"You must continue your work with the professor," said Beamer to Sarah as she and Zenith sat with him in the house they lived. "You don't have a responsibility to sit here. I will be paralyzed the rest of my life."

The way Beamer spoke, in such a forward tone, brought tears to Sarah's eyes. Zenith's too. They did not want to give up hope Beamer would walk again; it had only been a few days since the incident. Neither wanted to surrender to the idea that Beamer would never stroll with them through Fish Town or anywhere else again.

"I'll be alright here," Beamer was saying, "I won't let you girls put your lives on hold for me. We have to move foward, even though circumstances have changed. If I choose to be bitter about what happened, I might miss out on an opportunity!"

"But Beamer," said Zenith, "we're the only family you have now, let us take care of you! Besides, what can you do? You can't work."

"I didn't say abandon me," said Beamer with a smile, "I can still contribute and I am learning how to get around by myself. The little board with wheels Shafer made for me helps, though I might make some tweaks to it. I'll be scootin' all around this place in no time!"

"You won't be get bored or lonely being by yourself all day?" asked Sarah.

"I'll be okay. I won't get in to much mischief!" said Beamer with a laugh, "besides, I got "board" right here!" Beamer nodded to the wheeled board Shafer had made him. Heavy eye rolls from the girls. "I just get the sense," said Beamer seriously, "that it's so important to keep doing what we're doing in the places that we are. Besides, I have a few ideas of what I want to do with the time."

The next several weeks Beamer was absorbed with the printing press. Vi and Zenith continued to work at the fish factory and Sarah went with them half the days. The rest of the time she was back in the pools and pens of Undersea with Safer and his crew gathering samples. She did not let herself focus on the events of Beamer's accident. She was more determined then ever to continue the work despite any danger there might be. It had been a sort of chance incident as it were-what had happened to Beamer. Now all the mesh walls of the pens were inspected regularly to prevent sixgills from getting in again. Still, working at depth had it's perils.

Whenever the professor stopped by he thanked Sarah profusely for the work she did in the face of those dangers. He would always make it a point to talk to Beamer as well to see how he was doing. The professor continually came away impressed at Beamer's ingenuity and attitude. "Where do you get such an encouraging outlook on life?" the professor had asked him one day. Beamer just smiled and handed him a printed copy of grandma's old book. "Hot off the press!" said Beamer.

- - -

Sarah worked closer with the professor now that they had plenty of samples from the pens.

"Much of the fish we eat comes from the farmed stock," the professor had said one day, "but we catch a large amount from the open ocean. It is there we must now go. Come, I think it is time I show you the field lab and the preparations I've made for further research. Meet me bright and early tomorrow in the Old City near the gates. The ones in the outer wall."

"Those old gates," said Sarah, "why there? They don't open anymore and if they did the ocean would flood in and swallow Undersea! Didn't those gates ceased to operate after their water lock system was dismantled, after the founders moved into the Old City from the subs? How are we going to collect samples from there?"

"You shall see," said the professor with a knowing smile.

The next day while the lamps were yet dim, Sarah stood at the gates in the outer wall of the Old City with her lunch pail and backpack; uncertain as to what the professor had up his sleeve. The gates frowned before her. They were large double doors some twenty feet high that could swing inward to create a thirty foot opening, back when they were in use. But behind those thick metal doors was now the sea, and Sarah shuddered thinking of the great weight piled up against them. Sarah looked closer at the gates and wondered why they had not been welded shut or sealed over with solid stone. There did seem to be locking mechanisms in place, controlled by a fortified gearbox that ran on generator power. This was housed in a booth sized building also connected to the power grid by cables running along the outer wall of Undersea in both directions.

"Primary and backup power," thought Sarah eyeing the cables and generator, "probably smart. Gotta keep those locking bolts firmly in place. Beamer would love to have a look at the mechanics of it I bet. He'd know each part better then I."

Sarah looked about her as she waited.

Near the gates sat a small building that hummed with the sound of machinery in the still morning air. It was an oxygen generation plant, pulling in water from the ocean through pipes and converting it into oxygen and hydrogen through an automated process. Beyond it stood a building used by the Mariner Patrol as one of their headquarters.

"Hello Sarah!" sang Professor Dodson stepping out of the dim light beyond one of the lamps, "I hope you haven't been waiting long?"

Sarah nearly jumped; such had been the silence of his approach. She assured him she had not been waiting long.

"Excellent!" said the professor, "now follow me. Today you are in for a treat, for we are going to where this city first began!"

"Lead on professor," said Sarah, game for anything.

