all of our helmets, but I was already diving into the water. Just as Joan had predicted, CeCe had driven anchors into the tunnel wall and laid a line. As sediment muddied the water such that I couldn’t see past a jovelt in front of my face, I felt the wall move under my hand. Awash in terror, I moved as fast as I dared with the line and wall under my hand.
The pulsing thought in my head, swim to CeCe, was a steady beat.
“CeCe?” I pinged my mate.
No answer.
“VELMA, how far away is CeCe?” I asked, both desperate and terrified of VELMA’s answer.
“I cannot detect CeCe’s helmet at this time,” she said. “But do not give up hope. My communication abilities are hampered in cave systems. I will keep trying.”
Though I pushed my hand against the rope, pressing it against the wall, the wall jumped away from me as if a frightened mud-beast. Frantic, I reached out, trying to find the rope in the muddy water. Something dragged against my fingers, and I clamped onto it; it was the rope, and miraculously, it was still taut, though I couldn’t feel the rock behind it.
Breathing settling into a less panicked rhythm, I shifted forward with my rope guide, hoping to find CeCe safe and alive at its end. The quake continued around me, though the sensation was muted being surrounded by water as I was. The defining manifestation was the rope that vibrated like a live wire in my hand. I willed it to hold; it was the literal line tethering me to CeCe’s life, and the moment struck me like a bolt of lightning.
Ever since the moment I stood outside Pattee’s ship and recognized the dream for the warning it was about the fifth human, I had felt such a tether to CeCe. I had no answers to the wonder that a woman from another universe could fulfill my unknown dreams or how she came to be here of all places. Some might declare it the will of a benevolent deity, and to them I would say, may you keep such a beautiful hope in your heart always. But without that faith, I could only feel amazement and profound gratitude while also remaining in a state of uncertainty. And yet there was still peace in my heart.
Because certainty was granted to me via the thread that connected CeCe’s soul to my own. That thread, tether, connection—whatever it was, was as strong as this line trembling in my fist.
Would the anchors hold during the quake? Would the bones of Ikthe shake loose the line that drew me to her stroke after stroke?
If love is enough …
I rammed into a solid obstacle and shouted in surprise. Then CeCe’s arms were a vise around my middle, and I surrounded her with my body while keeping a sure grip on the line.
“I’ve found you,” I said. “And I am never letting you go.”
A tighter squeeze was her answer, and gladness filled me to the brim.
“Thank you,” she said. “That was very dangerous and ill-advised of you. But thank you. I didn’t want to die alone.”
“You will not die,” I said. “Not until we are both very old with countless tales to tell our offspring’s offspring.”
The vibration in the rope stilled, and I held my breath a jotik. The landquake had ceased.
“I’ll address that comment some other time,” CeCe said, amusement in her voice. “Do you happen to have any more anchors and some rope?”
We bolted three more anchors before finding the outlet in a vast and warm cavern dripping with hundreds of stalactites and teeming with countless stalagmite teeth.
“Oh, the girls are going to love this,” CeCe said, and we dove again, following the line through the long tunnel.
One section narrowed to fit one hunter due to a collapse; it must have happened after I’d passed it, but the channel remained passable, and we surfaced a half-zatik later to find our company huddled in the opening that Natheka and Amity had explored before. The havabuthe’s smooth floor was now littered with rubble, and a long crack had appeared across the entire length of the ceiling.
“The canal leads to a cavern adjacent to the lava fields,” I said.
The group filed down to the bank, and we collected and fastened our packs and rucksacks. The first robot had traveled to the cave-in and worked at clearing it under VELMA’s direction, and the second robot would stay in the havabuthe as water travel wasn’t possible for it.
The quake sobered us, and we swam single file along CeCe’s rope line in utter silence and utter darkness, as we conserved energy. The water suns had retreated to their mysterious homes during the quake, and from this point onward, we needed our battery packs for our return trip.
In spite of the danger ahead, I could no longer summon anxiety. CeCe and I were together, bound by an unfathomable link, and for the first time in many long cycles, I was content—and happy.