In those "Days of Adjustment", as father called them, grandma missed the sun, the moon, and the stars and sometimes sang about them. They were ancient those songs: from ages long past, written in quite reflection about the universe, the people in it, and what it ment to live. Grandma sang those songs to herself in those first days as she fell asleep and Sarah would lay awake listening. Sarah heard those old songs and wondered at their strength, at the peace they brought, and wondered why it felt like they were written for her. The mention of sun, moon, and stars, the way grandma's voice wavered when she said their names and other names too, made Sarah miss them as well, but less so. She was young and had not seen them as many times as grandma. Still Sarah did her best to help.

The walls of the tiny room grandma and Sarah shared were windowless and bare, so Sarah decorated them with cutouts; hanging celestial shapes on bits of thread and fishing line strung about the room. But Sarah was to excited about everything just then to really miss the great lights above the way grandma did, for there was much to see and think about. For one thing the room they slept in was unlike any she had seen in her experience in the above world. (Every room was unlike any she had seen in her time above.) For one thing they were not really rooms. Caves, she thought, would be a better description, and in a sense they were. Carved in the rock beneath the sea was a city's worth of caves, with underground streets and buildings and houses: all chiseled from the living rock, deep inside their under water mountain.

There were endless corridors with people everywhere and the humming of great grinding engines scooping out new spaces in the basalt rock at the edge of the city. They were always digging deeper. It was maddeningly exciting to live in a city such as this, with it's steam powered turbines pushing air throughout the city in what felt like a gentle breeze. The air was stale but not overly so Sarah thought. Soon she did not notice it much.

Grandma did notice the staleness, and though she made regular trips to the white light baths for vitamin D treatments, her eyes always looked weary from the newness of it all. Of this Sarah was acutely aware: when grandma struggled to remember how to turn on the glass vase of bioilluminate fish that lit their room, when grandma misplaced her food vouchers, and when grandma forgot to go to the local offices for "patriotic lessons" (a requirement for adult newcomers). It was all a bit worrying to Sarah, but her parents were to occupied to be much concerned.

Father had been put to work in a large office entering data into computer simulations while mother was used as a nurse's assistant at a clinic. Grandma was not of much use to the people of the under water city, and there were not many old people about with whom she could gather, so she stayed in with baby Jack. Sarah went to school.

- - -

At the dinner table there was little mother and father conversed about and Sarah wondered if they too missed the sun. For Sarah even meal time was an adventure, and though not much was said in the uneasy atmosphere of the dinning room, the food was most definitely comprised of the strangest inventions. Sarah ate everything they put in front of her: bizarre green jelly-like blobs that tasted like the sea, bright cooked crustaceans steamed red but looking like they would walk off your plate at any moment, and strong tasting cakes of brown compressed algae smothered in fish sauce. At first the food required many swallows of water to get down but the more Sarah ate of it the better it went.

Grandma mostly pushed the new foods around on her plate and nibbled. Often she went into the bedroom early to either read from her old books or go to sleep before it was even late.

"Now eat you vegetables grandma!" said Sarah with a smile one day at dinner in a way she hoped would bring humor to the situation. Sarah felt terrible when grandma burst into tears. Father and mother looked down at their food and said nothing.

Still it felt good to Sarah to go to bed with the stomach satisfied, up on the surface that had not always been the case. Up above, one was not always sure when the next meal would come.

In Undersea there was no such worry, for food came from the ocean around them. Great harvesting machines traveled out into the kelp fields and algae beds to reap the underwater crops in season. Nearby, pen-like enclosures housed fish, mollusks, and crustaceans beyond count, fed daily by caretakers and eaten when they grew to the right size.

Along with the unique sustenance there was always new things being discovered in the city below the waves; new ways of doing things, of being more efficient with what was had. In Undersea as time went on knowledge advanced greatly. What in the early days of the city had been a struggle for survival now, by the time Sarah's family had arrived, became a study in self reliance: the thriving triumph of human will. At the forefront of these movements were the scientists. Their inventions and ingenious solutions to age old problems propelled the under sea people forward ever faster and as they progressed, their power grew. Sarah learned of them in school and like nearly everyone else held them in awe.

