#iced up

And Tam started to swim off. I did my best to keep up, but neither of us got very far before we were joined once again by the quintet of squid people looking slightly worse for ware. "I knew this was all your fault," the lead squid said. "You tried to trick us, pretend that you and the Merapolian weren't trying to spring a trap, but here it is, the trap. Now, we know. You were the distraction. And that," he pointed at Tam, "was the trap. Or...are both of you the trap?"

"There was no trap!" I said, but Tam shut down the explanation that was going to follow.

"We've come for our people," they said. "If you want the destruction to end, you'll return them."

"The only..." the squid person began to say, but once again Tam interrupted.

"I don't care. You give them to us or we take them. Those are your only choices."

"We can't kill them," I said.

"I can," Tam replied, putting heavy emphasis the singular pronoun.

"No."

"He's right," the squidperson said. "You will not. It will be us who ends you."

"Ok," Tam agreed. Maybe I won't kill you. But I will do this." They raised their hand and ice began to shoot out. Within seconds, the squidpeople were imprisoned in ice formations. "See? Still alive. How about that?"

"You can shoot ice out of your hands!" I exclaimed.

"No. Don't be ridiculous," Tam told me. "I can modify the energy output of the molecules around me. The fact that water this far below the surface is already pretty cold only makes it all easier."

The water didn't feel very cold to me, but I just chalked that up to the rebreather working its magic. "And they'll be fine like that?"

"They will...as long as they tell me where the others are."

to be continued next week

by Jerry Berles