Reefsong

by Carol Severance

  Very carefully, Angie wrapped her own hands around Pua's wrists. They had tested their strength together often enough that Angie knew she could not break Pua's hold without both of them being seriously hurt—if she could break it at all. Toma and Fatu were close beside them, but neither interfered. They think they'd be better off with me dead at Pua's hands, she thought, so the Company would be forced to bring another troubleshooter to do this job and thus gain them more time. They might even be right.

  “You told him, Pua,” she said.

  Pua's fingertips slid under Angie's gill flaps and broke the suction seal. Angie caught her breath at the sudden sharp burn of the inner membranes being exposed to dry air.

  “I didn't tell him anything!” Pua said.

  “Pua, they murdered your parents.” Angie gasped. “They set up the accident that took my hands; they were—they still are—prepared to use you as a guinea pig for the rest of your life. Do you think they would have hesitated for a minute to truth-drug you? They don't give a damn about the law that says it can't be done to kids. There was no way for anyone outside to know. They never expected to have to send you back here.”

  Pua's eyes filled suddenly with tears. She didn't want to believe it, but she did. It was obviously something she had questioned herself about before. “I couldn't have told them. I would never...”

  “They probably did it before you ever regained full consciousness from the fever.”

  “I never had the fever. I told you that!”

  “I know,” Angie whispered. “I know.” She squeezed her eyes closed against the pain, then opened them again. “They didn't get it all from you, Pua. They only learned enough to confuse them. That's why they sent you back.”

  “Fatu, is it true?” Pua said. She sounded like a child again. “Did I tell them?”

  “Aye, Little Fe'e,” he said quietly. “It's the only way they could have known all the things they knew even before you came home. The warden hasn't sent any messages off-planet. We're certain of that.”

  Pua's strong, smooth fingers trembled along the edges of Angie's gills. At last, abruptly, she let them seal shut. As Pua turned away, Angie rolled quickly to the side, her hands pressed tightly over her burning gills. There's a lesson for you, troubleshooter, she thought as she forced herself to stand. Her equilibrium was off, and she stumbled. Toma steadied her. You're vulnerable in a way you never even suspected.

  “You all knew, didn't you?” Pua cried. “You all knew they did that to me, and none of you told me! Why didn't you tell me, Fatu? Why didn't you warn me? What if I had gone to see my babies and they had followed?” Fatu reached out to her, but she jerked away.

  “How can they have learned about Sa le Fe'e, but not how to find it?” Angie asked.

  “How is it you don't know?” Toma asked. “You're the one they sent out here to follow her.”

  “Damn it, Toma! I was sent out here to use the fireloving drugs on anybody and everybody that might know where the TC records are hidden. That's it. That's the only reason. It doesn't do a lot for my ego, but that's the way it is. Any ranking shooter would have done—I just happened to be the one who made herself most available by holing up for months at a time at a remote mountain preserve.”

  She shook her head, wincing slightly at the ache that the movement caused in her gills. She glanced at Pua. “It was stupid of me not to have suspected the locators sooner. I'm sorry, Pua.”

  “For someone who's supposed to have been forced into this against her will,” Fatu said, “you seem to have figured it all out rather easily.”

  “Distrust me if you will, Fatu. I can't fault you for that with all you have at stake,” she said. “But working through situations like this is my business. There was no one more surprised than I when I realized what was going on here. I still don't understand why Crawley couldn't learn Sa le Fe'e's location from Pua, when she so obviously knows.”

  “Because she travels by landmarks known only to herself,” Fatu said. “She probably told them exactly how to reach what they're looking for, but they have no way of translating her directions into anything they can follow.”

  “I want that thing out of me!” Pua exclaimed. “I want it out now!”

  “There's a med kit up at the house,” Toma said. “We'll do it as soon—” Pua didn't wait. She stalked away across the softly glowing lawn.

