“What about the toxic effect of a large algae spill directly on the reef?” the warden asked. “I understand there's no way it can be fully removed once it's actually in the coral.”
“Algae's going to foul that section regardless of how we lift the net,” Zena said. “Already has.”
“The reef's almost dead there anyway. That's why the eel is so hungry,” Pua added. “It was the blood smell that drew it out. Rock eels don't usually chew knife coral. It's kinda sharp, even for them.”
“Kind of sharp,” one of the men muttered. He was the one nursing a bandaged hand.
“At least the algae is dead,” Zena said. “What we can't clean out will kill what it's sitting on, but it can't reproduce and spread.”
The warden nodded. “Okay. We'll give it a try. I don't want anyone else hurt, so we'll move the eel before any swimmers go back in the water. It'll be dark soon. Suspend operations for now, and we'll do the job at first light.”
“We got plenty of light from the water,” Klooney said. “And floodlights from the barge. The suckersharks will clear the area soon.”
“Pua,” the warden asked. “Could we implement your plan tonight? How would the eel react?”
Pua glanced at Klooney. “I wouldn't even send him back down there tonight. That puhi's going to have bad enough indigestion as it is.”
That brought a bark of laughter from the crew. Even the Company man's own people joined in. He glared, first at Pua, then at the others. The laughter died quickly, but many continued to grin.
“All right,” the warden said. “Zena, we'll need volunteers to go under the net in the morning.”
“I'll go,” all three Pukui old-timers said at once. Pua restrained a smile. She had known they would support her plan, even after fighting with the eel. At Pukui, it was kapu to harm a reef dweller unless you were going to eat it, or it was going to eat you.
The warden looked somewhat surprised at their quick response, but nodded. “We're set, then. Fatu...” She paused, looking back toward the green plastic. “Will you do what needs to be done for that crewman?”
“Aye,” Fatu said softly.
The warden nodded her thanks. “Zena, set a night crew to keep the net steady as she is with the tide changes. Then go home and get some sleep.”
“Not necessary, Boss,” Zena said.
“Yes,” the warden replied. “It is. I need you fresh.”
“This is going to cost you, lady,” Klooney said. “You can't let a whole Company crew sit idle for an entire night. Pukui'll go broke on this one operation.”
The warden picked up a data sheet from the wheelhouse windowsill. “Don't you worry about Pukui's finances, Mr. Klooney. I'll be charging this entire delay to the Company.” There was an immediate cry of outrage from the Company crew. Mistake, Pua thought.
“Special-operations fund,” the warden went on without a pause. “Not to be subtracted from the crews’ bonus credits.”
“Ho!” one of the crewman said softly.
“Hallelujah,” said another, and across the deck, anger changed quickly to surprise and pleasure.
“Reefers!” one woman sighed. “A night off with pay! At Pukui, no less!”
“Good call, Boss Lady,” an old-time Company man called out.
How does she know how to do that? Pua thought. A second ago they were ready to gill her, and now she's got them kissing her fingertips. Pua glanced at Klooney. Except for him.
The warden stopped in front of her on her way back to the flitter.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
Pua straightened. “No,” she lied.
The woman watched her for a moment. “Do you want a ride back?”
“Do you have a knife I can use?” Pua asked in return. The woman lifted her brows, but pulled a pocketknife from her shorts and held it out. Pua opened it, examined the blade—it was very sharp—closed it, and stuffed it into her own pocket.
“I'll swim,” she said, and waited just long enough to witness the horrified looks of the Company crew before tumbling sideways into the water. Then she swam like a bloody ray with a pack of suckersharks on its tail to clear the area before the eel or the sharks realized she was there.
Chapter 12
Fatu met the warden on the barge the following morning. She had asked him to pilot the sub for the removal of the rock eel and then give her the tour of the farm they had missed the day before.
