You ask TIDE to bend the ray on purpose.

The wiggly profile becomes a set of straws. The straw that belongs to your echo hooks through the warm lid over the vents and lands not where the bright paint sat, but a few degrees down-canyon, closer, smaller.

Yuna lets out a breath that had been hiding. “That’s a hull-sized maybe. That’s Sprat-shaped if the world is kind.”

Reed: “Kind world still wants a slow fish. We match buoyancy, we talk on the acoustic phone, we do not grab a person like a handle.”

Vargas looks at you. “Corrected map. Now the last meters. Race or dock. I have flown both. I have regretted one.”

You can feel the want to arrive. Arriving is not the same as helping. Helping is a speed you choose after the number is honest.

TIDE: “Recommended closing speed: slow. Recommended trim: near-neutral. Recommended: do not open habitat side hatches to the sea.”

The last one feels like a joke. It will not be.