"They're coming down," Brett said. "Look. Some of them are trailing tentacles in the water.
The flight of hylighters, well past the outpost now, moved in a gentle slope of wind toward the sea.
"It's almost as though they were being directed," Scudi said. "See how they move together."
Once more, something hard banged against the foil's hull. A channel opened beside them, spreading outward toward the place where the hylighters were coming down close above the water. Slowly at first, a current moved the foil into the new channel.
"Better go along with it," Panille said.
"But Twisp is still there at the outpost!" Brett objected.
"Kelp's directing this show," Panille said. "Your friend will have to take his own chances."
"I think Shadow's right," Scudi ventured. She pointed toward the outpost. "See? There are more hylighters. They're almost touching the rock."
"But what if Twisp comes back and we aren't ..."
"I'll bring us back as soon as the kelp lets us," Scudi said. She fired up the ramjets.
"No! I'll take breather tanks and go out to -"
"Brett!" Scudi put a hand on his arm. "You saw what it did to Bushka."
"But I haven't hurt it ... or anyone. That Merman would have killed me."
"We don't know what it'll do," Scudi said.
"She's right," Panille said. "What good would you be to your friend without arms?"
Brett sank back into the seat.
Scudi pushed the throttles ahead and lowered the foils. The boat gathered speed, lifted and swept down the channel toward the descending hylighters.
Brett sat in silence. He felt suddenly that his Mermen companions had turned against him, even Scudi. How could they know what the kelp wanted? So it opened a channel through its heavy growth! So it directed a current through that channel! Twisp might need him back there where they were supposed to be waiting.
Abruptly, Brett shook his head. He thought how Twisp would react to such protests. Don't be a fool! The kelp had spoken without misunderstanding. Bushka ... the channel ... the current - words could say no clearer what had to be done now. Scudi and the others had merely understood and accepted it more quickly.
With a quick chopping motion, Scudi cut the power and the foil settled in a heaving surge that sent waves curling outward on both sides.
"We're blocked," she said.
They looked ahead. Not only had kelp closed the channel through which the foil had come, but fronds and stalks lifted out of the water ahead of them. A low, thick forest of green blocked their passage.
Brett glanced left. The outpost loomed high there, no more than three klicks away. Hylighters continued to descend about a klick ahead of them, massed flocks of them.
Panille spoke from directly behind Brett. "I don't remember them as being that colorful in the holos."
"A new breed, no doubt of it," Kareen said.
"What do we do now?" Brett asked.
"We sit here until we find out why the kelp directed us to this place," Scudi said.
Brett looked up at the descending flocks of hylighters. Dark tentacles reached down toward the water. Sunlight flashed rainbow iridescence off the great bags.
"The histories say the kelp makes its own hydrogen the way you Islanders do," Panille said. "The bags are extruded deep underwater, filled and sent flying to spread the spores. One of my ancestors rode a hylighter." He spoke in a breathless whisper. "They've always fascinated me. I've dreamed of this day."
"What are they doing?" Scudi asked. "Why would they bring spores here? There's kelp all around us."
"You're assuming they're intelligently directed," Kareen said. "They're probably going wherever the wind takes them."
Panille shook his head sharply. "No. Who controls the currents controls the temperature of the surface water. Who controls that directs the winds."
"Then what are they doing?" Scudi repeated. "They're not drifting very fast anymore. It's as though they were assembling here."
"The hyb tanks?" Kareen asked.
"How could the kelp -" Scudi began. She broke off, then: "Is this where they're supposed to come down?"
"Near enough," Kareen said. "Shadow?"
"The correct quadrant," he said. He glanced at a chrono. "By the original schedule, splashdown's already overdue."
"There's a strange hylighter," Brett said. "Or is that really an LTA?" He pointed upward, his finger almost touching the overhead plaz.
"Parachute!" Panille said. "Ship's guts! There comes the first hyb tank!"
"Look at the hylighters!" Scudi said.
