The full Earth grav punished his flock, too.

The research ship plowed through thick waves, prow headed west. Rachel looked back, but the California coast was long gone behind tossing surf and dirty, sun-streaked clouds.

Fraq’s translator came lurching along the deck, green and rolling-eyed. But the sea was calming already as the storm headed inland to dump rain on a thirsty California. The crew was already swinging the descent cylinder up from the hold, setting it down on the prep deck with clanks and groans of metal. Teams attached hoses and line feeds to it. Time to get suited up. She donned her suit, mostly just a rubbery garment to keep her warm during the descent. Fraq’s translator was worrying around the alien, who had his own specially made suit to fit his odd physique. Rachel hoped they could pull off this deception. Fraq had slowly revealed more of his own biology, including his intense interest in deep-ocean thermal vents—though without giving a clue about why.

So the Library had arranged this stunt. Yet another. Fraq had insisted on seeing the absolutely lowest depth in the ocean, but there were few thermal vents in the really deep areas. So a Library Prefect had hit upon a simple ruse—tell Fraq that he was going to the deepest vent, and then just take him down to a convenient one. How could he plausibly judge the depth, anyway?

Ingenious, Rachel had to admit. Especially since she knew the Ythri were lying, too. So of course Fraq had also insisted that she accompany him in this deep ocean descent off Monterey. Even though his last stunt had killed a Librarian on the slopes of Everest, he wanted her along. The Library felt that since she had started all this, taking the orbital plunge with Fraq, she was in for the full ride, no matter how dangerous it seemed.

Rachel felt edgy. They still didn’t really grasp Fraq, and now they were playing deceptive games with him. She paced the deck as Fraq got outfitted.

Their craft was self-propelled with a large personnel sphere below a ballast-and-trim system. Steel weights clung to it, to allow faster, deep dives. These would be jettisoned at the end of the dive and left at the bottom.

The three of them entered the cylinder and strapped in. It was pretty bare-bones, a research vessel, not for tourists of whatever stripe. The passenger sphere was next to the ballast tank, and they could not even see the crew. Those were behind, running the descent with robo-assists. Rachel had always been a bit nervous in close quarters, and when the hatch boomed shut she felt a surge of anxiety. An acrid taste came into her mouth, and she wondered if she was going to throw up.

The A-frame crane lifted the cylinder and cabling. They splashed into the still-tossing sea with the inevitable Earther vid team covering it all. They descended into a world of dark quiet.

Down, reels whirring. The viewing window soon went black. The near-freezing sea cold began to seep in.