Octo brought them in slowly and gently. It was a testament to his skill since the front of the boat had been blown apart by Gold Bug’s weapon. The docking crew waited for him to draw aside the dock before they thought about hooking the winches to the cleats designed for that.

They had to wait for the deadly water to flow off the top of the metallic deck before they could do anything.

Sola waited for the crew to climb out of the metal fish before taking her father’s arm and dragging him away from the dock. Hardy talked with the other daemons as she hugged him.

“What happened, Da?,” asked Sola. She waved at the vanished nose of the boat where the gunner should be seated.

“Just a small thing that Gold Bug handled brilliantly,” said Zachariah.

“Half of the boat is gone,” said Sola. “You could have been killed.”

“The egg we were looking for hatched,” said Zachariah. “We had to do something desperate, or it would have killed us. We were lucky Octo was along as our pilot. The man is inhuman at the controls of a machine. But we beat it if you didn’t see it come out of the ocean.”

“There were spotters,” said Sola. “I don’t know what they saw yet.”

“Hopefully the Death Zone will clear out and regular ocean water will be the norm out there now that we have done what we could,” said Zachariah. “We’re probably going to have to ask for some expert from one of the other cities to check if any of that thing was left behind.”

“Was it another of the things that killed Ma?,” asked Sola.

“I think so,” said Zachariah. “I didn’t get a good look at it. I hope that we put it down for good. I don’t want to think about another of those things trying to expand here again.”

“What about your friend with the wooden dog?,” asked Sola.

“I have no idea,” said Zachariah. “I’m glad he warned me. We needed the boat and that worked out almost good enough. If we had some more information, we could have done a better job instead of risking the city.”

“All right,” said Sola. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll have to get the sphere and go down and make sure,” said Zachariah. “The others will have to build another prototype, or repair this one. That will be up to Benz. Maybe he will want both. The others can’t do anything to it until we make sure that the nose is cleared out after what Gold Bug’s gun did.”

“And what did Gold Bug do?,” asked Sola.

“I have no idea,” said Zachariah. “But I think it handled our problem in a way I have never seen before.”

He knew that wasn’t true. The gravity gun he had used in Messer’s Reach had done almost the same thing. Maybe they were both applications of gravity. He needed to think about that. Maybe there was something there he could use to build a faster ship to do what he wanted.

He put that in the back of his mind. He still needed to make sure his enemy was dead in this world before he could try to get to another one.

“So the test run was a success?,” asked Sola. “Other than losing the nose of the boat.”

“I think so,” said Zachariah. “Benz will probably want to put on more gun points in case of some other monster like this in the water.”

“I will work it out with him when he comes up,” said Sola. “Do you really need to go back into the water?”

“Someone has to make sure,” said Zachariah. “That someone might as well be me. This shouldn’t be dangerous at all if the thing was completely wiped out by Gold Bug’s invention. If you can get Carson and Bolan to get the others to repair the prototype, or get started on a new one, depending on what Benz wants to do, that will be a big help for me. I promise this shouldn’t be dangerous at all.”

“All right,” said Sola. “Take care of him, Gold Bug.”

The ant moved his antennae in agreement.

“Let me get some metal to stock Gold Bug up,” said Zachariah. “Just because it should be safe doesn’t mean it will be.”

“I’ll tell the sphere crew to get ready to take you out,” said Sola. “Are you taking someone with you?”

“Whomever’s left after the repairs get started will have to do,” said Zachariah. “I don’t need anyone capable at this point.”

“All right,” said Sola. “I’ll tell Bolan to go with you.”

Her face said she wasn’t going to take his protests. He shrugged. He knew she was protective of him, but he didn’t fight with her over it. He just made her protective of other people so he could work.

“Go tell Bolan that we’re going back down,” said Zachariah.

He walked into the shop and looked around for scrap metal cut from their project. He placed his daemon on a pile of it.

“Eat your fill,” said Zachariah. “We might need another invention to save our lives in the water.”

The ant started taking bites of the metal. It worked its way around the edges of the pile as it chewed.

Zachariah looked around the shop. He went to the weapon shop. He picked up the gravity gun rifle. It was something he was familiar with using, and it might come in handy.

He made some notes on paper at his desk. He had an idea about how Gold Bug’s weapon had worked. He didn’t want to arm anyone with it, but it could be a tool on a smaller scale.

Maybe he could use it to get rid of missed connections, or stuck bolts that had rusted over.