The colorful bags had begun a swirling motion, opening a space in their center. The open space drifted somewhat south and a bit west, presenting a net of sea to catch the descending parachute.
Something could be seen dangling from the parachute now - a silvery cylinder that reflected bright flashes from the suns.
"Ship! That thing is big!" Panille said.
"I wonder what's in it," Kareen whispered.
"We're about to discover that," Brett said. "Look! Above the parachute - there comes another one ... and another."
"Ohhhh, if I could only get my hands on one of them ... just one," Panille said.
The first hyb tank was now little more than a hundred meters above the water. It descended swiftly, the actual splashdown concealed within the ring of hylighters. A second hyb tank fell into the open circle, a third ... fourth ... The watchers counted twenty of them, some larger than the foil.
The circle of hylighters closed in as the last tank hit the water. Immediately, a lane through the kelp began to spread from the foil's blocked position to where the hylighters had collected.
"We're being asked to join them," Scudi said. She fired up the rams and eased the foil ahead at hull speed, keeping it just off the step. A bow wave spread on both sides. The hylighters parted as the foil drew near them, opening a passage into a kelp-free circle where the great tanks bobbed.
The occupants of the foil stared in wonder at the vista opened to them. Hylighter tentacles could be seen working over the closure mechanisms of the tanks, opening them and snaking inside. Wide curved hatches swung aside to the probing tentacles. Abruptly, one of the opened tanks tipped, admitting a surge of water. White-bellied sea mammals emerged and immediately dove into the water.
"Orcas," Panille breathed. "Look!" He pointed across Brett's shoulder. "Humpback whales! Just the way they looked in the holos."
"My whales," Scudi whispered.
The channel that had been opened for the foil curved left now, directing them to a cluster of six tanks being held side by side in a nest of kelp. Hylighter tentacles could be seen writhing and twisting into the tanks.
As the foil neared this cluster, a dark tentacle emerged with a struggling human form - pale-skinned and naked. Another tentacle came up with another human ... another ... another ... A spectrum of skin shades came out of the tanks - from darker than Scudi to paler than Kareen Ale.
"What are they doing with those poor people?" Kareen demanded.
The faces of the people being taken from the tanks betrayed obvious terror, but the terror began to subside even as the foil's occupants watched. Slowly, hylighters carrying humans began to drift toward the foil.
"There's why we were brought in," Brett said. "Come on, Shadow. Let's open the hatch."
Scudi silenced the foil's jets. "We can't handle that many people," she said. She pointed at the massed hylighters removing other humans from the adjacent tanks. More than a hundred human figures could be seen grasped in hylighter tentacles and more humans were being removed from the tanks every second. "That many will sink us!" Scudi said.
Brett, hesitating in the passageway to follow the direction of Scudi's pointing finger, said: "We'll have to tow them to the outpost. We'll see if we can get a line to them." He whirled and dashed down the passage toward the main hatch. Panille could be heard running behind him.
Hylighters already were clus
tering around the hatchway when Brett opened it. A tentacle snaked in the opening and grasped Brett. He froze. Words filled his mind, clear and perfect, without any secondary sounds to distort them.
"Gentle human who is loved by Avata's beloved Scudi, do not fear. We bring you Shipclones to live in peace beside all of you who share Pandora with Avata."
Brett gasped and sensed Panille beside him: muddy thoughts - nowhere near as clear as those bell-like words entering his senses through the hylighter tentacles. Panille projected awe, schoolboy memories of holoviews displaying hylighters, family stories of that first Pandoran Panille ... then fear that the mass of humans being delivered by the hylighters would sink the foil.
"Hylighters will buoy you," the tentacles transmitted. "Do not fear. What a splendid day this is! What marvelous surprises have come to us, the gift of blessed Ship."
Slowly, Brett regained the use of his own senses. He found himself braced against loops of hylighter tentacles. Naked humans were being slipped through the hatchway one after another. How tall the newcomers were! Some of them had to duck in the passageway.