  “Why haven't you gone public with the TC enzyme like you'd originally planned?” Angie asked as the three of them followed. “With it as leverage, you could break the Company's economic hold on Lesaat. You would be free to bring your kids into the open.”

  Toma said nothing. He walked close beside her, as did Fatu. Angie knew there was no way to escape them now, nor would there be any point to it. Not as long as she was wearing a locator. Toma would be able to find its frequency soon enough if he needed to. The only thing she could do was keep talking, and hope she could find a way to convince them she was more friend than enemy. She hoped that was true.

  Damn! Why did Crawley have to show up right now? Angie shook her head in disgust. Because nothing's ever easy, she reminded herself. That was another shooters’ motto.

  “For something this valuable, and for the chance to break World Life's monopoly on Earth's food supply, the U.N. would be willing to step in directly to protect your lands and your children,” she said. But Toma already knew that. She was still missing something. Something important.

  She paused when they reached the lanai stairs.

  “As planetary super, you have access to public communications lines, Toma, and as an ex-shooter, you certainly know how to get the attention of high-ranking U.N. officials. You could have announced the TC production months ago and had it on the open market by now. Why haven't—”

  Something in his expression stopped her. Despair, she thought. And suddenly she understood what their stubborn silence meant.

  “You don't have it!” she said. “You've been telling the truth. The TC records really are lost!” She submitted to Toma's prod up the steps. “Spit, but this thing's a mess.”

  Pua had the med kit open in the library. She stood motionless while Toma ran a scan, not only on her hands, but on the rest of her body—Angie was glad she had made the string she had given Pua inactive without her own signal—then numbed a spot on her left hand. He used a laser scalpel to carve a tiny biobug away from the cartilage that extended into her palm. When he finished, he sealed the small incision with a spray of surgical glue. Pua promptly spat on the spot and wiped the sealant bandage away.

  “You next,” Toma said to Angie. She was surprised, but willingly submitted. She had assumed he would want to keep her under surveillance himself now that he had the means. She refused the anesthetic spray.

  “It's only a local nerve deadener,” he said. “I don't plan to carry you out of here.”

  Pua looked up. “What do you mean? Where are you taking her?”

  “We're taking you both away from Pukui,” Fatu said. “We can't take the chance of Crawley getting his hands on either of you, especially now.”

  “Oh, damn,” Angie sighed.

  “I don't want to—” Pua began.

  “It'll only be until we can get rid of Crawley,” Fatu said. “We'd already decided it was best even before the warden told us what she knew. Now it's even more important that neither of you be here when the Earthers arrive.”

  “But I don't want to leave Pukui. I want to stay and help. Le Fe'e needs me to—”

  “This is real, Pua!” Fatu said sharply. “This is real! We're not telling stories now. The only way you can help Pukui is by leaving it.”

  “It's not going to help Pukui for me to leave,” Angie said. “If the U.N. team even suspects you're holding me somewhere against my will, you'll lose your privacy rights on the spot. They won't even need a troubleshooter present to use the truth probes.”

  Toma dropped the second celluloid-wrapped locator disk into the med tray and applied the sealant bandage to Angie's shoulder.
“We'll use the locators to lead Crawley and his trackers on a wild-goose chase,” he said, meeting Angie's look. “From what I understand of your relationship with him, it shouldn't be too hard to convince him you're deliberately trying to aggravate him by staying out of reach of his orders.”

  Pua started edging toward the door, but Fatu laid a firm hand on her shoulder. “If they truth-drug us,” he said, “they'll at least have to do it in front of the U.N. team. Some of them are honest. There would still be the chance that they would be moved enough to protect our kids, if only for humanitarian reasons.”

  “Fatu,” Angie said, “most standard Earthers don't consider people like us"—she lifted her hands—"completely human. How do you think they're going to respond to genetically altered kids? Especially when those kids are laying claim to the most productive reefs on this planet.”

  “We'll just have to convince them—” Toma began.

