At the last moment, He swerved to His right. There was a brief glimpse of a half-open mouth, a cavern big enough to swallow a truck. It was lined with multiple rows of 18-centimeter-long teeth. A wide black eye passed, pure malignancy floating in a pool of red-hot venom. Then there was a long, endless wall of iron-gray flesh rough as sandpaper—darker than the
158
He
skin of a Great White, some part of him noted—and it was past.
He floated. Elaine prodded him and he could see the terror behind her mask. He wondered if he looked as bad. The great bulk had circled and was beginning a slow patrol of the reef. Not that it was smart enough to consider bottling them up. Clearly it liked the area.
Anyhow, they were stuck.
If the rift had been a chimney, open all the way to the surface, they could have swum upward. Despite the battering of the light surf, they’d have been safer on the reef’s jagged top than in the water with Him. But it was closed overhead. To reach the surface, they would have to leave their small fortress.
Minutes passed. They looked at each other without seeing. Each was wholly absorbed in personal thoughts. They’d encountered a terror whose psychological effect was even more overwhelming than its reality. It did not belong to the world of men, this perfect, unmatched killing machine. How puny man seemed, how feeble his invented efforts at destruction.
How frightened he was.
He looked down at his watch. At the rate they were using air, in a few minutes they’d be down to their emergency supply. Elaine prodded, moved her hands in diver’s argot. He remained frozen. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. But there was no way he could tell her in sign language of this new problem.