The stories couldn't possibly live up to reality.  

He'd heard about the captain, the man with wild hair and a genial disposi-tion and a shark-like grin that betrayed his true nature; about how he'd played along with the communists and smiled in their faces until he could slaughter them like hogs.

He knew about the first mate, so beautiful and cruel, who had engulfed half of France in hellish, explosive firestorms before she'd turned twenty-five.  And the sniper, sun-hardened, bloodthirsty, cold and lethal, who killed for pleasure and took amusement in watching her frantic human quarry run before she took them down at a mile's distance.

He knew about the ingenious mechanic, who drank turpentine and breathed flame, who once killed a man with an anvil just to watch his brains squirt out.  And the half-blind and disfigured doctor, whose unhinged, brilliant mind saw fit to make living monsters out of dead things and steal the eye-balls out of the heads of living men.  

He'd even heard about the icy English librarian, whose gaze could root a man to the spot and whose demurely-gloved hands ever curled and gripped for a pistol or a penknife, anything she could use to leave her opponent shredded and destroyed.

And most terrible of all, Their trump card--Mr. Magihana, the shadowy king-pin.  He'd failed Ninja School himself, having refused to kill anyone, not even to pass exams.  He'd known too much, and the bounty on his head was exorbitant.  He had to be caught, or the entire integrity of the ninja field was left in tatters!

But nearly a hundred men had tried to dispatch Mr. Magihana, and none of them had ever even come close to succeeding.  A ninja needed to have an off-switch of some kind, or any ninja could run rampant--as Mr. Magihana did.  There was no telling what he might do, and no one could stop him.

They were the worst.  They ate ninjas for breakfast, chewed up some of the best and spit them out.  Who could forget what happened to Ninja 1GG6, dropped out of a flying vessel into the middle of the Indian Ocean in a strait-jacket?  Or Ninja 5T36, marooned on a desert island for nine months?

He didn't want to be here.  He wanted to go home.  He couldn't handle Them.

Not only were They terrible individually, but They were a hundred times more horrible all-together.  The way the mechanic and the English librarian conversed quietly together, having so utterly accepted their eventual doom.  The way the first mate read off that damning list of evidence, with-out fear of her compatriots' ire.  They were the worst of the worst, the cru-elest of the cruel, the best of the best--utterly comfortable around each other, all thoroughly at home in the communal presence of equal hor-rors.  Only murderers, monsters, lunatics, and beasts could co-exist so hap-pily.  Surely They would've torn each other's throats out by now if they hadn't been.

And even more horrible than Their social interactions?  The complete insan-ity of Their occupation.  He'd know the captain and mechanic were ge-niuses.  Nearly everyone aboard was a genius in some regard.  But the au-dacity, the incredible madness to make a glass-bottomed submarine!  It made 46F2's skin crawl to tread over it.  He hated having to look down and see the abyss open beneath him, to watch the monsters of the deep floating brainlessly past.  

And They were at the bottom of the sea.  The mechanic even left the ship, going out into that inky horrible pitch nightmare to come back with--Their monstrousness never ended--a jar of flesh-eating bacteria.

It was almost too much to bear.

He went about his job with a great sense of nervousness.  Trying to quell it, he hummed a little piece of the music he had heard earlier, pouring out of the Victrola in the sick bay.  He would hear any footsteps coming near him

long before anything could be done about it.  He'd already dispatched three crew members.  It had not been easy to get over his nerves, but it seemed that ninja training would help him there, too--his body moved before his brain.  Now that he'd done it, however, he was counting the seconds until They regrouped and swarmed him, like an angered hive.  

He'd not been allowed to kill them.  Rule 46 in the Ninja Code--A Ninja Is Not Wanton.  He'd have to file a request to kill them.  Why did they even have that rule?  He couldn't kill anyone but Mr. Magihana...but if they caught him, who knew what they would do?

Time was pressing.  Magihana had to be around here somewhere.  And if 46F2 did it--that would be the end.  No more missions to destroy this horri-ble man and no more Them.

--

Isabelle and Dr. Solomon had not it would be this easy.  

They were almost a little upset.  They'd grown to except so much better than ninjas.  Perhaps this one was new.  

After a quick detour to the kitchen, the two women had made their way through the ship, keeping close to the walls.  They'd been creeping silently towards a corner when they heard a soft, soft voice humming the "Pilgrim's Chorus" from Tannhauser.  

No one on the ship hummed Wagner.

They strained to hear, waiting in the darkness.  At last, the voice turned the corner, and many things happened at once.

Isabelle smacked the ninja with the cast-iron skillet.  Having struck approxi-mately his mid-section, given the unninjalike noise he made, she hit him again in his head.  He was not a ninja for nothing, though, and did manage

to dislocate one of her arms and to cut her a swipe in her own side that made her crumple to the ground, squirming in pain.

