling down, falling down.
“Namby Pamby.
“Felix lies and he’s going down, going down.
“My fair lady.”
“It’s the wrong water!” he protested. “Just let me look a little . . . Wait! I see it!”
He broke into a run past the noses of the UUVs to the far edge of the pool. Dropped to his knees and pointed. “There, see!”
Sheena had stopped her twirling, half stumbled from making herself dizzy, and charged over, her shoes slapping in the quiet room. She knelt down beside him, peering. “Where?”
“Right there!” Felix pointed to the small green-blue splotch that clung to the wall right at waterline.
Sheena squinted. “That’s not algae!”
“Keep me from falling in,” Felix told her. “Grab my waist. I’ll get you some.”
As she did, and he leaned out over the water, he caught movement down below, as if something big had just disappeared from sight. Felix hoped it wasn’t one of those Big Mouth Things like what had eaten the torpedo. He wasn’t nearly as big as a torpedo, so he’d never have a chance.
Reaching out, he hung, suddenly terrified that Sheena’d let go. Let him fall headfirst into the water where he’d drown. And no one was there to save him. He’d sink. And some monster would eat his body.
“Liar, liar,” Sheena chimed behind him.
But she kept her grip as he strained out, clawed his fingers through the slimy green-blue stuff, and cried, “Pull me back!”
She did, and they both dropped onto their butts. Felix lifted his fingers, showing her. “Algae. Feel it.”
Even as she pinched some off of his fingers, he could feel the weird tingle. But this time it ran through his fingers, down his hand, and partway up his arm.
“You feel that?” he asked. “Like little prickles in your fingers?”
She was rubbing the slimy stuff between her thumb and first two fingers. “It tickles. You sure this stuff is algae?”
“It’s the same thing I caught out in the ocean. Mother called it algae. So . . . you calling her a liar?” Felix gave Sheena that look that said she’d better not or else.
“No.” Sheena gave him a look of utter defeat. “Okay. We better go. We’ve been here too long as it is.”
“Look.” Felix pointed. “There’s little bits of algae all along the pool edge. See where it’s sticking at the water line?” It looked like splotches here and there.
“We’re leaving now!” Sheena told him in a huff as she got to her feet and scampered off for the latch. “If you don’t keep up, I’m leaving you behind!”
Felix, shaking his arm to stop the tingle, leaped up and ran full tilt to catch her.
10
Kalico enjoyed the view as her A-7 shuttled circled the Maritime Unit’s Pod. In her imagination the research base looked like an elongated white bubble that floated above the crystalline shoal waters. From this altitude, the reef could be seen extending to the north and south as far as the horizons. The shallows marked the eastern boundaries of the Gulf—the body of water created by the great Donovanian crater. From this altitude the crater’s edge appeared as submerged, elongated ridges. Over millennia the rim had been scrubbed away by wave action and tides to leave shoal waters. Occasional white lines of breakers were visible in the distance where more-resistant rock shallowed. Seen through the transparent water, the underlying geology made a patchwork of light and dark where strata had been thrust up. In the distance, where lava once had welled and cooled, vulcanism created a chain of islands that stretched away to the north before curving back toward the mainland.
Looking down, Kalico could see the seabed drop away to either side of the reef; the colors changed from the mottled browns, greens, and tans to darker shades and then faded into the gemlike royal blue of deep water.
In the pilot’s seat, Ensign Juri Makarov banked the shuttle wide, descending to approach the Pod from downwind. From her portside seat next to the window, it seemed to Kalico that the ocean rose up to meet them.
From this angle, the Pod appeared like a gleaming white cocoon left by some unmentionably huge insect. Only as the shuttle closed the distance did the windows, antennae, decks, and struts become visible. The Pod seemed to hover over the pale shallows on stilt-like legs. From this angle the damn thing looked like a big bug, and the observation bubble on the end might have been a single eye. As the shuttle rose slightly, Kalico caught a glimpse of the landing pad—a flat square on the north end of the Pod’s cylindrical length. Compared to the width of the big A-7, the pad was ridiculously tiny. No wonder Makarov had balked at flying her out here.
“Supervisor?” Makarov called. “You sure you still want to do this?”
Seeing the tiny target, she really didn’t. But damn it, they were here. The Maritime Unit was expecting her. And she should have been here weeks ago. To fly off now . . .
She bit her lip, leaned forward in her seat. “Yeah, you call it a ‘feather dusting.’ The landing platform can’t support the A-7’s weight. So, instead of setting down, you’ll lower the aft ramp. Hover so the ramp’s barely above the landing platform. I scurry off, try to keep from being blown off my feet, and duck into the access door. At my all clear, you lift off and book it for home.”
“It’s the ‘blown off your feet’ part that worries me.” Makarov followed it up by craning his neck to give her a warning glance from over his seat back. “You understand, you’ll be between the full-thrust downdrafts from the jets. I call this foolish, dangerous, and likely to end up with you either hurt and floating in the water. Or maybe dead if you get blown off and tumble down the side.”
She extended far enough to give his shoulder a slap. “Juri, even if you weren’t the best pilot in The Corporation, the A-7’s automatics can hover within a millimeter’s variance. I’ll be fine.”
He shot her another worried look.
“What?” she countered. “All I have to do is duck, run straight to the access hatch, and slip inside.”
“You take too many chances. You get killed out here, and I’m the one they’re going to blame.”
She gave him a saucy grin. “What’s living without a little risk to life and limb?”
“Yeah, anything happens to you, it’s my life and limbs.”
“That was the point I was making. Just set me down. This visit is way overdue.”
“Hey, as I remember, on your last adventure, you were out in the forest, chased by cannibals, being hunted by monsters. That didn’t work out so well, either. Lost good people. Don’t want to lose you.”
She bit off any reply. Let the silence hang,
and finally ordered, “Get me over that platform.”
Hell, it hurt too damn much when she thought about Dya Simonov and Mark Talbot. It had been her decision to fly out to Tyson Station without armored marines. And they’d walked right into the Unreconciled’s trap.
You have to trust your instincts, she told herself. Get to second-guessing every decision, and you’ll be paralyzed.
She watched as Makarov eased them around, approaching along the Pod’s long axis so the thrusters blasted down on either side of the tube-shaped structure. Below them, water churned out in circular waves as the downdraft intensified.
“I’m headed aft,” she told Makarov. “I’ll be off as fast as I can.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“See you in a day or two.”
“Roger that.”
She grabbed her bag and passed through the hatch into the cargo bay. In the rear, she took a position at the head of the ramp. Felt the faintest of shudders as the A-7 slowed, stopped, and hovered. The ramp whined, the back of it dropping down. As it fell, a sliver of daylight widened around the edges and the deafening roar made her wince. Kalico started down the ramp, felt the blast tugging at her pantlegs. She descended into a thunderous gale, bent low, and staggered into the vortex. The step down from the ramp wasn’t more than ten centimeters, and she was on the Pod’s landing pad.
A blast of hot air sent her staggering, almost blown off her feet. She caught her footing an instant before being blasted sideways off the pad to tumble down the Pod’s curved side. If the fall didn’t kill her, hitting the water from three stories would. Another gust blew her a couple of feet to the left. Crouched as she was, only dropping and bracing herself with her hand saved her from being tossed off her feet. Panic froze her. Another buffet left her weaving, even bent double as she was. At any instant, the combination of blasting air was going to blow her, tumbling, over the edge.
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