"Joan," he whispered. There was a sound in his head like the tearing of silk, a sensation of rushing upward. Then he was quite conscious, his face pressed forward against his helmet and his body twisted, bruised and painful.
The first thing he saw was Einar Bjarnsson sprawled on the floor plates. A sharp point of metal had ripped his suit from neck to waist, laying his chest bare.
For a moment of panic horror, Fallon sought for tears in his own suit. There were none. He relaxed with a sob of relief, and looked up at the low curve of the hull.
It was still whole. Fallon shuddered. What product of abnormal evolution had attacked them in the moment that he had looked away? Strange he hadn't seen it coming, before.
The dim, still bulk of Einar Bjarnsson drew his gaze. Crouched there on his knees, it seemed to Fallon that the whole universe drew in and centered on that motionless body.
"I killed him," Fallon whispered. "I looked away. I might have seen the thing in time, but I looked away. I killed him."
For a long time he couldn't move. Then, like the swift stroke of a knife, terror struck him.
He was alone under the sea.
He got up. The chronometer showed an elapsed time of nearly two hours. The course, held by an Iron Mike, was steady. The beast that had attacked them must have lost interest.
Fallon clung to a stanchion and thought, harder than he had ever thought in his life.