Sarah's last five minutes in the big house on the wall nearly felt routine. She packed quickly and left what had been her opulent home carrying less then when she arrived. She still had grandma's picture and some clothes, but the book was now in Jack's hands. Her escorts (posted outside her door) would not let her go to him and in the end she spent most of her time scribbling him a letter. This she folded to a discreet size and handed off to Emmie for delivery when none were looking. "Come see me in Fish Town if you can, but be careful," she whispered to Emmie when they embraced, "their eyes may be on you now." Sarah choked. "It seems I am always saying goodbye to the people around me," she said louder. "I...I am so thankful for you Emmie."

After a final hug, Sarah lifted her pack and walked past the comfortable furnishing of her quarter, by the closets of clothes and many drawered compartments where much jewelry was stored, and out into the hall. She followed Claird and the other Mariner Patrolman down the grand staircase and over the rich carpets of the marbled Front Room. There was no one to wish her off as they walked through the bronzed front doors and past the tall columns of the front porch to the wide patio beneath the vaulting sky of stone. The light of the roundabout lamp shown bright and humming birds darted in the clear air amongst the trees that seemed forever in bloom. A vehicle waited to take her away.

She was walked to the vehicle and there Claird lingered with her while the other patrolman went back to the porch. Claird stood, indecisive on what he wanted to do.

Claird stuck out his hand, "well Sarah, good luck," he said and she shook it.

"Thank you Claird," she said with a sad smile, but he turned swiftly back to the house.

Sarah watched him go and then took one last look at the flawless appearance of the house and its environs. The patina of the place had worn off in her years living there; the colors, the light, the grandeur now seemed to her compliant in the concealment of Sir LaRosa's activities. The more perfect it looked the sicker it made her, for it seemed that the ensemble was not put together for the pure joy and delight of beautiful things, but rather to present a certain image that hid a purpose. "He will have his way in the end," thought Sarah as she climbed into the waiting vehicle, "and I hope I am far away when that happens."

"Fish Town please," said Sarah to the driver, a young Mariner Patrolman she had never seen before. There was a chortle from the front seat.

"Oh no young Sarah, I drop you off at the roundabout and you walk. No one cares where you go after that," he said, "orders are orders. But you shouldn't have a hard time finding Fish Town, just follow your nose!"

The vehicle wound down the switchbacks and passed the guard house. They sped by the meadows and down the boulevard lined with trees in silence and at the roundabout the vehicle stopped and Sarah got out. "Good thing I packed light," thought Sarah as she hefted her bag. The officer watched her go.

"Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse," he said just loud enough.

Sarah bit her lip hard. Bitterness. There it was again. Bitterness was a choice. "Oh help," she thought. She closed her eyes and not knowing how turned to the officer and gave him a brave, cheerful smile.

"Thank you for bringing me this far," she said.

The office balked and in a confused voice said, "Uh, you're...welcome?" He watched her leave. "By the way," he shouted after her, "the quickest way to Fish Town is taking a left at the road you just passed!"

Sarah waved and adjusted her course. She sang a song grandma taught her and in her poverty it brought a boost to her soul. "Why oh why," thought Sarah as she strode along, "do I forget to sing these songs when I have plenty?"

As Sarah moved towards Fish Town, which was located along the outer wall though still part of the New City, the buildings changed. No longer where there houses with patches of grass with trees beneath a vaulted ceiling. The rock above instead sloped downward as she went and soon the light of the roundabout lamp ceased to travel with her. Smaller street lamps kept a dimmer vigil over Sarah's path and the larger buildings about her seemed to rise up and touch the roof of stone above. Less care was put into the design of this part of the city and as the roof of sloping rock approached the outer wall, shrinking the distance between ground and sky, the air grew stiff and Sarah smelled fish. It grew stronger as she walked the empty streets and soon she passed one of the great processing facilities that gathered up the bounty of the ocean to package and distribute as food.

Now the air reeked of fish and Sarah sweated in the humidity of that most repulsive yet necessary part of Undersea. She trudged onward, passing many more houses and factories and in time came to a solid mass of unyielding stone. There, stretching as far left and right as the eye could see, her path was the last wall in Undersea. Beyond it lay the unfathomable depths of the deep ocean, held at bay by the sturdy basalt she now faced.

