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“I don’t take orders from writers,” Zent said.
“Now, boys,” Gallow intervened, but there was amusement in his voice.
“Books lie,” Zent muttered.
Nakano, wearing the hydrophone headset, lifted one earphone. “Lots of activity,” he said. “I count more than thirty fishing boats.”
“A hot spot,” Gallow said.
“There’s radio chatter from the Island, too,” Nakano reported. “And music. That’s one thing I’ll miss—Islander music.”
“Is it any good?” Zent asked.
“No lyrics, but you could dance to it,” Nakano said.
Bushka shot a questioning look at Gallow.
What did Nakano mean, he would miss Islander music?
“Steady on course,” Gallow said.
Zent took over Nakano’s headphones and said, “GeLaar, you said Guemes Islanders were damned near floating morons. I thought they didn’t have much radio.”
“Guemes has lost almost half a kilometer in diameter since I started watching it last year,” Gallow said. “Their bubbly’s starving. They’re so poor they can’t afford to feed their Island.”
“Why are we here?” Bushka asked. “If they only have low-grade radio and malnutrition, what good are they to The Movement?” Bushka experienced a bad feeling about all this. A very bad feeling. Are they trying to set me up? Make the Islander a patsy for some of their dirty work?
“A perfect first demonstration,” Gallow said. “They’re traditionalists, hard-core fanatics. I’ll give ’em credit for one piece of good sense. When other Islands suggest it might be time to move down under, Guemes sends out delegations to stop it.”
Was that Gallow’s secret? Bushka wondered. Did he want all the Islanders to stay strictly topside?
“Traditionalists,” Gallow repeated. “That means they wait for us to build land for them. They think we like them so much we’ll make them the gift of a couple of continents. Keep toting that rock, slapping that mud! Plant that kelp!”
The three Mermen laughed and Bushka smiled in response. He didn’t feel like smiling at all, but there was nothing else to do.
“Things would go much easier if Islanders would learn to live the way we do,” Nakano said.
“All of them?” Zent asked.
Bushka noted a growing tension as Nakano failed to respond to Zent’s question.
Presently, Gallow said, “Only the right ones, Gulf.”
“Only the right ones,” Nakano agreed, but there was no force in his voice.
“Damned religious troublemakers,” Gallow blurted. “You’ve seen the missionaries from Guemes, Iz?”
“When our Islands have been on proximate drifts,” Bushka said. “Any excuse for visiting is a good one, then. Mixing and visiting is a happy time.”
“And we’re always pulling your little boats out of the sea or giving you a tow,”
Zent said. “For that you want us to keep slopping mud!”
“Tso,” Gallow said, patting Zent’s shoulder, “Iz is one of us now.”
“We can’t get this foolishness under control any too soon for me,” Zent said. “There’s no reason for anyone to live anywhere but down under. We’re already set up.”
Bushka marked this comment but wondered at it. He felt Gallow’s hatred of Guemes but the Mermen were saying that everyone should live down under.
Everyone living as rich as the Mermen? There was some sadness to that thought. What would we lose of the old Islander ways? He glanced up at Gallow. “Guemes, are we … ?”
“It was a mistake to elevate a Guemian to C/P,” Gallow said. “Guemians never see things our way.”
“Island on visual,” Zent reported.
“Half speed,” Gallow ordered.
Bushka complied. He felt the reduction in speed as an easing of the vibration against his spine.
“What’s our vertical relationship?” Gallow asked.
“We’re coming in about thirty meters below their keel,” Zent said. “Shit! They don’t even have outwatchers. Look, no small boats at all ahead of their drift.”
“It’s a wonder they’re still in one piece,” Nakano said. Bushka caught a wry edge to the statement that he didn’t quite understand.
“Set us directly under their keel, Iz,” Gallow said.
What are we doing here? Bushka wondered as he obeyed the order. The forward display screen showed the bulbous lower extremity of Guemes—a thick red-brown extrusion of bubbly with starved sections streaming from it. Yes, Guemes was in bad condition. They were starving essential parts of their Island. Bushka inhaled quick, shallow breaths of the thick moist air. The Merman sub was too close for simple observation. And this was not the way you approached an Island for a visit.
“Drop us down another fifty meters,” Gallow ordered.
Bushka obeyed, using the descent propulsion system and automatically adjusting trim. He felt proud that the sub remained straight and level as it settled. The upward display, set wide-angle, showed the entire Island as a dark shadow against the surface light. A ring of small boats dappled its edges like beads in a necklace. Bushka estimated that Guemes was no more than six klicks in diameter at the waterline. He put the depth at three hundred meters. Long strips of organics floated dreamlike in the currents around the Island. Entire bulkheads of bubbly blackened the surrounding water with dead-rot. Thatchings of thin membranous material patched the holes.
Probably spinnarett webbing.
Bushka saw raw sewage pumping out of a valve off to his right, sure evidence that the Guemes nutrient plant had suffered a major breakdown.
“Can you imagine how that place smells?” Zent asked.
“Very nice on a hot day,” Gallow said.
“Guemes needs help,” Bushka offered.
“And they’re going to get it,” Zent said.
“Look at all the fish around them,” Nakano said. “I’ll bet the fishing’s real good right now.” He pointed at the upward display as a giant scrubberfish, almost two meters long, floated past the external sensor. Half of the fish’s whiskers had been nibbled away and the one visible eye socket was empty and white.
“It’s so rotten around here that even the scrapfish are dying,” Zent said.
“If the Island’s this sick, you can bet the people are in sad shape,” Nakano added.
Bushka felt his face get red, and pressed his lips shut tight.
“Those boats all around, maybe they’re not fishing,” Zent said. “Maybe they’re living on their boats.”
“This whole Island is a menace,” Gallow said. “There must be all kinds of diseases up there. There’s probably an epidemic in the whole system of organics.”
“Who could live in shit and not be sick?” Zent asked.
Bushka nodded to himself. He thought he had figured out what Gallow was doing here.
He’s brought the sub in close to confirm their desperate need for help.
“Why can’t they see the obvious?” Nakano asked. He patted the hull beside him. “Our subs don’t need nutrient slopped all over them. They don’t rot or oxidize. They don’t get sick or make us sick …”
Gallow, watching the upward display, tapped Bushka’s shoulder. “Down another fifteen meters, Iz. We still have plenty of room under us.”
Bushka complied and again it was that smooth, steady descent that brought an admiring look from Nakano.
“I don’t see how Islanders can live under those conditions.” Zent shook his head. “Sweating out weather, food, dashers, disease—any one of a hundred mistakes that would send the whole pack of them to the bottom.”
“They’ve made that mistake, now, haven’t they, Tso?” Gallow asked.
