"Brander," she says quietly, "why don't you hang around and hear the man out?"

Behind her, the sounds of motion stop.

Before her, Acton relaxes ever so slightly.

Within her, something deeper than the Rift stirs in its sleep.

"They're a snap to install," Acton says. "It takes about five minutes. GA says deadman switches are standard issue from now on."

I know you, she thinks. I don't remember but I'm sure I've seen you before somewhere...

A tiny knot forms in her stomach. Acton smiles at her, as though sending some secret greeting.

* * *

Acton is about to be baptized. Clarke is looking forward to it.

They stand together in the airlock, their diveskins clinging like shadows. The deadman switch, newly installed, itches in Clarke's chest. She remembers the first time she dropped into the ocean this way, remembers the person who held her hand through that drowning ordeal.

That person is gone now. The deep sea broke her and spat her out. Clarke wonders if it will do the same to Acton.

She floods the airlock.

By now the feeling is almost sensual; her insides folding flat, the ocean rushing into her, cold and unstoppable like a lover. At 4°C the Pacific slides through the plumbing in her chest, anesthetizing the parts of her that can still feel. The water rises over her head; her eyecaps show her the submerged walls of the lock with crystal precision.

It's not like that with Acton. He's trying to fall in on himself; he only falls into Clarke. She senses his panic, watches him convulse, sees his knees buckle in a space far too narrow to permit collapse.

He needs more room, she thinks, smiling to herself, and opens the outer hatch. They drop.

She glides down and out, arcing away from under Beebe's oppressive bulk. She leaves the floodlit circle behind, skims into the welcoming darkness with her headlight doused. She feels the presence of the seabed a couple of meters beneath her. She's free again.

After a few moments she remembers Acton. She turns back the way she came. Beebe's floodlamps stain the darkness with dirty light; the station, bloated and angular, pulls against the cables holding it down. Light pours from its lower surface like feeble rocket exhaust. Pinned face-down in that glare, Acton lies unmoving on the bottom.

Reluctantly, she swims closer. "Acton?"

He doesn't move.

"Acton?" She's back in the light now. Her shadow cuts him in half.

At last he looks up. "It'ssss—"

He seems surprised by the sound of his own transmuted voice.

He puts his hand to his throat. "I'm not—breathing—" he buzzes.

She doesn't answer.

He looks back down. There's something on the bottom, a few centimeters from his face. Clarke drifts closer; a tiny shrimplike creature trembles on the substrate.

"What is it?" Acton asks.

"Something from the surface. It must have come down on the 'scaphe."

"But it's—dancing—"

She sees. The jointed legs flex and snap, the carapace arches to some insane inner rhythm. It seems so brittle a life; perhaps the next spasm, or the next, will shatter it.