More Mermen dashed past them. One shouted back, "Clear the passageways!"
"What is it?" Scudi called after him.
"That Island that sank off Mistral Barrier. They're bringing in the survivors."
Brett yelled, "Was it Vashon?"
They ran on without answering.
Scudi pulled at his arm. "Hurry." She directed him down a side passage and pulled up a large hatchway, which slid aside at her touch. "I'll have to leave you here and report to my station."
Brett followed her through a double-hatchway into a cafe. Booths with low-set tables lined the walls. More low tables were scattered throughout the room. Plasteel pillars in rows defined aisleways. Each pillar was set up as a serving-station. A booth in the corner held two people bent toward each other across the table. Scudi hurried Brett toward this booth. As they approached the figure on the right became clear. Brett missed a step. Every Islander knew that face - that craggy head with its elongated neck and its brace work: Ward Keel!
Scudi stopped at the booth, her hand gripping Brett's. Her attention was on Keel's companion. Brett recognized the red-haired woman. He'd glimpsed her on Vashon. Until he'd met Scudi, he'd considered Kareen Ale the most beautiful woman alive. Scudi's low-voiced introduction was not necessary.
"There were supposed to be registration and processing personnel here," Ale said, "but they've gone to their stations."
Brett swallowed hard and looked at Keel. "Mr. Justice, they said a whole Island's been sunk."
"It was Guemes," Keel said, his voice cold.
Ale looked at Keel. "Ward, I suggest that you and young Norton go to my quarters. Don't stay long in the passages and stay inside until you hear from me."
"I must go, Brett," Scudi said. "I'll come for you when this is over."
Ale touched Scudi's arm and they hurried away. Slowly, painfully, Keel eased himself from the booth. He stood, letting his legs adjust to the new position.
Brett listened to the people rushing through the passage outside the hatchway.
Laboriously, Keel began shuffling toward the exit hatch. "Come along, Brett."
As they stepped into the aisle leading toward the exit, a hatch behind them hissed open, gushing the rich smells of garlic fried in olive oil and spices he couldn't name. A man's voice called out: "You two! No one in the passages!"
Brett whirled. A heavy set man with dark gray hair stood in the open hatchway to the kitchen. His rather flat features were set in a scowl, which changed into a forced smile as he looked past Brett and recognized Keel.
"Sorry, Mr. Justice," the man said. "Didn't recognize you at first. But you still shouldn't be in the passages."
"We were instructed to vacate this place and meet the ambassador at her quarters," Keel said.
The man stepped aside and gestured toward the kitchen. "Through here. You can occupy Ryan Wang's old quarters. Kareen Ale will be notified."
Keel touched Brett's shoulder. "This is closer," he said. The man led them into a large, low-ceilinged room flooded with soft light. Brett could not find the light source; it seemed to wash the room equally in gentle tones. Thick, pale blue carpeting caressed Brett's bare feet. The only furnishings appeared to be plump cushions in browns, burnt red and dark blue, but Brett, knowing how Mermen swung things out of walls, suspected other furniture might be concealed behind the hangings.
"You will be comfortable here," the man said.
"Who do I have the pleasure of thanking for this hospitality?" Keel asked.
"I am Finn Lonfinn," the man said. "I was one of Wang's servants and now have the task of caring for his quarters. And your young friend is ... ?"
"Brett Norton," Brett answered. "I was on my way to registration and processing when the alarm sounded."
Brett studied the room. He had never seen a place quite like it. In some respects, it was vaguely Islander - soft cushions, all the metal covered by woven hangings, many recognizably of topside manufacture. But the deck did not move. Only the faint sigh of air pulsing through vents.
"Do you have friends on Guemes?" Lonfinn asked.
"The C/P is from Guemes," Keel reminded him.
Lonfinn's eyebrows lifted and he turned his attention to Brett. Brett felt required to give a reply. "I don't think I know anyone from Guemes. We haven't been in proximate drift since I was born."
