And what if Noah was just hallucination? Nakano could be right: I might have been narced.
Nakano focused abruptly on Twisp and asked: "Why aren't you nauseated?"
It was such a startling question, suggesting Nakano had read Twisp's mind, that Twisp was a moment focusing on the possible implications.
"Are you also sick?" Keel asked, peering up at Twisp.
"I am quite well," Twisp said. He tore his gaze away from Nakano and looked more closely at Gallow, seeing the marks of self-indulgence in the man's face, the sly twist of the smile, the frown lines in the forehead, the downturned creases at the corners of the mouth.
Twisp returned then to the knowledge of what he had to do. Speaking slowly and distinctly, directing his words at Gallow, Twisp said: "The imagination of your heart has been evil from your youth."
Ship's words as reported by Noah came easily from Twisp's mouth and once he had said them, he felt their lightness.
Gallow scowled, then: "You're not much of a diplomat!"
"I'm a simple fisherman," Twisp said.
"Fisherman, but not simple," Keel said. A chuckle turned into a weak, dry cough.
"You think Nakano has immunity from the kelp," Twisp said. "I was his passport. Without me, he would have joined the others. He has told you about the others that the kelp drowned, hasn't he?"
"I tell you the kelp is out of control!" Gallow said. "We have loosed a monster on Pandora. Our ancestors were right to kill it off!"
"Perhaps they were," Twisp agreed. "But we'll not be able to do it again."
"Poisons and burners!" Gallow said.
"No!" The word was torn from Nakano. He glared at Gallow.
"We will only prune it back to manageable size," Gallow said, his voice soothing. "Too small a number to be conscious but large enough to preserve our dead forever."
Nakano nodded curtly but did not relax.
"Tell him, Nakano," Twisp ordered. "Could you really return to the foil without me?"
"Even if the kelp passed me, the crew probably wouldn't let me aboard," Nakano said.
"I don't see how you're going to sink Vashon when it's already aground," Keel said. A painful smile curved the edges of Keel's mouth.
"So you think I'm helpless," Gallow said.
Twisp glanced back at the open hatchway into the passage, the guards clustered there trying to make it appear that they were not listening.
"Don't your people know how you've trapped them?" Twisp demanded, his voice loud and carrying. "As long as you live, they're prisoners here!"
Blood suffused Gallow's face. "But Vashon -"
"Vashon is in a perimeter of kelp that you can't penetrate!" Twisp said. "Nobody you send against Vashon can get through!" He looked at Keel. "Mr. Justice, isn't that -"
"No, no," Keel husked. "Go on. You're doing fine."
Gallow made a visible attempt to control his anger, taking several deep breaths, squaring his shoulders. He said: "LTAs can -"
"LTAs are limited in what they can do," Nakano interrupted. "You know what happened to the one I was on. They are vulnerable."
Gallow looked at Nakano as though seeing the man for the first time. "Do I hear my faithful Nakano correctly?"
"Don't you understand?" Nakano asked, his voice softly penetrating. "It doesn't matter what happens to us. Come, I will go into the kelp with you. Let it take us."
Gallow backed two steps away from Nakano.
"Come" Nakano insisted. "The Chief Justice obviously is dying. The three of us will go together. We will not die. We will live forever in the kelp."
"You fool!" Gallow snapped. "The kelp can die! It was killed once and that could happen again!"
"The kelp does not agree," Nakano said. "Avata lives forever!" His voice lifted on the last sentence and a wild light came into his eyes.
"Nakano, Nakano, my most trusted companion," Gallow said, his voice pitched to its most persuasive tone. "Let us not permit the heat of the moment to sway us." Gallow sent an apprehensive glance toward the listening guards at the hatchway. "Of course the kelp can live forever ... but not in such numbers that it threatens our existence."
Nakano's expression did not change.
Keel, watching the scene through pain-glazed eyes, thought: Nakano knows him! Nakano does not trust him!
Twisp entertained a similar thought and knew he had found the ultimate leverage to use against Gallow. Nakano can be turned against his chief.
Gallow constructed a rueful smile, which he turned toward Keel. "Mr. Justice Keel, let us not forget that the C/P is still mine! And I will have the hyb tanks."