They followed the outer wall from the gates towards the Mariner Patrol's Old City headquarters, passing the murmuring oxygen plant on their right as they went. Just beyond it, a foot or so off the ground in the outer wall of Undersea, was set a round portal-like door three feet in diameter. It was made of the same thick metal as the gates. Near it was a key pad. Here the professor stopped and, speaking the four digit code as he punched it in, pushed the hatch door inward.

"Here is where all the founders first entered Undersea," said the professor turning to Sarah, " where we entered in together after many trials. Welcome to Sub City!"

Sarah furrowed her brow, this information was a bit different from what she had learned in school. There she was taught that Sir LaRosa alone had bravely dug out the first recesses of the old city, then, urging the mining crews to ever greater feats, he alone led the people from cramped dingy subs into the open spaces of Undersea like a conquering hero of old.

"It was probably nothing like that," reflected Sarah.

"Many died to make this city in the early days," the professor was saying, a far away look in his eye, "It sometimes makes you wonder if..."

Sarah stood near the hatch waiting for him to finish his thought. But the professor shook his head and climbed though the hatch, "follow me Sarah," he said.

Sarah found herself in a narrow tube-like corridor little bigger in width then the hatch door itself. The interior was lit by a dim lamp and all around them the stony basalt was smooth. They were now in the outer wall. At the far end of the corridor was another hatch door.

"I know this is just the entry way to the city from the subs," said the professor, "but I tell you every inch we dug felt like a mile!"

Stooping in the tunnel Sarah closed the Undersea hatch and moved to follow the professor to the opposite end.

"Same passcode," said the professor, taping on a second keypad.

The round door protested on squeaking hinges. It should have opened into the ocean but the sea did not pour in. Instead Sarah saw the dim interior of a narrow submarine. The professor stepped in. Sarah followed.

"There are dozens and dozens of submarines laying on the ocean floor side by side just outside the walls this part of Undersea," he said. "Though hardly any can be visited now: the sea has rusted through and taken most of them. The one we stand in and the one adjacent are sealed from the rest and still passable."

"I see," said Sarah.

"Yes," continued the professor proudly, "back when work on Undersea first started, submarines where acquired and we brought them down as living quarters. We set them upon a rocky shelf on the mountainside where we wanted to start tunneling. It was quite the logistical operation; we connected all the subs together into a configuration of passages, work shops,and living quarters, along with the necessary utilities and amenities. We lived long in Sub City," said the professor patting a bulkhead in the submarine they now stood.

"So, the submarines are no longer operational, even the one we're in?" asked Sarah.

"Goodness no!" said the professor with a laugh, "they haven't sailed since they were set in place many years ago. But you need not fear, these two subs I use for the field lab are well maintained and still quite sturdy."

"But what are we going to use to go out and collect samples with?"

"Ah," said the professor, "I'll show you."

The professor turned left and headed down a corridor that travelled the length of the interior. They passed rooms and passages but from their course they did not stray, always moving aft in the sub. If only one submarine was such a maze of walkways and hatches, Sarah could only imagine an entire city of them!

"Watch your head," said the professor over his shoulder as he ducked through a passage joining the sub they first entered to the one serving as the main field lab. "And here we are!"

Before them stretched the entire length of a different sub. It was well lit by lamps and Sarah could see that it's layout was more open then the one they had just come. There were counters and storage spaces with desks and microscopes and many other pieces of lab equipment. A few rooms where at the far end. Near them was a full rack of diving gear. The lab looked somehow both tidy and disheveled, but Sarah got the sense it had a place and purpose for everything they would need or use.

"Welcome to the field lab," said Professor Dodson, "I'll show you around."

Here it was that Sarah saw the care put into preparing this space. He showed her the lock system for going outside into the depths in a dive suit and walked her through the process. Through a portal window, the only one in the sub, he showed her the modified kelp harvester attached near the far end of the sub lab. A short narrow watertight hatch connected the two. The harvester disconnected from the hatch when they were ready to go out into the deep.

"That is what we will be use to collect samples," said the professor referring to the harvester. "I have designed a number of fish traps we will take out and set around the mountain. In fact, I had hoped we might start today."

Professor Dodson went to a drawer and got a large topographical map, spreading it on a counter. He pointed at it.

"I want to set a few traps near these under water vents. We know that metals from the planet's core are released through them creating deposits that can be mined. But what affect do these metals have on the fish stocks, if any?"

They discussed the placement of the traps and then got to work. In one of the rooms many traps were stacked, each no larger then a crate. The traps themselves were different colors, each color corresponding to the area on the map they would be placed. Red traps for the vents, green for the kelp fields, and so on.

They got busy. Sarah put her knife skills to work and prepped the bait fish to load the traps. The air started smelling familiar to Sarah and the professor turned on the vent. Soon they had a number of traps ready to go and these they loaded into the lock that connected to the ocean beyond.

