"What is this, Karl? Some grand insight you got while spirit-walking around in the mud? You think you know me better than I do?"

"You know—"

"Because you don't, you know. You don't know shit about me, you never did. And you don't really have the balls to find out, so you run off into the dark and come back spouting all this pretentious bullshit." She's goading him, she knows she's goading him but he's just not reacting. Even one of his outbursts would be better than this.

"It's saved under Shadow," he says.

She stares at him without speaking.

"The file," he adds.

"What's wrong with you?" She's beating at him now, pounding as hard as she can but he's not hitting back, he's not even defending himself for Chrissakes why don't you fight back asshole why don't you just get it over with, just beat the shit out of me until the guilt covers us both and we'll promise never to do it again and—

But even anger deserts her now. The inertia of her attack pushes them away from each other. She catches herself on an anchor cable. A starfish, wrapped around the line, reaches blindly out to touch her with the tip of one arm.

Acton continues to drift.

"Stay," she says.

He brakes and holds position without answering, dim and gray and distant.

There are so many things denied her out here. She can't cry. She can't even close her eyes. So she stares at the sea bed, watches her own shadow stretch off into the darkness. "Why are you doing this?" she asks, exhausted, and wonders who she meant the question for.

His shadow flows across her own. A mechanical voice answers:

"This is what you do when you really love someone."

She jerks her head up in time to see him disappear.

* * *

Beebe's quiet when she returns. The wet slap of her feet on the deck is the only sound. She climbs into the lounge and finds it empty. She takes a step towards the corridor that leads to her cubby.

Stops.

In Comm, a luminous icon inches towards the Throat. The display lies for effect; in reality Acton is dark and unreflective, no more luminous than she is.

She wonders again if she should try and stop him. She could never overpower him by force, but perhaps she just hasn't thought of the right thing to say. Perhaps if she just gets it right she can call him back, compel his return through words alone. Not a victim any more, he said once. Perhaps she's a siren instead.

She can't think of anything to say.

He's almost there now. She can see him gliding between great bronze pillars, bacterial nebulae swirling in his wake. She imagines his face aimed down, scanning, relentless, hungry. She can see him homing in on the north end of Main Street.

She shuts off the display.