Caraco pushes off the hull and flies back up into the water. Her silhouette vanishes into the murk, but her headlamp comes to rest and starts dipping around just behind Brander's. Clarke looks over at Nakata, still plastered against the hull. Nakata's feeling a little sick now, and even more worried about something...

"It is not happy!" Nakata shouts.

"Hey; come on, groundhogs!" Caraco's voice buzzes faintly. "Fly!"

Discontent. Something not expected.

Who is that? Clark wonders.

"Come on!" Caraco calls again.

What the hell. Can't hang on much longer anyway. Clarke lets go, pushes off; the top of the muckraker races on beneath. Heavy water drags the momentum from her. She kicks for altitude, feels sudden expectation from behind — and in the next second something slams against her back, pushing her forward again. Implants lurch against her ribcage.

"Jesus Christ!" Brander buzzes in her ear. "Get a grip, Lenie!"

He's caught her on his way past. Clarke reaches out and grabs the line that he and Caraco are attached to. It's only as thick as her finger, and too slippery to hang on to. She looks back and sees that the other two have looped it around their chests and under their arms, leaving their hands more or less free. She tries the same trick, drag arching her back, while Caraco calls out to Nakata.

Nakata is not eager to let go. They can feel that, even though they can't see her. Brander angles back and forth, tacking his body like a rudder; the three of them swing in a grand, barely controlled arc, knotted into the middle of their tether. "Come on, Alice! Join the human kite! We'll catch you!"

And Nakata's coming, she's coming, but she's doing it her own way. She's climbed sideways against the current, hand over hand, until she found the place where the line joins the deck. Now she's letting drag push her back along the filament to them.

Clarke has finally secured herself in a loop. Speed digs the line into her flesh; it's already starting to hurt. She doesn't feel much like a human kite. Bait on a hook is more like it. She twists around to Brander, points at the line: "What is this, anyway?"

"VLF antennae. Unspooled when we scared it. Probably crying for help."

"It won't get any, will it?"

"Not on this side of the ocean. It's probably just making a last call so its owners'll know what happened. Sort of a suicide note."

Caraco, entangled a bit further back, twists around at that. "Suicide? You don't suppose these things self-destruct?"

Sudden concern settles over the human kite. Alice Nakata tumbles into them.

"Maybe we ought to let it go," Clarke says.

Nakata nods emphatically. "It is not happy." Her disquiet radiates through the others like a warning light.