She helped lift the limp body into the water. Pua dragged it down and stuffed it headfirst into the pipe. The Earther's gills pulsed rhythmically, so he wasn't dead. Pua was sorry about that. She kept his arms at his sides, so if he regained consciousness, he wouldn't be able to move in the narrow opening. She clicked a message against the side of the pipe, repeated it twice, and hurried back to join the mountainlady.
Once again they listened. Pua pressed one hand against the wall and tapped a query to Kiki and Keha. The warden lifted a brow, but Pua shook her head. There was no reply.
“This way,” she whispered, and guided the warden through a narrow crack that led past the back of the nursery and on to the distant fishing exit gate. First she would get Kiki and Keha. Then they could go back for Little Ten. The warden followed so quietly that Pua looked back from time to time to be sure she was still there.
Once past the nursery, she tapped for the twins again. This time, she thought she felt a reply. Very short. She couldn't make out the sequence, but it must mean someone was near the boys who might overhear. She signaled to the mountainlady and crept forward.
The fishing gate, like many places inside Sa le Fe'e, was disguised by a hanging mold wall. Pua suspected that the boys were hiding between the wall and the gate. “Look here,” she heard an Earther voice say. “There's a shelf behind this damn slime. I thought it grew directly over the rock.”
“That must be how they're hiding,” another hard voice snapped. “Start tearing it down. We'll strip this whole slimy place. They're in here somewhere.”
“Whaddaya think the old bitch's gonna do with ’em?” the first man said. “Weird things, aren't they? You see the hands on that little one? Looked like a damned baby octopus all spread out like that.”
There came the sound of a slime-mold leaf sucking away from stone. “Why do you think they call them squids?” They both laughed.
The warden's hand rested lightly on Pua's shoulder. Pua pushed it away. She didn't need to be reminded that caution was needed here. She clicked a fast query and received a single tap in return. Kiki and Keha were at the gate.
“What was that?” one of the men said.
“What was what? There's so much storm noise the place sounds like it's gonna collapse,” came the reply.
Pua clicked an order to the twins.
“That clicking...”
One of the boys sneezed.
“There!” Both Earthers came into view as they dashed toward the wall behind which the twins were hiding. As quickly as their backs were turned to tear at the slime mold, Pua and the warden were on them. Pua slid a hand around one man's mouth and the other around his neck. Her nails lifted one of his gills, wide.
“Move and you're a dead swimmer,” Pua muttered. The man froze.
The warden already had the other man unconscious and on the ground. Without hesitation, she whacked the one Pua was holding, too. As he went limp, Pua let him go.
“Check the boys,” the warden whispered. Her knife was out and open, and she was slicing the long sleeves off the waterguards’ suits. Pua clicked her nails, and Kiki and Keha parted the leaf molds just enough to peer fearfully out. She motioned for them to stay where they were.
The warden gagged the waterguards and tied their hands and feet, stringing them together behind their backs. She nodded toward the boys. “Is there room back there to hide them?”
Pua nodded.
The boys came out then and helped them maneuver the bound waterguards behind the slime-mold wall. The storm was very loud so near the outer reef face. The constant roar of the surf seemed to vibrate the very walls. Intermittent crashes and thumps told of great chunks of coral being ripped free and tossed across the reef face. Pua wondered how Uncle Toma could ever hope to come in through this gate. The boys clung to her legs.
“Is this a double-doored airlock?” the warden asked as she examined the gate. Pua nodded. The warden squatted in front of the boys. “We need your help,” she said. Both boys glanced up at Pua for approval, then nodded in unison.
“Toma's going to try to reach this gate,” the warden said. “Someone has to open it when he gets here. Can you do that?”
“Papa Toma's coming?” they both asked.
“He's going to try,” the warden said. “The water is very rough outside. When he presses the signal, you need to open the outer door immediately. I've set the controls so he can close it himself and get the rest of the way on his own.”
“What if somebody else comes?” Keha asked.
