Lubin disappears into the wet room. Clarke kneads her thigh. The pins and needles persist.

"Lenie?" Klein says. "What—"

"I'm fixed."

"No you're not."

"The teleop—"

"You have to stay off that leg for at least six more hours. Preferably twelve."

"Thanks. I'll take it under advisement." She swings her legs over the edge of the table, puts some weight on the good one, gradually shifts weight to the other. It buckles. She grabs the table in time to keep from keeling over.

Lubin steps back into view, a carrysack slung over his shoulder. "You okay?" His eyes are capped again, white as fresh ice.

Clarke nods, strangely relieved. "Hand me that diveskin."

Klein heard that. "Wait a second—you two have not been cleared for—I mean—"

The eyes go in first. The tunic slithers eagerly around her torso. Sleeves and gauntlets cling like welcome shadows. She leans against Lubin for support while she dons the leggings—the tingling in her thigh is beginning to subside, and when she tries out the leg again it takes her weight for a good ten seconds before giving out. Progress.

"Lenie. Ken. Where are you going?"

Seger's voice, this time. Klein's called for reinforcements.

"We thought we'd come for a visit," Lubin says.

"Are you sure you've thought that through?" Seger says calmly. "With all due respect—"

"Is there some reason we shouldn't?" Lubin asks innocently.

"Lenie's l—"

"Beyond Lenie's leg."

Dead air in the room.

"You've analyzed the samples by now," Lubin remarks.

"Not comprehensively. The tests are fast, not instantaneous."

"And? Anything?"

"If you were infected, Mr. Lubin, it only happened a few hours ago. That's hardly enough time for an infection to reach detectable levels in the bloodstream."

"That's a no, then." Lubin considers. "What about our 'skins? Surely you would have found something on the diveskin swabs."

Seger doesn't answer.

"So they protected us," Lubin surmises. "This time."

"As I said, we haven't finished—"

"I understood that ßehemoth couldn't reach us down here," he remarks.

Seger doesn't answer that either, at first.

"So did I," she says finally.

Clarke takes a half-hop towards the airlock. Lubin offers an arm.

"We're coming over," he says.

Half a dozen modelers cluster around workstations at the far end of the Comm Cave, running sims, tweaking parameters in the hopes that their virtual world might assume some relevance to the real one. Patricia Rowan leans over their shoulders, studying something at one board; Jerenice Seger labors alone at another. She turns and catches sight of the approaching rifters, raises her voice just slightly in an alarm call disguised as a greeting: "Ken. Lenie."

The others turn. A couple of the less-experienced back away a step or two.

Rowan recovers first, her quicksilver eyes unreadable: "You should spare that leg, Lenie. Here." She grabs an unused chair from a nearby station and rolls it over. Clarke sinks gratefully into it.