Cricket201904

“Y-yes, sir?”

“Coffee all round.” He thumped Perth enthusiastically on the arm as

the ensign scurried below deck. “This is a celebration!”

Officer Perth was having trouble catching his breath. With a brain

full of questions, it was hard to know where to start. His gaze landed on

Franck ’s craft.

“That’s,” Perth pointed, “that’s Landable 5?”

Franck grinned. “We turned it into a submersible—good, eh? Then we

worked out an underwater anchorage, pretty much midway between the

Surface and the Enclosure. That was low enough to escape the worst of the

tsunami disturbance, but not so low that the pressure would crush the craft.

Electrifying the hull was just an extension of what they already do on the

Perimeter—they tune it to the frequency of the major big predators’ electro-

sensors, and hey presto! no unwelcome visitors with sharp, pointy teeth.”

“We? You had help?”

Franck gulped appreciatively at the hot mug he’d been handed. “You

wouldn’t even be talking to tiny bits of me if I’d been on my own! I owe

everything to the people here. Perth, there’s so much—you wouldn’t

believe.. .”

Franck shook his head, remembering.

“It hasn’t been easy to find my place here.” He grinned and rubbed his

chest ruefully. “Pretty much the first thing they did was shoot me! They

A SUBMERSIBLE

IS A

SUBMARINE.

RUEFULLY MEANS

WITH A LITTLE

EMBARRASSMENT

AND REGRET.

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