His face mask was misted over, and all he could see was what could be glimpsed through the undulating tracks of droplets that streamed across the lucite. He couldn’t make out more than a curl of vapor or a curving arm, a shoulder, a breast. But palms and fingertips directed him, shepherding him up a ladder. At the top they allowed him to wipe at the condensation with his gloved hands. He was only partially successful, instead of a blank wall of moisture he now had a confusion of streaks. He shrank back as one of them reared towards his face with her mouth open, but the others tightened their grip and held him still while she got ever closer to his face, finally opening her mouth wider, giving him a mist-shattered view of her teeth as she extended her tongue and licked the surface of his face mask. When she was done, it was clean, and no new condensation formed. Graham allowed himself to exhale, and looked around. The air up here was clearer, the mist dispersing upwards towards the ceiling above. He was on a walkway that ran just above and between the two vats. In the center it widened, forming a diving platform for both of them. It was here that they took him, carefully positioning him in its center before withdrawing to stand two deep in front of the walkway on either side of him. The message was clear, he could either stay put, or take a dip.

Graham was well aware of the acceptable levels of dive suit safety. He wasn’t going in there if he could avoid it. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Out of the vat in front of him came a woman, a creature, four armed, like the others, but taller by a head, and visibly stronger. Her hair was long and black, too, her face identical to the identical faces he’d seen, although the look in her eyes as she gazed at him was anything but passive.

“What are you and why have you come to us?” She demanded. She spoke loudly and distinctly. He could hear her even through the hood of his dive suit.

He opened his mouth to say something. What, he wasn’t certain, and then he realized that the radio in his face mask was on direct transmission. He fumbled at the latex sheathed controls by his ear, his damp, gloved fingers slipping over them. After a deafening parade of squeals he got it to broadcast. “I’m Nathan Graham,” he said, “chief administrator of research and development for GeneSys.”

She nodded slowly, “Nathan Graham. You are the one Hector is afraid of. He confuses you with GeneSys. He says you are a danger to us, but you have been useful in the past. What sent you here, GeneSys or a brain?”

“Ah, I came to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions for who? For GeneSys?”

“For myself. I’ve heard a lot about you and the goings on in these vats. I wanted to know, why did you kick the researchers out?”

“We drove Hector away because he would have contaminated the nest. The others fled because they feared us.”

“I see. Why would Hector contaminate your... nest?”

She looked at him closely. “You say you ask these questions for yourself, but it is GeneSys you are asking for. This is none of GeneSys’ affair.”

“But it is, you are a project of the company’s research and development department. I manage the department. I am intimately concerned with your well being.”

“Concerned perhaps, but for GeneSys’ well being, not ours.”

“For all of us.”

She laughed, throwing her head back, her teeth flashing. “That is impossible, and you should know it.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You have come here looking for secrets to use against us.”

“I came here because I was concerned. There was an egg. What happened to it?”

“What happens to all eggs.”

“That’s why you kicked Martin out of here, isn’t it? Slatermeyer told me — he said you told Hector that he stank of her. You were talking about the — the hatchling, weren’t you?”

Lilith narrowed her eyes. “It seems to me you know too much already. You are a bright man, Nathan Graham, but GeneSys should have told you.”

“Told me what?”

She spread her arms to indicate herself and the other tetras, “That we are not a project. We are the enemy.”

Graham stared, his mouth opened. “The enemy,” he echoed.

“And you have delivered yourself into our hands.” She nodded at the other tetras, and they began to close in on him again.

“Wait,” he cried, “What are you going to do?”

“Keep you,” he heard her say as the tetras surrounded him. Panic clutched at his throat and he grabbed the tranquilizer gun at his hip. “Stop!” he shouted, brandishing it at them, but they did not react. He felt their hands on him, and he fired. He heard high pitched shrieking and several of the tetras abandoned him to surround their stricken comrade. He fired again and again, emptying the clip of its pellets. The tetras fell away from him amid screams of pain and confusion, as those who were not hit comforted those who were. All except one: Lilith. She alone stood among the pile of bodies, unconscious or condolent, and Graham took one look at her; at her flashing eyes and her teeth bared in rage, and he ran like hell. She must have been hampered by her daughters, because he made it to the floor of the vat room unhindered. He ran in the direction of the hallway, blinded by clouds of mist. Something caught him at knee level, sending him crashing to the floor. A folding chair, he discovered, as he freed himself from its molded biopolymer legs. He stood, only to see Lilith looming out of the fog, her arms spread wide. He picked up the chair, threw it at her, and ran again. He reached the wall of the vat room, and veered to the right, hoping that was the direction of the hallway to the outside. Lilith caught up to him at the archway, grasping him around his waist and chest and squeezing. He kicked her shins and flailed at her with his fists, but she didn’t let go. His vision was fading, not from the mists but because he was blacking out from lack of oxygen. He fumbled for his useless stun pistol, grappling with the holster for painful moments as the air was squeezed from his body, and then he had it free, and raised it to her head. She didn’t let go, but she did stop squeezing him. “Let me go, or I’ll do to you what I did to them,” he said, his breath returning. The pistol was empty — he’d foolishly spent all the pellets on the little tetras — but apparently she didn’t know that; didn’t know, either, that it was only a stun weapon. She released him, and he backed away from her; down the hallway and out the door.

Graham slammed the door and stared at it. Its plain metal surface gave no indication of the nightmare behind it. He pulled off his face mask and took huge gulps of clean, cool air. It was easy to take things like that for granted; good air, a rational order to the universe, until they were stripped away and you found yourself lost in someone else’s world, totally unequipped to deal with it. As he stripped off the divesuit, his transceiver rang. Swearing, Graham pulled his legs from the rubbery grasp of the suit, and retrieved the transceiver from his pants pocket.

“Yes, what is it?” he blurted before the holograph had a chance to resolve in front of him. It was Brea Jeffries, from personnel.

“Christ, Brea, what are you using my personal number for? Why are you calling me at all, for that matter?”

“It’s about that new diver.”

“What, the one you sent me that letter about? You’ve got the wrong department. I’m in r&d, you want production. Wait! You are production! What are you talking to me for?”

“I’m talking to you because you preempted review, approved her application, and sequestered her medical records. That was bad enough, but I figured you were doing somebody a favor — although why you couldn’t find her something better than diving is beyond me. But now you’ve gone too far. Countermanding a request for dismissal after an obvious act of negligence; it’s just too much. The other divers won’t stand for it. They’re touchy enough about us hiring sports in the first place. I’m surprised at you, Graham. When you were in production you never would have done anything this obvious.”