He hopes the plume blocks more than just light.
But even as he watches, the darkness is lifting. Black murk turns brown, then almost gray. Faint light filters in from the floodlamps on Main Street.
It's the eyecaps, he realizes. They're compensating. Cool.
He still can't see very far, though. It's like being caught in dirty fog.
"Remember." Clarke, very close. "They're not as tough as they look. They probably won't do much real damage."
A sonar pistol stutters nearby. "I'm not getting anything," Caraco buzzes. Milky sediment swirls on all sides. Fischer puts his arm out; it fades at the elbow.
"Oh shit." Caraco.
"Are you—"
"Something's on my leg something's Christ it's big—"
"Lenie—" Fischer cries.
A bump from behind. A slap on the back of his head. A shadow, black and spiny, fades into the murk.
Hey, that wasn't so—
Something clamps onto his leg. He looks down: jaws, teeth, a monstrous head fading away into the murk.
Oh Jeez—
He jams his billy against scaly flesh. Something gives, like gelatin. A soft thump. The flesh bloats, ruptures; bubbles explode from the rip.
Something else smashes him from behind. His chest is in a vise. He lashes out, blindly. Mud and ash and black blood billow into his face.
He grabs blindly, twists. There's a broken tooth in his hand, half as long as his forearm; he tightens his grip and it splinters. He drops it, brings the billy around and jams it into the thing on his side. Another explosion of meat and compressed CO2.
The pressure lifts from his chest. Whatever's clamped onto his leg isn't moving. Fischer lets himself sink, drifts down against the base of a barite chimney.
Nothing charges him.
"Everyone okay." Lenie's vocoded monotone. Fischer grunts yes.
"Thank God for bad nutrition," Caraco buzzes. "We're fucked if these guys ever get enough vitamins."
Fischer reaches down, pries the dead monster's jaws off his calf. He wishes he had breath to catch.
Shadow?
Right here.
Was this what it was like for you?
No. This didn't take so long.
He lies against the bottom and tries to shut his eyes. He can't; the diveskin bonds to the surface of the eyecaps, traps the eyelids in little cul-de-sacs. I'm sorry, Shadow. I'm so sorry.
I know, she says. It's okay.
* * *
Lenie Clarke stands naked in Medical, spraying the bruises on her leg. No, not naked; the caps are still on her eyes. All Fischer can see is skin.
It's not enough.
A trickle of blood crawls down her side from just below the water intake. She absently wipes it away and reloads the hypo.
Her breasts are small, almost adolescent, bumps. No hips. Her body's as pale as her face, except for the bruises and the fresh pink seams that access the implants. She looks anorexic.
She's the first adult Fischer's ever wanted.
She looks up and sees him in the doorway. "Strip down," she tells him, and goes back to work.