Lonfinn focused once more on Keel. "I asked about friends, not about the C/P."
In the man's tone, Brett heard the hard slam of a hatch between Merman and Islander. The word mutant lay in the air between them. Simone Rocksack was a Mute, possibly a friend of Mute Ward Keel ... probably not. Who could be friendly with someone who looked like that? The C/P could not be a normal object of friendship. Brett felt suddenly threatened.
Keel had realized with an abrupt shock that Lonfinn's assumptions of obvious Merman superiority were barbed. This attitude was a common one among less-traveled Mermen, but Keel felt himself filled with disquiet at an abrupt inner awakening.
I was ready to accept his judgment! Part of me has assumed all along that Mermen are naturally better.
An unconscious thing, borne for years, it had unfolded in Keel like an evil flower, showing a part of himself he had never suspected. The realization filled Keel with anger. Lonfinn had been asking: "Do you have any little friends on Guemes? How sad that some of your less fortunate playmates have been killed or maimed. But maiming and death are such an integral part of your lives."
"You say you were a servant," Keel said. "Are you telling me these quarters are no longer occupied?"
"They belong rightfully to Scudi Wang, I believe," Lonfinn said. "She says she doesn't care to live here. I presume they'll be leased before long and the income credited to Scudi."
Brett gave the man a startled look and glanced once more around these spacious quarters - everything so rich.
Still in shock at his inner revelation, Keel shuffled to a pile of blue cushions and eased himself onto them, stretching his aching legs in front of him.
"Lucky Guemes was a small Island," Lonfinn said.
"Lucky?" The word was jerked from Brett.
Lonfinn shrugged. "I mean, how much more terrible if it had been one of the bigger Islands ... even Vashon."
"We know what you mean," Keel said. He sighed. "I'm aware that Mermen call Guemes 'The Ghetto.'"
"It ... doesn't mean anything, really," Lonfinn said. There was an undertone of anger in his voice as he realized he had been put on the defensive.
"What it means is that the larger Islands have been called upon to help Guemes from time to time - basic foods and medical supplies," Keel pressed him.
"Not much trade with Guemes," Lonfinn admitted. Brett looked from one man to the other, detecting the subterranean argument boiling. There were things behind those words but Brett suspected that it would take more experience with Mermen before he understood just what those things were. He sensed only the fact of argument, the barely concealed anger. Some Islanders, Brett knew, made slanted references to Guemes as "Ship's Lifeboat." There was often laughter in the label, but Brett had understood it to mean that Guemes held a large number of WorShipers - very religious, fundamentalist people. It was no surprise that the C/P was a native of Guemes. Somehow, it was right for Islanders to joke about Guemes, but it rankled him to hear Lonfinn's intrusions.
Lonfinn strode across the room and tested the controls on a hatch. He turned. "The head's through this hatch and guest bedrooms are down the hallway here in case you wish to rest." He returned and looked down at Keel. "I imagine that thing around your neck becomes tiresome."
Keel rubbed his neck. "It does indeed. But I know we all must put up with tiresome things in our world."
Lonfinn scowled. "I wonder why a Merman has never been C/P?"
Brett spoke up, recalling Twisp's comment on this very question. He repeated it: "Maybe Mermen have too many other things to do and aren't interested."
"Not interested?" Lonfinn looked at Brett as though seeing h
im for the first time. "Young man, I don't think you're qualified to discuss political matters."
"I think the boy was really asking a question," Keel offered, smiling at Brett.
"Questions should be asked directly," Lonfinn muttered.
"And answered directly," Keel persisted. He looked at Brett. "This matter has always been in dispute among 'the faithful' and their political lobby. Most of Ship's faithful topside think it would be a disaster to turn over the C/P's power to a Merman. They have so much power over other aspects of our otherwise dreary lives."
Lonfinn smiled without humor. "A difficult political subject for a young man to understand," he said.
Brett gritted his teeth at the patronizing attitude.