Panille looked dazed in a similar tentacle grasp. He waved the newcomers up the passage toward the control cabin.
"Some of you can go into the cargo bays along this passage," Brett called.
They went where Brett and Panille directed them ... no questions, no arguments. They appeared to be in shock from awakening into the tentacles of hylighters.
"We're being moved toward the outpost," Panille said. He nodded toward the edge of black rock visible out the hatchway. The sound of the surf against the base of the outpost was clearly audible.
"Gallow!" Brett said.
As Brett spoke, the hylighter tentacles unwound from his body. Panille, too, was released. The space around them remained crowded with silent newcomers. More could be seen held in hylighter tentacles, other tentacles clutching the lip of the hatchway. Slowly, he began squeezing his way forward, apologizing, feeling the pressure of naked skin that made way for him.
The pilot cabin was not quite as crowded as the passage. Space had been left around the unconscious form of Bushka on the cot. More space insulated the command seats where Scudi and Kareen sat. A lacework of hylighter tentacles covered most of the plaz, leaving only small framed bits of the forward view. The outpost loomed high there, the surf sound loud.
"Kelp is right up against the outpost now," Kareen said. "Look at it! There's almost no open space left."
One of the newcomers, a man so tall that his head almost touched the top of the cabin, came forward and bent to peer through a small opening in the lacework of hylighter tentacles. He straightened presently and looked down at the webs between Scudi's toes, then to the similar growth on Kareen's feet. He brought his attention at last to Brett's large eyes.
"God save us!" he said. "If we breed on this planet will our offspring all be deformed?"
Brett was caught first by the man's accent, an odd lilting in the way he spoke, then by the words. The man looked at Mermen and Islanders with the same obviously revolted expression.
Kareen, shocked, shot a glance at Brett and then at the cabin full of giant humans, the looks of dazed withdrawal slowly vanishing from all of those faces - those strangely similar faces. Kareen wondered how these people could identify each other ... except for the variations in skin tone. They all looked so much alike!
It dawned on her then that she was seeing Ship-normals ... human-normals. She, with her small stature and partly webbed toes, she was the freak.
Ship! How would these newcomers take to people like the Chief Justice or even Queets Twisp with his ungainly arms? What would they say on encountering the C/P?
The foil grated against rock then ... again ... again. It lifted slightly and was set down hard on a solid surface.
"We've arrived," Scudi said.
"And we're going to have to deal with GeLaar Gallow somehow," Panille said.
"If the kelp hasn't already done it for us," Kareen said.
"There's no telling what it'll do," Panille said. "I'm afraid Twisp was right. It's not to be trusted."
"It can be damned convincing, though," Brett said, recalling the touch of hylighters at the hatchway.
"That's its real danger," Panille said.
***
Fools! who slaughtered the cattle sacred to the sun-king; behold, the god deprived them of their day of homecoming.
- Homer, Shiprecords
Twisp could hear Gallow's people talking down in the basin, a nervousness in their chatter that told him the strength of his own position. Gallow had brought him up a narrow trail cut in the rock and out onto a flat promontory that jutted seaward on the southeastern edge of the outpost. A breeze blew against Twisp's face.
"One day, I will have my administrative building here," he said, gesturing expansively.
Twisp glanced around him at the black rock sparkling with mineral fragments in the light of both suns. He had seen many days such as this one - both suns up, the sea rolling easily under a blanket of kelp - but never from such a vantage. Not even the highest point on Vashon commanded such a view - high, solid and unmoving.
Gallow would build here?
Twisp tried to catch snatches of the conversations from below them, but mostly it was words of nervousness that permeated this place. Gallow was not immune to it.
"The hyb tanks will be coming down soon," he said, "and I'll have them!"
Twisp looked out at all that kelp, remembering Nakano's words. "He needs your help."
