Ruto used all of his might, felt the muscles in his hip pull as he tried to break his right foot free. All he did was lift the thick mat a couple of centimeters. And when he gave up, and let it sink back down, his boot was that much deeper in the gunk. The blue-green jam just thickened around his upper ankle.

Now Ruto’s heart was pounding.

“Hey!” he bellowed. “Anybody hear me? I’ve got a real problem here!”

He stared anxiously at the closest com terminal on the wall above the work bench. The blue icon blinked on the screen. All he had to do was touch it, and he’d be in contact with Michaela or Dharman up in communications. That fricking icon seemed to mock him: flash . . . flash . . . flash . . .

“Hey! Help!”

As if anyone would hear through the walls, all the water, or the heavy hatches that lay between the UB and the Pod.

“Help me!” Ruto screamed.

In a desperate panic, he threw himself against the thickening algae. Each time he pulled, it turned out that he was dragging more of the stuff across the floor to thicken around his boots.

Get out of the boots!

That was it. All he had to do was unfasten his boots, slip his feet out, and run like a striped-ass banshee before the stuff could cling to his bare feet. Make the hatch, cycle it, and he was golden. Michaela could figure out how to get her damn Underwater Bay back from the algae.

He reached down, flicked the fasteners at his boot tops free.

Heart hammering, breath coming hard in his lungs, Ruto slipped his fingers into the cold goo as he reached for the next set of fasteners. Felt the stuff, thick like an impossible jello, clinging. With all his might, Ruto managed to rip his hand free. A slick coating of blue green covered his fingers.

What the hell was this stuff? How was it sticking together like this?

“Help me!” he bellowed again.

The fear knot tightened deep down, running up from his anus, knotting his belly, and shivering his lungs. Twisting back and forth, he couldn’t even manage to slide his feet.

“Oh, God. Somebody come! Please. Anybody. Help me!” The first of the tears silvered his vision. His heart quivered, blood electrified in his veins.

He tried to calm himself. Began to sob his fear. Just beyond the Aquaceptor’s nose the thick trunk of algae was pulsing where it sucked water up from the open sea.

Ruto could feel it, the pulsing as algae contracted. Feel it through his boots, the rhythmic constrictions around his ankles. Looking down, to his horror, with each pulse the algae was creeping up his legs, having reached the tops of his boots.

“This isn’t happening to me,” he pleaded with the universe. Clenching his hands, the sticky algae squeezed between his fingers.