Vitals. Greg Bear

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       CHAPTER TEN

      Nadia herself bobbed in the water next to the DSV and tapped the frame with a grappling hook. I waved, and she gave me a strong chin-nod back, wet black hair peeking out from under her hood, black eyes distinct even behind the mask. She made the hook fast on a lift ring and swam out of sight. When she was done with the other hooks, she clambered up on the frame. I peered up over my shoulder to see her. Behind her rose the dark stern of the Sea Messenger, and the outline of the big red crane mounted aft of the helicopter pad. I saw Jason step into a little booth out of the weather, which was getting worse.

      Then the rain sheeting down made seeing outside impossible. I felt the submarine rise from the waves, felt the waves hold us back, and with a jerk, the sub leaped out of the suck of the sea and swung in open air. Paul and Stan waited for me on the sled and prodded the Mary’s Triumph onto her skid. The sled withdrew into the stern with a grind of gears.

      Nadia jumped down to help Jason fasten the sub to the docking frame. I climbed out of the hatch with her help.

      ‘We can’t find Dave,’ she said, her lips almost blue with cold. ‘Gary is out there now in a Zodiac.’ She looked ill, but stood straight and spoke clearly. I fell in love right then and there, with relief and admiration and more than my share of near-death giddiness.

      ‘I’m sorry. What happened?’

      ‘We’re a mess,’ Nadia said. She climbed the ladder out of the well.

      ‘Dave went a little nuts down there,’ I said. ‘He tried to kill me.’

      She gave me a level look at the top of the ladder. ‘How do you mean, nuts?’

      ‘He tried to sabotage the sub. Ripped out the control stick and used it to punch the sphere.’

      ‘Jesus,’ she said, but she didn’t sound surprised. Maybe she was in shock. She leaned against the bulkhead. ‘Dr Mauritz slipped a gun on board. He killed Thomas and Sylvia. Paul and Stan tackled him right here, where we’re standing. He’s tied up in the sick bay.’

      I had spoken with Mauritz for a couple of hours the day before yesterday. ‘That’s stupid,’ was all I could manage to say. I looked around and saw dark red spatters on the deck and across the bulkhead under an emergency light. Blood dripped from the light cage. The sight knocked me off-balance and I groped with my outstretched hand to find a clean space on the wall.

      Nadia grabbed a towel from a deserted lab, returned to the passageway wiping her face and hair, and threw me an odd, blameful look.

      I felt like a Jonah.

      ‘I can’t find Max,’ she said, and tossed the towel back into the lab. We both heard the helicopter at the same time. She turned away with an exhausted slump of her shoulders, eyelids drooping, and said, ‘That’ll be the Coast Guard.’

      ‘Nadia, I have specimens,’ I called out to her as she wobbled up the ladders to the bridge.

      ‘Fuck the specimens,’ she shouted. ‘People died, Hal! Don’t you get it?’ She paused at the top and her red-rimmed eyes bored into me. ‘Mauritz was looking for you. He wanted to kill you.’