Scientists of understanding and knowledge took it upon themselves to create the vision of Undersea. Soon they decided that it was logical to believe only what one could prove by the methods they devised. Numbers do not lie they reasoned, and therefore numbers, were the only things that could be true. Cold hard facts. Now that was truth. Grandma was one of the first to notice that freedom in Undersea, like the air, felt a bit stale.

Since proof was the currency of faith (the numbers supported it) changes were made to prevent people from expressing some rather ridiculous beliefs. Grandma had to be careful now how loudly she sang the old songs, which was a shame because Sarah enjoyed hearing them. Because grandma had been heard singing one of her songs at the white light baths one day she had to undergo special classes to teach her how absurd it was to believe in the things she sang about.

In those special classes grandma learned that there was just no evidence to the existence of what she sang. "If those things did exist, why don't they show themselves? We're right here," grandma's instructors would say, "all that "king" would have to do, the one you sing about, is speak up. We'd listen if he did!" (This was often followed by a mock pause of several minutes.) "Still haven't heard him yet," they'd say, "Or anyone else for that matter!" "How could what you sing about be true if the world above," they said on another occasion, "the one we saved you from, was torn apart? Show some graditude! The things you sing about did not save you and can not save you. But we can and we did!"

Grandma suspected, however, that there was more to it then that, and when she got back home she read from her books and reflected a long time.

- - -

"Sarah," said grandma once when they were in their after one of her long reflections.

"Yes grandma?" Sarah replied, looking up fro a book she was reading.

"Come up on my lap," said grandma patting her knee with a thin wrinkled hand.

Sarah crawled into grandma's lap.

"Oof," said grandma, "at least someone likes seaweed and kelp fonds!"

Sarah did like seaweed and kelp fronds, and wondered what that had to do with grandma's "oof" just then. Grandma rested her chin on Sarah's head.

"Sarah, you've heard me sing the old songs, have seen me read my books, and have heard me tell you stories from them."

Sarah found a comfortable spot in grandma's lap and leaned back into grandma's arms.

"Sarah, you know I love you don't you? I love you very much."

Sarah nodded.

"Sarah do you remember the day they brought us here? The day we came to Undersea? Were you scared?"

Sarah nodded again, but only a little.

"I was too," said grandma after a pause, "I was too."

They were quiet a while.

"You know Sarah, for some reason that feeling has not gone away. We should be grateful we were brought here to live. It allowed us to survive."

Sarah did not know what to think. She loved all the new things of the city and the wonderful things it created. There was always something new to see and think about.

Grandma sighed and gave Sarah a gentle squeeze. "I'm glad you're here with me," she said.

Sarah was glad too.

"Grandma?" said Sarah.

"Yes."

"The songs you sing, those stories you tell, do you, well...do you actually you believe them?"

"I do. With all my heart."

Sarah wondered at this, that the heart could be a place from were one knew things.

"Why?" she asked.

There was a long pause and Sarah felt grandma breathing softly in the stillness of the room.

"How old are you now Sarah? Five, six?

"Eight," said Sarah with a tinge of anoyance. "Eight going on nine!"

Grandma opened her eyes wide and smiled. "Eight going on nine, why that's old enough to read more then just picture books!"

Sarah sighed. She had been reading more then just picture books ages ago.

"And what are some of the books you have been reading, are they interesting?"

"Oh yes very!" said Sarah. "In school they have us read all about the subject of science. We read about volcanic rocks and mitochondria and the pulling of tides. About oceans and machines and geothermal heat and the chemistry of a grain of salt!"

"That is very good," said grandma, "and what else do you read?"

"What else?"

"What else," said grandma, "like stories and poems and things like that."

Sarah wrinkled her nose. "Well, we don't really read things like that. My teacher wouldn't think they were important, unless it elevated the sciences maybe."

Sarah turned to look at grandma in the light of the bioillumination fish and for the first time thought grandma looked incredibly old.

"And what else do we need? What else do we need other then the science that saves us? Ms. Bartle says we have all we need with what we can make and do here. We are our own masters, we are the masters of our own fate."

They were silent for a while.

"And yet," said grandma finally, more to herself, "and yet we still die."

"What?" said Sarah.

"Tell me," said grandma, "these scientists, what are they searching for?"

