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She thought back to her own survival fro kelp near the shore, the bubble escape, her frantic swim to the rocks and the near-miraculous dive of the observation LTA which had plucked her away frohts, Tho, you said you believed the kelp to be sentient"

"It is"

"Those subs did not just get tangled They were snatched"

She considered this On every lost mission where they had the data they knew that the sub had been destroyed shortly after collecting sa?

Her own reasoning made this possible If the kelp is sentien Yes, it would have an external sensory , but sentient response

Thoetable"

"I’ve said all along that we should be atte to communicate with it"

"And so we shall"

"Then what difference does it make whether we drop in or dive in froo by lagoon"

Tho to inspect a line of welds along the plaz "Good work; good work," he muttered The welds were almost invisible When the conversion was complete, the occupants would have close to three hundred and sixty degrees of visibility

"Lagoons?" Waela asked as he stepped back

"Yes Isn’t that what you call those vertical tunnels of open water?"

"Certainly, bu"

"We will be surrounded by the kelp, actually helpless if it wants to attack But ill not touch it This sub is being fitted to play back the kelplights - to record the patterns and play the sense

Thomas continued to speak as he watched the work: "We can approach a peri physical contact As you’ve seen, e go in from shore, that’s impossible Not sufficient room between the kelp strands"

She nodded her head slowly There were many unanswered questions about this plan, but she could see the pattern of it

"Subs are too unwieldy," he said, "but they’re all we’ve got We e pocket of open water, drop into it and anchor Then we dive and study the kelp"

It sounded perilous but possible And that idea of playing back the kelplights to the kelp: She had seen those coherent patterns herself, sometimes repetitive Was that the way the kelp communicated?

Maybe Tho Thomas was the only man she kneho talked to himself more or less constantly He faded in and out of conversations You could never be sure whether he had been thinking aloud or talking to you

"What?"

"The plaz Not as strong as plasteel We had to do sos ht expect"

He roup of workers to speak to their foreh to her only in bits: "then if you lattice th and I’ll wan where w"

Presently, he returned to her side "My design isn’t as good as it ht be, but it’ll suffice"

So he has his little mistakes but he doesn’t hide the the workers They stood a bit in awe of Tho ability at their work, noHe was a jack of all trades

Master of none?

She sensed that this was a difficult man to influence: a fearsome enemy, that one friend who does not mirror but nition increased her uneasiness She knew she could like this man, but she felt bad vibrations about the tea and it wasn’t even a team yet

And the sub will be crowded even with three of us

She closed her eyes

Should I tell him?

She had never told anyone, not in the debriefings, nor in friendly conversation The kelp had a special hold over her It was a thing that began happening as soon as the sub started slipping through the gigantic stems and tentacles: a sexual excitement very nearly impossible to control at tied a for but it remained troublesome and soh, the shock of it cleared the effect

Her old tea a response to fear, a way of overco the terrors all of them felt and suppressed And now they were all dead - nobody left to hear her confession

The closeness, the strange sexual air that had taken over the background of the project - the unknowns in Tho Anti-s to relieve the sexual tensions, but Anti-s made her drowsy and slowed her reflexes Deadly

Tho the work She could alears turning in his head

"Why me?" she muttered

"What?" He turned toward her

"Why me? Why do I have to take on this poet?"

"I’ve told you wha"

"There are women paid well to do just what yo"

"I won’t pay for this It’s a project thing, vital Your oord You will do it"

She turned her back on hihed This Waela TaoLini was an extraordinary person He hated what he had asked her to do, but she was the only one he could trust The project was that vital to her, too Panille posed too many unanswered questions Ship’s words were plain and simple: "There will be a poe" Not: "I have naned a poe"

There will b

Who was Panille working for? Doubt doubt doubt

I have to know

By the old rush in his veins, he already knew that Waela would follow his orders, and he would sink into a sadness the likes of which he had alotten

"Old fool," he muttered to himself

"What?" She turned back toward him and he could see the acceptance and the resolve on her face

"Nothing"

She stood facing Thomas a moment, then: "It all depends on how much I like the poet" With that, she turned on her heel and left the hangar with characteristic Pandoran speed