Chapter 24: The Ladder Holds

The Tern went into the water off Guam on a flat gray morning.

I sat in the sphere beside my co-pilot, with my hands on the controls and my father's name nowhere on the hull.

Every part around me had come out of the Institute's own shop.

The seal was machined.

The bolts were counted.

Joan had counted them herself, twice, with a flashlight in her teeth.

"Surface, Tern," her voice said in my ear. "One minute to release."

"Tern copies."

"Weather's fair. The lander's beacon is still pinging. They've got air for nine hours."

"Understood."

"Emmett."

"Yes?"

"Your mother's on the Meridian's deck. Kit's with her."

I looked at the small round window in front of me.

The Meridian had been Rask's.

The Navy had seized it, and Joan had put a rescue crew on it.

I found I didn't mind.

"Tell them I said hello," I said.

"Tell them yourself. The link's open the whole way down."

"Copy."

The sphere dropped.

Daylight went blue, then black.

The numbers turned over on my console.

Ten thousand feet.

Twenty.

My co-pilot read the gauges aloud in a low steady voice.

I kept my eyes on the joint readout, as I had on every dive of my life.

At twenty-five thousand feet, I noticed my hands were wet.

At twenty-eight, I stopped hearing the co-pilot.

At thirty, the hull spoke.

It was a low metallic groan, ordinary and expected, a sound every sphere makes as the sea leans on it.

I had heard it once before, from the inside.

Last time, it had been followed by a voice on an open channel.

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