The hull stayed where it belonged, but we raced on like two darksidesatellites. Periodically, I tickled her frog feet with my light and tracedher antennae of bubbles. About a five meter lead was fine; I'd beat her inthe home stretch, but I couldn't let her drop behind yet.
Beneath us, black. Immense. Deep. The Mindanao of Venus, where eternitymight eventually pass the dead to a rest in cities of unnamed fishes. Itwisted my head away and touched the hull with a feeler of light; it told mewe were about a quarter of the way along.
I increased my beat to match her stepped-up stroke, and narrowed thedistance which she had suddenly opened by a couple of meters. She sped upagain and I did, too. I spotted her with my beam.
She turned and it caught on her mask. I never knew whether she'd beensmiling. Probably. She raised two fingers in a V-for-Victory and then cutahead at full speed.
I should have known. I should have felt it coming. It was just a raceto her, something else to win. Damn the torpedos!
So I leaned into it, hard. I don't shake in the water. Or, if I do itdoesn't matter and I don't notice it. I began to close the gap again.
She looked back, sped on, looked back. Each time she looked it wasnearer, until I'd narrowed it down to the original five meters.
Then she hit the jatoes.
That's what I had been fearing. We were about half-way under and sheshouldn't have done it. The powerful jets of compressed air could easilyrocket her upward into the hull, or tear something loose if she allowed herbody to twist. Their main use is in tearing free from marine plants orfighting bad currents. I had wanted them along as a safety measure, becauseof the big suck-and-pull windmills behind.