Lonfinn crossed to the wall behind Keel, touched a depression there and a panel slid away. It revealed a huge port that looked out on an undersea courtyard with transparent ceiling and a watery center where clusters of small fishes flashed and turned among delicate, richly colored plants.
"I must be going," Lonfinn said. "Enjoy yourselves. This" - he indicated the area he had just exposed - "should keep you from feeling too enclosed. I find it restful myself." He turned to Brett, paused and said, "I'll see that the necessary forms and papers are sent for you to sign. No sense wasting time."
With that, Lonfinn departed, leaving by the same hatch they had entered.
Brett looked at Keel. "Have you filled out these papers? What are they?"
"The papers fulfill the Merman need to feel they have everything pinned down. Your name, your age, circumstances of your arrival down under, your work experience, any talents you might have, whether you desire to stay ..." Keel hesitated, cleared his throat. "... your parentage, their occupations and mutations. The severity of your own mutation."
Brett continued to regard the Chief Justice silently.
"And in answer to your other question," Keel continued, "no, they have not required this of me. I'm sure they have a long dossier on me giving all the important details ... and many unimportant tidbits, too."
Brett had fastened onto one thing in Keel's statement. "They may ask me to stay down under?"
"They may require you to work off the cost of your rescue. A lot of Islanders have settled down under, something I mean to look into before going topside. Life here can be very attractive, I know." He ran his fingers through the soft nap of carpet as if for emphasis.
Brett looked at the ceiling, wondering how it would be to live most of his life here away from the suns. Of course, people from down under did go topside lots of times, but still ...
"The best disaster-recovery team is composed mostly of ex-Islanders," Keel said. "So says Kareen Ale."
"I've heard the Mermen always want you to pay your own way," Brett said. "But it shouldn't take long to work off the cost of my ..." He suddenly thought of Scudi. How could he ever repay Scudi? There was no coin for that.
"Mermen have a great many ways of attracting desirable and acceptable Islanders," Keel said. "You appear to be someone they'd be interested in having aboard. However, that should not be your chief concern of the moment. By any chance, do you have medical training?"
"Just first aid and resuscitation through school."
Keel drew in a deep breath and expelled it quickly. "Not enough, I'm afraid. Guemes went down quite a while ago. I'm sure the survivors they're just now bringing in will require more expert attention."
Brett tried to swallow in a tight throat.
Guemes, a whole Island sunk.
"I could carry a stretcher," he said.
Keel smiled sadly. "I'm sure you could. But I'm also sure you wouldn't be able to find the right place to take it. Either one of us would just be in the way. At the moment, we're just what they think of us - two Islander misfits who might do more harm than good. We'll just have to wait."
***
We seldom get rid of an evil merely by understanding its causes.
- C. G. Jung, Shiprecords
"There's a curse in the Histories," Bushka said, "old as humans. It says, 'May you live in interesting times.' I guess we got it."
For some time now, as the coracles cruised through the half-night of Pandora's open sea, Bushka had been telling Twisp what he'd learned from Gallow and from members of Gallow's crew. Twisp could not see Bushka. Only the thin red light of the RDC's arrow glowed in the coracle. All else was darkness - not even stars overhead. A damp cloud cover had swept over them shortly after nightfall.
"There'll be more open land than you can possibly imagine," Bushka continued. "As much land as you see water around you now. So they say."
"It's all bad for the Islands," Twisp said. "And those rockets you say they're launching ..."
"Oh, they're well-prepared," Bushka said. His voice came out of the darkness with a smug sound that Twisp did not like. "Everything's ready for bringing down the hyb tanks. Warehouses full of equipment."
"It's hard for me to imagine land," Twisp admitted. "Where will they lift it out of the sea first?"
"The place that the settlers here called 'Colony.' On the maps, it's a slightly curved rectangle. The curve is being widened and lengthened into an oval with a lagoon at its center. It was a complete city before the Clone Wars, walled in with plasteel, so it makes a good place to start. Sometime this year they'll pump it out and the first city will be exposed to the sky."