  “Damn it, Toma! To get the TC enzyme, that team will turn this place over to the World Life faster than a sucker swallows blood,” she said. “This situation is already under an official ‘most urgent need’ classification. The Company is looking for any excuse it can get to revoke your privacy rights. If I'm not here to control the questioning, you're going to lose everything.”

  “Aside from validating the Company's truth probes, just how do you propose to help us?” Toma returned.

  Angie shook her head. “I don't know. I just know it won't do you any good to force me away right now. As regards, Pua, yes. Get her the hell out of here. Even if you lose everything else, she deserves to remain outside World Life's control. She's suffered enough.”

  “You speak so genuinely of protecting Pua,” Fatu said. “Yet your determination to complete your original contract duties remains unchanged. Do your hands and that slice of mountain back on Earth mean so much to you?”

  Angie lifted her hands and stared at her long, thin fingers. They seemed little more alien to her now than the wrists from which they grew.

  She met Fatu's look again. “We spoke once before of choices, Fatu. I have chosen not to become so involved in Pukui's pain that I can't act from a wider perspective.”

  The disappointment on Pua's tear-stained face forced Angie to look away.

  “Crawley knew you would react this way,” Toma said. “He knew all he had to do was get you out here and you'd complete the job based solely on the TC's potential benefit to Earth. He manipulated all of us, because even we know the TC needs to be found and shared, even if it has to be under Company control.”

  He tapped a message into the comm—a call to bring Ehu in from the barge. To pilot the decoy flitter, Angie thought. Spit. Now, how am I going to get out of this without breaking somebody's bones? A quick glance at Fatu's massive bulk settled even that option.

  “Right now, Warden,” Toma said, “our first concern has to be the physical preservation of Pukui Reef. We have to stall a Company takeover long enough to clear the algae. Then we'll find a way to deal with the rest. If we can convince Crawley and the U.N. team that you're touring other reefs on the trail of the TC records, they won't be in a hurry to stop the harvest. It's the records they want most, but they're anxious to keep Pukui, as well.”

  The comm beeped and he touched an acknowledgment. “Fatu tells me you keep a coded seal on my flitter,” he said. “I don't suppose you'd be willing to open it voluntarily.”

  It was common knowledge that Angie had confiscated his flit for her personal use, so they dared not leave it on the front lawn while claiming she was off inspecting other reefs. Angie knew Toma could break the seal; he had probably learned the necessary skills from the same instructors who had taught her to set it. It wouldn't delay them long, but it might give her time to think of an alternative to their fruitless plan.

  “Under other circumstances, I would be most willing,” she said. “But...” She shrugged.

  He almost smiled. “I'm sorry we didn't meet under other circumstances, Warden,” he said.

  So am I, Inspector, Angie replied silently. So am I.

  Pua glared at them both.

  “Come on, Little Fe'e,” Fatu said. “You can wait upstairs, and pack what you want to take with you at the same time. Toma, set the seals on the upper windows.” He motioned Angie toward the door and followed when she moved that way. His hand remained firmly on Pua's shoulder, and his dark eyes mirrored his niece's pain.

  As they crossed the foyer, Angie paused to stare down at the intricately inlaid floor.

  I am a piece of koa, she thought. Sharp-edged, alien, surrounded by blurred boundaries. She tried to remember the sound of wind whispering through high, dry pines, but found she could not.

  Chapter 17

  As they reached the top of the stairs, Pua pulled away from Fatu and ran into her bedroom. She slammed the door hard.

  Fatu ushered Angie into her own room, and closed and locked the door behind her. She heard him knock and call out to Pua.

  “Go away!” Pua shouted.

  A door handle rattled. “Little Fe'e, unlock your door. I want to talk—”

  A crash and a curse that Angie recognized as one of her own cut Fatu off. “I'm never going to speak to you again, Fatu!” Pua screamed. “Not ever!”

  Fatu tried several more times to convince Pua to let him in, but she remained stubbornly silent. Finally, Angie heard him lock Pua's door from the outside, and then his footsteps sounded on the stairs. He did not leave the house; Angie could feel his solid presence even through the closed door. She sighed, and crossed to the window.

