ADLY, THE temperature of the ocean water had not mysteriously risen by, say, fifty degrees while we were back on the sub. It was still horribly, teeth-chatteringly cold, and I went ahead and indulged myself in a searing tirade about cold water as we slowly swam toward the huge dome.

A hundred yards in back of us, the sub was still dark, blending in with the black water. I knew they were watching us with night-vision goggles, so I tried to look more heroic and less weeniefied about the cold.

The dome was lit and divided into rooms. Whatever glass-type stuff they had used was a couple of feet

thick, and the interior was dim and distorted. Cautiously, Angel and I began to swim around the whole dome, seeing a room full of computers and equipment, another room full of sleeping dumb-bots, some rooms that looked like an apartment.

Finally, when we had swum almost the whole way around, I grabbed Angel’s arm and pointed. There were several small, grayish compartments, set off from the others. In one of them, a slight figure lay curled on its side on the floor. It had long, dark, curly hair.It was my mom . Was she still alive?

Angel’s eyes were big as we hovered there.

The glass is way too thick to break,I thought, and Angel nodded.

If we use a torpedo, it would probably kill my mom. Angel nodded again.

Maybe I could borrow some kind of big drill from the sub? Maybe we could storm in through an air lock? Angel frowned, unsure.

Then I noticed something weird. Okay, I mean, somethingweirder . There were no fish anywhere close to the dome. No nothing. This deep, it isn’t exactly teeming with the circle of sea life anyway, but there were still plenty of freakish, scary things swimming around, not necessarily related to the oozing radiation. But none would come close to the dome, and no barnacles, sea stars, or tube worms attached themselves to it either.

Almost as soon as I realized that, the mystery was solved for us: an eel-like thing swam close and passed us. Then,zap! Some sort of invisible force field suddenly electrified it, killing it instantly. It sparked, twitched, then sank silently down into the depths to the ocean bottom.

Angel and I backed up several yards.

So much for attacking through the sub’s air locks,I thought. My mom was right there! But I couldn’t get to her. She was lying there so limp, unmoving—surely she was still alive. They couldn’t have killed her yet, could they?

Angel looked perplexed, then turned her head and peered out into the darkness. Way off, using raptor vision, I could just barely make out the looming dark pickle shapes of the Krelp. Angel stared at them, cocking her head, as if she were listening. After a minute, she nodded.

The Krelp say they want to help, she thought at me.

But how?I asked.

I don’t know, she answered.

I felt a swell of icy water push against me, and then the largest Krelp, the one Angel called Gor, surged past us, almost tumbling us head over heels. It neared the dome, got zapped over and over again, but steamrollered right through the force field.

Follow it!Angel commanded.It’s shorted out the electric net!

We rushed after it, trying to trace its exact path. I braced myself for a horrible electrocution, but nothing happened. I swam as fast as I could to the window leading into my mom’s cell. I rapped on it hard, but

she didn’t move.

Gor pressed itself against the glass, and I could only imagine what it looked like from the inside. Someone inside the dome noticed it and started screaming. I saw people starting to race around, saw someone outside the room that housed all the sleeping ‘bots. Still, my mom lay motionless.

My stomach got a cold, clenched feeling. Maybe, after all this, we were too late.

People were still staring up at the enormous creature pressed against the glass, and now I noticed a thick slime seeping out from under its body. This thing was the size of a 747. I mean, the wordeew doesn’t even come close.

“Watch,” Angel said out loud.

Where the slime was touching the glass, wisps of smoke were twisting away into the water.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “It’s melting the glass with its… uh, body snot.”

“Gazzy will be so jealous,” Angel bubbled. “He’d give anything to be able to do that.”

“Please do not tell him about it.”

The glass continued to melt, and then something clicked in my brain, and I realized what would happen once the glass failed: water would seep in, then it would flood in, then it would crush the dome, and everything inside with its unimaginable weight.

If my mom wasn’t dead now, she would be, really soon.