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“My mother was sixteen, too,” she went on. “She cared for me, so she was never free. She never knew the free movement that others knew. She made the best of it, and I saw much through her. But I didn’t see other children except occasionally.”
“So she lost an adulthood and you lost a childhood?”
“Yes. It is not to be regretted. It is the only life I know and it is a good one. It is twice good now that I have met you. But it is not a life to repeat. Not for me.”
He nodded, took her by the shoulders and kissed her again. This time their chests did not touch but their hands held tight to each other and Brett at least felt relief.
“You are not angry?” she asked.
“I don’t think it’s possible for me to be mad at you,” he said. “Besides, we’re going to know each other for a good long time. I want to be with you when the answer is ‘yes.’”
Chapter 26
… self has somewhat the character of a result, of a goal attained, something that has come to pass very gradually and is experienced with much travail.
—C.G. Jung, Shiprecords
Vata dreamed that something tangled her hair. Something crawled the back of her neck, tickling her in a legless way, and settled over her right ear. The thing was black, slick and shelled like an insect.
She heard the sounds of pain in her dream, as she had in so many dreams past, and projected all of this into Duque, where it took on more the character of consciousness. Now she recognized some of the voices as leftovers from other dreams. She had made many excursions into this void. Someone named Scudi Wang was there and the thing that slithered through Vata’s hair snapped cruel jaws at Scudi’s voice.
Duque realized that Vata did not like the thing. She twisted and tossed her head to get rid of it. The thing dug in, set its jaws into her hair and pulled up clumps of hair by the roots. Vata groaned a deep-throated groan, half-cough. She snatched the wet little bug out of her hair and crushed it in her palm.
The pieces slipped from her fingers and a few muffled screams faded into the dark. Duque experienced the sudden awareness that the dream-thing might be real. He had sensed other thoughts in it for just an instant—terrified human thoughts. Vata settled herself into a comfortable position and put her mind to changing the dream into something pleasant. As always, she drifted back to those first days in the valley her people had called “the Nest.” Within a few blinks she was lost in the lush vegetation of that holy place where she had been born. It was all the best that Pandora’s land had to offer, and it was now under many cold meters of unquiet sea. But things could be otherwise in dreams, and dreams were all the geography that Vata retained. She thought how good it felt to walk again, not letting herself know it was only in a dream. But Duque knew—he had heard those terrified thoughts in a moment of death and Vata’s dreaming was no longer the same for him.
Chapter 27
The distresses of choice are our chance to be blessed.
—W.H. Auden, Shiprecords
In that fading moment before the last of the twilight settled below the horizon, like a dimmed torch quenched in a cold sea, Brett saw the launch tower. Its gray bulk bridged a low cloud layer and the sea. He pointed.
“That’s it?”
Scudi leaned forward to peer through the fading light.
“I don’t see it,” she said, “but by the instruments it’s about twenty klicks away.”
“We used up some time with Twisp and that Bushka character. What did you think
of him?”
“Of your Twisp?”
“No, the other one.”
“We have Mermen like that,” she hedged.
“You didn’t like him, either.”
“He’s a whiner, maybe a killer,” she said. “It’s not easy to like someone like
that.”
“What did you think of his story?” Brett asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What if he did it all on his own and the crew threw him overboard? We can’t believe him or disbelieve him on the little we’ve heard—and all of it from him.”
The foil skidded across the edge of a kelp bed, slowing then recovering as its sharp-edged supports cut through the tangled growth.
“I didn’t see that kelp,” Scudi said. “The light is so bad … that was clumsy of me!”
“Will it hurt the foil?” Brett asked.
She shook her head. “No, I have hurt the kelp. We will have to come off the foils.”
“Hurt the kelp?” Brett was mystified. “How can you hurt a plant?”
“The kelp is not just a plant,” she said. “It’s in a sensitive stage of development … it’s difficult to explain. You’ll think me as crazy as Bushka if I tell you all that I know about the kelp.”
Scudi reduced the throttle. The hissing roar subsided and the wallowing boat slipped down onto its hull, gently lifting with the heave of the waves. The rams subsided to a low murmur behind them.
“It is more dangerous for us to come in at night,” she said. The red instrument lights had come on automatically as the light dimmed outside and she looked at Brett, his face under-lighted by the red illumination.
“Should we wait out here for daylight?” he asked.
“We could submerge and sit on the bottom,” she said. “It’s only about sixty fathoms.”
When Brett did not respond, she said, “You don’t prefer it down under, do you?” He shrugged.
“It’s too deep to anchor,” she said, “but it is safe to drift if we watch. Nothing can harm us in here.”
“Dashers?”
“They can’t penetrate a foil.”
“Then let’s shut down and drift. The kelp should keep us stable. I agree with you, I don’t think we should go in there at night. We want everybody to see us and know who we are and why we’re there.”
Scudi shut off the murmuring rams and in the sudden silence they grew aware of the slap of waves against the hull, the faint creaking of the vessel around them.
“How far is it to the base again?” Brett asked. He squinted through the twilight murk toward the tower.
“At least twenty klicks.”
Brett, accustomed to judging distance out by the height of Vashon above the horizon, produced a low whistle. “That thing must be pretty high. It’s a wonder Islanders haven’t spotted it before this.”
“I think we control the currents to keep Islands clear of the area.”
“Control the currents,” he muttered. “Yeah, of course.”
Then he asked, “Do you think they’ve seen us?”
Scudi punched a button on the console and a series of familiar clicks and beeps came from an overhead speaker. He’d heard these sounds from time to time as they skipped across the waves.
“Nothing’s tracking us,” she said. “It would howl if we were targeted. They might know we’re here, though. This just means we’re not under observation.”
Brett bent over the button Scudi had punched and read the label: “T-BEAM TEST.”
“Automatic,” she said. “It tells us if we’re targeted by a tracking beam.”
The foil lurched suddenly counter to a wave. Brett, used to the uncertain footing of Islands and coracles, was first to catch his balance. Scudi clutched his arm to right herself.
“Kelp,” Brett said.
“I think so. We had better—” She broke off with a startled gasp, staring past Brett at the rear hatch.
Brett whirled to see a Merman standing there, dripping sea water, green paint striped across his face and dive suit in a grotesque pattern. The man carried a lasgun at the ready. Another Merman stood in the shadowy passage behind him.
Scudi’s voice was a dry whisper in Brett’s ear: “Gallow. That’s Nakano behind him.”
Surprise at the stealth that had allowed the Merman to come this close without detection held Brett speechless. He tried to absorb the import of Scudi’s rasping whisper. So this was the Merman that Bushka blamed for sinking Guemes! The man was
tall and smoothly muscled, and his dive suit clung to him like a second skin. Why the green pattern on it? Brett wondered. His eyes could not help focusing on the business end of the lasgun.
The Merman chuckled. “Little Scudi Wang! Now that’s what I call luck. We’ve been having our share of luck lately, eh, Nakano?”
“It wasn’t luck saved us when that stupid Islander sank us,” Nakano growled.
“Ahhh, yes,” Gallow agreed. “Your superior strength broke the bonds that held you. Indeed.” He flicked a glance around the cockpit. “Where’s the crew? We need your doctor.”
Brett, at whom Gallow aimed the question, met Gallow’s demanding stare with silence, thinking that the interchange between these two Mermen tended to confirm Bushka’s odd story.
“Your doctor!” Gallow insisted.
“We don’t have one,” Brett said, surprised at the force of his voice.
Gallow, noting the accent, flicked a scornful glance at Scudi.
“Who’s the Mute?”