Maybe he could use it to instantly transport from one place to another if he could figure out the crushing effect and use it as a medium.

He smiled at that.

He walked back to the metal pile. His daemon lay on the floor, antennae twitching.

“Ready to go?,” asked Zachariah. He extended his hand. Gold Bug sluggishly

climbed on his palm. He transferred the ant to his shoulder as he walked out of the shop.

He walked out of the shop. The ferry had the sphere ready on deck. The crew attached the cables and hoses as he walked down the dock. He nodded at the other machinists pulling the boat out of the harbor and carefully tipping the death water out of the nose.

“Don’t let any of that touch you,” called Zachariah.

He walked over to the ferry. Bolan and Carson waited on deck for him. He frowned at them.

“Are you really going back down?,” asked Carson.

“We have to make sure,” said Zachariah. “Gold Bug’s engine might not have finished the job.”

“How bad could this be?,” asked Carson.

“It might grow everything back,” said Zachariah. “And if does that, it could wreck the harbor once it gets big enough. It might be able to reach the island from here, but I’m not sure. I definitely don’t want to find out.”

“All right,” said Carson. “What will you need?”

“I’m going down,” said Zachariah. “I have this and Gold Bug as my defense if

something goes wrong. I’m hoping that the thing is dead. A look around with a

light should be all I need to do.”

“Sola said to go down with you,” said Bolan. “What can Knives and I do?”

“I’ll need extra eyes and a light,” said Zachariah. “If worse comes to worse, we’ll need Knives’s bubble to get to the surface without being poisoned.”

“All right,” said Bolan. “We’re ready.”

“As soon as we get this done, Carson,” said Zachariah. “We need to have a meeting with Benz to see if he wants to keep the prototype and plans for Lobster Bay.”

“One thing at a time,” said Carson. “The nose is gone, and the windows are busted in a hundred places. It’s a miracle we didn’t go to the bottom. Let’s get this done before we worry about that.”

Zachariah nodded. He looked around. The crew had the sphere secured. He didn’t like taking Bolan with him, but his apprentice was capable of taking care of himself.

Carson gestured for the ferry to be untied from the dock so they could get underway. He went to the front to talk to the pilot. They had to be close to where the egg had hatched to drop his friend on top of it.

He didn’t like that at all, but the other machinist was right. They had to make sure the thing was dead before it tried to kill their people like the first one Festus had killed with his dragon.

Zachariah and Bolan boarded the sphere. They made sure the connections were set before the crane dropped the metal ball over the side. They let it descend slowly. Knives hovered on the ceiling with its eight legs. It played light out in the water from a spout on its back.

“I don’t see anything,” said Bolan.

“Neither do I,” said Zachariah.

They stood at the windows. Nothing moved in the water around them. The machinist knelt down to look out of the hole in the bottom of the sphere. He noted the depression in the bottom of the harbor. It was huge and obscured its edges from his vision.

“Gold Bug, what did your machine do?,” asked Zachariah.

“I don’t see anything,” said Bolan. “We might need a swimming daemon to search, but the water would kill it.”

Zachariah saw a motion in the water. He frowned. He pointed the gravity gun at the hole. There it was again.

“I need a light, Knives,” he said.

The daemon pointed his light into the water. Guns sprouted from its back. It was unclear what it could shoot, but it would if it had to.

Zachariah waited for the motion again. He aimed the gravity gun at the general area. He didn’t know what it would do to the water, but it was something.

A fish swam across his line of sight. It circled around the sphere before swimming off to take care of its business.

“I think the thing is dead,” said Zachariah. He relaxed his aim. “I think we can go up.”

“That’s good,” said Bolan. He noticed his daemon still had its guns out. “If you blow up the ball, you’ll drown.”

Knives retracted all but one of its guns as it eyed the hole in the sphere.

“I think we can go up,” said Zachariah. He smiled. “It looks like we’re ready to tackle more mundane problems.”

“So we did it?,” said Bolan.

“It looks like it, but the king might want to put up a monitor to keep an eye on

things,” said Zachariah. “But the main project is over once we fix our boat. Then we can start thinking about air machines.”

“So we’re really going to fly to the edge of the sky?,” asked Bolan.

“Well, I am,” said Zachariah. He signaled for the sphere to be raised. “Passage for others will have to be negotiated.”

“I’m going to keep you out of trouble,” said Bolan. “If you die, Sola will nag me

every day why I didn’t die too.”

Zachariah smiled.