It had to be more than sex, more than her body which he knew how to ignite with such sureness. It had to be something far more profound.

How strange, the way he could go on talking to her at a time like this. His words seemed to make no sense whatsoever.

“. . . and in the recombinant process itself, we have gained an interesting side effect to the degeneration of the kelp.”

Degeneration! Always degeneration!

Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Avata informs through the esoteric symbols of Avata’s history reduced to dreams and to images which often can be translated only by the dreamer, not by Avata.

—Kerro Panille, History of the Avata

THERE’S NO reason to panic yet, Waela told herself.

Other subs had lost their LTAs and survived. The drill was spelled out by those experiences.

Still, she found herself trembling uncontrollably, her memory focused on her escape from the depths at the south shore of The Egg.

I escaped before. I’m a survivor. Ship, save us!

Save yourself. That was the unmistakable voice of her own Honesty. Certainly. She knew how to do it. She had taught the procedure to Thomas by repeated drill. And Panille appeared to be a cool one. No panic there. He was watching the screens, estimating the extent that the downed LTA bag was covering them.

Strange that it drifted straight down.

“There has to be a vertical current in this lagoon,” Panille said, as though answering her thought. “See how the fabric has draped itself over us.”

Thomas had watched the fabric cover them, sinking all around the sub to enclose them in an orange curtain which cut off their view of the kelp.

There’s no way the LTA could have been brought down by lightning, he thought. The bag was grounded to its anchor cable. It was compartmented. Breaking half the compartments would not have brought it down. There still would have been enough lift to take off the stripped-down gondola.

Somebody doesn’t want us back.

“I think we could begin cutting away the fabric now,” Panille said. He touched Thomas on the shoulder, not liking the way the man sat staring fixedly at the screens.

“Yes . . . yes. Thank you.”

Thomas lifted the nose of the sub then and extruded the cutters. Whiplike arc burners, they slipped from hull-top compartments and began their work. The plaz dome above them glowed with silvery blue light from the burner. Thomas saw the orange curtain part and drift down, stirring up a fog of sediment.

“Do you want me to do it?” Waela asked.

He shook his head abruptly, realizing that she too must have noted his funk. “No. I can handle it.”