"I guess I was thinking of things other than food."

"Coffee is more than a food to me-it's a, uh, sacrament. It's the prime ritual ofmy life. It's proof of the existence of God."

"I've gotten involved with an addict."

She splashed water into his face. He blinked it from his eyes and continued. "So, coffee. What else?"

"I like the way the sea looks when a storm is coming. The way the storm waves slam into the breakwater and you can feel it in your whole being."

"And thunderstorms? Lightning?"

"Of course."

He accelerated, crossed in front of her, and turned over, to sidestroke on his other side. "You seem to have a thing for great forces: storms, waves, thunder, lightning... coffee."

"And what do you like, Dr. Freud?"

I like you. "Ah. Well, I like getting it right."

"It?"

"Whatever. If it's an investigation, I like finding the truth. Not what's convenient or easy or popular. If it's a report, it's the right word or sentence. If it's sewing, it's making it strong and neat. So that people don't say, 'What a good repair!' Instead they should say, 'It was torn?' "

"You sew?" Her voice through the darkness was curious without being amused.

"I keep my uniforms in one piece."

"I like getting it right, too," she said, heavily emphasizing right. "What else do you like?"

Thomas frowned to himself. "I like helping people. I didn't join the INS, you know. Like my father, I joined the Coast Guard. I was going to rescue people. I got my chance, too, during the Deluge. Mostly people who didn't get out soon enough, or kept going back to their drowning homes one trip too many. We'd pull people off rooftops, telephone poles, water towers, you name it. Also dogs, cats, a lot of cattle, alive and dead.

"Then the refugees started moving-not just the American ones-and they passed the Emergency Immigration Act. We still got to pull lots of people from the water after we combined with INS... but it didn't necessarily help them. Well, at least they didn't drown."

She was quiet for a moment and Thomas wondered if she'd taken offense at something he said. Eventually, though, she said, "Helping people. That's what I was having trouble saying. I thought it sounded pretentious. But that's what I love. I don't pull them out of the water, though. I pull them out of the Abattoir.""Afuera de la Boca del Infierno?"

"Now that sounds pretentious. I didn't start keeping count until Dad died. Dad did it, as well, in a haphazard sort of way. Senor Santos and his family, others along the way, but I've pulled over two hundred out of the Abattoir, sponsored them for city membership, found them jobs, places to stay. It's where I put my energy after Dad died. After I kicked Geoffrey out."

You couldn't rescue your father, so-"Any failures?"

"A few, especially at the beginning. It's not easy to take someone out of that environment and expect them to trust anything-themselves or others. Especially if they were born in there."

They reached the far wall and treaded water.

"I got better at picking people who'd make it outside with a little help. And I poured funds into an existing program to teach people the skills they needed to make it outside. Ready?"

He touched her shoulder in the dark. "No kiss?"

"All right. If you insist!" There was no reluctance in her performance of the physical act, though.

They dove.

Safely on the surface in the next hex, Patricia asked a question. "How did you end up in CID?"

It was Thomas's turn to pause. Finally he used her words. "That's hard to say."

"Oh, ho! And not because you don't know, right?"

He cleared his throat. "Ur, right."

"But you're going to tell me, anyway, right?"

She already knows me. How did that happen? "Yes."

"Then pretend we had this long, drawn-out exchange where you're terribly reluctant but I finally persuade you and get on with it."

"You have no respect for your seniors."

She laughed. "And just how senior are you? You probably knew my age before you met me."

"Thirty-four."

"Turnabout is fair play."

He switched sides again, letting her pass him, then catching up. "I didn't hear that. Water in my ear."She splashed at him.

"Okay, if I were a dog, I'd be six."

She chewed on that for a moment. "Forty-two. So you're a dog-year older than me. That's not that senior. Stop changing the subject."

For the first time that night, Thomas felt cold, and it didn't have anything to do with the water.

"It was when I was a lieutenant j.g. I was XO on a patrol boat in the Northeast-New York to Maine. It was a small hydrofoil, sixty feet, and we were pulling interdiction duty. The short version is that my skipper and most of the crew had a smuggling scheme going. They'd 'inspect' various vessels and come away with 'contraband' and occasionally a 'prisoner,' but they never made it back to impound or detention. Mostly there were rich Dutch refugees and Turkish tobacco.

It took me a couple of months to tumble to it, and then they assumed I'd go along, take a share, keep my mouth shut.

"When I refused a share, my skipper said fine, leave it. More for the rest of them.

But I was implicated anyway. It had been going on as long as I'd been assigned there and the other officers would swear I was an active participant. I should consider the example of the three monkeys."

Her voice came out of the darkness, quieter than before. "See no, hear no, speak no."

"Yeah. Especially speak no."

"What did you do?"

He found it hard to speak for a moment. "I told him I'd changed my mind-that I'd take my share, that I wanted in. Then, next shore leave, I contacted CID. I stayed aboard for another two months undercover. I supervised a routine satlink overhaul that added an extra multiplexor linked to audiovid pickups I planted in several key locations, letting CID record from afar. The courts-martial took another two months and, when I was done, there wasn't a regular unit in the service that would have me."

"Can they do that?"

"Not officially. Unofficially... well, it happens. It was not a good time in my life. I was unhappy with what the INS did when they were performing their mission and unhappy with them when they weren't.

"I was about to resign my commission when CID offered me a post. It was the last thing I'd wanted to do with my career, but it's mostly worked out." He had his usual vivid flash of that awful moment with Eugene, the flames exploding out of the boat, but it didn't shake him like it used to. "Huh. That's the short version. And sometimes I still get to help people."

