Michaela paced back and forth, knotting and unknotting her fists. “If we call on Aguila to bail us out. For any reason. She’s coming back with her marines and shuttles. She’s loading us all up and packing us off to Corporate Mine to scrub floors and carry rocks. The Pod will be picked up in its constituent pieces and hauled off to the mainland to be recycled into things Corporate Mine can use. Or maybe it will be sold to Port Authority in this insane market economy they’ve created.”

Yosh walked over, carefully tilted his glass rod so the teal-colored goo ran into a sample jar; then he capped it. The rod he washed in one of the sinks, then inserted it into a sterilizer. Bearing his prize, he turned to face her.

“Michaela, here’s the thing: I was out there with Aguila when Shin was taken. If the Supervisor hadn’t been with us, we would have lost both UUVs. We would have gone together to collect the samples, as a team. Not individually, let alone in a hurry like Aguila had us do. We’d have both been standing there, side by side in the surf when that scimitar burst out of the water. It wouldn’t have just been Shin. Both of us would have been dead.”

He pointed a finger. “And from the reports, Lara was told to stay next to the seatruck. She wandered off, right? To the edge of the pad. And she did it after Aguila told her not to.”

“That’s right.”

“Michaela, it’s our fault. If Shin had run out, taken his sample, and hurried back like he was told, he’d be alive. Instead he just stood there, staring out at the surf. Same with Lara, she disobeyed. We just turned on a woman who did everything she could to help us. From here on out, we can’t fail. We can’t give her reason to shut us down.”

“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve ordered Dik to cut all communications with Corporate Mine. Aguila says we’re going to lose more people. If we do, and if we have other failures, I don’t want it getting back to Aguila. If she calls us, I’ll tell her that everything is fine, and research is progressing.”

“And the trips to Port Authority? Anything that happens, she’ll hear it through PA and be doubly pissed off that we didn’t tell her.”

“Let’s postpone those rotations until things settle down. After losing Lara, we can make a case for putting them on hold.” She indicated the sample jar. “What is that?”