Kalico shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t hit it in the right place. Maybe I mortally wounded it. Maybe it’s so damn tough it soaked up the explosive rounds and is healing as we speak. These are handgun rounds that we’re talking about. Not a rifle. That’s a change we’re going to have to make. Research trips are going to have to be armed, and with a lot more than a pistol.”

“That’s not . . .” Michaela shook her head. “I mean, we’re scientists. The subs, the seatrucks are supposed to protect us.”

Kevina Schwantz glanced sidelong at her son, Felix. “I told you at the time that I didn’t hit any reef. Maybe one of these scimitars cut the grooves in the bottom of the motor launch.”

Jaim Elvridge—who was hands-on when it came to the watercraft—said, “From the angle of those scratches, that scimitar could only have raked the bottom with two of those . . . what are they called? Mandibles? There are seven streaks gouged out of the hull. And the gouges are too close together. I think it had to be something else.”

“That’s creep-freaked,” Lara Sanz muttered.

“We’ll just have to stay inside our vehicles,” Casey Stoner told them as she ruffled Tomaya’s hair with one hand; the woman cradled her two-month-old daughter, Saleen, in the crook of her other arm. “It will be all right. We can work that way. Use the remotes for anything dangerous.”

“Assuming the rest of the UUVs don’t end up like the ones on the seatruck did.” Elvridge sounded half panicked. “Come on, people. That thing sheered a plastic, aluminum, and wire Aquaceptor III into pieces.” She pointed. “The second one has chunks missing out of the casing. But more than that, after all we’ve been through, Shin’s dead. Gone, guys. He was . . . I mean . . .” She sniffed. “We loved him.”

Kalico watched Jaim Elvridge grab Breez into her arms, sobbing into the child’s hair as the little girl tightened her grip. Elvridge’s wife, Varina Tam, left her chair to wrap them both into an encompassing embrace.

What the? Ah, yes. Kalico remembered that Shinwua was Breez’s father. Where he stood in the door, Bill Martin was now in tears, too, his sad eyes fixed on Jaim, Varina, and the child.

“It’s . . . complicated.” Michaela noted Kalico’s confusion. “Jaim and Varina wanted a child. They chose Shin to be the father. Hey, it’s only sex.”

People were standing, walking over to comfort Bill Martin or Jaim and her daughter.

Kalico understood: This was somehow a pivotal moment. She was seeing the settling of that hellish realization that, after all they’d been through, they weren’t invincible after all. Sort of like the image of a hive coming together.