"Victims?""Mostly. Sometimes it's the perpetrator. Sometimes I can turn a petty offender around before he's ruined himself or others. A private word to him or his CO."

"Where do you draw the line?"

They reached the far wall. Thomas shrugged, then realized she couldn't see that.

"Where does gray become black? I won't condone abuse of prisoners. I won't condone drug trafficking. Petty customs evasion? Maybe. Minor drug use?

Depends. Dereliction of duty in the path of profit? No. Suborning others from their duty-well, I've got a personal problem with that one."

She moved to him, touching his face. "I can see that. Ready to dive?"

He kissed her. "Yes."

It was getting easier, despite some fatigue. Diving down into the dark was hard because of the unknown. Knowing what to expect made it much easier. The lingering fear was that he'd surface on the other side and Patricia wouldn't.

But she did.

They stopped talking for a while, putting more of their energy into swimming, upping the pace a little to generate warmth. They kept the kiss before each dive, though.

After three more hexes, Patricia said, "Time to change, I think. Let's go downcurrent, now, across the seawall. There'll be another hex, then the lagoon."

"Aye, aye."

"Pay the toll."

They kissed and dove. The current pulled them easily under the walls, and they ascended holding hands, then swam across the hex. There was a glow visible from down in the water.

"City lights?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah."

"What can I expect on the other side?"

"It depends on how far we've come, but we clearly haven't come as far as the subdivision itself or we'd have another hex immediately on the other side of the wall and no light. On the other hand, the light means we're nearly there 'cause the stretch between Matagorda and Playa del Mar is pretty dark. So, we've probably got a bunch of floating docks and a bunch of boats. That's good, 'cause if we come up under the docks, we're shielded from our friends with the IRI-?"

"IRIAD. Good. Anything else?"

"One very important thing. Breathe out all the way up if you don't want a lungembolism. We're going back to surface pressure."

"Breathe out, or my lungs will pop like a balloon."

"You got it. Pay the toll."

Again, the current helped them under the wall, but the ascent on the other side was longer. Thomas let a steady stream of air bubble from his nose and, despite the burning, kept his eyes open, watching the light and dark blobs above slowly resolve into the fuzzy rectangular shapes of docks and the teardrops of boat hulls.

They came up between a dock and a boat hull, and Thomas tried to make his first great intake of air quiet, but only partially succeeded. Fortunately, there was plenty of noise to cover his gasp. Somewhere nearby the amplified thump thump thump of salsabilly music and the sound of many feet moving vibrated through the dock itself.

The light, though dim in their nook, was blinding after their journey beneath the hexes. He was treading water and suddenly realized there was a rope hanging down before his face. He grabbed it and tentatively pulled. It held. He snaked his other arm around Patricia and pulled her close, supporting her.

He whispered in her ear. "I've been treading water so long, I forgot I didn't have to." He pulled his head far enough back that he could see her. "I'd almost forgotten what you looked like."

"Black as the pit from pole to pole." She smiled and he felt the muscular tension easing out of her. She slumped against him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Whew. That was enough exercise for one night."

"We're not out of the woods-well, the water-yet. Sounds like a party."

She turned her head and kissed the side of his neck. "Yes. This is Marina del Paraiso-the tourist marina. They party every night."

"Animals."

She laughed softly. "Do I detect a streak of the puritan, Commander?"

He shook his head. "Envy, I think. I wonder what it's like not to have to worry about being shot." He transferred one of her hands to the rope, releasing her. "If we can find some clothes, the party will make good cover."

The top of the dock was just out of reach, but he pulled himself up on the rope, then caught the edge of a fiber-reinforced plastic plank with one hand, then the other.

He pulled himself up until his eyes were over the edge and blinked in the light of strings of Chinese lanterns. The band was live, playing on a pavilion floating at the end of one of the piers parallel to this one. There were at least fifty people dancing and more scattered around the edges, but the immediate dock was quiet.

He turned his head and saw the seawall almost immediately behind him. He almost ducked down again, half-expecting one of them to appear at the parapet, gunat the ready. Unlikely. We're well away from where we were and even if they realized we could go under the wall, they'd be checking directly across. He looked around at the other boats, wondering if they could borrow one. Ah.

He dropped back down. "Follow me."

"What?"

"Clothing." He swam down to the end of the boat and then crossed to the next pier, away from the party. On the water side, away from the dock, a thirty-foot sailboat had laundry drying on its lifelines. The boat's portholes were dark and the piece of the hatchway visible from below was closed.

Patricia, swimming beside him, said, "Think anyone's aboard?"

"I'm hoping they're at the party or out to dinner. If they're asleep, they've got to be wearing earplugs."

Thomas unclipped a pair of drawstring pants, a brightly flowered men's shirt, and a white cotton skirt with an elastic waist, bundling them carefully and holding them on top of his head to keep them dry. "You want another shirt?" he whispered.

"No."

"Take my wallet," he said. "It's in my waistband. Clip a hundred on the line."

She nodded, and he felt her fingers move across his waist until she found the wallet. "That's a bit much, don't you think?"

"We've also robbed them of choice."

"Ah." She fumbled with the wallet and removed a bill; then, holding the wallet in her teeth, she pulled herself up and used a clothespin to hang the wet bill on the lifeline.

They swam to a dark corner where a larger motor cruiser cast a shadow against the seawall and, using its stern ladder, climbed out of the water.