"Well they search for ways to make life better, to discover what else we can do, how far we can go, what is just beyond the next under water mountain. What new biology we can discover or create, what new processes we can exploit!"

"I see they have taught you well," said grandma, "and don't get me wrong now, I am fascinated by it all too. Science is a wonderful tool, a fascinating vehicle for discovery, when done correctly."

"Done correctly?"

"Oh yes, there is always a correct way to do things. Even in science. What do you think do the ends always justify the means, even in the name of progress?"

"Well..." There was a long pause.

"Does not what we create and how we create it say something about who we are? Understand I am all for discovery and invention, but not for the worship of these things, or what they could turn us into. Really they are just tools for a greater purpose."

"Greater purpose?" said Sarah. Somehow though it seemed something she had known all along. For there was more behind that thought, Sarah felt, in the way there was more behind a beam of light bursting though the clouds on an overcast day in the above world far away. Something bigger, something brighter, something you could not hide from forever.

"All men have this greater purpose in them," grandma was saying, "for it is eternity on their hearts. Some ignore it and try to fill it with other things. The fruits of their actions reveal them for what they are."

Sarah thought about this.

"If you want to know more, read my books and make your own decision," said grandma gesturing to a small shelf with several plain bound tombs and one leather bound one. "Compare it with what you read now in school. You will find true things in both, but only one serves the other. Others in Undersea have already decided for themselves which does which. It is time you decided for yourself too."

In the following weeks grandma was seldom seen without a smile. She hummed on her way to her vitamin D treatments and never stopped encouraging her small family that lived on a side street on the edge of an ever growing city of bustling progress. She rubbed off on mother and father and there was conversation around the dinner table again. Even Jack, a toddler now, seemed to rest better when put to sleep by grandma and her gentle lullubies. And Sarah worked her way through grandma's books and asked questions just like Ms. Bartle taught her to, and Sarah learned.

- - -

One day as grandma trundled her way home from the shops she saw a young boy in the street that everyone seemed to avoid. He looked hungry so she gave him a sweet algae cake from her shopping bin and the young lad devoured it as if he was afraid she would take it back.

"Your there!" cried a voice down the street, "Stop!"

There was the sound of boots running towards them and the pale green uniforms of the Mariner Patrol, Undersea's police force, flashed into view. The small boy bolted as soon as he heard the voice but slipped as he ran. They were on him before he could recover his feet.

"No please...!" begged the boy grasping for grandma's leg. All he got for for his trouble was the boot of a Mariner Patrolman.

"Thought you could run off from the laboratories did you?" said one of the men as he delivered another boot into the boy. "We are all very displeased."

"Yes," said another Mariner Patrolman in a kinder voice, "very displeased. Fourteen-Tom you know you can do us more good in the Lab then in the streets."

The boy was in tears.

"Please don't make me go back. I..."

"Shhh," said the patrolman who had addressed him by name. "There, there now." And the patrolman got on a knee so he was eye to eye with the boy. "Shhh, there, there," said the patrolman again and he pulled out an item like a small spray bottle and squirted it into the boys face. Fourteen-Tom cooperated fully and was taken back to the Lab by others of the Mariner Patrol.

"Sorry for the disturbance ma'am," said one of the officers as he tipped his cap to grandma, then gawked openly at her face.

"Yes, I know," grandma replied crossly, "I'm old."

"Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am, it's just that their aren't..."

"Many of us," finished grandma. "Yes I know."

"My apologies ma'am, I didn't mean to upset you," said the patrolman lowering his eyes.

"That is not why I'm upset," said grandma straightening up, glaring at the man.

"Oh..." said the patolman.

"Officer, where are they taking that boy!" demanded grandma.

"Where we take all that are of his kind ma'am: to the Lab." The patrolman exchanged quizzical looks with his partner who had been only mildly attentive until then.

"And why doesn't he want to go to the lab?" frowned grandma, crossing her arms and standing up straighter.

"Now that is an excellent question!" said the patrolman. "You'd think him and his kind would be eager in their service to the city!" He shook his head and went off with his partner down the sidewalk.

