He pulled at one of the air release toggles on his BC, hoping to empty it and slow their ascent. His computer was shrieking madly, as was Caddie’s, and he wished they would stop. He tried once more to give her his regulator, but she was reaching toward the surface and seemed not to see him.

The water changed color around them, becoming a lighter shade of green. They passed through rays of sunlight, and above them Ben saw the canopy of the kelp forest where the long fronds rested on the waves. Please don’t be holding your breath, he begged Caddie as the final few feet of their ascent flew by and they rocketed from the water.

Dazzled by the brightness of the sun, Ben fell back against the blanket of kelp. He called Caddie’s name, and when he heard no response, he ripped the mask from his face and threw it away from him, shouting, “Caddie! Caddie!”

She was only a few feet away, struggling to stay afloat. She, too, had lost her mask, and she was hitting the water wildly.

“Inflate your BC!” Ben shouted at her. “Do it orally!”

Caddie sank beneath the water, bobbed back up, spitting and choking. Ben lunged toward her and grabbed her from behind, holding her around the waist so that her flailing hands couldn’t reach him. In her panic, she would grab hold of anything, and he needed to maintain control.

“It’s all right,” he told her, reaching for her low-pressure inflator. He held the outflow button down and breathed into the mouthpiece. Caddie’s BC swelled slightly. He blew again, and she began to rise in the water. Another four breaths and she was buoyant. Still, she struggled.

“Caddie,” Ben said firmly. “You’re all right.”

She stopped flailing and began to cry. He turned her around and looked into her face. “What happened?” he asked her.

“I ran out of air,” she said between sobs.

Ben took her computer and looked at it. It didn’t make sense that she had run out of air. They hadn’t been down that long. Yet her gauge was in the red, the needle resting against the farthest edge. He didn’t give her a full tank, he thought. That idiot sent her down without enough air.

He dropped the computer. He would deal with Brian later. Right now he wanted to make sure Caddie was all right. “How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you tingly? Does your chest hurt?” He ran through the classic symptoms of the bends, trying to remember all of them.

Caddie shook her head. Her crying had become a ragged snuffling, but she was no longer hysterical. “I think I’m okay,” she said.

“Good,” Ben told her. “Do you think you can swim in?”