"How will you recover the tanks?" Twisp asked, his tone reasonable. He felt no need to mention the ring of kelp around this rocky outcrop lifting from the sea. From this vantage, it appeared to Twisp that the kelp was even closer than it had been when he and Nakano had swum away from the foil.
"LTAs," Gallow said, pointing at the partly filled bags of three LTAs waiting on their pad. The Mermen working around the LTAs appeared to be the only purposeful figures in the basin.
"It would help, of course, if we had your foil," Gallow said. "I'm prepared to offer a great deal in return for that."
"You have a foil," Twisp said. "I saw it anchored next to the lee side of this place." He kept his tone casual, thinking how like so many other times this was - bargaining for the best price on his catch.
"We both know the kelp won't give passage to our foil," Gallow said. "But if you were to return to your foil with Nakano ..."
Twisp took a deep breath. Yes, this was like bargaining for his catch, but there was a profound difference. You could respect the fish-buyers even while you opposed them. Gallow revolted him. Twisp fought to keep this emotion out of his voice.
"I don't know that you have anything to offer me," he said.
"Power! A share in the new Pandora!"
"Is that all?"
"All?" Gallow appeared truly surprised.
"Seems to me the new Pandora's going to happen anyway. I don't see where you're going to have much influence in it, the kelp wanting your hide and all."
"You don't understand," Gallow said. "Merman Mercantile controls most of the food sources, the processing. Kareen Ale can be bent to our needs and her shares will -"
"You don't have Kareen Ale."
"With your foil ... and the people in it ..."
"From what I could see, Shadow Panille has Kareen Ale. And as far as Scudi Wang is concerned -"
"She's a child who -"
"I think maybe she's a very wealthy child."
"Exactly! Your foil and the people in it are the key!"
"But you don't have that key. I have it."
"And I have you," Gallow said, his voice hard.
"And the kelp has Chairman Keel," Twisp said.
"But it does not have me and I still have the means of recovering the hyb tanks. The LTAs will be clumsier and slower, but they can do it."
"You're offering me a subordinate position in your organization," Twisp said. "What's to prevent me from grabbing it all once I'm
back on the foil?"
"Nakano."
Twisp chewed his lip to keep from laughing. Gallow had very little buying power. None at all, really, with the kelp against him and the foil in the hands of someone who wanted to beat him to the tanks. Twisp looked up at the sky. The tanks would be coming down within sight of this place, Gallow said. His people at the Launch Base had alerted Gallow. And that was another consideration: Gallow had followers in many places ... Islanders as well.
But the hyb tanks!
Twisp could not prevent a deep sense of excitement at the thought of them. He had grown up on stories speculating about the tanks' contents. They were a bag of prizes meant to humanize Pandora.
Could the kelp prevent that?
Twisp turned and looked at the LTAs. No doubt those things could move above the kelp's reach. But would the kelp let airborne humans pluck the prize from the sea? It all depended on where the tanks came down. There was kelp-free sea surface visible from this high point. A very uncertain lottery, though.
Gallow moved up beside Twisp to "share his view of the outpost's interior basin and its waiting LTAs.
"There's my fallback position," Gallow said. He nodded toward the LTAs.
Twisp knew what he would do now if this were bargaining for his catch. Threaten to go to another buyer. Get caustic and let this buyer know he had no status in the larger game.
"I think you're nothing but eelshit," Twisp said. "Concentrate on the facts. If the tanks land in kelp, you're finished. Without hostages, you're just a pitiful handful of people on one little bit of land. You may have followers elsewhere but I'm betting they'll desert you the second they recognize how powerless you really are."
"I still have you," Gallow grated. "And don't make any mistakes about what I can do to you!"
"What can you do?" Twisp asked, his voice at its most reasonable. "We're alone up here. All I have to do is grab you and dive off this place into the sea. The kelp will get us both."
Gallow smiled and slipped a lasgun from the pouch pocket at his waist.
"I thought you'd have one of those," Twisp said.
"I would take great pleasure in cutting you into pieces slowly," Gallow said.
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