Sarah turned to look back and stood still. To her left was a pool, a fish pen it was called, and to her right was the gutting facility that processed the fish from that pool. She watched men with nets scoop out writhing cod, flopping them into push carts to be taken to the nearby factory. It looked like hard work and Sarah wanted a drink, for there was a brackish taste in her mouth that came with the air. Thirsty and hungry Sarah went to find Zenith's house.

Sarah knew that Zenith and her family had been relocated to Fish Town just before the Great Purge. From what Emmie had told her it was easy to find. It was in the very corner of Undersea itself, nestled between the last fish pen of Fish Town and the back cliff of the city. On the south it butted against the last in a line of plain and tightly spaced houses carved from the cliff mass. No new diggings extended into the mountain behind them. the city was being expanded elsewhere at the moment.

Sara went along the outer wall, heading for the corner of Fish Town where Zenith and now Beamer lived. What she would say to her friends when she saw them? She hoped she would not be to much of a burden for Zenith's family. She guessed she would be working at one of the processing factories soon. She smelled the fishy air and thought about standing on the gutting floor with a knife cutting fish ten hours a day. Her heart sank. Maybe she should have taken Sir LaRosa's deal: she'd be at the Lab by now, getting acquainted with fellow students and professors, taking a tour of the facility, and honing in on what she wanted to study. She sighed; it was all very easy to feel sorry for herself just then, to let those thoughts play over and over in her head until she became an embittered victim. Grandma's words about bitterness came back to her and Sarah wondered if bitterness was something she would have to deal with the rest of her life. "Don't let it get a foot hold in you Sarah," she thought, "it will stunt your growth."

While Sarah was not exactly thrilled with the thought of spending the rest of her life gutting fish she believed she was not abandoned. Grandma's book promised as much. "Well," thought Sarah adjusting her pack, "I can still walk, I can still talk, and I ain't dead yet."

The back wall of Undersea loomed above as Sarah passed near the last factory and fish pen. She saw the last house were Zenith lived, and taking a deep breath went to the door and knocked. She waited. She knocked again. Nobody home. With nowhere to go Sarah slumped to the ground. Oh how tired she felt! Hugging her knees in that dim corner of the city she fell asleep as she prayed.

- - -

Sarah awoke with a start to a whistle. It was a loud blast, the kind that signals a shift change in a factory and very soon the empty streets had people walking in them. Sarah watched them come and go and presently two approached the house. They were dressed in overalls and boots, heavy gloves where in their hands, and both had their hair tied back with long scraps of cloth. They carried lunch pails and in the light of the lamps Sarah could see that one was younger than the other. She looked at them carefully; it was Zenith and her mother.

"Zenith!" exclaimed Sarah as she jumped to her feet and sprinted over.

"Sarah?" said Zenith suprised. "Don't hug me yet, I'm covered in fish guts!"

Sarah stopped in front of them and could smell it.

"You get used to it," said Zenith seeing Sarah's hesitation, "but it is good to see you!" Zenith saw Sarah's bag laying on the ground. "Oh no," she said.

"Come in, come it!" said Zenith's mother Vi, "It's so good to see you again Sarah! We have some biscuits and I'll make us sea brew. Come sit and tell us what's happened to you!"

Vi and Zenith hung some of their fishiest garments outside the front door. They entered into the small house and Sarah set her bag in the front room by a couch. A pillow and crumpled blanket laid to one side. Nearby on a small end table were folded clothes.

"That's were Beamer sleeps," said Zenith.

"We'd better get cleaned up first," said Vi to Zenith, "we don't want our guest to pass out from the way we smell!"

"Something tells me Sarah isn't going to just be a guest," said Zenith, "but that will have to wait, I want to use the shower before Beamer and dad get home."

"Yes they should be home soon," said Vi. "Sarah, would you mind making the sea brew while we get cleaned up?"

While Sarah brewed the tea Beamer and Zenith's father Shafer came home. Their work clothes smelled less like fish and Beamer gave Sarah a bear hug. " 'bout time you came for a visit!" he said.

"I think Sarah has a story to tell us," said Zenith to Beamer entering the kitchen in clean clothes and wet hair, "but let's wait to hear it until we're all in here."

"Are you in trouble Sarah?" asked Shafer, "you know you can stay here if you are."

Over sea brew and biscuits Sarah told the tale of what had happened to her that day.

"Oh Sarah," said Zenith getting up from where she sat, giving Sarah a hug, "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," said Sarah wiping a tear, "I was half expecting it."

"That LaRosa!" growled Beamer pounding the table with a fist, "that man is nothing but the grim reaper himself! If I had a flash stick I'd..."

