"Excuse me?"

She shook her head, as if clearing it of some distraction. "Nothing. Sorry."

"Ah." Scanlon nodded again. No need to harp on Lubin if Rowan didn't want to. He'd made lots of other predictions. "There's also the matter of the Ganzfeld effect I noted. The remaining crew—"

"Yes, we've spoken with a couple of— other experts about that."

"And?"

"They don't think the rift environment is, sufficiently impoverished is the way they put it. Not sufficiently impoverished to function as a Ganzfeld."

"I see," Scanlon felt part of his old self bristling. He smiled, ignoring it. "How do they explain my observations?"

"Actually—" Rowan coughed. "They're not completely convinced you did observe anything significant. Apparently there was some evidence that your report was dictated under conditions of— well, personal stress."

Scanlon carefully froze his smile into place. "Well. Everyone's entitled to their opinion."

Rowan said nothing.

"Although the fact that the rift is a stressful environment shouldn't come as news to any real expert," Scanlon continued. "That was the whole point of the program, after all."

Rowan nodded. "I don't disbelieve you, Doctor. I'm not really qualified to judge one way or the other."

True, he didn't say.

"And in any event," Rowan added, "You were there. They weren't."

Scanlon relaxed. Of course she'd put his opinion ahead of those other experts, whoever they were. He was the one she'd chosen to go down there, after all.

"It's not really important," she said now, dismissing the subject. "Our immediate concern is the quarantine."

Mine as well as theirs. But of course he didn't let that on. It wouldn't be— professional— to seem too concerned about his own welfare right now. Besides, they were treating him fine in here. At least he knew what was going on.

"—yet," Rowan finished.

Scanlon blinked. "What? Excuse me?"

"I said, for obvious reasons we've decided not to recall the crew from Beebe just yet."

"I see. Well, you're in luck. They don't want to leave."

Rowan stepped closer to the membrane. Her eyes faded in the light. "You're sure of this."

"Yes. The rift is their home, Ms. Rowan, in a way a layperson probably couldn't understand. They're more alive down there than they ever were on shore." He shrugged. "Besides, even if they wanted to leave, what could they do? They're hardly going to swim all the way back to the mainland."

"They might, actually."

"What?"

"It's possible," Rowan admitted. "Theoretically. And we— we caught one of them, leaving."

"What?"

"Up in the euphotic zone. We had a sub stationed up there, just to— keep an eye on things. One of the rifters— Cracker, or—" a glowing thread wriggled across each eye— "Caraco, that's it. Judy Caraco. She was heading straight for the surface. They figured she was making a break for it."

Scanlon shook his head. "Caraco does laps, Ms. Rowan. It was in my report."