CHAPTER 39
The research team gathered a half-hour later in Dominique’s suite to be out of earshot of the crew. Sunita and Fox were the last to arrive. Sunita looked at Michael and gave a surprised laugh.
“What?”
“You’re darker than my brother,” she said and laughed again.
He looked at his arms in the light of the stateroom and his eyebrows lifted.
“Naïda, did you do this?”
Yes.
“It’s melanin,” Yuri said. “Normally the body uses it to pigment the skin for protection against the sun. Your symbiote must have control over it.”
“Right. I guess that made me a little less conspicuous in the dark water.”
Michael explained that he’d stayed under the keel only a few meters deep for the first part of the search. The movements of the Mexican crew were easy to hear as they stomped the length o