“You watch for their hands when they lift the hatch,” she said. “If you see anything other than a waterworlder finger, you jump right on the hatch and slam it closed and locked. Then you get away from here as fast as you can, because if it's the Earthers, they'll blow it open. Try to get out through the hot tub. If it's Toma, get away from here fast, too, because the Earthers will hear the lock opening and come to check.”
“Go to the secret playhouse if you get out,” Pua said. “Mariko is there with the others.”
“Pualei, that Earthlady has ‘Umi Iki,” Kiki said.
“And Auntie Nola,” Keha added.
Pua hugged them. “I know. Auntie Puhi and I are going to go get them now. Do what she says, okay?”
“Okay,” came their dual reply.
The warden lifted a throw net from its wall peg, checked its size, and slung it across her shoulder. She would never be able to throw a proper circle holding it that way, but then she wasn't going after a school of fish. She took a pair of fish spears, too.
There was nothing they could do about the torn slime molds farther along in the corridor. They would just have to take the chance that no other guard would come this way before Uncle Toma arrived. They slipped back into the crack leading to the nursery.
'Umi Iki was still crying, the thin hiccuping wail of an unhappy newborn. “Let me nurse her,” Pua heard Nola say. “She's hungry and scared.”
There followed a thud and a grunt of pain. Someone had hit Auntie Nola! Pua flexed her fingers.
“Just tell us where the rest of them are hiding,” Dr. Waight said. “Then you can have this one back.”
“They're gone.” Nola was hit again.
“You damn fool,” Waight said. “There's no way those kids could have gotten out of here. Even if they did, they're still nearby. The current through the tunnel and the storm surge are too dangerous for them to survive outside.”
“You don't know what they could survive,” Nola said.
Waight laughed. “I intend to find out.” Little Ten shrieked in sudden pain.
“For the love of god, woman!” Nola cried. “Leave her alone. She's a newborn. You're going to kill her.”
“Oh no,” Waight said. “I won't kill her. I won't kill this one. The rest are going to die, though, unless you tell me right now where they're hiding. My guards are setting charges all along this section of reef, and as soon as we leave here, they're going to blow this whole place apart. Pukui's little indigenous population will disappear right along with it.”
Pua and the warden had reached the nursery. They were behind and somewhat above where Nola sat huddled against the wall of the nursery pool. One leg was twisted all wrong under her. Klooney and two Earthers were guarding her. Watching them, Pua knew who had been doing the hitting.
Other Earthers, all of them in uniform gray, were tearing the room apart. They lifted things to look under them, then threw them down. They yanked out drawers and dumped them onto the moss. Cabinets were ripped from the walls and their contents scattered.
Doctor Waight was holding ‘Umi Iki in one arm. She was standing near the main corridor door. An oxymask hung from her neck.
Pua touched the warden's net and pointed toward the group around Nola. One of the searchers had come close, so now there were four, counting Klooney. The warden nodded, and lifted the net from her shoulder. She tapped Pua's arm and pointed toward another of the guards who had just stepped into the shallow pool.
> “Go!” she shouted so loud that even Pua jumped.
Pua leapt into the room and onto the back of the guard in the pool. She heard the swush of the net being thrown behind her. The guard had been startled by the warden's cry, enough so that Pua was able to get a hold around his neck. But he recovered fast. He twisted and spun, trying to tear Pua's hands away with his own stubby fingers.
“This is for Nola!” Pua cried, and ripped the man's gills wide open. He went slack under her, and Pua jumped clear. She had time to see that the warden's net had caught the waterguards near Nola, but Klooney was rolling away. Then another Earther was on her.
He reached, stupidly, for Pua's hands. She slashed his fingers with her sharp nails, and when he pulled back, she reached up and found another set of vulnerable gills. The guard gasped and went white with pain, but kept fighting feebly. Pua cracked his neck.
The warden had freed Nola. She still had her knife in one hand, a spear in the other. Pua saw that the second spear was resting in the chest of yet another Earther. Klooney and Dr. Waight had disappeared. They had taken Little Ten with them.
