While Austin was trying to make sense of the scene under the dome, the woman looked straight up at him and stared. He peeled off like a fighter plane, swam down to the bottom and under the sphere, then toward the hemispheric hub. He remembered from the diagram that the hub was the transportation module. It had an airlock at the top of it for the cargo shuttle.

He swam under the module past four submersibles hanging from the bottom of the hemisphere, and found the hatch that allowed divers access to the module. He inflated the buoyancy compensator. Air from the tank flowed into the vest and he began a slow rise. At the same time, he removed the waterproof pouch holding the Bowen from his pack. He figured he could have the pistol out and ready to fire within five seconds of surfacing. With the element of surprise, that should give him the edge he needed.

Austin’s head broke the surface of the airlock pool inside the hemisphere. He pushed his mask up on his forehead, glanced quickly around, and saw that the Bowen wouldn’t be needed and could stay in its pouch for now. The circular room was deserted.

He swam over to a ladder and put the pouch on the edge of the pool, making sure it was within easy reach. Then he slipped out of his weight belt, fins, and tank and set them next to the pouch. He climbed out, retrieved the Bowen from its pouch, and hung his scuba gear on a hook next to four other sets of dry gear. Then he listened for a minute at the only door.

All was quiet. Austin’s Bowen filled one hand, and his other pressed the wall switch. The door slid quietly open. Austin set off along a corridor, determined to stir up some trouble.

It didn’t take long.

He came to a door marked RESOURCE CULTIVATION SECTION. He opened it and stepped into a twilit chamber that was circular in shape, the walls lined with fish tanks that contained various jellyfish. But it was the larger, chest-high, circular tank at the center of the room that caught his attention.

It contained at least a dozen giant jellyfish. Their bell-shaped bodies were nearly a yard across, and their tentacles were short, thick, and ropy rather than the delicate streaming filaments seen on most jellyfish. They glowed with a pulsating neon blue that provided the sole illumination in the room.

He saw a movement that didn’t come from inside the tank. A distorted face was reflected in the curving glass surface. Absorbed by the strange forms in the central tank, Austin had let himself get sloppy.