"Me?" Caraco bites her lip. "It was sort of a deal. One year with an option to renew, in lieu of prosecution." The corner of her mouth twitches. "Price of revenge. It was worth it."

Brander leans back in his chair, looks around Clarke. "What about you, Ken? Where'd you come—"

Clarke turns to follow Brander's stare. The sofa's empty. Down the corridor, Clarke can hear the shower door swinging shut.

Shit.

Still, it'll only be a short wait. Lubin's already been inside for four hours straight, he'll be gone in no time. And it's not as though there's any shortage of hot water.

"They should just shut the whole bloody net down for a while," Caraco is saying behind her. "Just pull the plug. Bugs wouldn't be able to handle that, I bet."

Brander laughs, comfortably blind. "Probably not. Of course, neither would the rest of us."

Carousel

She's been staring at the screen for two minutes and she still can't see what Nakata's going on about. Ridges and fissures run along the display like long green wrinkles. The Throat returns its usual echoes, crammed especially close to center screen because Nakata's got the range topped out. Occasionally a small blip appears between two of the larger ones: Lubin, lazing through an uneventful shift.

Other than that, nothing.

Lenie Clarke bites her lip. "I don't see any—"

"Just wait. I know I saw it."

Brander looks in from the lounge. "Saw what?"

"Alice says she's got something bearing three twenty."

Maybe it's Gerry, Clarke muses. But Nakata wouldn't raise the alarm over that.

"It was just— there!" Nakata jabs her finger at the display, vindicated.

Something hovers at the very edge of Beebe's vision. Distance and diffraction make it hazy, but to bounce any kind of signal at that range it's got to have a lot of metal. As Clarke watches, the contact fades.

"Not one of us," Clarke says.

"It's big." Brander squints at the panel; his eyecaps reflect through white slits.

"Muckraker?" Clarke suggests. "A sub, maybe?"

Brander grunts.

"There it is again," Nakata says.

"There they are," Brander amends. Two echoes tease the edge of the screen now, almost indiscernible. Two large, unidentified objects, now rising just barely clear of the bottom clutter, now sinking back down into mere noise.

Gone.

"Hey," Clarke says, pointing. There's a tremor rippling along the seismo display, setting off sensors in a wave from the northwest. Nakata taps commands, gets a retrodict bearing on the epicenter. Three-twenty.

"There is nothing scheduled to be out there," she says.

"Nothing anyone bothered to tell us about, anyway." Clarke rubs the bridge of her nose. "So who's coming?"

Brander nods. Nakata shakes her head. "I'll wait for Judy."

"Oh, that's right. She's going all the way today, isn't she? Surface and back?"

"Yes. She should be back in maybe an hour."

"Okay." Brander's on his way downstairs. Clarke reaches past Nakata and taps into an outside channel. "Hey Ken. Wake up."

* * *