Peter Watts - Starfish

It's not like that with Acton. He's trying to fall in on himself; he only falls into Clarke. She senses his panic, watches him convulse, sees his knees buckle in a space far too narrow to permit collapse.

He needs more room , she thinks, smiling to herself, and opens the outer hatch. They drop.

She glides down and out, arcing away from under Beebe's oppressive bulk. She leaves the floodlit circle behind, skims into the welcoming darkness with her headlight doused. She feels the presence of the seabed a couple of meters beneath her. She's free again.

After a few moments she remembers Acton. She turns back the way she came. Beebe's floodlamps stain the darkness with dirty light; the station, bloated and angular, pulls against the cables holding it down. Light pours from its lower surface like feeble rocket exhaust. Pinned face-down in that glare, Acton lies unmoving on the bottom.

Reluctantly, she swims closer. "Acton?"

He doesn't move.

"Acton?" She's back in the light now. Her shadow cuts him in half.

At last he looks up. "It'ssss—"

He seems surprised by the sound of his own transmuted voice.

He puts his hand to his throat. "I'm not—breathing—" he buzzes.

She doesn't answer.

He looks back down. There's something on the bottom, a few centimeters from his face. Clarke drifts closer; a tiny shrimplike creature trembles on the substrate.

"What is it?" Acton asks.

"Something from the surface. It must have come down on the 'scaphe."

"But it's—dancing—"

She sees. The jointed legs flex and snap, the carapace arches to some insane inner rhythm. It seems so brittle a life; perhaps the next spasm, or the next, will shatter it.

"It's a seizure," she says after a while. "It doesn't belong here. The pressure makes the nerves fire too fast, or something."

"Why doesn't that happen to us?"

Maybe it does . "Our implants. They pump us full of neuroinhibitors whenever we go outside."

"Oh. Right," Acton buzzes softly. Gently, he reaches out to the creature. Takes it in the palm of his hand.

Crushes it.

Clarke hits him from behind. Acton bounces off the seabed, his hand flying open; fragments of shell, of watery flesh swirl in the water. He kicks, rights himself, stares at Clarke without speaking. His eyecaps shine almost yellow in the light.

"You asshole," Clarke says very quietly.

"It didn't belong here," Acton buzzes.

"Neither do we."

"It was suffering. You said so yourself."

"I said the nerves fired too fast, Acton. Nerves carry pleasure as well as pain. How do you know it wasn't dancing for fucking joy ?"

She pushes off the bottom and kicks furiously into the abyss. She wants to reach into Acton's body and tear everything out, sacrifice that gory tangle of viscera and machinery to the monsters at the rift. She can't remember ever being so angry. She tells herself she doesn't know why.

Gurgles and clanks from below. Clarke looks down through the lounge hatch in time to see the airlock spill open. Brander backs out, supporting Acton.

Acton's 'skin is laid open at the thigh.

He bends over, removing his flippers. Brander's are already off; he turns to Clarke as she climbs down the ladder. "He met his first monster. Gulper eel."

"I met my fucking monster all right," Acton says in a low voice. And Clarke sees it coming a fraction of a second before—

— Acton is on Brander, left fist swinging like a bolo on the end of his arm, once twice three times and Brander is on the floor, bleeding. Acton's bringing his foot back when Lenie gets in front of him, her hands raised to protect herself, crying "Stop it stop it's not his fault!" but somehow it's not Acton she's pleading with it's something inside of him coming out, and she'd do anything if it would only please God go back where it came from—

It stares through Acton's milky eyes and snarls, "The fucker saw it coming at me! He let that thing tear my leg open!"

Lenie shakes her head. "Maybe not. You know how dark it is out there, I've been down here longer than anyone and they sneak up on me all the time, Acton. Why would Brander want to hurt you?"

She hears Brander coming to his feet behind her. His voice carries over her shoulder: "Brander sure as shit wants to hurt him n —"

She cuts him off. "Look, I can handle this." Her words are for Brander; her eyes remain locked with Acton's. "Maybe you should go to Medical, make sure you're okay."

Acton leans forward, tensed. The thing inside waits and watches.

"This asshole—" Brander begins.

" Please , Mike." It's the first time she has ever used his first name.

There's a moment of silence.

"Since when did you ever get involved?" he says behind her.

It's a good question. Brander's footsteps shuffle away before she can think of an answer.

Something in Acton goes back to sleep.

"You'd better go there too," Clarke says to him. "Later."

"Nah. It wasn't that tough. I was surprised how feeble it was, after I got over the size of the fucking thing."

"It ripped your diveskin. If it could do that, it wasn't as weak as you think. At least check it out; your leg might be lacerated."

"If you say so. Although I'll bet Brander needs Medical more than I do." He flashes a predatory grin, and moves to pass her.

"You might also consider reining in your temper," she says as he brushes past.

Acton stops. "Yeah. I was kind of hard on him, wasn't I?"

"He won't be as eager to help you out the next time you get caught in a smoker."

"Yeah," he says again. Then: "I don't know, I've always been sort of—you know—"

She remembers a word someone else used, after the fact. "Impulsive?"

"Right. But really I'm not that bad. You just have to get used to me."

Clarke doesn't answer.

"Anyhow," he says, "I guess I owe your friend an apology."

My friend . And by the time she gets over that jarring idea, she's alone again.

Five hours later Acton's in Medical. Clarke passes the open hatchway and glances in; he sits on an examination table, his 'skin undone to the waist. There's something wrong with the image. She stops and leans through the hatch.

Acton has opened himself up. She can see the flesh peeled back around the water intake, the places where meat turns to plastic, the tubes that carry blood and the ones that carry antifreeze. He holds a tool in one hand; it disappears into the cavity, the spinning thing on its tip whirring quietly.

Acton hits a nerve somewhere, and jumps as if shocked.

"Are you damaged?" Clarke asks.

He looks up. "Oh. Hi."

She points at his dissected thorax. "Did the gulper—"

He shakes his head. "No. No, it just bruised my leg a bit. I'm just making some adjustments."

"Adjustments?"

"Fine-tuning." He smiles. "Settling-in stuff."

It doesn't work. The smile is hollow, somehow. Muscles stretch lips in the usual way, but the gesture's imprisoned in the lower half of his face. Above it, his capped eyes stare cold as drifted snow, innocent of any topography. She wonders why it has never bothered her before, and realizes that this is the first time she's ever seen a Rifter smile.

"That's not supposed to be necessary," she says.

"What's not?" Acton's smile is beginning to wear on her.

"Fine-tuning. We're supposed to be self-adjusting."

"Exactly. I'm adjusting myself."

"I mean—"

"I know what you mean," Acton says. "I'm—customizing the job." His hand moves around inside his rib cage as if autonomous, tinkering. "I figure I can get better performance if I nudge the settings just a bit outside the approved specs."

Clarke hears a brief, Lilliputian screech of metal against metal.