He squeezes twice. Then he punches the beacon.

Rael shoots upward as the rope pulls. He breaks the surface gasping, laughing, crying. The crew hauls him onto the raft.

"What?"

The underwater sequence is shot in near-total darkness, lit only by bioluminescent streaks in the water. Rael swims down past the Starfall 's wreckage. The faces return—not hostile, but curious. They press against him, whispering memories into his mind: a child's first steps, a lover's goodbye, the smell of rain on concrete. None of them are his.