They watched. While they watched, the harpoon was lowered to them. Minutes passed, dragging by with interminable slowness while their eyes searched the murky depths, the headlamps making strange patterns, looking for the air lion.
And then Nils spotted him—too late. "Look out behind you!" he shouted desperately.
But he was too late. The air lion's powerful flippers forced him through the atmosphere with astonishing speed, and he struck Kerr with tremendous force and impact before the other diver could even turn around.
"God!" Nils muttered into his mouthpiece, horrified, as the lines snapped with the lion's onslaught and Kerr began to hurtle down toward the bottom of the sea of atmosphere, down to where the Uranian air was frozen solid.
"Did it get him?" Petrone's voice sounded in the earphones.
"Cut him off like a knife," Nils said.
"We're going to pull you up. That baby's too rough to handle."
"I'm staying down," Nils said. And the tone of his voice showed that he meant it.
"Well, we'll send Newcomb down again," Petrone said.
"Let him get his rest," Nils said. "I just got here."