“I suspect we’ll see you tomorrow. And, from all of us, thank you.”

“That’s my job. And Director, one thing we never forget is that the children are all of our future on Donovan.”

Michaela exhaled wearily.

“Instead of Toni, have you thought about sending Felix? People might sleep better. Word is, he’s got the sore throat, too.” As he spoke, Dharman tried to keep his expression neutral.

“Hell no.” She met the man’s eyes. Years back, Dharman and Kevina had had a fling back on Ashanti. But then, Kevina—the hot, Russian blond—had had a lot of flings. The way Michaela figured it, most of the men still carried a torch for her, even if it was mostly charred and only faintly smoldering these days.

To Dharman she confided, “Listen, my heart goes out to Kevina. She’s lost her husband, and now her son turns out to have murdered Bill, of all people, and cut him into pieces. Kevina is torturing herself every second of the day, asking if it’s her fault somehow. But, rationally, there’s no way it can be. Nothing any of us could have foreseen would have saved Yee. And as to Felix? He belonged to all of us. Was a son to all of us, but I never saw this coming.”

“Doesn’t mean Kev isn’t blaming herself.”

“Yeah. Well, we’ll do what we can for her. All of us.”

“Right, I—”

Iso Suzuki stuck her head into the com center, worry shining from her dark eyes. “Michaela? You seen Bryan? Give him something to do since he went down to the UB? He’s late. I’ve been all over the Pod. Even went down to the Underwater Bay, but the hatch isn’t functioning.”

“What do you mean, not functioning? And no. Last I saw of him was when Casey said Tobi didn’t show up for lunch, so I sent Bryan down to check. That was around one.”

Dharman bent over the com, asking, “Underwater Bay, check in please. Tobi? Bryan? Respond, please.” He ran his fingers over the screen, adding, “Got visual coming up now.”

Each of the com center monitors flashed on to show the UB from a different angle.

“What the hell?” Michaela tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

If she didn’t know the UB, she’d have never recognized this. The familiar benches, the cabinets, equipment bins, the lines of UUVs, and the single remaining sub on its cradle, were at least familiar, but the entire floor pulsed in blue-green. Tendrils of the stuff were creeping up to cover the sub, UUVs, and other equipment.

The hatch door gaped open, a flood of green spilling over the threshold into the pressure hatch. No wonder it wouldn’t open from the tube side. Until someone closed it from the UB, the hatch couldn’t pressurize.