Starfish

Clarke leans back in her chair. The back of her head touches the rear wall of the cubby. "Well, he's doing his job okay. When he's off shift he can go wherever he likes, I guess."

"Yeah, but this is the third time. He's always late. He just wanders in whenever he likes —»

"So what?" Clarke, suddenly tired, rubs the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. "We don't run on dryback schedules here, you know that. He pulls his weight, don't fuck with him."

"Well, Fischer was always getting shit for being l —»

"Nobody cared if Fischer was late," Clarke cuts in. "They just — wanted an excuse."

Caraco leans forward. "I don't like him," she confides.

"Acton? No reason you should. He's psycho. We all are, remember?"

"But he's different, somehow. You know that."

"Lubin nearly killed his wife down at Galapagos before they assigned him here. Brander's got a history of attempted suicide."

Something changes in Caraco's stance. Clarke can't be sure, but the other woman's gaze seems to have dropped to the deck. Touched a nerve there, I guess.

She continues, more gently. "You're not worried about the rest of us, are you? So what's so special about Acton?"

"Oh," Caraco says. "Look."

On the tactical display, something has just moved into range.

Clarke zooms in on the new reading; it's too distant for good resolution, but there's no mistaking the hard metallic blip in its center.

"Acton," she says.

"Um…how far?" Caraco asks in a hesitant voice.

Clarke checks. "He's about nine hundred meters out. Not too bad, if he's using a squid."

"He's not. He never does."

"Hmm. At least he seems to be beelining in." Clarke looks up at Caraco. "You two are on shift when?"

"Ten minutes."

"No big deal. He'll be fifteen minutes late. Half hour tops."

Caraco stares at the display. "What's he doing out there?"

"I don't know," Clarke says. She wonders, not for the first time, if Caraco really belongs down here. She just doesn't seem to get it, sometimes.

"I was wondering if you could maybe talk to him," Caraco says.

"Acton? Why?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

"Okay." Clarke rises from the Communications chair. Caraco backs out of the hatchway to let her past.

"Um, Lenie…"

Clarke turns.

"What about you?" Caraco asks.

"Me?"

"You said Lubin nearly killed his wife. Brander tried to kill himself. What did you do, I mean, to…qualify?"

Clarke watches her steadily.

"I mean, I guess, if it's not too —»

"You don't understand," Clarke says, her voice absolutely level. "It's not how much shit you've raised that suits you for the rift. It's how much you've survived."

"I'm sorry." Caraco manages, with eyes utterly devoid of feeling, to look abashed.

Clarke softens a bit. "In my case," she says, "Mostly I just learned to roll with the punches. I haven't done much worth bragging about, you know?"

I'm sure enough working on it, though.

* * *

She doesn't know how it could have happened so fast. He's been here only two weeks, yet the 'lock can barely contain his eagerness to get outside. The chamber floods, she feels a single shiver scurry along his body; and before she can move, Acton hits the latch and they drop outside.

He coasts out from under the station, his trajectory an effortless parallel of her own. Clarke fins off towards the Throat. She feels Acton at her side, although she cannot see him. His headlamp, like hers, stays dark; for her it's become a gesture of respect to the more delicate lanterns that dwell here.

She doesn't know what Acton's reasoning is.

He doesn't speak until Beebe's a dirty yellow smudge behind them. "Sometimes I wonder why we ever go back inside."

It can't be happiness in that voice. How could any emotion make it through the mechanical gauntlet that lets people speak out here?

"I fell asleep near the Throat yesterday," he says.

"You're lucky something didn't eat you," she tells him.

"They're not so bad. You just have to know how to relate to them."

Clarke wonders if he relates to other species with the same subtlety that he relates to his own. She keeps the question to herself.

They swim through sparse, living starlight for a while. Another smudge glimmers ahead, weak and sullen; the Throat, dead on target. It's been months now since Clarke has even thought of the guide rope that's supposed to lead them back and forth, like blind troglodytes. She knows where it is, but she never uses it. Other senses come awake down here. Rifters don't get lost.

Except Fischer, maybe. And Fischer was lost long before he came down here.

"So what happened to Fischer, anyway?" Acton says.

The chill starts in her chest, reaches her fingers before the sound of Acton's voice has died away. It's a coincidence. It's a perfectly normal question to ask.

"I said —»

"He disappeared," Clarke says.

"They told me that much," Acton buzzes back. "I thought you might have a bit more insight."

"Maybe he fell asleep outside. Maybe something ate him."

"I doubt that."