Zena stood by the starboard winch directing the position of the pump hoses. She glanced frequently toward the northeast, following the progress of the storm clouds across the horizon. The distant flicker of lightning attested to this latest storm's violence; it was one of the true storms of winter, and while it would not strike Pukui directly, the swells it generated were already pounding the eastern barrier reef. The wind was brisk, but fortunately the lagoon waters remained calm.
“Net's about as tight as we can get it without ripping the whole thing open,” Zena called.
Beside Fatu, the warden nodded and motioned for Klooney to join them. “Zena says your man Kobayashi is the best marksman on-site,” she said to him. “I'd like him with us, just in case.”
“Good call, Warden,” he replied. “We'll meet you at the sub.”
“You stay on deck,” she said before he could turn away. “Have your repair and cleanup crews ready for immediate deployment as soon as the eel's neutralized and the net cleared.”
“They're set to go now,” he said. “They don't need me looking after them.”
“I want you on deck during the clearing operation, and then in the water for the cleanup,” she said. “There's a big hole in that net, and we can't afford to make any more mistakes with it.”
“Look, lady, I'm crew boss here, and nobody tells—”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. Klooney tensed, as did Fatu and everyone else who witnessed the move. The woman's long fingers were within easy reach of Klooney's gills. Her touch was one of extraordinary challenge. Fatu wondered if she knew what she was doing. She nodded toward the wheelhouse. Wisely, Klooney did not resist. Fatu moved to where he could watch them through the open door.
“I am farm boss here,” the woman said as she lowered her hand from Klooney's shoulder. “I'm also a fully privileged troubleshooter on special assignment. I'm sure Dr. Toma explained to you what that means in terms of your full cooperation.”
“I never—”
“I want you to remind your crew that Fatu is the on-site boss when I'm not here, and in his absence, Zena.” She lifted a hand to stop his angry response. “One more thing. From now on, we operate with one crew. No Company versus Pukui. No oldtimer versus recruit. I want no more dead squid. Do you understand me, Mr. Klooney?”
He smiled, hard and tight. “Sure, Boss, I understand you fine. As of now, I and my crew don't do nothin’ you don't tell us to do first.”
“Don't play games with me,” she said. “You do your job, and you do it right. You wouldn't be here at Pukui right now if you weren't good at your job, because I asked for the best.” His chin lifted. “So show me how good you can be.”
His brows rose, and he slid a slow look down to her waist, and below. “I'd be real happy to do that, Warden. Any time you feel ready.”
Slimy bastard, Fatu thought. He saw the same assessment in the warden's eyes, and a weariness that said she was sorry she had offered Klooney the courtesy of a private discussion.
“Go boss your crew,” she said, still in that flat, calm voice.
“What's your hurry?” Klooney asked. He glanced toward the door, caught Fatu's eye, and winked. “Nobody's going to bother us in here. You bein’ the boss an’ all. Maybe if we was to get to know each other a little better, it might ... relax the tension some.”
The warden didn't move. “Get Kobayashi on the sub,” she said.
Klooney grinned and stepped outside the wheelhouse. He crossed the deck, which was full of curious squids, and spoke quietly to the Company marksman. “Hey, Warden,” Klooney called as she
crossed to the berthed sub. “Let's do it in the water next time. Guaranteed, that'll relax you just fine.”
The warden turned slowly to face him. The furnaces continued to grumble; the net groaned as it rubbed against the side of the closed rollers. The humans aboard the barge grew absolutely still.
“If you want to solve that problem you're having with tension, Mr. Klooney,” the warden said, “I suggest you take a ride through that compression roller.” She glanced around at the gaping others. “Get ready to dive. I want crew on that net thirty seconds after the eel is cleared.”
“Netters to the starboard fore,” Zena snapped. “On the double. Cleaners ready at port. Ready the dive.” Company and Pukui crew alike scrambled to the order. Only Klooney crossed to his assigned place at a walk. His face was red under his heavily pigmented skin.
“Klooney's got a tide-pissin’ personality,” Fatu said as the warden lowered herself through the submersible's hatch, “but he's a top-rate net man.”
“He'd better be,” she said.