Dr. Solomon jabbed his leg with a needle, squirting a heavy-dose tranquil-izer into his system.  Perhaps sensing that the jig was up, he'd dealt her a vicious blow across the mouth and kicked her away, tearing the needle out and casting it aside as he fled.

After a few moments of panting, Isabelle said, "Doctor?"

She heard the doctor spit on the floor nearby, making a soft gagging noise.  "...I didn't need that tooth anyway."

"Great.  You want to pop my arm in?"

"My pleasure.  And admit it!  I told you Wagner was catchy!"

--

Ninja 46F2 was running on autopilot.  They'd tranquilized him!  It was his own fault, a stupid mistake--what kind of ninja had a musical bent?  He was an idiot!  A terrified, soon-to-be dead idiot.

Already he could feel his vision swimming, even in the dark.  He needed to find a place to pass out in; he could make another attempt, if only they didn't catch him while he was unconscious--

He leaned heavily against the wall, fumbling at a door.  Here.  The vertical ventilation shaft.  Who would look here?  He opened the door at last, ready to collapse inside.

There was a muffled squawk and a heavy thud, and he looked in to find the battered sniper, sooty and viciously angry, glowering up at him.

Ninja 46F2 dropped out of consciousness with a little whimper.

--

The lights dimly flickered on, but it was enough to blind them.  Dr. Solomon squinted and took advantage of the distraction, shoving Isabelle's arm back into its place while the other woman's eyes were still squeezed shut.  

She let the first mate scream, patted her back, and helped her to her feet.  

"All right," Isabelle said with a weak grasp at nonchalance.  "Let's go find Amy."

They found Amy on the bridge, looking sternly out at the blue, daring it to grow darker.  They had been cautious on the way down, not wanting to up-set the new additions to the ship, but now they flew up, the desperation of attack and the confidence of competence buoying them.  

"Any problems?" Isabelle asked tiredly.  

"None," said Amy.  "Although I did hear a woman scream."

Isabelle cleared her throat.  "Did you also hear that bang?  It sounded like a body hitting the floor."

"Probably the tranquilizer.  I will notify Mr. Magihana," said the doctor, wandering off.

"Have you heard from Jules or the captain?" Isabelle asked.

"No.  Would you like me to go look for them?" Amy inquired, clasping her hands behind her back.

"You can steer this thing better than I can.  Hold tight and get us up there as fast as you ever damn can," said Isabelle.

When all this was over, she was going to have such a cigarette.

--

Mr. Magihana had spent the past two dark hours in his quarters, back against the door, staring each of the pitch-black dark corners of his room in a randomized order.  A ninja could hold position for up to six years without moving, only to spring at the slightest provocation.  It would not do to be unprepared.  Ordinarily he wouldn't be so worried, but it was dark and they might do something foolish out of panic.

He didn't blink when the lights flickered on.  It didn't change anything.  He kept staring at the corners, looking.  

He heard the familiar jack-booted tramping of the doctor outside his room, and was unsurprised when she knocked at his door.

"Herr Magihana?  We have tranquilized our stowaway.  Would you care to come deal with him?"

Ninjas were masters of trickery.  "Just leave him to that little headless dog of yours."

"Do not be silly.  First of all, he is still locked in his box.  Second, Wolfgang can only eat a little gruel, I told you that.  He would never be able to eat a whole ninja, and it would take a very long time to reduce an entire ninja down to a thin-enough broth."  She paused.  "If this is a test, it is not a good one.  How can I know I am not speaking with a ninja pretending to be you?"

"I would've already come out to greet you."

"Oh, good point.  Well.  I'm sure that if I'm a ninja, you can disable me quickly enough.  I don't think you have much to lose."

That was true.  As long as it wasn't more than five ninjas pretending to be the doctor, he probably wouldn't even break a sweat.

He came out of his room to meet the smiling doctor.  "Very well.  Where is he?"

"Let's go find him," she said, and started off down the hall.  

--

Isabelle sighed at the scene.

Jules glowered up at her, no doubt composing an epigram about how much she hated her crewmembers.

"I don't know why this sort of thing always happens to you," Isabelle said, and went to get a pair of scissors.

Jules settled on her makeshift seat.  This bugger had put her in a air duct--the least his mangy, unconscious hide could do was provide a decent chair.

--

Ninja 46F2 found himself floating later in an inflatable raft.  They had left him with a gallon jug of water and a loaf of bread, and he carefully ex-tracted himself from the heavy bandages he'd been wrapped in.  He took his mask off and rubbed his face.

All things considered, he'd gotten off pretty easily.

His master had told him a little about the mission at the very beginning.

