He clipped his ear-plug lead onto the life line. . . is about half a mile ahead. Pretty fancy flying,' Charlie was saying. Keilty felt a tug on the line and began swimming forward. He glanced over his shoulder to see the dim figure of Weston gliding silently behind. Half a mile. He hoped that silly clicker on Charlie's pack was working. It was going to take them a while to reach that sub. Charlie started swimming down quickly. After five minutes, he found himself tiring from the heavy burden of the pack he was carrying. Then he cursed himself for an ass. He had forgotten to fill the water sacs. The dim light filtering down from the violently rippling surface was quickly left behind. Even at the start, Keilty could hardly see more than the powerful tail flukes ahead of him moving up and down tirelessly, and soon he found himself surrounded by complete blackness. Already, his leg muscles were beginning to tire and he realized how much out of shape he was. The bulky projections of the equipment and mines attached to his belt and back made swimming that much harder.
