“Wha’sat?” he said, his words drunkenly slurred from the cold and lack of oxygen.

Zavala’s cracked lips widened in a ghost of a smile.

“The cavalry has arrived.”

AUSTIN CROUCHED ON TOP of the bathysphere like a spider, using his manipulator claw to tap out letters. A deepwater suit’s size and shape makes it susceptible to currents, and a bottom eddy threatened to push him off his perch. He hooked the cable to the top of the sphere, clamped a manipulator onto the cable to keep himself from floating off, and maneuvered the suit’s thrusters so that they were facing down into the mud surrounding the sphere.

He depressed a foot pedal and was immediately enveloped in a blinding cloud of stirred-up silt that settled after a moment. He turned the Hardsuit’s searchlights off. The faint glow coming through the B3’s previously buried windows indicated that systems were still operating. Austin blinked the suit’s lights on and off to get Zavala’s attention.

Zavala saw the flashing lights, and his mind lost some of its cold-induced sluggishness.

Kane had seen the lights as well.

“What should we do?” he asked.

Zavala hungered for the opportunity to do something, anything, to get out of this mess, but he knew they would have to be patient.

“We wait,” he said.

AUSTIN UNCLAMPED HIS MANIPULATOR from the cable and began to tap out a new message on the bathysphere’s skin. He got out only a few letters before the current suddenly caught his suit and pushed him several feet away from the sphere. Regaining control, he returned to tap out more letters.

The Hardsuit’s camera had been transmitting his struggles to the surface ship.

“What’s going on down there?” Gannon’s voice called. “Picture went dark, and now it’s back all jumbled.”

“Stand by,” Austin said, then finished tapping out his message.

“Standing by,” the captain replied.

Austin’s efforts had sapped his strength. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he was gulping for air like a beached flounder.

“Haul away!” he shouted breathlessly into the suit’s microphone.

ZAVALA HAD LISTENED CAREFULLY to the measured tapping coming through the skin of the B3. He’d caught the first few letters. After a pause, he’d caught the rest.

Float.

Hell, Kurt, if I could float, I would float.

The bathysphere still stuck in the mud, and Zavala vacillated between anger and despair. Maybe this was all a dream brought on by lack of oxygen. Maybe he was imagining all this, playing out a rescue that existed only in his mind.

A buzzer yanked him back to reality.

A red light blinked madly on the control panel. He realized that the light had been going on and off for some time, but his slow-moving mind had not realized it was warning that the air supply was about to end.