“Nothing. Director, it’s dark. I took the liberty of calling in the seatrucks. Kim Yee is up on the landing pad with the fifty-power scope. He says he’ll stay out there until midnight. He keeps sweeping a circle, looking in all directions for any sign of a light.”

“Will he be all right up there alone?”

“Kevina said she’ll go up and keep him company as soon as she gets Felix and Breez put to bed. She and Yee have set up another bed in their quarters for Breez. So far, all we’ve told the girl is that her mothers are still underwater in the submarine. She’s not old enough to figure out just what that means.”

“And Tam’s little boy?”

“Kayle’s with Mikoru tonight while Toni’s in the isolation tent.” He rubbed his weary eyes. “I just stopped by the clinic to see if there was any change.”

“And?”

“Gabarron’s out of her league. She’s been on the radio with Raya Turnienko. Toni’s limbs have started to twitch and move. But not with any kind of coordination. Turnienko thinks we ought to fly him to Port Authority. Mikoru and I . . .” Yosh hunched his shoulders in a defeated shrug. “We don’t know what to do.”

“Shit on a shoe, Yosh. I’m at wit’s end, too.” She tried desperately not to think about Varina and Jaim, who might even now be gasping for air. How did that feel? How did a person live with the panic, the fear, and the awfulness of slowly suffocating in a compartment so many meters under all that water?

“Shit on a shoe?” Yosh lifted an eyebrow.

“I never cursed much until I came to Donovan. I guess now I’m starting to figure out why they do it here. Sometimes words . . . well, they just don’t seem adequate sometimes.”

“How’s the arm?”

“Aches. According to the X-ray, it’s a linear fracture of the proximal ulna. Could have been worse. Anna says it’s a miracle I didn’t snap it in two.”

Her gaze went back to the screen. If the sub’s power remained undamaged, it could barely ascend from two hundred and fifty meters. But as the seconds ticked by, the curve was growing steeper. In another hour and five minutes, that sub had better be on the surface, blinking its location.

“Maybe the lobster monster, as you call it, has them wound up in a bunch of those spear trees or something. It’s just taking them time to cut their way loose with the robotic arm.”

“I can live with that, Yosh.” She rubbed her eyes with her good hand, careful of the bandaged wound on the side of her head. Gabarron had given her a steroid for the concussion. Nevertheless, it made her brain foggy.