That's his best shot! Keel thought.
"I'll bet the C/P doesn't know it was you who sank Guemes," Keel managed.
"Can anyone carry such an accusation to her?" Gallow asked. He looked blandly around him.
Is that our death warrant? Twisp wondered. Will we be silenced permanently? He decided on a bold attack.
"If we do not return to the foil, they will broadcast that accusation and Bushka's statement confirming it."
"Bushka?" Gallow's eyes showed both shock and glee. "Do you mean Bushka, the Islander who stole our sub?" Gallow smiled at Nakano. "Do you hear that? They know where to find the sub thief."
Nakano did not change expression.
Gallow glanced at the chrono beside his communications terminal. "Well, well! It's almost time for the midday meal. Fisherman Twisp, why don't you stay here with the Chief Justice? I'll have food sent in. Nakano and I will dine together and consult on possible compromises. You and the Chief Justice can do the same."
Gallow moved to Nakano's side. "Come, old friend," Gallow said. "I didn't save your life to provide myself with an opponent."
Nakano glanced at Twisp, the thought plain on the big face. Why did you save my life?
Twisp chose to answer the unspoken question. "You know why." And he thought: I saved you simply because you were in danger. Nakano already knew this.
Nakano resisted the pressure on his arm.
"Do not quarrel with me, old friend," Gallow said. "Both of us will go to the kelp in time, but it's too soon. There's much yet for us to do."
Slowly, Nakano allowed himself to be guided from the room.
His muscles trembling so hard that his great head shook with visible tremors, Keel lifted his attention to Twisp. "We do not have much time," Keel said. "Clear that table at the end of the room and help me to stretch out on it."
Moving quickly, Twisp swept the objects off the table, then returned to Keel. Slipping his long arms under the Chairman, Twisp lifted the old body, shocked at how light the man was. Keel was nothing but thin bones in a loose sack of skin. Gently, Twisp carried the Chairman across the room and eased him onto the table.
Weakly, Keel fumbled with the harness of his prosthesis. "Help me get this damned thing off," he gasped.
Twisp unbuckled the harness and slipped the prosthesis away from Keel's back and shoulders, letting it drop to the floor.
Keel sighed with relief. "I prefer to leave this world more or less as I came into it," he grated, every word draining him. "No, don't object. Both of us know I'm dying."
"Sir, isn't there anything I can do to help you?"
"You've already done it. I was afraid I'd have to die in the midst of strangers."
"Surely, we can do something to ..."
"Really, there's nothing. The best doctors on Vashon have conveyed to me the verdict of that higher Committee on Vital Forms. No ... you are the perfect person for this moment ... not so close to me that you'll become maudlin, yet close enough that I know you care."
"Sir ... anything I can do ... anything ..."
"Use your own superb good sense in dealing with Gallow. You've already seen that Nakano can be turned against him."
"Yes, I saw that."
"There is one thing."
"Anything."
"Don't let them give me to the kelp. I don't want that. Life should have a body of its own, even such a po
or body as this one I'm about to leave."
"I'll -" Twisp broke off. Honesty forced him to remain silent. What could he do?
Keel sensed this confusion. "You will do what you can," he said. "I know that. And if you fail, I am not your judge."
Tears filled Twisp's eyes. "Anything I can do ... I'll do."
"Don't be too hard on the C/P," Keel whispered.
"What?" Twisp bent close to the Chairman's lips.
Keel repeated it, adding: "Simone is a sensitive and bitter woman and - and you've seen Gallow. Imagine how attractive he would seem to her."
"I understand," Twisp said.
"I'm filled with joy that the Islands can produce such good men," Keel said. "I am ready to be judged."
Twisp wiped at his eyes, still bending close to hear the Chairman's last words. When Keel did not continue, Twisp became aware that there was no sound of breathing from the supine figure. Twisp put a hand to the artery at Keel's neck. No pulse. He straightened.
What can I do?
Was there anything combustible here to burn the old body and prevent the Mermen from consigning Keel to the sea? He looked all around the room. Nothing. Twisp stared helplessly at the body on the table.