Despite his bulk, Fatu slid easily into the sub behind her. They took their places in the upper observation bubble, and Fatu activated the engines. Kobayashi came aboard and paused to seal the hatch. As usual, he was chewing on a sliver of betel coral. His teeth were stained brown from the mildly narcotic dye the coral exuded. He was carrying a disassembled pneumatic speargun.
“Stand by in the lockout chamber,” Fatu told him. From there, the marksman could fire on the rock eel from a position of relative safety, if that should become necessary.
“I want the crew safe,” the warden said, “but I don't want the animal harmed unless there's no other choice.”
“Hai,” Kobayashi replied.
“If you do have to shoot it, kill it clean.”
“What I shoot, I kill, Warden,” Kobayashi said. He shifted the coral sliver to the opposite side of his mouth. “And what I kill, I kill clean.”
“Fire only on my order, marksman,” she warned.
“Hai,” he replied softly, and slipped below.
The warden rubbed a hand across her face.
“Don't worry about Kobe,” Fatu said. “He won't shoot ‘less he has to. His daddy and his grandaddy were both Buddhists. Besides, he's an old Pukui hand.”
She surprised him with a questioning glance.
“Didn't Pua tell you? Unless you're going to eat it, or it's gonna eat you, it's kapu to harm a Pukui reef dweller. Plenty fiticoco gonna find you if you break that kapu.”
“I understand kapu,” she said. “What's fiticoco?”
“Trouble,” he replied. “Of any kind and all varieties.”
“Is that a Samoan word?”
He shook his head. “Chuukese. We use words and phrases from a lot of the old Pacific languages.”
He activated the comm link to the barge and the hydrobus, where Pua and the three Pukui volunteers were waiting for their signal to enter the water.
“Ready on the barge?” he asked into the deck mike.
“Aye.” Zena's reply was clipped.
“Pua?”
“What's taking you guys so long over there?”
Fatu laughed again. He slid the sub from its berth in the side of the barge so smoothly that it hardly seemed to be moving. Then it began to sink, and the sense of motionlessness disappeared. Water splashed and foamed upward over the observation bubble until, abruptly, the illusion of stillness returned. The water glowed deep gold in the shadow of the barge.
“Do you ever get used to it?” the warden asked. “The color, I mean. It's so...”
“Un-Earthly?” Fatu suggested. He turned the nose of the sub away from the barge, then began a wide descending circle around the area of the tangled net. “I never get tired of looking at it, but even after twenty years, I can't say I'm really used to it.”
“Pua told me the ocean off Hawaii was the wrong color,” she said, “but I didn't understand what she meant at the time. She said it didn't taste or sound right, either.”
Fatu smiled. “I'm sure it doesn't, to her. There's our friend. See ‘im?” He slowed the sub and pointed.
The woman sucked in her breath as she caught sight of the brilliant green puhi nosing the tangle of net and broken coral. Only its sinuous snakelike body was reminiscent of an Earth-sea eel. The multicolored beaked snout, predominantly bright pink, was more like the face of a parrot fish. A thin, almost transparent dorsal fin wavered like a fan the full length of its body. The warden leaned forward and activated her close-up focus.
“We don't get many chances to see rock eels completely out of their holes,” Fatu said. “They're pretty solitary creatures under normal circumstances.”
“The color is incredible,” she said. “How can that be adaptive in an environment like this?”
“When the reef is alive, he blends right in,” Fatu said. “At least, his snout does—the rest of him is usually hidden inside his hole. Only way you can find one of ’em is by watching for the chewed coral circle that marks their territory.”
The puhi stretched open its jaws, then snapped them shut over a broken branch of coral that had caught in the net. Coral and netting both ripped away. Thick algae sludge oozed from the hole.
“I understand now why the thing is so deadly,” the warden said.
Fatu laughed. “Hell, Warden, that thing's just a baby. We've got things out here that would make even you back off.”
“I don't doubt it for a minute,” she replied, and she sounded serious.
Fatu tapped his cheek against his face mike. “Kobe, what do you think?”