"We'll need to move the traps from the lock to the outside," said the professor, "then we can take the harvester and with its robotic arm lift each one into the bed on the back for transport. It is quite likely they will attract other creatures as well as fish but that's okay. We will test whatever we catch."

The professor helped Sarah put on a dive suit and rebreather apperatus. She fastened on a dive knife but before she put on her helm the professor went and pulled something from a cupboard.

"Hopefully you will never have to use one," he said, "but the sixgills have such a sense of smell and I remember the story from your first dive."

He held something at the end of a long shoulder strap. Sarah new it immediatly. It was a flash stick. This one had a short stubby handle, bulky trigger, and a thick barrel with a place for the off hand to grip when firing.

"This is the underwater version," the professor was saying as he opened the action and loaded a large metal cartrage. "It has a shorter range then it's counterpart and is a bit less accurate as well, though even the other version is not always percise. It's simple enough to use in a pinch though. The safety is on and above the trigger, easy enough to switch off with the index finger. Just point and shoot," he said, holding it with both hands as if he were about to fire. "It will only fire once, as it's not practical to reload underwater, so use it only if you have to." He placed the strap over her neck and Sarah threaded her right arm through so that it hung, rather awkwardly she thought, near the knife on her hip.

The professor helped tighten the lugs on her helmut and they ran a comms check.

"I'll flood the lock with the pumps once you're in. Let me know when you're ready to go out."

The professor flipped on the outside lamps and the ocean around them filled with light. Sarah turned on her own head lamp and checked her gauges. She stood in the lock with the fish traps as it flooded. When it was full she notified the professor that she was opening the outside door.

"I'll stand by the portal and watch for sixgills," said the professor.

Sarah hefted the first trap and stepped into the open ocean. She moved hurriedly to stack them outside the door but soon their bait was drawing interest from the sharp noses of the deep. Pale spider crabs arrived, climbing on the traps with spindly legs. Smaller fish soon appeared, but nothing could get into the traps just yet. The last few traps Sarah stacked next to the harvester and as she did the professor spoke urgent words in her ear.

"Sixgill Sarah, behind you! Big one!"

Sarah dropped the trap and put her back to the harvester, heart in her throat. "Here we go again," she thought. Sarah's searching beam found it cruising not fifty feet from her. "Bigger then the last one," she thought. Sarah inched her way back to the hatch door: slowly, slowly; keeping her eye on the great fish finning about in the murk beyond the lights. She bumped a fish trap and it fell onto the gravely muck on the sea floor. The stirring disturbance of swirling smells excited the great sixgill. The sudden invitation for feeding was to much. It flipped its tail quicker then thought and turned on Sarah. She heard the professor shout in her ear.

But Sarah was ready too. A charged blue arc of dazzling brilliance roped from her gun and struck the great fish as it sped in to attack. Beast and weapon suddenly seemed connected by a surging bolt. In a blink the streaking light extinguished and Sarah felt warmth in the water about her. She tasted something like copper in her mouth as shredded bits of fish drifted out into the dispersions of the deep.

Sarah shook her head as the professor urged her inside. "There might be others," he was saying. Sarah shook her head again while in the lock and the water was pumped out: she had not enjoyed doing that, she wanted to study marine biology not harm it!

The professor was on the radio when Sarah stepped back into the sub. He finished his conversation and hurried over to help Sarah remove her suit.

"You did the right thing," said the professor after a bit, "though I'm sure you didn't relish it. Sometimes it comes with the territory when working in the deep," he said with as sigh.

"I suppose," said Sarah faintly, still weary from the ordeal.

"Anyway, you seem to know your way around a flash stick," said the professor. Sarah thought back to the night of the gala and shuddered. "This little incident has forced me to do some explaining at any rate," said the professor with a short laugh.

"Explaining?" said Sarah.

"Well yes," said the professor as he lifted the shoulder strap of the flash stick back over Sarah's head, released it's action, and ejected the spent cartrage. "There is a torpedo battery manned by a special unit of the Mariner Patrol. They are most loyal to LaRosa and dare I say paranoid! The battery is not far from here and it protects the old gates of the city from attack. They can be a bit...jumpy. We always have to check in with them before we take the harvester out. Otherwise we're liable to get one of their homing torpedoes up the tail pipe, so to speak. They saw your flash and went full alert. I explained the situation but received quite a tongue lashing." The professor gave a meek smile.

"Oh!" said Sarah, but the professor held up his hand.

"No, No, my fault! I should have notified the torpedo battery before you went out. Blast them and their paranoia! Ah well, chin up, there's work to be done!"