Grandma stood in the street to stunned to speak and was only shaken from her state by the sound of an oncoming transport vehicle. At the edge of the street she pulled a cloth from her large wallet and wiped her eyes. She thought about the boy and the others that were referred to by the patrolman. Then she thought about Jack and Sarah and she dabbed her eyes again. Then she decided to go to the labratories.

- - -

Sarah noticed that grandma was gone when they sat down to eat dinner later that evening. She was burning to ask grandma a couple new questions she had thought of while reading grandma's books. Well, maybe grandma was late running errands.

There was a knock at the door. Father gave mother a look and went to answer it. It was grandma with some Mariner Patrol and they ushered her into the front room.

"...we don't understand your questions or your problems with it," one patrolman was saying, "they serve no use other then the one they have at the labs." He sounded like he wondered why this was not obvious.

Grandma shook his hand off her shoulder, her lips tight, her face pale, and under her breath she kept muttering, "it isn't right, it just isn't right..."

"Right?" said a patrolman, "there you go again, we have clearly illustrated that it is!"

"That's right," cut in another patrolman. "Think of all the knowledge they have given us! They were useless, now they're not. You should be pleased!"

"Stop saying that!" snapped grandma, "they're not usless!"

"But of course not! Not now."

"Not ever!" yelled grandma.

"Now look here," growled the chief patrolman as he stepped up to grandma, "there will be no more of this: for the good of the city!"

"For the good of the city!" replied the rest of the Mariner Patrol eagerly.

Sarah very nearly repeated it with them as she had been taught in school to do.

The chief patrolman cast a cool eye across the family gathered in the entry room, shook his head, and grunted.

"I don't get it, your reasoning has no logic to it, but it's not for me to get you to see that," he said on the verge of exasperation. "Two weeks from tomorrow, at the turning of the second tide, the Council of Seven will meet in the Grand Chambers for a special session. You have been ordered to appear before them. You all have been ordered to come," said the chief motioning to the room. He looked at grandma, "when they speak your logic will come back."

The Mariner Patrol left and there was silence around the dinner table.

"Oh mother how could you?" cried out Sarah's mother very suddenly after grandma had sat down.

Grandma stared angrily at the dishes and father touched mother on the shoulder.

"No Charles!" said mother in a rough voice that made Jack whimper, "why can't she just play by the rules!"

Grandma picked up Jack and began to rock him back and forth, humming in his ear.

"Those children in the lab," said father, "I'm afraid that's not the half of it. Some of the simulations I enter data into at work are, well they say that..."

"No more Charles, no more! It's just best not to talk about it. These are new ways to us, best to just learn them and go on living. They did save us from up there," said mother motioning at the ceiling. "The least we can do is show our gratitude by being accepting. How bad can it be?"

"But the data I enter into the simulations might suggest that the whole reason they saved us..."

"Sarah finish your food!" said mother, "and then finish your school work."

Sarah looked down at her empty plate and then glanced at the neatly stacked school books by the door. She had finished her school work an hour before dinner.

"Come, help me put Jack to bed," said grandma to Sarah with a sad smile.

Sarah slid off her chair and followed grandma into the next room. The dining room conversation soon picked up again.

Later back in Sarah and grandma's bedroom grandma asked a question.

"Sarah," would you go with me somewhere tonight? It might be dangerous but I need help."

Sarah hesitated, but nodded a slow yes.

"And," said grandma, "let's not volunteer information to father and mother of what we're about to undertake just yet." There were loud voices in the dinning room.

Sarah sat on her bed and bowed her head.

"Sarah," said grandma, "how much money do you have?"

Sarah pulled a box from under her bed and dumped out its contents. A large blue green marble shot off across the floor. Sarah snagged it before it got far. She set it next to an old teddy bear missing a button eye and counted up the coins.

"Five barleys and two scales." These where the smallest coins of Undersea, but they were at her disposal.

"I have three bronzes," said grandma, "but they shall be our loaves and fishes. We will take some and save the rest for later."

Grandma and Sarah waited until the bioilluminate fish in the vase dimmed to their predetermined setting. The house was quite before they slipped from the room with their money. It took all the courage Sarah had to sneak with grandma past father (who was sleeping uneasily on the couch) and out the front door. Curfew had passed in Undersea and every boot step of the Mariner Patrol sent them scurrying to the shadows. They found a food dispensing machine at the well lit intersection of two streets and as Sarah kept lookout grandma fed it coins. She bought as much as they could carry.