'They are a very tricky group,' Sensei'd said.  'They do not kill, but you can-not count on Them not to do something very strange and sometimes silly.  That is Their strength.'

'And I am to kill Mr. Magihana, yes, Sensei?'

Sensei had laughed.  'If you do it, you will go down in the history books.  We lose more ninjas that way--he doesn't kill them.  They retire out of embar-rassment.'

Ninja 46F2--oh, for God's sake, his name was Craig.  Craig didn't disagree with those ninjas.  He was thinking they probably had the right idea.  Maybe it was time to settle down and try his hand at musical composition again.  Obviously that was where his mind was.

'No,' Sensei had said, 'you likely will not kill him.  It is all we can do to keep track of Them nowadays--but that we can indeed do.  You, like so many oth-ers, will infiltrate and make the attempt.  When you fail, you will provide an-other link in the chain--another breadcrumb in the trail we use to follow Them.'

'But I don't want to be a breadcrumb,' Craig had said in a plaintive tone.

But here he was.  And being a breadcrumb wasn't all that bad.  At least he was alive.

He pulled out the ninja radio and wired in to base.  Then, he laid back and waited to be picked up.

--

"I don't mean to be critical," said Charles at the mess later that night.  It had been a busy few hours, and the clocks told the time of midnight.  A lot had been accomplished since the lights returned.  "But you may notice that our head count is a little sparse."

Isabelle counted.  Amy, drinking a well-deserved cup of tea.  Dr. Solomon and Jules, wolfing down their meals.  Charles, grimacing whenever his leg twinged, trying to get used to the new cast.  Mr. Magihana, calmly reading the newspaper.

"Shit," Isabelle said.  "Where's Reynard?"

No one had seen him.  There was suddenly a great deal of commotion--blue-prints acquired, search teams assigned, quadrants delegated.  They would sweep the ship clean.  

Wolfgang was whining as loudly as his tiny lungs could permit, staring up at the ceiling.

Eventually Mr. Magihana followed the dog's gaze.  He glanced up, blinked, and clicked his tongue.  

Everyone looked up.  Jules hurried off to get a footstool and a pair of scis-sors.

Mr. Magihana sighed, looking rather shame-faced.  "I am sorry, Captain Millavich.  I fear I may be bringing about more trouble than I am worth."

Reynard had been bound, gagged, and liberally duct-taped to the ceiling of the mess.  Rendered immobile and without the slightest voice, he gave his crew a faintly-accusatory, resigned look.  

At least he'd been able to watch the ocean go by through the glass floor.

--

Professor Lake closed the lights and stared at the jar of bacteria on his desk.  Every since his un-ducttaping, Reynard had been careful to stay in brightly-lit spaces.  He figured that it was just a little lingering trauma--it would be presently gone.  

Turning off the lights in this man's office had given him a bad turn, but he'd recouped nicely.  And watching the glowing horror in the jar oddly served to soothe his nerves.  It reminded him of a happier time, of the mission that would've been the most straightforward in the Geryon's history if it weren't for ninjas.

It reminded him of the faint, delicate hope of competence.

"Oh, this is really quite impressive!" said Professor Lake.  "I've never seen it before!  See how it glows with a greenish hue!  So astonishing!"

At least they had a satisfied customer.

"How much do you want for it?" Professor Lake asked.  

Reynard looked at him closely.  "We agree on two thousand, as I recall."

"Yes, certainly, and you will get that for the Viscubater edo.  But what are you asking for this?"

"That's the bacteria."

"Oh, my dear captain--no, no it is not.  This is unknown to me, a new species of bacteria!   Viscubater edo glows blue, not green.  I apologize extremely--I ought to have been more clear!"  

Reynard stared at him.  "Sir.  I do not think I understand.  Do you mean to tell me that we remodded my ship, submerged to the bottom of the sea, fought off a ninja attack--in which I was personally duct-taped to the ceiling of my own mess--dealt with injured crew members and, in short, risked far more life and limb than is typical to bring back the WRONG glowing deep-sea bacteria?"

"That would appear to be the size of it, captain...my, what a fascinating ac-count.  You really must write it all down."

Isabelle looked like she was about to start wailing.  "How many varieties of glowing, deep-sea bacteria can there be?!"

"If the range of color is anything like a rainbow, very many indeed.  But blue is certainly what I am after.  Would you--I hate to ask, but we had an agree-ment--please go back and collect the proper bacteria?  It is very important

that I have the right variety.  I will pay for your trouble by taking this little marvel off your hands--say, four thousand dollars?"

Reynard did the math.  Six thousand total dollars for two bacteria, and the loss of his last shreds of patience and sanity.

"Fine," he said with weary resignation.  "Give us a day to ninja check and we'll go back down."

On their way out Isabelle punched the Professor's walls.  Reynard did not blame her.