Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

other side of the lugger. Using long flippers, she positioned herself in the sea with the economical, almost lazy movements of a seasoned diver. Silver and crystal bubbles swirled up from her in easy, rhythmic puffs. The yellow and black of her wet suit made her look like an exotic fish hanging in a huge turquoise aquarium.
    Bathwater-warm at the surface, the ocean was cooler the deeper a diver went. Even if it hadn’t been, divers still would have worn lightweight wet suits and protective gear for whatever flesh the wet suit didn’t cover. Australia’s warm, immense pearling grounds were home to Irukandji, a stinging jellyfish that injected nerve toxin into anything careless enough to get within range. Even though every dive ship carried an antidote, it wasn’t unusual for divers to end up in the hospital with a case of Irukandji poisoning.
    The only reason Archer was diving with just half of a wet suit was that no jellyfish had been sighted. If that changed, he would be in the lugger just as fast as he could cover the thirty feet to the surface. The narrow strings and hand-sized pouch that was Western Australia’s standard swimwear for men didn’t offer much protection. The stretchy black cloth covered less than a jockstrap.
    Nakamori had chosen the relatively calm part of the daily tidal race for the dive, which meant that the bottom wasn’t churned up and visibility was good. Yet after several drifts over the search area, they hadn’t found any man-sized rectangular baskets of oysters sitting on the bottom.
    Archer shifted his grip and looked away for a moment, letting his eyes rest. When he looked back, he didn’t try to focus sharply. It was better to let the sea floor slide by with its shapeless lumps and liquid blue-green bouquets of life. Nature was fluid, quintessentially feminine; it was only man that created right angles and rectangles. An unfocused eye picked out the difference between nature and man more quickly than an intent, narrowed eye.
    Perhaps thirty feet away from Archer, Hannah was also looking without focusing, floating, letting the sea flow around her. She loved the drifting, boneless feeling. It made her feel as supple as water, as weightless as sunlight, free all the way to her soul. Though her attention didn’t wander, a dreamy kind of peace filled her.
    When she spotted the sinuous ribbons of three sea snakes swimming along at the edge of her vision, her heartbeat didn’t even pick up. The snakes were among the most deadly creatures on earth, but usually they were placid as milk cows. Some divers—Flynn among them—even amused themselves by handling the reptiles. The divers called the snakes Jo Blakes, using the rhyming Cockney slang that was impenetrable to outsiders. Jo Blake Roulette was a popular game among a certain stripe of diver. The fact that divers occasionally came across a cranky snake only made the game more interesting.
    Hannah glanced over at Archer, wondering if he had seen the snakes or even knew they were poisonous. In the first instant of focusing on him, her stomach clenched: Len’s wet suit was unique. Like a predatory fish, Len’s dive suit was dark blue on the back and creamy silver along the belly. To a diver swimming above or below, the wet suit blended in with the lighter ceiling or the darker sea floor. She had seen Len swimming many times. In the water his strong arms made up for his useless legs. Diving gave him the freedom that he craved more than the morphine and booze that dulled the corrosive pain of his body. And his mind.
    It’s not Len, Hannah told herself fiercely.
    Len was dead, beyond the reach of her fear or pity or sad dreams of what could have been if only she had been able to reach into the man she had married and lance the abscesses on his soul. But she hadn’t been what he needed. Whatever chance there might have been for Len to heal the darkness within himself had vanished when he took pity on an innocent girl he had seduced and married her.
    Forcing away the clammy veil of memory, Hannah looked again at the man who drifted nearby. Yes, there was a resemblance. Both men were broad shouldered, with unusual strength in their backs and shoulders and arms. Once, Len’s legs had been powerful, too. Once, he had eaten the ground with his long strides, pulling her along at a trot until breath was a knife in her ribs. Once, he—
    Again Hannah wrenched her thoughts back to the here and now, to Archer and the vast turquoise sea. And