Free Frozen Fire by Bill Evans, Marianna Jameson

his arms across his chest, almost as if he were defiant. “My friends, tomorrow we go live. We will conduct the inaugural excavation exercise and you will be topside on Taino with me, watching it in real time. And then we’ll talk about the roles you can play in this new dawn. Until then.” He gave his customary half-salute and remained in that pose until the camera’s red light went out.
    “Thanks. When that’s cleaned up, upload it to Micki and tell her to send it to the plane,” he said to the technician, then walked to where Victoria stood. “Well?”
    Dennis was as renowned for being overbearing and cocky as he was for being a brilliant businessman, and both reputations were fully deserved. But sometimes he just seemed like a kid with more energy than he could contain. Like right now, standing before her bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, clearly delighted with himself.
    She shook her head with a grin. “You did well, Dennis, as you know.” She glanced at her watch. “The plane should be taking off from Miami soon. We should probably head up. Was there anything else you wanted to do while we’re down here?”
    His mood changed perceptibly as he shook his head and let out a deep, annoyed breath.
    “You’re transparent as hell, Vic,” he murmured as they moved toward the door that would lead them out of the operations center. “And you’re raining on my damned parade.”
    They departed the structure less than ten minutes later. Moving back through the same series of airlocks and comforting corridors that bisected the large modular units, they eventually arrived at the docking area where they’d left the small deep-sea submersible
Rachel Carson
. Four other, larger subs remained strategically docked at the habitat and ready at all times in case an emergency evacuation was required.
    Fighting the sickening waves of claustrophobia that licked at the edges of her composure, Victoria kept her mind focused strictly on the task of the moment as she strapped herself into one of the
Rachel’s
two passenger seats. Dennis sat comfortably in the pi lot’s seat and, as always, Victoria kept her eyes on his hands as they moved in a purposeful ballet across the controls that surrounded him on all sides.
    Minutes later, the bulbous craft detached itself from the docking pod with a loud clunk and a soft hiss, and Victoria braced herself for the split-second sensation of falling. They weren’t actually falling, and she knew it, but that instant when they were no longer attached to something earthbound always caused a burst of adrenaline to spike her bloodstream and terrorize her stomach.
    “You still with me?” Dennis asked quietly as he began maneuvering the submersible away from the modular bathyscaphic structure that shone ghostly white in the path of the sub’s lights.
    “Where else would I be?” she asked, forcing an easiness into her voice. Ease was the last thing she was actually feeling.
    She watched his shoulders move as he shrugged without looking back at her.
    “I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d be unconscious, or immersed in one of those guided visualizations. A rose-covered cottage or something. I know this isn’t your favorite place to be, even though I’ll never understand that. For someone who swears she’s not claustrophobic, you do a hell of a good imitation of someone who is.”
    “I’m fine. Living in the present,” she said tightly, and swallowed against the mild nausea that was, for her, another routine component of these trips. It wasn’t so much the motion that bothered her, because there wasn’t much of a sensation of moving, and it wasn’t the sound. Supposedly this vehicle was quieter than most. The hum of the battery-driven motor was discernible but not obnoxious. What got to her was the sense of isolation, of containment. She’d been punished too many times as a child by being locked in a dark cabinet and told to think hard about the wages of sin and the horrors