"Waves will wipe it out," Twisp said. "No," Bushka countered. "They've been five generations preparing for this. They've thought of everything - the politics, economics, the kelp ..." He broke off as one of the squawks uttered a sleepy bleat.
Both men froze, listening expectantly. Was there a night-roaming hunt of dashers nearby? The squawks remained quiet. "Bad dream," Bushka muttered.
"So Guemes Island with its religious fanatics stood in the way of this land-colonization project, is that it?" Twisp asked. "Them and their 'stick-to-the-Islands-where-Ship-left-us' attitude?"
Bushka did not respond.
Twisp thought about the things the man had revealed. A lifetime of fisherman's isolation clouded Twisp's imagination. He felt provincial, incapable of understanding matters of worldwide politics and economics. He knew what worked, and that seemed simple enough. All he knew was that he distrusted this grand scheme, which Bushka seemed half-enamored of in spite of the experience with Gallow.
"There's no place in this plan for Islanders," Twisp noted. "No, no place for mutants. They're to be excluded," Bushka said. His voice was almost too low to hear.
"And who's to say what a mutant is?" Twisp demanded. Bushka remained silent for a long time. Finally, he said, "The Islands are obsolete, that much I can't argue with. In spite of everything else, Gallow's right about that."
Twisp stared into the darkness where Bushka sat. There was a spot just to the left that felt a little darker than the rest. That's where Twisp aimed his attention. An image of Merman life came to him - their habitation, places Bushka had described. Home, he thought. What kind of person calls this home? Everything sounded regular and nearly identical, like some insect hive. It gave him the creeps.
"This place you're guiding us to," Twisp asked, "what is it? Why is it safe for us to go there?"
"The Green Dashers are a small organization," Bushka said. "Launch Base One is huge - by the numbers alone our odds are better there than anyplace else in decent range."
This is hopeless, Twisp thought. If Mermen had not found Brett already, what else could he do? The sea was too big and it had been a fool's errand trying to fix on the place where the wave wall hit Vashon.
"It'll be dawn soon," Bushka said. "We should be there shortly after dawn."
Twisp heard the spat-spattering of rain on the tarp. He checked his eelcells with the handlight and found that they were turning a noticeable gray. Right on cue there was a tremendous deafening lightning thunder flash behind them. In the aftershock stillness, he heard Bushka holler, "What the fuck was that?"
Twisp flashed the handlight in that direction. Bushka h
ad gone under the tarp head-first and somehow got himself turned around. He clutched the edges of the tarp, steadying himself, and in the glow from the handlight, his wide eyes punctuated his bleached face.
"We just charged our batteries," Twisp said. "We might take one more of those if it comes around. Then I'll bring in the antenna."
"Holy shit," Bushka snorted, "fishermen are crazier than I thought. It's a wonder any of you come back."
"We manage," Twisp said. "Tell me, how did you become an expert on Mermen so fast?"
Bushka emerged from the tarp. "As a historian, I already knew a great deal about them before going down under. And then ... you learn fast when it's necessary for survival." There was the sound of chest-puffing behind his words.
Survival, Twisp thought. He extinguished the handlight and wished that he could see Bushka's face without having to flash the light on him. The man was not a total coward; that seemed evident. He had crewed in the subs, like many other Islanders putting in their service time. Obviously knew how to navigate. But then, most Islanders learned that in school. With all that, Bushka was driven to seek a life down under. According to him, it was because the Mermen had better historical records, some they had never even examined themselves.
Bushka was like some of the Guemes fanatics, Twisp realized. Driven. A seeker after hidden knowledge. Bushka wanted his facts from the source and he didn't care how he got there. A dangerous man.
Twisp renewed his alertness, sensitive to any shift in Bushka's position. The coracle would transmit such movement ... should Bushka try to take him.
"You'd better believe it's happening," Bushka said. "There'll be no place for Islands pretty soon."
"Radio says Ward Keel's gone down under on some fact-finding mission," Twisp said. "You suppose he knew about it all along?"
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