And, as she thought about John, her tears began to flow once more.--- BREAKAWAY!.

THE NERI BEGAN shouting to each other. Their voices were a cacophony of rasps, too fast and confusing for Bandi-cut's stones to follow.

The quaking was growing in violence. In a matter of moments, this had gone from a curiosity to an emergency. Bandi-cut and Ik stayed out of the way, while Askelanda barked instructions to Neri who ran in and out of the room. Bandicut had visions of the dome around them shattering, but he told himself that if that happened, it wouldn't matter if he was close to the dome; he'd be just as dead either way. He stood at the edge of the dome, trying to see what was going on outside. The dome gave good horizontal and top visibility, but to see down at all, he really had to crane his neck. The light from below had brightened, almost to the point of illuminating the undersea city. It reminded him of a brightly lit stadium, seen far off through a dense fog.

"L'Kell!" Bandicut called to the young Neri leader, who had run in and out several times, and was now awaiting Askelanda's attention.

"What is it? Are we under attack by the landers? Is it an earthquake?"

It seemed to cost L'Kell a great effort to shift his eyes and thoughts to Bandicut. "The landers? No. It is the--" kraafff "--the Monster, the Devourer--in the heart of the abyss--"

L'Kell's answer was interrupted by a sudden violent swaying of the habitat. Bandicut and Ik both staggered, Bandicut thumping into the dome. His heart nearly stopped as he imagined crashing through the dome, and pushed himself back from the clear material.

What had just happened? He turned his head and saw a schoolTHE INFINITE SEA * 101 of mottled silver fish streaming by the dome, moving downward at an angle. Something was odd about it, and it took him a moment to realize what: they were swimming upward, into the current, and still were being carried down into deeper water.

What the h.e.l.l kind of bottom current would carry something downward with that much speed and power?

"It is what I spoke of before," L'Kell continued. "The Maw of the Abyss. We have never gone deep enough to see it. But we know it well, and hoped it would not awaken."

"Then, hrahh--" But Ik's question was interrupted by a sudden, bone-jarring CRUMP/that seemed to rock the entire structure.

"Haiii, kallah, Askelanda!" cried L'Kell, darting to the edge of the room to peer into the sea. His words were too quick for the stones to catch. But the reason for his outcry became apparent a moment later.

KREEEE-E-E-E-E-CHH-- I.

Bandicut fell back from a wrenching shriek so distorted by the water that he could not have guessed its source if he hadn't been staring right at it. Just upslope from them, a habitat twisted, tilted sickeningly, and tore free from the cl.u.s.ter that was holding it. The habitat spun, trailing bubbles, as it came loose; then it rose with seemingly impossible grace out of the larger structure. It ascended rapidly, vanishing into the mist of the sea above.

"John Bandicut!"

Ik's cry made him tear his gaze away. Most of the Neri had dashed from the room. Only L'Kell was left, and he was shouting down a pa.s.sageway to someone. He turned to Ik and Bandicut. "I have to go. You can stay here. You should be safe."

"Hrahh--like h.e.l.l!" Ik growled. "We will go, if we can help."

"Right. But where are we going?" Bandicut asked.

"To the subs," L'Kell said, waving for them to follow. "We must see what we can do."

"Lead on," Bandicut said.

They ran.

Antares had listened with alarm as the obliq Kailan described the mysterious peril at the bottom of the sea, in the abyssal trench that lay not far off from the site of the Neri city. The Neri did not know what the thing was, except that it had appeared in the midst of a great cataclysm generations ago. But whatever it was, it caused--at unpredictable intervals--both earthquakes and inexplicably pow-102 , .

erful downcurrents of water. And not just seawater, of course, but anything loose in the water, such as Neri swimmers who had the bad luck to be caught in the surges. Through the years, a good number of Neri lives had been lost that way. The worst eruptions were always accompanied by a puzzling glow that somehow radiated upward from the deepest abyss.

"Why do you stay here, then, with your city so close to it?" Li-Jared had asked, with more logic than tact.

"Because our factories are down there--"

"In the abyss?" Li-Jared said, his electric-blue eyes wide with amazement.

"Not in the abyss itself, but on the ledge near the dropoff," Kailan said calmly, facing them where they were seated on the floor of her chambers. Her facial expression was dominated by her enormous eyes, which made her appear intensely curious. "Without the factories, we will die, say our leaders. Perhaps they are correct." She was silent a moment. "In recent times, the Maw has not been too active. It has been years since the last very bad eruption."

No sooner had Kailan spoken those words than the floor suddenly began to shake. Antares and Kallan looked around in alarm.

Li-Jared sprang to his feet and began pacing nervously. "What's going on? What is it?" Antares caught him by the arm and calmed him. Following Kailan, they hurried back to one of the domed rooms from which they could see for themselves what was happening.

