He scoffed at all sharks and men's myths about them. "You hear everything: Don't wear anything bright, never wear anything white; shark chaser attracts sharks, shark chaser repels sharks; swim toward them, swim away from them; bang them on the nose, don't antagonize them; don't thrash around, make noise, don't make noise; make lots of bubbles, bubbles confuse them; don't dive at dusk, don't dive. Forget it all. You'll probably never see a shark in your whole poor miserable lives."

They prepared for the final chant they'd sung around the old town pool so many times before. "Okay, men," Tom bellowed, "you all paired up? All hands ready?" He lifted his hands like a choirmaster. "So what do we do going down?"

"Breathe," everyone chorused. "In and out."

"And what do we do coming up?"

"Breathe out, out, out!"

"And what's the fastest we ever rise?"

"As slow as our slowest bubble!"

"And what do we get if we surface too fast?"

"The bends, bends, bends!" And then, "Geronimo!" And they'd all jumped in.

He wished he had Tom with him now, but Tom had been a victim of the second shark, while Mike's father had waited above.

Was it all going to happen again?

It was harder breathing now. He was running out of air. The shark nosed closer. The door squeaked.

They said they were attracted to any kind of noise....

Afraid of bubbles?

He thought of Carla with her golden, sun-streaked hair; of Thea with her shining eyes; of his mother, already in the darkest depths of grief.

He began to work his shoulders free of his tank straps. The shark sensed motion and swung toward the door, huge body immobile, slender tail quivering in the current through the wreck.

Mike took a deep breath, exhaled, took another one, exhaled, then another, trying to hyperventilate and charge his blood. It would be a long time, if he survived, to his next breath of air.

Quickly he turned off his tanks. He unscrewed his regulator from the tank block, pointed the nozzle toward the shark beyond the door, and crashed through. He twisted the tank valve open, and a thousand pounds of air pressure poured out of the nipples' holes.

There were bubbles everywhere. He could not see, and neither could the shark. Like a curtain of rising pearls, the air rushed to the top of the chamber. The shark disappeared behind it, and Mike felt the swish of the mighty tail as it fled across the room.

He sidled around it, facing it as it cowered, pointing the tanks at it, and finally, when he was past, using the pressure like a jet to speed him toward the hole.

His lungs were searing when he got there. He laid the tanks inside the hole, gushing bubbles, to form a barrier before it. He left the cloud of them and slithered out.

His chest was heaving; his whole body cried for the blessed light above.