“That's one reef-huggin’ hungry puhi,” the marksman replied. “He musta been stuck under that net for a long time.”
Fatu maneuvered the sub closer. “I'll run past his starboard side. Swish a chunk of sponge in the water to get his attention.”
“Hai.” The word was hardly spoken before the eel tensed. It swung its head around toward the passing sub, away, then quickly back again. Fatu powered slowly past. The puhi's brilliant snout turned slowly in unison.
“He's interested,” Fatu said. “Better drop the shoot and feed him something before he decides to eat the sub.”
“Hai.” A tube constructed of algae netting uncoiled behind the sub. A small chunk of gray sponge drifted from the tube's mouth. Instantly, the eel was on it. His move away from the main net was so fast it startled even Fatu.
“Nice catch,” the warden murmured.
The eel snatched up the drifting sponge, paused for just an instant while the pharyngeal dental plates inside its mouth crushed the nutrients from it, then nosed the end of the tube for more.
“Keep him happy, Kobe,” Fatu said. “I'm heading for open water. Let me know if he starts getting nervous about being so far from his hole.”
Another piece of spongy substance dropped through the shoot. After mashing it thoroughly and spitting out the stony residue, the eel nuzzled the tube for more. In its eagerness, it ripped a chunk of netting off the end of the tube. Kobe kept an intermittent supply of sponge coral sliding down the tube as they lured the puhi away from its territory.
As they approached the barrier reef, the warden turned her attention forward again. She was obviously startled by the live reef's riotous colors and myriad marine life. Fatu couldn't blame her. The contrast between this vibrant, thriving place and the bare stone under number twelve was extreme.
“This ocean is like a visual, tactile symphony,” she said after a moment. Fatu glanced at her. She was leaning forward, transfixed by the colorful, fluid scene. “So much movement and color and texture. It sings, just like Mauna Kea Iki.”
He must have made some small sound. She turned to him. “Is there something wrong?”
Fatu realized he was staring. “No,” he said quickly.
She turned back to the reef. “I keep expecting this place to feel alien, or to at least make me feel alien,” she said. “Individually, things like the rock eel, or Pua's door Matt, or this ungodly color, do. But
overall, there's such a sense of balance...” She paused. “There aren't many places left on Earth that sing so joyously of their own existence.”
Fatu was more than startled. “I've never heard a Company rep talk like that,” he said.
She watched him for a moment. “The Company holds my contract, Fatu, not my soul.” She turned her look back to the golden sea.
The puhi didn't seem to notice the reef at first, but then something long and silver flashed with refracted sunlight, and the puhi's snout turned away from the feeding tube. It turned back, but Kobe withheld the next chunk of sponge coral. The puhi swung back toward movement on the reef.
Abruptly, it realized that it was no longer dependent on the elusive sponge coral. It snaked away from the sub and began nosing the varied coral outcroppings. It tested a number of holes, snapped the tips off a pair of feathery coral branches, then slid tailfirst into a small dark opening.
“At least someone's problems have been solved,” the warden said.
Fatu touched on the open comm channel again. “Pua,” he said. “You can come down now, but stay on the inner lagoon side of the net. Don't come all the way through. Not for any reason. Friend puhi has found a new home, but you'd just about make dessert for him, if he decides to go back and check on the old one.”
“Is there any chance of that?” the warden asked quickly.
He laughed. “That baby ain't gonna budge from here for another three months, Boss. I just said that to remind her to be careful in case any of its cousins are still under there.”
There was no response from Pua, but a moment later a woman's voice reported, “Four swimmers in the water.”
“Transmit locator signals,” Fatu said. Three lights blinked on the deck locator grid. “Damn,” he muttered.
“What's the problem?” the warden asked.
“None yet,” he replied. “But I'm gonna breeze Pua's ass when this is over. She's out there without a locator again.”
The warden frowned. She had given specific orders that all members of the net-clearing crew were to wear signal clips and shoulder mikes during this dangerous dive. “Tell the others to send her topside to put one on,” she said into the mike.
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