Just as they got to the windows, a piercing sound of tearing metal began to throb through the floor. It grew to a shriek, drowning out the background rumble. What they saw was dozens of habitats, mostly downslope from them, swaying on their moorings. But one, just a few bubbles over, and a little deeper, was twisting alarmingly on its mooring. For a moment it looked as if it were being pulled downward; then, with an awful ripping sound, the mooring let go and with a cascade of bubbles, the habitat floated up and away, and vanished.

Antares looked at Kailan in horror. "This is a bad one?" The obliq was staring silently, radiating alarm.

This was one of the bad ones.

Kailan turned and asked questions of one of the other Neri in a rapid-fire stutter. She listened impatiently to the frantic reply, then stood a moment, frozen in thought.THE INFINITE SEA * 103 "Were there people in that bubble?" Antares asked.

Kailan glanced at her. "Yes. If they can get out before it breaches surface, they might survive. But the habitat--could--"

"What?"

Kailan's thoughts were obviously far ahead of Antares' question.

She whirled and ran with surprising agility back to her chambers.

"Elbeth! Instruments on--full overhead scan!"

Antares glanced at Li-Jared for only a moment before racing after her.

They swept into Kailan's second room. The lefthand wall was lined with consoles; three of them were glowing. They were slightly concave and shaped like fat crescents with blunt horns pointed down. Antares stared, caught by surprise. Even in the submarines, she had seen no indication of such electronic technology. All three instruments showed variations on a ghostly image that might have been the ocean outside, with some kind of light intensification. Several washed-out spots looked like habitats above them, just at the edge of view near the righthand horn of the center console.

Li-Jared jabbed a finger. "What's that?"

Antares looked harder, then saw it--a group of dark spots, moving into the brighter gradiant, then fading. Kailan worked at the console, trying to improve the image. "Teams in pursuit. But I don't think they can catch it in time." Her fingers moved like a musician's along the bar-shaped controls. "Askehanda won't like this--but I wonder if we can do something from here."

She touched a round depression, and all three screens blinked and changed. The flanking screens switched to abstract images that were probably graphic representations. The center screen changed to something that still looked literal, but more like a long-range radar or sonar image, with icons that seemed to indicate moving bodies.

"What's that?" Antares murmured, nervous about interrupting.

"Same view, overhead, scanner composite," Kailan said. She seemed to be trying to center a circle on the screen over a large symbol, beside which text characters were changing rapidly.

"Is that the habitat?"

"Yes."

"It almost looks," said Li-Jared, "as if you are targeting the thing.

Is this a--?" He caught himself, as though afraid to ask the question.

But Antares felt the timbre of his fear and heard herself thinking the question: Is this a weapon?104 * *

Kailan called to Elbeth, "Raise Askelanda! And don't take no for an answer."

By the time they reached the hangar, all the other subs were gone.

Ik and Bandicut scrambled down the conning tower hatch and got out of L'Kell's way as he sealed the vessel and took the controls.

They submerged with surprising speed and accelerated away from the hangar, through the glowing city. Bandicut peered out the nose window and clutched for something to hold onto as L'Kell banked around a habitat cl.u.s.ter and then raised the nose and began ascending quickly. "Where are we going?" Bandicut asked. It was disconcerting to watch the yellowish-green aura of the settlement recede below; the city had come to represent more security than he had realized. "Are we going after the breakaway habitat?"

"Yes, if we--" L'Kell interrupted himself at the sound of a Neri voice warbling scratchily from the console. He replied in a low, quick voice--then, with a single warning cry, took the sub into a sweeping turn and angled it back downward into a dive. "We've been given a new a.s.signment," he said. Bandicut's stomach lurched at the suddenness of the change, and he braced himself from the nose window. The motors changed pitch, then finally hummed to a higher speed as they accelerated downward.

The sub swayed drunkenly, and Bandicut realized suddenly that L'Kell had just steered them into the powerful downwelling current that they had observed from the habitat. They were riding it downward. But to where? His breath caught as they pa.s.sed the undersea city, now off to their left, and continued in a steep descent.

The flickering glow from the abyss was in front of them now, and below. It looked like lightning embedded deep in the heart of a thunderstorm. Was that where they were headed? To confront the Devourer?

"L'Kell?" he murmured.

They were approaching the seafloor now, and began to follow the slope, like a terrain-hugging aircraft. It was mostly rock and silt, moving past in a featureless blur.

"They've got people going after the breakaway," L'Kell explained finally. "We have a different job--to follow the current and see if anything's been dragged down." He was interrupted by a squawk from the console. He exchanged further words with a distant Neri comm operator, then said to his companions, "A docking cradleTHE INFINITE SEA * 105 broke loose, and was last seen being carried downward, toward the factory. We must check for damage, and see what we can do."

