Asin’s second baby was born with closed nostrils. She stayed alive out of her mother’s womb for a few seconds and suffocated. The ship women had blamed Asin for her diving activities during her pregnancy, something that was forbidden by Saviour Rules. They believed that the Saviour wouldn’t forbid something unless it was right and the water pressure during diving would harm the foetus’s formation. But Asin had never listened to them. She didn’t care for their sayings or the loss of her baby and was proud enough to think that she would have more babies whenever she wanted. She had preferred not to get pregnant for some time and continue her diving career. A diver’s life was short, everyone agreed to that. Anything could happen during a diving trip. They could become trapped in closed areas of the drowned cities, they could drown due to any failures in their oxygen masks – a small hole in the oxygen tank or a rupture in the hose – they could harm their backs, hearts, lungs and brains because of the water pressure and heavy lifting of the mined goods; an accident was always ahead of them. The divers would professionally work between ten to fifteen years. After that, their physical problems would surface and they would have to sit in the ship beside the old men and women and the children and entertain them with their vague memories of their previous diving trips. Those stories often accompanied many uncanny events that no one knew how true they were. If the divers were still in a good shape, they would join fishing teams and set out to sea again. Asin knew that her diving time would be up before she lost her fertility; she could have more children after she retired from diving. But diving age was more limited and she had no intention of letting go of her work.

Nothing was more awesome or beautiful than watching the drowned cities. The world below the waves was more exciting and attractive than the one above. There was repose, darkness and silence beneath the surface; a labyrinth of stones, bricks, glasses, plastics and objects made by the hands of pre-rain human, things that were great mysteries to them. The moss covered and rotten objects must have had colourful shiny surfaces before. The huge buildings that were now ruins covered with corals – where the large and small fish dwell – were once the living homes of men and women. The divers were not allowed to enter the buildings. No one knew what dangers awaited them in the closed rooms and corridors of the destroyed buildings that had been under water for hundreds of years. They would usually mine the surface material from top of the buildings. But Asin would go lower to the ground level of the past cities where the pre-rain people would walk. It was not allowed but she loved going there and finding unusual but useful things. Even though the divers of Oxan and Atlan had been mining the cities for three hundred years and they had dived out anything useable, there were still things to discover. For example, an automobile that its engine was dived out but its gadgets were still untouched. Diving out a car or an engine needed large diving groups and a pulling device, usually an engine and strong cables to pull them out. But Asin would go for smaller items, like a car mirror she had once found. It was in a good condition with a curved white back and a shiny surface. She had brought it out for Dalia but at the end, she was forced to give it to the diving team. Such intact items especially a mirror had many good buyers.