Starfish

Clarke shakes her head. "Nothing."

"We must do something," Nakata says,

"No shit, Alice." Brander looks back at Clarke. "Any ideas?"

Clarke shrugs. "How long do we have?"

"If Lubin's right, who knows? Tomorrow, maybe. Ten years from now. Earthquakes are classic chaotic systems, and the tectonics around here change by the minute. If the Throat slips a millimeter it could make the difference between a shiver and a meltdown."

"Perhaps it is a small-yield device," Nakata suggests hopefully. "It is a ways away, and all this water might damp down the shock wave before it reaches us?"

"No," Lubin says.

"But we do not know —»

"Alice," Brander says, "It's almost two hundred kilometers to Cascadia. If this thing can generate P-waves strong enough to kick it loose at that range, we're not going to ride it out here. We might not get vaporized, but the shockwave would tear us into little pieces."

"Perhaps we can disable it somehow," Clarke says.

"No." Lubin is flat and emphatic.

"Why not?" Brander says.

"Even if we get past its front-line defense, we're only seeing the top of the structure. The vitals are buried."

"If we can get in at the top, there might be access —»

"Chances are it's set for damped detonation if tampered with," Lubin says. "And there are others we haven't found."

Brander looks up. "And how do you know that?"

"There have to be. At this depth it would take almost three hundred megatons to generate a bubble even half a kilometer across. If they want to take out any significant fraction of the vent, they'll need multiple charges, distributed."

There's a moment's silence.

"Three hundred megatons," Brander repeats at last. "You know, I can't tell you how disturbed I am to find that you know such things."

Lubin shrugs. "It's basic physics. It shouldn't intimidate anyone who isn't totally innumerate."

Brander is standing again, his face only centimeters from Lubin's.

"And I am getting pretty fucking disturbed by you too, Lubin," he says through clenched teeth, "Who the fuck are you, anyway?"

"Mike," Clarke begins.

"No, I fucking mean it. We don't know shit about you, Lubin. We can't tune you in, we sell your bullshit story to the drybacks for you and you still haven't explained why, and now you're mouthing off like some kind of fucking secret agent. You want to call the shots, say so. Just drop this bullshit man-with-no-name routine."

Clarke takes a small step back. Okay. Fine. If he thinks he can fuck with Lubin he's on his own.

But Lubin isn't showing any of the signs. No change in stance, no change in breathing, his hands stay unclenched at his sides. When he speaks, his voice is calm and even. "If it'll make you feel any better, by all means; call upstairs and tell them I'm still alive. Tell them you lied. If they»

The eyes don't change. That flat white stare persists while the flesh around it twitches, suddenly, and now Clarke can see the signs, the slight lean forward, the subtle cording of veins and tendons in the throat. Brander sees them too. He's standing still as a dog caught in headlights.

Fuck fuck fuck he's going to blow…

But she's wrong again. Impossibly, Lubin relaxes. "As for your endearing desire to get to know me," — laying a casual hand on Brander's shoulder — "you're luckier than you know that that hasn't happened."

Lubin takes back his hand, steps towards the ladder. "I'll go along with whatever you decide, as long as it doesn't involve tampering with nuclear explosives. In the meantime, I'm going outside. It's getting close in here."

He drops through the floor. Nobody else moves. The sound of the airlock flooding seems especially loud.

"Jesus, Mike," Lenie breathes at last.

"Since when was he calling the shots?" Brander seems to have regained some of his bravado. He casts a hostile glance through the deck. "I don't trust that fucker. No matter what he says. Probably tuning us in right now."

"If he is, I doubt he's picking up anything you haven't already shouted at him."

"Listen," says Nakata. "We must do something."

Brander throws his hands in the air. "What choice is there? If we don't disarm the fucking thing, we either get the hell out of here or we sit around and wait to get incinerated. Not really a tough decision if you ask me."

Isn't it, Clarke wonders.

"We cannot leave by the surface," Nakata points out, "if they got Judy…"

"So we hug the bottom," Brander says. "Right. Scam their sonar. We'd have to leave the squids behind, they'd be too easy to track."

Nakata nods.

"Lenie? What?"

Clarke looks up. Brander and Nakata are both staring at her. "I didn't say anything."

"You look like you don't approve."

"It's three hundred klicks to Vancouver Island, Mike. Minimum. It could take over a week to make it without squids, assuming we don't get lost."

"Our compasses work fine once we're away from the rift. And it's a pretty big continent, Len; we'd have to try pretty hard not to bump into it."