Sudden, complete silence. Clarke can barely believe she said it herself.

Chen's vocoder stutters in awkward preamble. "Uh, Len. Rama went native."

"Not yet. Not completely. Borderline at most."

"Bhanderi?" The water vibrates with Nolan's mechanical derision. "He's a fish by now!"

"He's still coherent," Clarke insisted. "I talked to him just the other day. We can bring him back."

"Lenie," Walsh says, "nobody's ever—"

"Bhanderi does know his shit," Garcia cuts in. "Used to, anyway."

"Literally," Creasy adds. "I heard he tweaked E. coli to secrete psychoactives. You walk around with that shit in your gut, you're in permanent self-sustaining neverland." Grace Nolan turns and stares at him; Creasy doesn't take the hint. "He had some of his customers eating out of their own ends, just for the feedback high."

"Great," Nolan buzzes. "A drooling idiot and a fecal chemist. Our problems are over."

"All I'm saying is, we don't want to cut our own throats," Clarke argues. "If the corpses aren't lying to us, they're our best chance at beating this thing."

Cheung: "You're saying we should trust them?"

"I'm saying maybe we don't have to. I'm saying, give me a chance to talk to Rama and see if he can help. If not, we can always blow up Atlantis next week."

Nolan cuts the water with her hand. "His fucking mind is gone!"

"He had enough of it left to tell me what happened at the woodpile," Clarke buzzes quietly.

Nolan stares at Clarke, a sudden, indefinable tension in the body behind the mask.

"Actually," Garcia remarks from offside, "I think I might have to side with Lenie on this one."

"I don't," Creasy responds instantly.

"Probably couldn't hurt to check it out." Hopkinson's voice vibrates out from somewhere in the cheap seats. "Like Lenie says, we can always kill them later."

It's not exactly momentum. Clarke runs with it anyway. "What are they going to do, hold their breath and make a mad dash for the surface? We can afford to wait."

"Can Gene afford to wait? Can Julia?" Nolan looks around the circle. "How long do any of us have?"

"And if you're wrong, you'll kill every last one of those fuckers and then find out they were trying to help us after all." Clarke shakes her head. "No. I won't let you."

"You won't l—"

Clarke cranks the volume a notch and cuts her off. "This is the plan, people. Everybody gives blood if they haven't already. I'll track down Rama and see if I can talk him into helping. Nobody fucks with the corpses in the meantime."

This is it, she thinks. Raise or call. The moment stretches.

Nolan looks around at the assembly. Evidently she doesn't like what she sees. "Fine," she buzzes at last. "All you happy little r's and K's can do what you like. I know what I'm gonna do."