The procedure was direct: release the slip-tackle which linked them to the anchor cable, fire the blast bolts which freed the command gondola from the carrier, blow the tanks and ride the gondola to the surface. Once on the surface, the gondola would stabilize automatically. They could fire their radiosonde then and set their locator beacon. From there, it was a matter of waiting out the arrival of a relief LTA.

The sense of failure was large in Thomas as he began the escape procedure. They had barely started the communications routine . . . and the plan had been a good one.

The kelp could’ve answered.

They all felt the jolt of the blast bolts. The gondola began to lift from the split carrier. Rising out of it like a pearl from an oyster, Thomas thought.

As they lifted, the kelp lights once more came into view through the open areas of the plaz walls.

Waela stared out at the winking lights. They pulsed and glowed in spasmodic bursts which sparked a memory just at the edge of awareness.

Where have I seen that before?

It was so familiar! Lights almost all green and purple winking at her . . .

Where? I was only down in the . . .

The memory returned in a rush and she spoke without thinking.

“This is just like the other time when I escaped. The kelp lights were very much like that.”

“Are you sure?” Thomas asked.

“I’m sure. I can still see them there—the kelp separating and opening a way to the surface for me.”

“Hylighters are born in the sea,” Panille said. “Maybe they think we’re a hylighter.”

“It may be,” Thomas said. And he thought: Is that what we were supposed to see, Ship?

There was a certain elegant sense in the idea. Colony had copied the hylighters to give the LTAs free access to Pandora’s skies. Hylighters did not attack an LTA. Perhaps the kelp could be fooled in the same way. It would bear investigation. There were more important considerations of survival right now, however. Suspecting sabotage, he had to share that suspicion with his team.

“Nothing ordinary could have brought down that LTA,” he said.

Panille turned from looking out at the firefly lights of the kelp.

“Sabotage,” Thomas said. He produced the arguments.

“You don’t really believe that!” Waela protested.

Thomas shrugged. He stared out at the descending cables of kelp. The gondola was almost into the biologically active zone near the surface.

“You don’t,” she insisted.

“I do.”

He thought back through his conversation with Oakes. Had the man come out to inspect a sabotage device? He certainly had done nothing discernible. But there had been discrepancies in his responses—lapses.