A loud thunk and crash came from the back of the cave. The waterlock. Uncle Toma had come! A thud and Toma's powerful shout came just before a waterguard's shriek. Nobody could fight like Uncle Toma. The warden raced ahead of Pua out of the nursery. Well, almost nobody, Pua thought.
They followed Waight's shouting to the main entry. Waight was just disappearing through the blown hatch. She still had Little Ten clutched to her chest. Klooney dropped through the hatch behind her.
The warden dove for him, but she was knocked aside by a waterguard. They wrestled to the side, he reaching for her hands, she for his gills. Pua dove after ‘Umi Iki.
The outer door was completely blown away, and she had to pick her way through a narrow opening of stone and metal rubble. She raced through the dark passage to the outer chamber. Ahead of her, a waterguard grabbed Dr. Waight's arm and pulled her down, toward the exit channel to the open sea.
Pua dove after them, but was stopped by a strong blow to her stomach. Someone had kicked her. She doubled up and rolled away, retching. A hand grabbed her arm. A waterworlder's hand. Klooney! She straightened and kicked in return, but she could not match his strength. He grinned in the dimly lit water.
They rolled to the surface as Pua fought to reach Klooney's gills. His arms were longer than hers, but her finger length almost made up the difference. They twisted and turned, fighting the fight of waterworlders. He slammed her against the wall, and she cried out in spite of herself. A sharp pain stabbed through her side.
As she surfaced, she saw Klooney glance around in confusion. The light flickered and changed. Her body slapping against the stone had triggered the shifting light show that brought the Grand Old Man to life. Pua had time to rake the nails of both hands down across Klooney's face and chest.
He screamed in fury, grabbed her, and lifted her high out of the water. He threw her against the wall.
As Pua struck the stone, the world went black, then exploded with brilliant pain.
She opened her eyes to meet the angry stare of the Grand Old Man. As she slid, helpless, down the cold, stone wall, her fingertips caught in the slick folds of the Old Man's hair and tore the flickering image away.
Chapter 27
Fatu sat bolt upright as Le Fe'e's scream of rage ripped through the burial cave. The ground shifted, and a pair of lanterns fell and shattered into darkness. Wind gusted in under the entrance, spinning storm debris across the abruptly terrified humans. They cried out while shadows spun.
“What was that?” someone called.
“Earthquake!”
“Gotta be the wind...”
“...storm surge hitting the island.”
“It's Le Fe'e, you fools!” Fatu was on his feet. His bellow was almost as great as the god's own. He strode toward the entrance.
“Stay where you are!” one of the idiot waterguards shouted. She stepped into his path.
“Get out of my way, Earther,” he said.
“My orders are to keep everyone in the cave,” she said. She lifted a small pneumatic speargun, little more than a dart gun, and pointed it at his chest. It made Fatu want to laugh, that sorry excuse for a weapon. He could see in the woman's eyes that she wished it were a laser.
“You've had fair warning,” she said.
He moved.
She fired. It was a quick, sharp sting over his heart.
Fatu stopped. He held the waterguard's startled gaze as he snapped the molded plastic off with his fingertips. He knew better than to attempt pulling the barbed tip out without assistance. Before she could fire again, he wrenched the gun away, crushed it in his palm, and tossed it to one side. The woman took a fighting stance as he moved again toward the entrance.
“Idiot,” he muttered. He slid his wide hands around her thin waist and lifted her toward the ceiling. She threw her hands up to protect her head, and they brushed the trailing roots of the friendly vines. The thin, strong strands coiled around her wrists.
“Hey, let me go! Let me down!”
Fatu released his grip, and she remained hanging there by her entangled hands. She screamed and swore.
Pua's orator's staff was lying on the clicker fronds near Fatu's feet. He picked it up and turned back to the others. He straightened the staff where it had been cracked by someone's careless step. The wind shrieked and howled.
“Listen!” Fatu cried. The Earthers backed away, carefully not touching anything but one another. “Do you hear it? Pua's cry rides that wind. And the tiny, precious wail of ‘Umi Iki rides at her side. That is the cry of Le Fe'e. It is the death cry of a god.” He wondered if it was possible for a man's soul to break. How can I hear it so clearly? he wondered. How can I know just what it says?
