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ater, so I turned away from the shore and pulled free from
the sandy bottom. I was hungry, and after Doctor Eckert's introduction
to living off the bounty of Mahiru's lagoons, I knew that I could find plenty
of satisfying food in the shallows on the back side of the reef.
--
It was on the third day of my recovery that I saw her. I only saw a
fleeting fish-like form, green and brown, but I knew that it was Mary,
and I knew that she'd suffered the same fate as I had. I was lunching on
some sea urchens I'd found, but I broke off my meal and swam after her.
I wasn't sure which way Mary had gone; it's amazing how big a few tens of
acres of lagoon can be when you're exploring it at water level. It took
me fifteen minutes before I found her, resting on a secluded bit of beach
between the roots of the mangroves that grow along the shore in the more
sheltered areas.
"Mary!" I said, swimming onto the sand beside her. "Are you OK?"
"Kent!" Mahiru Yukino called, and then grinned wryly. "I'm not sure about being
OK. God! I see you're in the same boat though."
"You don't know how awful it was when I found your legs hanging b
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