"Is he dead?" It was Nakano speaking from the hatchway.
Twisp turned to find the big Merman standing just inside the room.
The tears on Twisp's face were sufficient answer. "He's not to be given to the kelp," Twisp said.
"Friend Twisp, he died but he need not be dead," Nakano said. "You can meet him again in Avata."
Twisp clenched his fists, his long arms trembling. "No! He asked me to prevent that!"
"But it's not up to us," Nakano said. "If he was a deserving man, Avata will wish to accept him."
Twisp jumped to the side of the table and stood with his back to it.
"Let me take him to Avata," Nakano said. He moved toward Twisp.
As Nakano came within range of those long arms, Twisp shot out a net-calloused fist, leaning his shoulder behind it. The blow struck with blinding speed on the side of Nakano's jaw. Nakano's heavily muscled neck absorbed most of the shock but his eyes glazed. Before he could recover, Twisp leaped forward and wrenched one of Nakano's arms backward, intending to throw the man to the deck.
Nakano recovered enough to tense his muscles and prevent this. He turned slowly against Twisp's pressure, moving like a great pillar of kelp.
Abruptly, the guards swarmed into the room. Other hands grabbed Twisp and jerked him aside, pinning him to the deck.
"Don't hurt him!" Nakano shouted.
The pressures on Twisp eased but did not leave.
Nakano stood over Twisp, a sad look on the big face, a touch of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Please, friend Twisp, I mean you no harm. I mean only to honor the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Committee on Vital Forms, a man who has served us so well for so long."
One of the guards pinning Twisp down snickered.
Immediately, Nakano grasped the man by a shoulder and lifted him like a sack of fishmeal, hurling him aside.
"These Islanders you sneer at are as dear to Avata as any of us!" Nakano bellowed. "Any among you who forgets this will answer to me!"
The abused guard stood with his back to a bulkhead, his face contorted with fear.
Indicating Twisp with one thick finger, Nakano said: "Hold him but let him up." Nakano went to the table and lifted Keel's body gently in his arms. He turned and strode past the guards, pausing at the hatchway. "When I have gone, take the fisherman to our leader. GeLaar Gallow is topside and has things to say." Nakano looked thoughtfully at Twisp. "He needs your help to get the hyb tanks - they're on their way down."
***
Hybernation is to hibernation as death is to sleep. Closer to death than it is to life, hybernation can be lifted only by the grace of Ship.
- the Histories
While Brett held Bushka down, Ale tied off the stump of Bushka's left arm with a length of dive harness. Bushka lay just inside the main hatch, the sea surface visible through the plaz port behind him. Big Sun, just entering its afternoon quadrant, painted oily coils across the kelp fronds out there, now bright and now dulled as clouds scudded overhead.
A moan escaped Bushka.
The foil rolled gently in a low sea. Ale braced herself against a bulkhead while she worked.
"There," she said as she tied off the dive harness. Blood smeared the deck around them and their dive suits were red with it.
Ale turned and shouted up the passage behind Brett. "Shadow! Do you have that cot ready?"
"I'm bringing it!"
Brett took a deep breath and looked out the plaz at the quiescent kelp - so harmless-looking, so tranquil. The horizon was an absurd pinkish gray where Little Sun would soon lift into view, joining its giant companion.
It had been a hellish half hour.
Bushka, meandering aimlessly around the pilot cabin, had lulled them into a sense of security by his casual movements. Abruptly, he had dashed down the passageway and hit the manual override on the main hatch. Water had come blasting in at the high pressure of their depth - almost thirty-five meters down. Bushka had been prepared. Standing to one side of the blasting water, he had grabbed an emergency tank-breather outfit stored beside the hatch, slipping swiftly into the harness.
Brett and Panille, running after him, had been spilled and tumbled in the wash of water boiling down the passage. Only Scudi's alertness in sealing off a section between them and the open hatch had saved the foil and its occupants.
Bushka had kicked easily out into the kelp-jungle where the foil lay on bottom.
Scudi, faced with tons of water in the foil, had blown tanks and started the pumps, shouting for Kareen to help Brett and Shadow. The foil had lifted slowly, floating upward through the massed kelp.
