Today, with nothing else to do, Annie was fishing alongside Uncle Parker Selfridge in an undersea base. They were lounging comfortably in their own recliners in front of a huge, high-strength, pressure-resistant, aerospace-grade picture window, gazing at the colorful, dazzlingly beautiful underwater world of Pandora beyond the glass as they fished at their leisure.
That's right, fishing!
Of course, their so-called fishing was only indirect: they used remote-controlled mechanical arms and fishing lines mounted outside the base. Neither of them dared find a hole and simply stick a fishing rod and line through it.
If either of them had tried that, the immense pressure of the seawater more than a thousand meters below the surface—and the water that would have rushed in—would have instantly crushed and flooded their compartment. And it would have been the kind of disaster they couldn't plug up, no matter how hard they tried.
"..."
This compartment was one of the base's few external observation rooms. To let people inside see the beautiful scenery outside clearly, the room was kept somewhat dim. At that moment, Parker Selfridge was simply lounging in his recliner, not saying a word as he silently waited for those foolish fish to take the bait.
His defeat on the surface of Pandora and his long life under the sea had taught him to keep quiet and think things through on his own. He'd grown used to retreating into his own private world.
After two days together, he'd more or less accepted that the little girl who'd come to Pandora to investigate and nearly drowned in a continental shelf trench was actually a "mage." Still, that didn't help them much. They were deep underwater, and the little one's strange powers didn't seem useful here. As for her so-called magic, it didn't seem any