Bandicut glanced over at Ik, whose eyes were sparkling with an inner fire. Excitement? Or alarm? "We're not going to--go all the way down to the--what did you call it?" he asked in a husky voice.

"The Demon of Darkness, the--" kraafj'"--Maw of the Abyss,"

murmured L'Kell, his gaze fixed out the window. "I hope not. There is a lot between us and it."

Bandicut began to breathe a little more easily.

"Still--" L'Kell's eyes shifted toward Bandicut for a split second "--there are never any guarantees. Are there?"

Bandicut blinked, and suddenly wished he hadn't asked.

Kailan was working intently. She had the targeting circle over the symbol representing the breakaway habitat, and was now studying a display that Antares took to be tracking data. "The habitat will breach surface in three minutes," Kailan said. "There's a good chance it will hit the collector array first."

Without knowing exactly what Kailan was referring to, Antares felt a cold sense of distance. Kailan and Elbeth were working with urgent speed, and Antares was deliberately keeping her own emotions isolated, so as not to interfere, even while trying to follow what was happening.

"I have Askelanda," said Elbeth suddenly.

"Obliq," said a dry voice, from the console. "We're very busy right now. We've lost a habitat."

Kailan touched the console. "Ahktah, I'm tracking the habitat. It will pa.s.s through the solar array in two minutes, with probable impact.

It will breach in two and a half minutes."

The answering voice seemed startled. "How do you know that?"

"I am using the beam-targeting scanners you consider nonfunctional.

There is no choice--I must take action. Please order your subs clear."

Askelanda's voice was sharp and angry. "I can't order them clear!

They're trying to catch it! It's the only thing we can do."

"They cannot reach it. But I can stop it. You must get them clear."

"Obliq--I don't see how you think--"

"I am going to hole the habitat and sink it. Are the people out yet?"

"We don't know--there's no contact! What do you mean, sink it?"106 * .

"We've got to keep it from breaching. If it hits the surface, they'll die for sure. If I can put a hole in it, we might be able to bring it back down before it hits. Think of the array, Askelanda! We can't take the chance! Get those subs out from between me and the habitat."'

"But surely you don't mean to use that ancient weapon--"

"Ten seconds," Kailan said evenly.

"But you can't--all right--we're calling them."

"Seven."

"Give us time!"

"I can't. It'll be too late. Five." Kailan's fingers were flicking over the console. She peered up at the screen with her enormous eyes, narrowly webbed finger poised on one key. "Two--"

"They're telling us--"

"Can't wait. Starting pulse-beam now." She pressed the key.

The screen on the left blinked back to a visible view overhead.

A thin beam of light shot up green, vanishing into the mist. Three bright pulses flashed up the light thread, as though riding the beam, too fast to follow. Antares glanced at Kailan. She was staring at the center screen, where three twinkling icons were closing in on the large symbol and circle. She pointed to another symbol that was clearly a chase sub, and gestured frantically as though to sweep it out of the way. It wasn't moving fast enough.

The first twinkle grazed the sub and blossomed. Kailan tensed.

The second cleared the sub and intersected the habitat symbol. So did the third.

The symbol billowed expanding red rings.11 RESCUE.

THE SUB'S HULL creaked disconcertingly as they dekcended into a darkness broken only by the occasional glimmer of lightning below. Bandicut was reminded of a time, years ago, when he had made a toursub dive onto the site of the sunken t.i.tanic, four thousand meters down in the North Atlantic, on Earth. It had been a haunting experience, watching the carefully lit wreck emerge from the darkness of the ocean grave, thinking of the hundreds who had gone with the ship to their personal graves. The wreck had lain undisturbed for decades, and even now, though it was a historic park, there was a sense of quietude about it, a somber sense of tragedy that would never go away. He had thumbed off the commentary in his earphones and just watched the fioodlit ship loom before them in the perpetual night, a haunting presence of silence and solitude.

Floating detritus streamed backward past them now in the sub's headlight, which was the only thing that told Bandicut that they were descending even faster than the current. He could still feel the current, as some occasional turbulence caught them and swayed them close to the limits of L'Kell's control. From time to time he heard a whispering rush of air and felt his ears popping, as the sub's internal pressure adjusted in stages to the growing pressure outside--not keeping the two equal, but reducing the differential. It made him think of the habitat that was rocketing toward the surface, if it hadn't already reached it, and he shuddered at the thought of the explosive decompression that must be occurring. When he asked L'Kell, the Neri answered, "With luck,108 * .

anyone inside got out. They could survive a pressure change much of the way up--but they'll certainly die if the hull breaches and ruptures."

Bandicut was silent after that. He wondered, where in all of this were Antares and Li-Jared?

"/Your other friends?