  How many kids are there? she wondered. There had to be dozens, at least, if they were planning to establish a viable population base. The thought of half a hundred Puas made her shake her head in disbelief. Where the hell can they be hiding that many kids and all the adults and facilities needed to care for them?

  A quick test showed that the window seals had been activated. She didn't bother to test the plastic panes for breakability. Her new hands were strong, but not that strong. She rubbed a hand over her sore shoulder.

  Use what you have, she thought. But what the hell did she have? “Spit,” she muttered.

  Her hand brushed a lump in her shirt pocket, the last of the Maldarian caramels she had been carrying. The rest were still in their packing crate in a corner of the library. Katie had not approved of that storage site until Angie showed her what the candies were and gave her a boxful for herself. Then the housekeeper had been quite pleased by the idea of their presence. She had, however, draped a cloth over the crate to hide it from sight.

  “Sally, my friend,” Angie murmured, “I hope that doubled order means what I think it does.” Fatu had been wrong when he said she hadn't sent any messages off-planet. Not that it was going to do her any good tonight.

  A shadow moved. Angie stepped to the side of the window and peered carefully out. It was Pua, moving like a wraith across the lanai roof. She paused for a moment at the back of the house, then slipped out of sight.

  Angie looked down at her hands. If Pua could break the window seal, surely Angie could. She flexed her long, strong fingers, tapped her precision-point nails. But how ...?

  Of course! she thought suddenly. She deliberately relaxed the muscles in her fingers and watched them go limp. She slides through the cracks!

  The maneuver proved surprisingly easy, although Angie was glad she hadn't had to try it two weeks before. Her control of her new hands had become more complete with each passing day. She laid the thin end of her right forefinger along the crack where the window's bottom met the notched sill. She remembered what Pua had said about her tongue, and let it grow soft behind her teeth and at the back of her throat. The muscles in her finger responded smoothly to her mental command.

  With the slightest of sideways pressure, Angie began pushing her finger into the crack. Pua is right, she thought. I have to start thinking like a waterworlder. I'm a squid now—I might as well act like one.

  After a slight initial resistance,
her boneless finger began sliding like a viscous liquid between the window and the sill. She stopped, blew out slowly, and relaxed further. By holding her needlelike fingernail parallel to the sill, she was able to slip it, too, into the narrow opening.

  Once she could feel the alarm system's pressure pad, it was a simple matter of holding it down while maneuvering her fingertip into the small cavity containing the locking mechanism. She smiled at the soft click of the lock disengaging, and opened the window with her left hand. She climbed outside and carefully lowered the window back onto the pressure plate.

  There was a sound at the back of the house. Angie slid into the shadows on the far side of Pua's open window. It had either not been fully locked, which was doubtful considering Fatu's caution, or Pua had some way of neutralizing the alarm.

  Pua reappeared. She crossed the roof in silence and crawled back into her room. Angie edged closer to look inside.

  Pua listened at the door for a moment, then carefully folded the quilt off the bed. She took something from her pocket and placed it on the sheets at the foot of the bed. It moved. Pua lifted her hand away quickly, revealing two small sluglike things. Each had a bright yellow bulge at one end of its otherwise gray body, and what looked like a powerful stinger curving up from the other.

  Pua reached into another pocket and brought out a handful of grass. She sprinkled it in a circle around the yellow-gray creatures, leaving an open pathway to the side of the bed. She placed another pair of the sluglike things on the bureau and ringed them similarly with grass.

  What is she doing? Angie wondered. Pua's careful movements had almost the look of a ritual. Scaring the ghosts away?

  Pua placed two more of her creatures on a stool beside the bed, then turned toward the window. Angie hid again. Pua eased back outside, closed the window, and disappeared again over the edge of the roof. Angie glanced into the room as she followed. One of the slug things on the bed had moved just far enough to show a brilliant yellow stain on the pale blue sheet.