She climbs out of Beebe, dripping, and seems to bring some of the darkness with her. It follows her to the corner of the passenger compartment and hangs around her like a blanket. She doesn't say anything.

Joel glances into the pit, back at the rifter. "Is anyone else, er..."

She shakes her head, a gesture so subtle he nearly misses it.

"There was— I mean, the other one..." This has to be the rifter who was hanging off his viewport a few minutes ago: Clarke, her shoulder patch says. But the other one, the one that shot off like a refugee on the wrong side of the fence— that one's still close by, according to sonar. Hugging the bottom, thirty meters beyond the light. Just sitting there.

"There's no one else coming," she says. Her voice sounds small and dead.

"No one?" Two accounted for, out of a max complement of six? He cranks up the range on his display; nobody further out, either. Unless they're all hiding behind rocks or something.

He looks back down Beebe's throat. Or they could all be hiding right down there, like trolls, waiting...

He abruptly drops the hatch, spins it tight. "Clarke, right? What's going on down here?"

She blinks at him. "You think I know?" She seems almost surprised. "I thought you'd be able to tell me."

"All I know is, the GA's paying me a shitload to do graveyard on short notice." Joel climbs forward, drops into the pilot's couch. Checks sonar. That weird fucker is still out there.

"I don't think I'm supposed to leave anyone behind," he says.

"You won't be," Clarke says.

"Will too. Got him right there in my sights."

She doesn't answer. He turns around and looks at her.

"Fine," she says at last. "You go out and get him."

Joel stares at her for a few seconds. I don't really want to know, he decides at last.

He turns without another word and blows the tanks. The 'scaphe, suddenly buoyant, strains against the docking clamps. Joel frees it with a tap on his panel. The 'scaphe leaps away from Beebe like something living, wobbles against viscous resistance, and begins climbing.

"You..." From behind him.

Joel turns.

"You really don't know what's going on?" Clarke asks.

"They called me about twelve hours ago. Midnight run to Beebe, they said. When I got to Astoria they told me to evacuate everyone. They said you'd all be ready and waiting."

Her lips curve up a bit. Not exactly a smile, but probably as close as these psychos ever come. It looks good on her, in a cold distant sort of way. Get rid of the eyecaps and he could easily see himself putting her into his VR program.

"What happened to everyone else?" he risks.

"Nothing," she said. "We just got— a bit paranoid."

Joel grunts. "Don't blame you. Put me down there for a year, paranoia'd be the least of my problems."