Starfish

"Out to the dead whale, then steady bearing eighty-five degrees," she says. "I know."

"Look, you sure about this? We can wait in here for you. One hour's probably not going to make much difference."

She shakes her head. "I'm sure."

"Okay." He stands there, looking uncomfortable. One hand starts to rise, wavers, falls back.

He climbs down the ladder.

"Mike," she calls down after him.

He looks up.

"Do you really think they're going to blow that thing up?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe not. But you're right: they want us here for some reason. Whatever it is, I bet we wouldn't like it."

Clarke considers that.

"See you soon," Brander says, stepping into the 'lock.

"'Bye," she whispers.

* * *

When the lights go out in Beebe Station, you can't hear much of anything these days.

Lenie Clarke sits in the darkness, listening. When was the last time these walls complained about the pressure? She can't remember. When she first came down here the station groaned incessantly, filled every waking moment with creaking reminders of the weight on its shoulders. But sometime since then it must have made peace with the ocean; the water pushing down and the armor pushing back have finally settled to equilibrium.

Of course, there are other kinds of pressure on the Juan de Fuca Rift.

She almost revels in the silence now. No clanging footfalls disturb her, no sudden outbursts of random violence. The only pulse she hears is her own. The only breath comes from the air conditioners.

She flexes her fingers, lets them dig into the fabric of the chair. She can see into the communications cubby from her position in the lounge. Occasional telltales flicker through the hatchway, the only available light. For Clarke, it's enough; her eyecaps grab those meager photons and show her a room in twilight. She hasn't gone into Comm since the rest of them left. She didn't watch their icons crawl off the edge of the screen, and she hasn't swept the rift for signs of Gerry Fischer.

She doesn't intend to now. She doesn't know if she ever did.

Far away, Lubin's lonely windchimes serenade her.

Clank.

From below.

No. Stay away. Leave me alone.

She hears the airlock draining, hears it open. Three soft footsteps. Movement on the ladder.

Ken Lubin rises into the lounge like a shadow.

"Mike and Alice?" she says, afraid to let him begin.

"Heading out. I told them I'd catch up."

"We're spreading ourselves pretty thin," she remarks.

"I think Brander was just as happy to be rid of me for a while."

She smiles faintly.

"You're not coming," he says.

Clarke shakes her head. "Don't try —»

"I won't."

He folds himself down into a convenient chair. She watches him move. There's a careful grace about him, there always has been. He moves as though always afraid of damaging something.

"I thought you might do this," he says after a while.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know myself until, well…"

He waits for her to continue.

"I want to know what's going on," she says at last. "Maybe they really are playing straight with us this time. It's not that unlikely. Maybe things aren't as bad as we thought…"

Lubin seems to consider that. "What about Fischer? Do you want me to —»

She barks a short laugh. "Fischer? You really want to drag him through the muck for days on end, and then haul him onto some fucking beach where he can't even stand up without breaking both his legs? Maybe it'd make Mike feel a bit better. Not much of an act of charity for Gerry, though."

And not, she knows now, for Lenie Clarke either. She's been deluding herself all this time. She felt herself getting stronger and she thought she could just walk away with that gift, take it anywhere. She thought she could pack all of Channer inside of her like some new prosthetic.

But now. Now the mere thought of leaving brings all her old weakness rushing back. The future opens before her and she feels herself devolving, curling up into some soft prehuman tadpole, cursed now with the memory of how it once felt to be made of steel.

It's not me. It never was. It was just the rift, using me…

"I guess," she says at last, "I just didn't change that much after all…"

Lubin looks as though he's almost smiling.

His expression awakens some vague, impatient anger in her. "Why did you come back here anyway?" she demands. "You never gave a shit about what any of us did, or why. All you ever cared about was your own agenda, whatever that…"

Something clicks. Lubin's virtual smile disappears.

"You know." Clarke says. "You know what this is all about."

"No."

"Bullshit, Ken. Mike was right, you know way too much. You knew exactly what question to ask the Drybacks about the CPU on that bomb, you knew all about megatons and bubble diameters. So what's going on?"

"I don't know. Really." Lubin shakes his head. "I do have — expertise, in certain kinds of operations. Why should that surprise you? Did you really think domestic violence was the only kind that would qualify someone for this job?"