Brett and Panille, splashing their way back into the cabin, had accepted a hand from Kareen. Scudi, seated at the controls, spared a glance for Brett to reassure herself that he was safe, then returned her attention to the watery world visible through the plaz.
"It's tearing him apart!" Scudi gasped.
The others sloshed to a position behind Scudi and looked outside. The foil slithered upward against giant kelp fronds, giving those inside the pilot cabin a dimly lighted view of Bushka close beside them. One large kelp tentacle, wrapped around his body, held Bushka fast while another tentacle gripped his left arm. A cloud of dark liquid flooded the water around Bushka's arm.
Kareen gasped.
Brett understood then - the cloud: blood! The arm had been torn from Bushka's body.
As though it wanted to spit him out, the kelp tentacles whipped away from Bushka and shunted him swiftly upward.
Scudi tipped the foil's nose up and drove for the surface. They found Bushka there, half-conscious and bleeding dangerously. A hunt of dashers, coming to the smell of blood, was whipped back by kelp fronds.
Later, after Kareen had treated Bushka, Brett and Panille lashed him to the cot and carried him forward. Ale walked alongside. "He's lost a lot of blood," she said. "The brachial artery was wide open."
Scudi remained at the helm, sparing only a brief glance at Bushka's pale face as the cot was lowered to the deck behind her. She held the foil in a tight circle within a kelp-free area. Choppy waves drummed a dulled tunk-tunk against the hull. The last of the unwanted water had gone overboard but the decks were still damp with it.
Scudi, the image of Bushka's injuries fresh in her mind, thought: Ship save us! The kelp has turned vicious!
Panille stood above Bushka. A wash of agony grayed Bushka's face but he appeared conscious. Seeing this, Panille demanded, "What were you trying to do?"
"Shhhh," Ale cautioned.
"'S'all right," Bushka managed. "Was gonna kill Gallow."
Panille could not suppress his outrage. "You almost killed us all!"
Kareen pulled Panille away.
Brett slid into the seat beside Scudi and looke
d out at the dark pile of the outpost with its foam-laced base. Little Sun had risen and the water was bright with the double light.
"Kelp," Bushka said.
"Hush," Ale said. "Save your strength."
"Gotta talk. Kelp has all the Guemes dead ... in it. All there. Said I tore off arm of humanity ... punished me in kind. Damn! Damn!" He tried to look at the place where his arm had been but the lashings on the cot restrained him.
Scudi stared wide-eyed at Brett. Was it possible the kelp took on the personality of all the dead it had absorbed? Would all the old scores be settled? Given consciousness finally and words in which to express itself, the kelp spoke in violent action. She shuddered as she looked out at the green fronds surrounding the foil.
"There are dashers all over the place," Scudi said.
"Where ... where's my arm?" Bushka moaned.
His eyes were closed and his large head looked even larger against the pale fabric of the cot.
"Packed in ice in the cooler," Ale said. "We'll interfere as little as possible with the wound tissue. Better chance for reattachment."
"Kelp knew I was just a fool that Gallow ... took advantage of," Bushka groaned. He twisted his head from side to side. "Why'd it hurt me?"
A heavy gust of wind popped the foil hard and thrust it sideways against the kelp. A loud thump sounded amidships and the foil heeled, righting itself with a rasping hiss.
"What is it? What's that?" Ale demanded.
Brett pointed to the sky above the outpost. "I think we've just had our attention called to something. Look! Have you ever seen that many LTAs?"
"LTAs hell!" Panille said. "Ship's guts! Those are hylighters! Thousands of them."
Brett stared open-mouthed. Like all Pandoran children, he had watched holos of the kelp's spore carriers, a phenomenon unseen on Pandora for generations. Panille was right! Hylighters!
"They're so beautiful," Scudi murmured.
Brett had to agree. The hylighters, giant organic hydrogen bags, danced with rainbow colors in the doubled sunlight. They drifted high across the outpost, moving southwest on a steady wind.
"It's out of our hands now," Panille said. "The kelp will do its own propagating."
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