“They’re all drylanders, they don’t understand how easy it is to go loose and fluid down here in the depths, how little rank and order seem to matter when you’re moving as a single beast with a dozen tails, two dozen arms, and trying all the while to keep yourself together, keep yourself unified, keep yourself whole. The chain of command dissolves under the pressure of the crushing deep, just as so many other things – both expected and unimagined – have already fallen away.”