He pointed Pua's staff at Crawley, who was paying him no attention. The Company bastard was still under the influence of the red-clad troubleshooter's truth drug.
“They went there, didn't they?” Fatu said. “Your murderers. They went to Sa le Fe'e, and now they are attempting to destroy our children. How? How did you know where to send them?”
A sudden flash of memory stopped him, shook him so that he almost fell. He now understood Pua's exquisite pain at that moment when she learned she had given Sa le Fe'e away.
“You took it from me! The old woman, she spoke to me while the drug was still working. I remember now.”
Fatu moved slowly forward; the Earthers backed farther away.
Lehua's sweet candleberry scent lifted around him. “You came to Pukui six months ago, and Kalehuaokalae fed you. You came here to kill her, and she fed you!” He was shouting now. “Because that is the Lesaat way, Company man! That is the Island way! To offer courtesy and hospitality to visitors in your home. To honor the trust that must exist if peace is ever to happen among humans and their worlds.”
He pulled the staff back and cradled it against his bloodied chest. His voice dropped to a whisper. “And you killed her!”
He took another step forward.
“You knew she had eaten loli the night before, so you used a fast-acting mimic of loli fever symptoms so everyone would think that's how she died. A small scratch, a prick to the side of the neck. That's all it needed. Lehua first, upstairs and alone. Then Zed, as he rushed to her aid. And then Pua. But you used something different with Pua, because you wanted her to live. Then you took them all away before any tests could be made here that would prove your lie.”
Fatu pointed the staff again. “Ask him if what I say is true, troubleshooter. Ask him right now if it is true.”
“Crawley,” the woman's level voice said—she remained as damnably calm as the warden. “Is what Fatu says true? Were Lehua and Zed Pukui killed deliberately?”
“Yes,” came the soft, bitter reply.
“Who gave the order for their murders?”
“I gave it.”
“Who did the actual killing?”
“Waight.”
“Doctor Ruby Rewald Waight? The elderly woman who was here earlier tonight?”
“Yes.”
The troubleshooter sat back. The other Earthers, even the waterguards, stared at Crawley in horror.
“I am Pukui, too, Company man,” Fatu said. “I will avenge all of Pukui's deaths. I claim your miserable, greed-laden soul, in Pua's name and in the name of my family. I don't even care that you won't know what's happening,” he said. “Be glad, Earther, that the drug makes you numb.”
The last of the uninjured waterguards started for him, but Lili pulled him back. Lili, the Company crew boss who had been with them all along without their even knowing. She had explained that she had been called to Earth months before by the troubleshooter Pua had called Sally. The Earther had been following Crawley's foul trail from the beginning.
Lili had hidden at the Ka'u spaceport for months in order to travel back to Lesaat with the warden and Pua, and then, once there, had formally documented the Company's attempts to destroy Pukui's algae harvest.
“I can't let you kill him, Fatu.”
The troubleshooter, the small scarlet-clad woman, stood between him and Crawley. She was little taller than Fatu's waist, and so dark of skin that the pigment could only be natural. He could break her apart with one hand.
“If you kill him,” she said very calmly, “then Pukui might still be lost.”
He waited. He wanted more than anything to kill this man who had eaten once again on Pukui land.
“He is our witness,” the small woman said. “He must be kept alive to speak the Company's crimes. There is more than Pukui at stake here tonight, Fatu. I sympathize with your pain, but I cannot allow you to kill him.”
Fatu took a long shuddering breath. Always, it came back to this. The greater good for the greater number. Once again, he must stand at the side and watch while others faced the enemy. He ran his fingers along Pua's staff. Finally, he nodded, hating the movement. The hanging waterguard whimpered.
Outside, the storm raged.
Inside, Fatu began to sing.
“This is the night of alignment,” he began. “It is a night to be feared and respected, for on this night, the paths of Lesaat's moons cross. They become as one just as Shadow kisses Zenith. The timing of all Pukui's harvests are based on this night that happens only once in every three years. It is a night that even the Earth, with all its hungry people, must respect.”
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