The muted blue green light of the bioilluminate street lamps created an eerie glow of shadows and half light. In side alleys and dim passageways grandma and Sarah hurried with bags of food. Often they paused for grandma to catch her breath or to listen for the smallest sounds that might indicate big trouble. They moved like the hunted, yet steadily they went towards the heart of the city.

After a while they came to a large imposing building carved from the basalt. In this part of the city the buildings towered many times higher then elsewhere, touching the ceiling somewhere above in the gloomy night air of Undersea. The building was solid and square, with sharp lines meeting at two massive main doors that were always open. There was a lobby softly lit just beyond the doors. A desk for a receptionist was unfilled. "LABRATORY", said the letters carved above the doors.

Grandma and Sarah listened to the sounds of the under sea city and all was calm. No winds blew, no dogs barked, no night birds sang, nothing clattered in nearby alleys as they might in a normal city. There was a distant hum of steam powered generators shutting off and then the faint sound of boots on stone way down the street. The boots passed beyond hearing and it was silent.

Grandma eased into the street and reached for Sarah's hand. They hurried across, taking shelter in the side shadows of the front steps that led up to the yawning doors. They waited, catching their breath. A patrol passed by and grandma squeezed Sarah's hand. When it was clear grandma took a deep breath and they mounted the steps with quiet, shuffling footfalls, hugging to one side of the stairs where it was dimmer. When they peered into the lobby. It was empty. Sarah gave grandma a "now what?" look. Grandma hesitated and was glad Sarah was holding her hand; it kept it from shaking.

To the right, in an area now dipped in shade, was a small waiting area. Grandma led Sarah to it and felt she could collapse into one of the plush chairs and not rise for a week. Sarah pointed. On the wall was a map of the building. Grandma let Sarah lead her tired bones over to it and they stared, trying to make out the words and departments labeled on it.

The lights in the lobby brightened. As Sarah and grandma scrambled behind a chair with their food bags a figure emerged. A man came whistling a song called "The Hymn of Undersea". He was pulling a large cart with a hose and commenced sweeping the lobby. His back was to the waiting area. Then Sarah looked and saw it: a stack of maps complimentary for all guests on a side table. Sarah pulled grandma to her feet and they dashed back to the doors, snatching up a map as they went. Outside in the shadows of the stairs grandma sat with her back to the building panting for air.

"I'm so sorry Sarah I got you into this," she was saying. "I don't know what I was thinking."

They said nothing in the gloomy light.

"I guess I didn't really have a plan. I was just so upset, I wanted to do something."

Sarah put her arm around grandma and they sat together in the shadows of the Laboratory and wept softly together.

After a bit grandma let out a large sigh and rested her head against the stone building, looking skyward both in hope and hopelessness. Sarah picked up the map she had set aside and studied it. She could see different floors of the building printed on different sections of the page. More floors were mapped on the back. There was a main floor, a second floor, and at least six floor plans labeled with corresponding department names. On the back of the map where diagrams for eight more floors. Sarah looked at the front page and studied the first floor. There was the lobby with hallways leading to administrative offices. She traced her finger over them and stopped. Below the first floor layout in the corner of the page was a map labeled "Basement Floor". There were no features, no hallways, no rooms depicted on it. "Restricted" it said. Sarah tugged grandma's sleeve and pointed to it.

Grandma nodded.

"Let's walk around the outside of the building," whispered Sarah, "just to see if there might be any way in from the street." Then Sarah saw grandma still breathing a bit heavy from their mad dash. "No on second thought you stay here with the food," she said.

Grandma looked uncertian, but so serious and sure was Sarah that grandma consigned her the mission. She gave Sarah's knee a grateful pat.

Sarah gained her feet using grandma's sturdy shoulder as aid and sticking to the shadows of the building headed off.

"Be careful!" whispered grandma at the fleeting shape of the young girl.

It took an hour for Sarah to make it back to the steps. She found a place that might offer easy entry and with a smile approached the shadows of the steps. Soon the food would be delivered and they could go back to their beds.

But grandma was gone.