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“Shitpainting,” Twisp said. He chuckled.
“They were the first,” Brett said. “And it’s nutrient, not shit. It’s processed slurry.”
“So your folks dig shit,” Twisp teased.
“Come on!” Brett objected. “I thought I got away from that when I left school. Grow up, Twisp!”
“All right, kid,” he laughed, “I know what slurry is.” He patted the bubbly beside him. “It’s what we feed the Island.”
“It’s not that simple,” Brett said. “I grew up with it, so I know. It’s scraps from the fish processors, compost from the agraria, table scraps and … just about everything.” He grinned. “Including shit. My mother was the first chemist to figure out how to color the nutrient like they do now without hurting the bubbly.”
“Forgive an old fisherman,” Twisp said. “We live with a lot of dead organics, like the membrane on the hull of my coracle. Islandside, we just pick up a bag of nutrient, mix it with a little water and spread it on our walls when they get a little gray.”
“Don’t you ever try the colored stuff and make a few of your own murals on your walls?” Brett asked.
“I leave that to the artists like your folks,” Twisp said. “I didn’t grow up with it the way you did. When I was a kid, we only had a bit of graffiti, no pictures. It was all pretty bland: brown on gray. We were told they couldn’t introduce other colors because that interfered with absorption by the decks and walls and things. And you know, if our organics die …” He shrugged. “How’d your folks stumble onto this?”
“They didn’t stumble! My mother was a chemist and my father had a flair for design. They went out with a wall-feeding crew one day and did a nutrient mural on the radar dome near the slurryside rim. That was before I was born.”
“Two big historical events,” Twisp joked. “The first shit painting and the birth of Brett Norton.” He shook his head in mock seriousness. “Permanent work, too, because no painting lasts more than about a week.”
Brett spoke defensively. “They keep records. Holos and such. Some of their friends have worked up musical scores for the gallery and theater shows.”
“How come you left all that?” Twisp asked. “Big money, important friends … ?”
“You never had some bigshot pat you on the head and say, ‘Here’s our new little painter.’”
“And you didn’t want that?”
Brett turned his back on Twisp so fast that Twisp knew the kid was hiding something. “Haven’t I worked out well enough for you?” Brett asked.
“You’re a pretty good worker, kid. A little green, but that’s part of the bargain on a new contract.”
Brett didn’t respond and Twisp saw that the kid was staring at the Maritime mural on the inner wall of the second level. It was a big and gaudy mural aglow in the hard light of the setting sun—everything washed a fine crimson.
“Is that one of their murals?” Twisp asked. Brett nodded without turning.
Twisp took another look at the painting, thinking of how easy it was these days to walk past the decorated hallways, decks and bulkheads without even noticing the color. Some of the murals were sharply geometric, denying the rounded softness of Islander life. Famous murals, ones that kept Norton in constant, high priced demand, were the great historical pieces barely applied before they began their steady absorption toward the flat gray of hungry walls. The Maritime mural was something new in a Norton wall—an abstraction, a study in crimson and the fluidity of motion. It glowed with an internal power in the low light of the sun, seeming to boil and seethe along its rim like an angry creature or a thunderstorm of blood.
The sun lay almost below the horizon, throwing the sea’s surface into the little dusk. A fine line of double light skittered across the top of the painting, then the sun dipped below the horizon and they were left with the peculiar afterglow of sunset on Pandora.
“Brett, why didn’t your parents buy your contract?” Twisp asked. “With your eyesight, it seems to me you’d have made a fine painter.”
The dim silhouette in front of Twisp turned, a fuzzed outline against the lighter background of the mural.
“I never offered my contract for sale,” Brett said.
Twisp looked away from Brett, oddly moved by the kid’s response. It was as though they suddenly had become much closer friends. The unspoken revelations carried a kind of cement, which sealed all of their shared experiences out on the water … out there where each depended on the other for survival.
He doesn’t want me to sell his contract, Twisp thought. He kicked himself for being so dense. It wasn’t just the fishing. Brett could get plenty of fishing after his apprenticeship with Queets Twisp. The contract had increased in value simply because of that apprenticeship. Twisp sighed. No … the kid did not want to be separated from a friend.
