The Sea Wolf was gone. But its mind? Reinforced behind steel, hardened and waterproof, sealed in its steel skull. How long would that mind live beneath the waves? A few minutes, before the seawater began to seep into its circuits through a faulty seam? Hours? Or days, weeks, months—even years? How long would it continue in darkness?

A feeling of horror came over him. And then pity.

But for what? There was no life there. There was nothing there but computations of value: fish prices, sonar maps of the sea, calculations on how to drag more marine protein to market. Nothing but a lockstep logic of profit and loss.

Dim tongues of fire flickered on the water. There was no moon. Once the fire died, he and Son would be in near-darkness, with only the stars.

Eiko turned in a circle, searching the horizon. Yes—shapes of islands, humped in the water. But too far to swim to.

This was it. Death by water. Well—better, maybe, than death by starvation. Or being torn in two by a slashing cable snapped from the net. Or so many other deaths that he had witnessed, in these months.

Then a shape rose to the surface. A low shape, octagonal, drifting near the snake-lines of extinguishing fire that marked where the Sea Wolf had gone under. A red beacon light blinked.

A life raft. He began to swim toward it. Laughing—he was laughing. Son was laughing, too, both of them swimming to the raft.

Mercy. Perhaps it was just in the calculations—why kill them, when their death served no purpose? Why not let them live, now that the Sea Wolf itself was dying? Now that there was no more labor to be extracted from them?

But no matter what the calculations, it felt like mercy.

The mind trapped beneath the water. How long would it live? Think? How much could it know? Feel?

Eiko pulled himself up into the covered raft. He had no idea where the strength came from. He reached down and grabbed hold of Son’s shirt, scrambled for a better hold, found his arm, and dragged him over the boat’s rubber side. He could still feel, as Son collapsed against him, the ribs dangerously close to his skin, the angle of a shoulder blade too sharp beneath the surface.

They lay a moment trying to catch their breath in the dark. Eiko could hear the fire hissing on the water.

“Paddles,” Eiko said. “They’ll be—”

Son clapped a hand over Eiko’s mouth and hissed in his ear, “The security drones are still here.”

And yes—there it was. A buzz in the air. Or several of them, out there in the dark. That was what it must be—and Eiko saw, in the near-dark, an object in Son’s hand. A simple bolide of gunmetal, with a cap flipped open on one end. Son was holding a button down with his thumb.