Oakes smiled to himself, nursing the privacy of his innermost thoughts. You do not know what I plan, Mechanical Monster. I have plans for you.

He had plans for Pandora, too, big plans. And the ship was no part of them. Other plans for Legata. She would have to go to the Scream Room soon. Yes. She had to be made more trustworthy.

***

FOR THE first time, Waela considered refusing an assignment. Not out of fear - she had survived in the research subs where no one else had, and still she accepted the fact that this project must continue at all costs. Beyond instinct, she knew that the 'lectrokelp was the most important factor in Colony life. Survival.

I've been down there and I survived. I should lead the new team.

This thought dominated her awareness as she and Thomas approached the bustle of early dayside activity around the new sub he was having rushed to completion.

Thomas worried her. One blink he seemed like a nice-enough fellow; the nex.... what? His mind appeared to wander.

He hasn't been out of hyb long enough to handle himself here.

They stopped a few meters from the work perimeter and she stared at what was taking shape under the brilliant lights. All this energy - all those workers. They were like insects intent on a giant egg. She tried to fathom the sense of this thing. It did make a certain sens.... but a transparent core of plaz? They had always used plasma glass in the subs, but this detachable core constructed entirely of plaz was a new concept. She could see that it was going to be crowded in there and didn't know if she would like that.

Why Thomas? Why did they put him in charge?

She recalled their walk across the compound and into the LTA hangar. He had been too busy giving orders to her for him to see the telltale shadow-flicker of a Hooded Dasher breaking past the sentries. She had cooked it in mid-leap with a hipshot from her lasgun - and immediately began to shiver when she realized that she had almost left the weapon in her cubby. This perimeter was supposed to be secure, the sentries the best.

Thomas had barely noticed.

"Quick little devils," he said, calmly. "By the way, there's a poet coming onto our team from Ship."

"A poet? But we need...."

"We will get a poet because Ship is sending us a poet."

"But we asked fo...."

"I know what we asked for!"

He sounded like a man suppressing his own misgivings.

She said: "Well, we still need a systems engineer fo...."

"I want you to seduce this poet."

She had trouble believing what she had heard.

Thomas said: "Your skin's a regular rainbow when you get upset. Just consider this a team assignment. I've seen a holo of the poet. He's not unattractive i...."

"My body is my own!" She glared at him. "And nobody - not you, not Oakes, not Ship, tells me who I will or will not let into my body."

They were stopped in the compound by then and she was surprised to see his hands up and a grin on his face. She realized that she had instinctively raised her lasgun to focus between his eyes. Without reducing her furious glare, she lowered the gun and holstered it.

"Sorry," he said. And they resumed their walk toward the hangar. Presently, he asked: "How important is the kelp team to you?"

He should know that! Everyone knew, and since Thomas had been groundside he had shown amazing ability to seek out critical information.

"It's everything to me."

Words began to pour from him. He wanted to know if Panille was a free agent. Was Panille really sent by Ship? Could Panille be working for Oakes or this Lewis people mentioned in such fearful tones? Who? Who? Doubt...cascade of doubts.

But why the hell should she have to seduce Panille to find out? There was no satisfaction in the answer Thomas gave.

"You have to get through all of Panille's barriers, all of his masks."

Damn!

"Just how important is this project to you?" Thomas demanded.

"It's vita.... not just to me but to the entire Colony."

"Of course it is. That's why you must seduce this poet. If he's to be a working member of this very bizarre team, there are things we must know about him."

"And a hold we must have on him!"

"There's no other way."

"Pull his records if you want to know whether he prefers women. I will no...."

"That's not my question and you know it! You will not refuse my orders and remain on this team!"

"I can't even question the wisdom of your decisions?"

"Ship sent me. There is no higher authority. And there are things I must know for this project to succeed."

She could not deny the intensity of his emotions, bu....

"Waela, you're right that the project's vital. We can't play with time as we play here with words."

"And I have nothing to say about the team?" She was close to tears and did not care that it showed.

"You hav.... ."

"After all I've been through? I watched them all die! All of them! That buys me some say in how this team goes, or it buys me th...R I can collect shipside. You name it."

Thomas, aware of the deepening flush in her skin, felt the intensity of her presence. Such a quick and perceptive person. He felt himself giving over to feelings he had not experienced in eons.

It's been Shipcenturies!

He spoke softly: "We consult, we share data. But all key decisions are mine and final. If that had been the case all along, this project would not have been botched."

Waela keyed the hangar door and they stepped inside to the brilliant focus of lights and activity, the noise and smell of torches. She put a hand on his arm to stop him. How thin and wiry he felt!

"How will seducing the poet make our mission succeed?"

"I've told you. Get to the heart of him."

She stared across at the activity around the new sub. "And replacing the plasteel with pla...."

"No single thing will make it for us. We're a team." He glanced down at her. "And we're going in by air."

"B...." Then she saw the stranded cables reaching up and out of the brilliant illumination into the upper shadows of the hanga...gigantic LTA partly inflated there. The sub was being fitted to a Lighter-Than-Air in place of the usual armored gondola.

"But wh...."

"Because the kelp has been strangling our subs."

She thought back to her own survival from a doomed sub - the writhing 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 from predators.

As though he read her thoughts, Thomas said: "You've seen it yourself. At our first briefing, 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 samples.

Could the kelp think we were attacking?

Her own reasoning made this possible. If the kelp is sentien.... Yes, it would have an external sensory matrix to respond to pain. Not blind writhing, but sentient response.

Thomas spoke in a flat voice: "The kelp is not an insensitive vegetable."

"I've said all along that we should be attempting to communicate with it."

"And so we shall."

"Then what difference does it make whether we drop in or dive in from shoreside? We're still there."