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“He says the kelp keeps your identity, all your memories, everything,” Bushka said.
Scudi pulled Brett close and whispered: “That may be possible.”
Brett merely nodded, looking down at where Bushka had been torturing the captive. He found the thought of what Bushka had done revolting.
Sensing Brett’s reaction, Scudi said: “Do you think Iz would really have killed and burned him?”
Brett swallowed in a dry throat. Honesty forced him to say: “I harpooned the guy in the foil.”
“That was different! That one would’ve killed you. This one was tied and helpless.”
“I don’t know,” Brett said.
“He scares me,” Scudi said.
The foil lurched slightly, and again. Something uncoiled into the sea behind them.
“Net,” Brett whispered. “Twisp cut it loose.” And it broke his heart, he thought. Fish dying for nothing always breaks his heart.
A chill wind passed over them and they both looked up. Thin clouds had begun a drift in from the north and there was a light chop to the water where the kelp opened that strange lane. The lane still pointed them directly toward Vashon.
“I thought it was going to stay hot,” Brett said.
“Wind’s changed,” Twisp said. “Let’s get this boat aboard. Vashon might be in for a bad time after all.”
They secured the boat, sealed the hatch and joined Scudi and Bushka in the pilot house. Scudi took the command chair, with Bushka standing to one side, flexing his fingers. Rage still seethed in Bushka’s eyes.
“Iz,” Twisp said, his voice low. “Would you really have cooked that Merman alive?”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see Guemes and Gallow.” Bushka glanced aft where they had left the Merman secured. “I’d be awful sorry, I know, but …” He shrugged.
“Not much of an answer.”
“I think I’d burn him,” Bushka said.
“That wouldn’t help you sleep any better,” Twisp said.
He nodded at Scudi.
“Let’s get this thing to Vashon.”
Scudi fired up the ram and gently lifted the foil up onto its step. In a minute they were scudding along the kelp channel with a slight bouncing motion against the chop.
Twisp directed Bushka to a couch at the rear of the pilot house. Sitting beside Bushka, Twisp asked, “Did he say how they captured Keel?”
“Off another foil. They had two foils then.”
“Where’s Gallow?”
“He’s gone to Outpost Twenty-two on the other foil,” Bushka said. “That’s the rocket pickup station. He thinks there’s an army in the hyb tanks. Whoever opens them owns them. He wants control of both launch and recovery and obviously he thinks he can get it.”
“Is it possible?”
“An army in the hyb tanks?” Bushka snorted. “Anything’s possible. They could come out shooting for all we know.”
“What does he want with Keel?”
“Trade. For Vata. He wants Vata.”
“Gallow’s crazy!” Brett blurted. “I’ve been downcenter and seen the Vata support system. It’s big. They couldn’t possibly …”
“Cut out the whole support complex with a sub,” Bushka said. “Seal it off, tow it out. They could do it.”
“They’d need doctors—”
“They have their doctor,” Bushka said. “When they snatched Keel they picked up Kareen Ale. Gallow’s covering all angles.”
Silence came over the pilot cabin while the ram pulsed around them. The foils slapped the seas in a well-absorbed rhythm.
Twisp looked forward to Scudi in the pilot’s seat. “Scudi, can we make radio contact with Vashon?”
“Anyone could hear,” she spoke without looking back. Twisp shook his head once in frustrated indecision.
Without warning, Bushka yanked the lasgun from Twisp’s pocket and jammed it against his ribs.
“Up!” Bushka snapped. Stunned, Twisp obeyed. “Very careful how you move,” Bushka said. “I know how strong you are.”
Brett saw the lasgun in Bushka’s hand. “What’s—”
“Sit!” Bushka ordered.
Brett sank back into the seat beside Scudi. She glanced aft, eyed the scene and jerked her attention back to her course.
“Whether we radio or take the message to Vashon in person, it’s all the same,” Bushka said. “Gallow learns that his secret is out. But right now, we have the advantage of surprise. He thinks this is his foil.”
“What do you mean?” Twisp asked.
“Turn this foil around, Scudi,” Bushka ordered. “We’re going after Gallow. I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
Chapter 33
Don’t call me her father. I was nothing more than an instrument of Vata’s conception. “Father” and “daughter” don’t apply. Vata was born more than the sum of our parts. I caution the sons and the daughters after us: Remember that Vata is more mother to us than sister to you.
—Kerro Panille, Family Papers
Shadow Panille stood in the gloom of Current Control thinking that at last he had found the woman of his life. With Kareen Ale, he had the faith that only Merman-normal offspring could evidence.
Current Control was aswarm with work, the usual routines preempted by the impending launch and the code yellow grounding of Vashon.
“Too many people working too hard for too long,” he muttered to himself. Impulses moved out into the kelp from Current Control, signals of drift sensors flashed in their cobalt-blue numerals. LTA reports were rolling on the number six screen.
Wouldn’t get me up in one of those things, he thought. Lighter-Than-Air craft challenged a medium where unstable currents and the unforeseen were standard issue. Air was much more dangerous than water.
Safest down under, he thought. Safety had taken on a new attraction to him. He wanted to live to spend more time with this woman.
Where is Kareen right now? He found himself facing this question constantly since their separation. By now she would be at Launch Base. Panille didn’t like to think of the distance separating them … distance was time, and after that last night he didn’t want to spend any time without her.
His head had ached and he had been dizzy with fatigue but still sleep had not come. Every time his eyelids slipped his head filled with visions of Guemes survivors littering the triage floor. Torn flesh, blood, moans and whimpers still ghosted around him in the dim bustle of Current Control.
Kareen, too, had been drained of energy. They had gone to her quarters with little discussion, each aware only of the need to be together, alive after wading through all that death. They had walked from the tube station, holding hands. Panille had held himself under tight control, sure that a white-tipped anger might explode if he once relaxed. Something hot and twisting clenched his guts.
Where plaz lined the corridors, the ripple effect of surface light combined with the cadence of their steps to mesmerize Panille into a dreamy detachment. He felt that he floated above himself, watching their swaying progress. There was tenderness in the arms, the bone-weary arms, and in Kareen’s cheek as it brushed his shoulder. Her muscles worked their smooth magic and he no longer suspected that she might try to rule him with her body.
At her quarters, Panille had stared out at a different kind of undersea, a garden lush with ferns waving and butterfly fish grooming the leaves. A thick column of kelp spiraled upward out there, twisting and untwisting with some distant surge.
No death here. No signs of the Guemes disaster.
Just at the edge of visibility lay the Blue Reef with corridors of pale blue vine-tulips that opened and closed like small mouths beyond the plaz. Bright orange flashes of minuscule shrimp darted in and out, feeding on the vine-tulip stamens. Kareen led him to her bedroom.
They did not hesitate. Kareen stood tiptoe and pressed her mouth against his. Her open eyes watched his eyes and he saw himself reflected in her black pupils. Her hands pressed at first against his ch
est, then slipped around his neck and unfastened his braid. Her fingers felt strong and sure. Surgeon’s fingers, he thought. His black hair spread over his shoulders. Panille brought his hands down from her shoulders to her tunic, releasing it clasp by clasp.
They undressed each other slowly, wordlessly. When she stepped out of her underwear, the light caught and danced in the flaming red triangle of her hair. Her nipples pressed like children’s noses against his ribs.
We have decided to live, he thought.
The vision of Kareen Ale was a mantra that shut out all doubts about his world. Nothing existed in memory except the two of them and their perfectly complementary bodies.
As they had started slipping into sleep, Kareen startled them both with a sudden cry. She clung to him then like a child.
“Bad dreams,” she whispered.
