As the Ctenophore stutters in its last moments, as the blood-smeared creatures and the sea outside eddy with hungry expectation, the lantern winks out, and in the middle of the heat and chaos and the three voices, three bodies fumbling together, Johannes is absolutely alone.

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four

The sun was gone, but the water was still warm. It was very still. Below its surface the constellation of cray lightglobes picked out Armada’s underside.

Tanner and Shekel swam between the Hoddling and the Dober, the ossified whale, in a runnel of water forty feet wide. They were cosseted from the city’s sounds, only the debris of which floated down to their heads, bobbing on the surface like seals’.

"We’ll not go too close," warned Tanner. "It could be dangerous. We’re staying on this side of the ship."

Shekel wanted to dive the few feet he dared, and see through his goggles the line running down to the bathyscaphos. Tanner’s descriptions of the avanc’s chains had always held him transfixed, but they were invisible to him except as faint dark shapes even if he held his courage and swam below the lowest ships in the city. He wanted to see such a cord stretching from the air into the darkness. He wanted to be faced by the scale of it.

"I doubt you’ll see it," warned Tanner, watching the boy’s enthusiastic, inefficient strokes. "But we’ll see how close we can get, alright?"

The sea lapped at Tanner. He unstretched in it, unrolled his extra limbs. He dived below into the rapidly darkening water and felt himself framed by the cool cray lights.

Tanner breathed water and swam a few feet below Shekel, watching his progress. He thought he could feel something vibrating in the water. He had grown sensitive to the sea’s little shudders. Must be the cable, he thought, still letting the sub down. That’s what it must be.

Three hundred feet from them, the bulky girdered legs of the Sorghum rose from the water. The sun had set behind the rig, and the plaited metal of its struts and derricks were dark stitches in the sky.

"We’ll not get too close," warned Tanner again, but Shekel was not listening.

"Look!" he crowed, and pointed for Tanner, losing his momentum and sinking momentarily, coming up laughing, pointing again toward the far end of the Hoddling. They could see the thick wire, taut and rigid, descending into the water.

"Keep away, Shek," warned Tanner. "No closer now."

The cable penetrated the water like a needle.

"Shekel."Tanner spoke decisively, and the boy turned, spluttering. "That’s enough. Let’s see what we can see while there’s still a bit of light."

Tanner reached Shekel and sank below him, staring up as the boy pulled the goggles over his eyes, took a lungful of air, and kicked down, holding Tanner’s hand.