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Leia began to swim frantically backward. Cilghal grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down. “Krakana,” she said.

The monster seemed to notice the bubbles caused by Leia’s struggle. A stream of fizz came from the symbiote on Leia’s mouth as she panted with terror, but Cilghal held her in a firm grip.

“Will it attack us?” Leia said into the voice pickup.

“If it senses us,” Cilghal said. “The krakana will eat anything.”

“Then what—” Leia said.

“It won’t find us.” Cilghal sounded altogether too calm. Fish swam frantically away from the torpedo shape of the predator. Cilghal seemed to be concentrating.

“No, it will get that one,” she gestured with one large hand, “the blue-and-yellow-striped kieler. After that it will take that smaller orange one in the middle of the school. By then all the others will have fled, and the krakana will continue on its way. Then we can leave.”

“How do you know that?” Leia said, gripping the rough-edged lump of coral on the side of the chasm.

“I know,” Cilghal said. “It’s a little trick I have.”

Leia watched in horrified fascination as the krakana streaked forward, coming unexpectedly from below as it reached out with its mass of tentacles to grab the blue-and-yellow kieler and rip it to ragged shreds before stuffing its fang-filled mouth.

By the time the monster had grabbed the pale-orange fish, the rest of the school had vanished to hidden corners of the crevasse or fled into the broad expanse of the ocean. The krakana slid away as it cruised the depths, constantly in search of a meal.

Leia stared at Cilghal, amazed at her prescient ability, but the Calamarian ambassador squeezed Leia’s upper arm before igniting her water jetpack.

“Now we must go find Ackbar,” she said.

16

Leia and Cilghal swam closer to the choppy surface after hours of gliding beneath the waves. Around them leathery seatrees veined with iridescent blue and red swirled in the churning current, stirred by the continuing storm.

The seatree fronds formed a tangled forest around them, filled with thousands of strangely shaped blob-fish, crustaceans, and tentacled things; most were small, but others cast large shadows as they drifted among the fronds, feeding on the air-filled fruit bladders that kept the dense weed afloat.

“When Ackbar was younger, he had a small dwelling here in the wild seatree thickets,” Cilghal said. “The fish noticed his return, and though they have short memories, they passed the word from creature to creature until it reached the mollusk knowledge bank.”

Leia’s arms and legs ached as she continued the long swim, though the wonderful clinging mesh suit seemed to revitalize her muscles. “All I want is to talk to him.”

Ahead she saw a spherical dwelling made of plasteel covered with algae and draping weed that had grown up from the spray clinging to its hull. Large valves of water-recirculation equipment, desalination devices, and round viewports dotted the open spaces on the curved walls; a bare deck looked clean and bright, as if recently scrubbed. A white utility submersible, ovoid with a mass of articulated working arms, had been lashed to the side of the deck.

Leia treaded water on the surface in the pelting rain and the whipping wind, still breathing through the symbiote. Cilghal tugged her arm, motioning for her to go down. “The entrance will be below,” she said.

They stroked down through the water. Thick seatree trunks anchored the dwelling module in place, rocking it from side to side. Traps and nets dangled beneath the water; some held tiny green fish that could easily swim through the open mesh. From inside, shafts of illumination struck down into the depths like watery spears.

On the bottom of the hull they found an opening like a wide mouth. Cilghal went first through the containment field, and Leia followed, brushing her shoulders against the metal lip. When her head plunged through into the dim interior, she stripped off the symbiote, shook herself, and looked into Ackbar’s cluttered