The Seventh Tide by Joan Lennon

up again – until finally she reached the part of the city nearest the surface. D-class and RD-class lived up here, so it was a good idea not to be spotted wandering about. Minders and Maintenance O-class were of course allowed into these Sectors, but Jay didn’t think she could pass for anythinglike that. Finally, having first checked that there was no one watching, she turned down a little-used side tube. There was a ladder at the end of it, and in the ceiling, there was a hatch…
    Jay had first started going up top about a year ago. It was a Restricted Sector, so being there unsupervised was absolutely not allowed. The old surface platforms were not all that safe any more. Before the perfecting of sub-hydro power, they’d housed solar-power panels and wave-power generators and windmills. Further back than that, they’d provided people with a place to be ‘in the air’, though it’d been a long time since the platforms had been used very often for that. Jay’s people adapted to underwater living long ago, and didn’t pine much for the sight of the sky.
    If you fancied some spectacular seascape views, though, this was the place. On a clear day you could see islands as far away as Nevis and the Cuillin chain, where the seabirds bred in season and the air was filled with their screaming for space. The horrendous noise and the stink of guano – that’s what she remembered from a school trip round the archipelago – hellish. But from a distance, the islands were quite pretty, with their swirling haloes of birds overhead and the white waves round their feet.
    It was already getting cold again and the birds would be gone soon. Once the winter storms set in in earnest, it wouldn’t be any fun at all coming up top.
    Jay shivered. It wasn’t that much fun now , except for the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place. She’d seen the view before – and she had promised her parents she’d get stuck in to her schoolwork… Shewas just about to give in and go home, when suddenly she froze. There was a sound coming from the hatch.
    Guardian ! thought Jay, crouching anxiously behind a box-housing for something, but it wasn’t the police. It was just a man, obviously RD-class, in a peculiar coat. She’d seen him here before. He seemed very good at giving his minder the slip. She wasn’t sure what he came up here of, but then nobody ever did know why an RD did things! He never stayed long, and of course he always left immediately if he saw her…
    The hatch opening mechanism whirred again – and this time Jay hid in earnest.
    ‘Sir! Dr Horace, sir! Come inside at once!’ The minder was a middle-aged O-class woman with unconvincing hair rolls. She bustled up to her charge but was careful not to touch him. ‘Running off again – you shouldn’t make me worry like that!’
    Jay saw the man’s face as he turned towards the woman. It was a surprisingly young face, unlined and wide-eyed under his old-man hair.
    ‘I shouldn’t?’ he said in mild surprise.
    Jay didn’t hear the minder’s reply as she ushered the man back to the hatch. Then they were gone.
    Jay sighed. Better wait a while, till they’re well away , she thought. She wandered to the railing and gazed out over the swell.
    That could be me , she thought glumly of the woman. If I don’t get better marks, minding some D or RD will be the only work I’ll be able to get.
    It was a prospect as bleak as the scene before her, nothing but the grey end of day, the cold flinty sea, the passing of the year…
    She was just turning away to go in search of some warmth and light and, if possible, some cheerfulness, when it happened. She only saw it out of the corner of her eye – a completely impossible whirlpool the height of a tall man balanced above the surface of the sea – before it disappeared, leaving two bodies thrashing about in the icy water.
    The RNLI (Robotic Naval Life-saving Initiator) deployed immediately. Sensor-directed netting