Starfish

She cuts him off. "Look, I can handle this." Her words are for Brander; her eyes remain locked with Acton's. "Maybe you should go to Medical, make sure you're okay."

Acton leans forward, tensed. The thing inside waits and watches.

"This asshole — " Brander begins.

"Please, Mike." It's the first time she has ever used his first name.

There's a moment of silence.

"Since when did you ever get involved?" he says behind her.

It's a good question. Brander's footsteps shuffle away before she can think of an answer.

Something in Acton goes back to sleep.

"You'd better go there too," Clarke says to him. "Later."

"Nah. It wasn't that tough. I was surprised how feeble it was, after I got over the size of the fucking thing."

"It ripped your diveskin. If it could do that, it wasn't as weak as you think. At least check it out; your leg might be lacerated."

"If you say so. Although I'll bet Brander needs Medical more than I do." He flashes a predatory grin, and moves to pass her.

"You might also consider reining in your temper," she says as he brushes past.

Acton stops. "Yeah. I was kind of hard on him, wasn't I?"

"He won't be as eager to help you out the next time you get caught in a smoker."

"Yeah," he says again. Then: "I don't know, I've always been sort of — you know —»

She remembers a word someone else used, after the fact. "Impulsive?"

"Right. But really I'm not that bad. You just have to get used to me."

Clarke doesn't answer.

"Anyhow," he says, "I guess I owe your friend an apology."

My friend. And by the time she gets over that jarring idea, she's alone again.

* * *

Five hours later Acton's in Medical. Clarke passes the open hatchway and glances in; he sits on an examination table, his 'skin undone to the waist. There's something wrong with the image. She stops and leans through the hatch.

Acton has opened himself up. She can see the flesh peeled back around the water intake, the places where meat turns to plastic, the tubes that carry blood and the ones that carry antifreeze. He holds a tool in one hand; it disappears into the cavity, the spinning thing on its tip whirring quietly.

Acton hits a nerve somewhere, and jumps as if shocked.

"Are you damaged?" Clarke asks.

He looks up. "Oh. Hi."

She points at his dissected thorax. "Did the gulper —»

He shakes his head. "No. No, it just bruised my leg a bit. I'm just making some adjustments."

"Adjustments?"

"Fine-tuning." He smiles. "Settling-in stuff."

It doesn't work. The smile is hollow, somehow. Muscles stretch lips in the usual way, but the gesture's imprisoned in the lower half of his face. Above it, his capped eyes stare cold as drifted snow, innocent of any topography. She wonders why it has never bothered her before, and realizes that this is the first time she's ever seen a Rifter smile.

"That's not supposed to be necessary," she says.

"What's not?" Acton's smile is beginning to wear on her.

"Fine-tuning. We're supposed to be self-adjusting."

"Exactly. I'm adjusting myself."

"I mean —»

"I know what you mean," Acton says. "I'm — customizing the job." His hand moves around inside his rib cage as if autonomous, tinkering. "I figure I can get better performance if I nudge the settings just a bit outside the approved specs."

Clarke hears a brief, Lilliputian screech of metal against metal.

"How?" she asks.

Acton withdraws his hand, folds flesh back over the hole. "Not exactly sure yet." He runs another tool along the seam in his chest, sealing himself. He shrugs back into his 'skin, seals that as well. Now he's as whole as any rifter.

"I'll let you know next time I go outside," he says, laying a casual hand on Clarke's shoulder as he squeezes past.

She almost doesn't flinch.

Acton stops. He seems to look right around her.

"You're nervous," he says, slowly.

"Am I."

"You don't like being touched." His hand rests on her collarbone like an insult.

She remembers: she has the same armor that he does. She relaxes fractionally. "It's not a general thing," she lies. "Just some people."

Acton seems to weigh the jibe, decide whether it's worthy of a response. His hand withdraws.

"Kind of an unfortunate quirk in a place as small as this," he says, turning away.

Small? I've got the whole goddamn ocean! But Acton's already climbing upstairs.

* * *

The new smoker is erupting again. Water shoots scalding from the chimney at the north end of the Throat, curdles and mixes with deep icy saline; microbes caught in the turbulence luminesce madly. The water fills with the hiss of unformed steam, aborted by the weight of three hundred atmospheres.

Acton is ten meters above the seabed, awash in rippling blue light.

She glides up from underneath. "Nakata said you were still out here," she buzzes at him. "She said you were waiting for this thing to go off."

He doesn't even look at her. "Right."

"You're lucky it did. You could have been waiting out here for days." Clarke turns away, aims herself at the generators.

"And I think," Acton says, "it'll stop in a minute or two."