“I still have credit at the Ace of Cups,” Twisp said. “Let’s go get some coffee and … whatever …”
Twisp waited, hearing the little shufflings of Brett’s feet in the growing dark. The Island’s rimlights began their nightly duty—homing beacons for the time between suns. The lights started with a blue-green phosphorescence of wave tops, bright because the night was warm, then grew even brighter as the organics ignited. Out of the corners of his eyes, Twisp saw Brett wipe his cheeks quickly as the lights came up.
“Hell, we’re not breaking up a good team, yet,” Twisp said. “Let’s go get that coffee.” He had never before invited the kid to share an evening at the Ace of Cups, although it was well-known as a fisherman’s hangout. He stood and saw an encouraging lift to Brett’s chin.
“I’d like that,” Brett said.
They walked quietly down the gangway and along the passages with their bright blue phosphorescence to light the way. They entered the coffeehouse through the wool-lined arch and Twisp allowed Brett a moment to look around before pointing out the really fancy feature for which the Ace of Cups was known throughout the Islands—the rimside wall. From deck to ceiling, it was solid wool, a softly curling karakul of iridescent white.
“How do they feed it?” Brett whispered.
“There’s a little passageway behind it that they use for storage. They roll the nutrient on from that side.”
There were only a few other early drinkers and diners and these paid little attention to the newcomers. Brett ducked his head slightly into his shoulder blades, trying to see everything without appearing to look.
“Why did they choose wool?” Brett asked. He and Twisp threaded their way through the tables to the rimwall.
“Keeps out noise during storms,” Twisp said. “We’re pretty close to the rim.”
They took chairs at a table against the wall—both table and chairs made of the same dried and stretched membrane as the coracles. Brett eased himself into a chair gingerly and Twisp remembered the kid’s first time in the coracle.
“You don’t like dead furniture,” Twisp said. Brett shrugged. “I’m just not used to it.”
“Fishermen like it. It stays put and you don’t have to feed it. What’ll you have?”
Twisp waved a hand toward Gerard, the owner, who lifted head and shoulders from the raised well behind the bar, a questioning look on his enormous head. Tufts of black hair framed a smiling face.
“I hear they have real chocolate,” Brett whispered.
“Gerard will slip a little boo in it if you ask.”
“No … no thanks.”
Twisp lifted two fingers with the palm of his other hand over them—the house signal for chocolate—then he winked once for a dash of boo in his own. Presently, Gerard signaled back that the order was ready. All of the regulars knew Gerard
’s problem—his legs fused into a single column with two toeless feet. The proprietor of the Ace of Cups was confined to a Merman-made motorized chair, a sure sign of affluence. Twisp rose and went to the bar to collect their drinks.
“Who’s the kid?” Gerard asked as he slid two cups across the bar. “Boo’s in the blue.” He tapped the blue cup for emphasis.
“My new contract,” Twisp said. “Brett Norton.”
“Oh, yeah? From downcenter?”
Twisp nodded.
“His folks are the shitpainters.”
“How come everybody except me knew that?” Twisp asked.
“‘Cause, you keep your head buried in a fish tote,” Gerard said. His ridged forehead drew down and his green eyes twinkled in amusement.
“It’s a mystery whatever brought him out to fish,” Twisp said. “If I believed in luck, I’d say he was bad luck. But he’s a damned nice kid.”
“I heard about you losing your gear and your catch,” Gerard said. “What’re you going to do?” He nodded toward where Brett sat watching them. “His folks have money.”
“So he says,” Twisp said. He balanced the cups for his return to the table. “See you.”
“Good fishing,” Gerard said. It was an automatic response and he frowned when he realized he’d said it to a netless fisherman.
“We’ll see,” Twisp said and returned to the table. He noted that the action of the deck underfoot had picked up slightly. Could be a storm coming.
They sipped quietly at their chocolate and Twisp felt the boo settling his nerves. From somewhere in the quarters behind the counter someone played a flute and someone else tapped out a back-up on water drums.
“What were you two talking about?” Brett asked.
“You.”
Brett’s face flushed noticeably under the dim lights of the coffeehouse. “What … what were you saying?”
