An observation LTA had snatched her from the sea. She had spent many diurns recovering, awakening to acclaim because she had proved that the kelp not only was dangerous because of its physical abilities, but that its hallucinogenic capacity worked havoc when enough of it contacted enough of a Shipman’s body in a liquid medium.

“Is something wrong, Waela?”

That was Panille staring at her, concerned by her introspection.

“No. We’re leaving the active surface waters. We’ll begin to see the lights soon.”

“You’ve been down here before, they tell me.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be safe as long as we don’t threaten the kelp,” Thomas said. “You know that.”

“Thanks.”

“The records say that attempts to establish a shoreside harvester were defeated when the kelp actually came ashore to attack,” Panille said.

“People and machines were snatched from the shore, yes,” she said. “The people drowned and were thrown back. Machines just disappeared.”

“Then why won’t it attack us here?”

“It never has when we just come down and observe.”

Saying this helped her restore a measure of calm. She returned to observation of sensors and telltales.

Panille peered over his shoulder at her screen, saw the angled strands of kelp, the fluting leaves and the curious bubble extrusions which reflected starbursts from the sub’s dive lights. When he looked up past the ladder to the top hatch, he could see the luminous circle of the lagoon’s surface—a receding moon populated by the darting shapes of the creatures who shared the sea with the kelp.

The lagoon was a place of magic and mystery with a beauty so profound he felt thankful to Ship just to have seen it. The kelp strands were pale gray-green cables, thicker than a Shipman’s torso in places. They reached up from darkness into the distant mercuric pool of light overhead.

Light reaches for stars and, seeing the stars, fears to grasp them, floats in wonder. Oh, stars, you burn my mind.

The kelp aimed itself at Rega, the only sun in their sky at the moment. Alki would join Rega later. Even under clouds, the kelp aligned itself perpendicular to the passage of a sun. When two suns were present, this tropism adjusted to the radiation balance. It was a precise adjustment.

Panille thought about this, reviewing what he had learned from Ship. These were observations which perilous ventures into the sea had gleaned. Sparse information, and nowhere as intense as what he learned by being here. He knew some of the things he would see at the bottom: kelp tendrils wrapped around and through large rocks. Crawling creatures and burrowing ones. Slow currents, drifting sediments. Lagoons were ventilators, passages for exchange between surface and bottom waters. Near the surface, they provided light for creatures other than kelp.

The lagoons were cages.

“These lagoons are where the kelp engages in aquaculture,” he said.