Shafer put his arm around Beamer who looked ready to weep with frustration, "I know son, I know. It's just about more then any of us can bare." Shafer closed his eyes, "I feel it too."

They sat there around the kitchen table in discouraged silence.

"You'll stay with us of course," said Shafer after a bit. "Beamer has the couch but maybe you can share Zenith's room?"

"Absolutly!" said Zenith, "although my closet is a little smaller then what you're used to!"

"I didn't bring alot," said Sarah, "but thank you all so much! I insist on paying my share. I'll find a job. I have to do something."

Zenith looked at her parents then back at Sarah. "The only jobs available I'm afraid are what mom and I do."

"Then that's what I'll do," said Sarah, "I'll gut a whale if I have to."

"Don't say that," said Zenith in a low voice, "I've seen them do that at the factory. It's not an enjoyable thing to watch."

"Not much of what we do is," said Shafer, "but I think Sarah is right to want to work, though she has little choice in jobs."

"We'll take her with us tomorrow," said Vi, "they'll put her right to work. She can borrow some of our work clothes until she can buy some herself."

Later that evening after dinner Beamer told Sarah what he and Shafer did for a living. Everyday he said, they donned weighted boots, pressurized suits with rebreather equipment, and brass bucket-like helms that were much like diving helmuts. They would enter the fish pens and go to the bottom of those pools to clean them. Other days they would descend from those pools, through connecting channels carved in the rock, all the way to the ocean. There huge cages with cod, haddock, and other fish where kept until they were sent up to the holding pools near the factories when big enough to harvest. "It's dark down there and a bit eerie if you think about it to much," said Beamer. "All that separates your from the deep ocean are thin mesh walls. But they keep the fish in and predators out. Luckily the sixgills can't get in the cages, but they do like the smell of fish!"

"What do you do with the fish waste you clean from the cages?" asked Sarah.

"We scrape it into piles then use suction pumps to suck it up. It all gets dumped into collection bins where it's used as fertilizer in those large greenhouses over near the Lab that grow vegetables."

"Ah," said Sarah, "it all sounds like a real farm operation."

"It is," said Beamer, "you should see the harvester machines work. That's a whole different part of the food gathering operation. There are thick forests of kelp on the slopes of this mountain and in places around its base. Operators drive those lumbering harvesters on track-like wheels into the forests and bring back harvested kelp. It's quite something: those kelp plants can grow hundreds of feet high!"

"Huh," said Sarah in thought, "how big is a harvester?"

"Not to big. It has a sort of boxy cab large enough for two people. It pulls a kind of shredding machine that cuts the kelp into smaller pieces and then stores it in holding tanks. A robotic arm operated from the cab feeds the shredder.

"Sounds like a lot of work for some kelp!"

"People gotta eat," replied Beamer, "we all have production quotas we gotta meet."

"What happens if you don't meet them?"

"Management gets replaced," said Beamer, "the new people they put in charge are usually way worse then the previous ones. I'm fortunate enough to have Shafer for a boss. He's in charge of our crew."

Sarah grew quiet and thought about tomorrow.

"You'll do fine," said Beamer, "I know you will!"

"Thanks!"

"Oh hey by the way, look at what I got my hands on!" Beamer pulled a book from under a couch cushion.

"Beamer, where did you find that!" exclaimed Sarah, "I thought grandma had the only one in Undersea!"

"Almost," laughed Beamer, "but this one belongs to Shafer and Vi. They brought it with them when they came to Undersea. We all use it, though because there's only one we have to share. We have a bit of a schedule going as to who gets it when. I can't get enough you know. It speaks to me."

"And me to," said Sarah with a smile, "but it is more then just words. Those words speak to a meaning that can change you...if you let it!"

"Yes," said Beamer, "I get the sense that that is true. Shafer and Vi talk to Zenith and I about it often."

"I tell you what we aught to do," said Sarah thoughtfully, "we aught to come up with a way of making more copies of this book, then we wouldn't have to wait to read it."

"It would take a while to copy it all out," said Beamer, "if only we had some kind of printing press. We could buy all the kelp paper we need for the pages."

"You took a shine to mechanics at the Academy of the Elites. Well maybe you could design something? It wouldn't have to be a final draft or anything, just something drawn on paper to get an idea."

"There's a machinist shop we use sometimes to fix our gear," said Beamer getting excited, "and there are old parts from rundown kelp harvesting machines that we might be able to reshape or repurpose."

"And it's not like we have to reprint the whole book even," said Sarah, "we could just do parts of it for now. But lets not get ahead of ourselves Beamer! One step at a time. Let's see what you come up with first!"

After their conversation Beamer got busy. With help from Shafer, who had some prior knowledge of the mechanics of such things (he had been an industrial engineer at one time in the above world) Beamer came up with a draft that looked feasable.

"It may take a while to construct," said Shafer, "we'll have to find parts and remachine them as we go. It'll be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle except we have to make all the pieces first."

"Um, what in Undersea is a jigsaw puzzle?" asked Beamer scratching the stubble growing on his chin.

- - -

Work at the processing factory started early the next morning. Vi, Zenith, and Sarah donned their work clothes while the lamps were still dim and set out with lunch pails for a short walk to the fish plant. Others dressed like them streamed toward the factory from nearby housing as a loud whistle, long and slow, announced the start of a new shift. The windowless fish plant loomed floor to ceiling as they approached. Through the main entrance they went and Sarah was led to the foreman's office. The foreman looked up from his desk and gazed at Sarah for a long moment as if trying to remember something. The shift whistle sounded. Vi cleared her throat and did all the talking.

The foreman put Sarah to work on the gutting floor. Vi and Zenith, working skillfully with their filleting knives, showed Sarah how to cut and gut the fish, remove the innards, and place the fillets on a conveyer belt. Sarah's knowledge of the anatomy of fish (due to her studies in marine biology) helped her here and the foreman was impressed by the skill she was developing already.

"You've never gutted fish before?" he said doubtfully.

"No sir, unless you count dissection in the bio lab at school," she said with a smile, "I'm still pretty slow at this though."

"You'll get faster," he said, "but man are you surgical with that blade!"

Sarah did get faster as time went and within a month she was as quick as anyone. On each new fish Sarah practiced her speed and percision, always focused and in control of the razor sharp blade she weilded. Zenith was right: she hardly noticed the fishy smell. The people working around her could not understand it, why was this girl, whom some recognized from public appearances she'd made, throwing herself into such a job as this? This job was monotonous, the stale air reeked, yet Sarah had joy. Why?

Sarah would tell them why when they asked, and at lunch there where many questions that Vi and Sarah would answer. Some questions they had no answers to, but admitting that only gave them credibility and brought more questions. Soon Zenith (and Beamer too) made their choice regarding the things of the book, and though their situations were quite far from perfect, though their trials mounted up like everyone else's, they had faith in their hope and together they were able to set their eyes on higher things.

- - -

Bit by bit Beamer and Shafer built the printing press and through trial and error got it working with some consistancy. They bought kelp paper and mixed the ink, working and tweaking the press until they had several copies of the old book.

"This isn't right," said Zenith a few days later, "that we should keep these copies to ourselves. I know there are several people at work who would love to read what we've been able to print."

"Your're right Zenith," said Sarah, "but, well, what if Sir LaRosa finds out? I've seen what he can do."

"We all have Sarah," said Beamer closing his eyes, "we all have." It was quiet around the table for a moment. "But I have come to realize," said Beamer, "though not to the liking of the parts of me prone to bitterness, that in this book lies the best answer, the best response to some of Sir LaRosa's troubling policies. If we were to take things into our own hands and try to defeat him by his own devices then we would become no better. I think the more perfect way would be to love people and to be bold in doing so. If this book speaks true, then ours is to be obedient whether we live or die. And why shouldn't we be? For our death problem has been solved."

"Beamer is right," said Shafer, "although to some it will sound like foolishness. That is to be expected; the pull of the world is strong. But we can not sit on what we have. It wouldn't be right. And if we die for it we die for it."

It got quiet around the table.

"Well," said Beamer stirring from the stillness of the moment, "I ain't dead yet! Pass the shrimp cakes please."

After the shrimp cakes were passed, the food eaten, and the dishes put away, there was a knock at the door. Shafer went to answer it.

"Come in, come in sir!" he said to a man standing outside, "if you have business to discuss let us do so indoors!"

"Thank you my good man," Sarah heard a familiar voice say, "I shan't keep you long, but I hear you are in charge of cleaning fish cages and I..." The man stopped when he saw Sarah poke her head into the room. "Why Sarah!" called the man, "what are you doing here?"

"Professor Dodson!" cried Sarah, "what are you doing here?"