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“Get back on course.” It was Twisp’s voice behind Brett, but Brett dared not turn. “I have her and she’s all right.”
Brett swung the foil’s bow back into the seas, quartering into a high comber that rolled over them at the crest. Water sloshed through the cabin as the foil pitched down into the next trough. The sound of pumps chuffing below decks came clearly to Brett’s ears. He risked a glance back and saw Twisp backing into the cabin, Scudi’s limp form over his shoulder. He dogged the hatch behind him and dumped Scudi on the couch where Bushka had been.
“She’s breathing,” Twisp said. He bent over Scudi, a hand on her neck. “Pulse is strong. She hit her head on the hull as we tipped.”
“Did you clear the struts?” Bushka demanded.
“Eelshit!” Twisp spat.
“Did you?”
“Yes, we cleared the damn struts!”
Brett looked at the overhead screen and brought the foil around ten degrees, putting down a surge of rage against Bushka. But Bushka was suddenly busy with the keyboard at his position.
“Finding how to retract these foils. That was the whole idea, wasn’t it?” Bushka’s fingers flurried over the keys and a schematic appeared on the screen in front of him. He studied it a moment and manipulated controls at his side of the board. Within blinks, Brett heard the hiss and clunk of struts retracting.
“You’re not on course,” Bushka said.
“As close as I can be,” Brett said. “We have to quarter these seas or we’ll pound ourselves to pieces.”
“If you’re lying, you’re dead,” Bushka said.
“You take it if you know better than I do,” Brett said. He lifted his hands from the wheel.
Bushka brought the lasgun up and pointed it at Brett’s head. “Steer us the way you have to but don’t give me any shit!”
Brett dropped his hands onto the wheel in time to catch the next crest. They were riding easier now. A green light showed at the “Foils Retracted” marker.
Bushka swiveled his seat and hunched down, positioning himself to watch both Brett and Twisp. The captive Merman lay beside Bushka, his face pale but he was breathing.
“We’re still going after Gallow,” Bushka said. There was a note of hysteria in his voice.
Twisp strapped Scudi into the couch and sat beside her. He held a grab near her head for balance. Twisp looked forward past Bushka, then up at the overhead display. “What’s that?” he asked, nodding at the screen.
Bushka did not turn.
Brett glanced up at the screen. A green diamond-shaped marker flashed near the course line and off to the right.
“What is it?” Twisp repeated.
Brett leaned forward and punched the identity key under the screen.
“Outpost 22” flashed on the screen beside the diamond.
“That’s the pickup station for the hyb tanks,” Brett said. “That’s where Gallow’s supposed to be. Scudi’s brought us out right on target.”
“Get us in there!” Bushka ordered.
Brett turned onto the new heading while he tried to recall everything Scudi had told him about the hyb-tank recovery project. There wasn’t much.
“Why’s it flashing?” Twisp asked.
“I think it does that when you get within range,” Brett said. “I think it’s a warning that we’re getting close to the shallows around the outpost.”
“You think?” Bushka snarled.
“I don’t know this equipment any better than you do,” Brett countered. “Take over any time you want.”
“Throw some water on that woman, get her awake,” Bushka ordered. Again, that note of hysteria in his voice. He brought the lasgun around until it pointed at Brett. “You stay put back there, Twisp!” Bushka ordered. “Or the kid gets burned.”
With his free hand, Bushka began working the keyboard in front of him. “Incompetents,” he muttered. “Everything’s right here if you just ask for it.” Chart-reading instructions scrolled upward on his screen. Bushka bent to read them.
“Ship’s balls!” Twisp shouted. “What’s that?”
Through the spray-drenched plaz ahead and to his left, Brett saw a great splash of bright orange, something floating a wave out there. He bent forward to peer through the salted plaz. It was a long orange something that stretched into the anonymous gray of the storm. Kelp lay tangled all around it.
The foil was coming up on the orange thing fast, bringing it close to their port side.
“It’s an LTA bag,” Bushka said. “Somebody’s gone down.”
“Can you see the gondola?” Twisp asked. “Brett! Stay downwind from it. The bag will act like a sea anchor. Don’t get fouled in it.”
Brett swung the foil to the left and it wallowed in a trough, rocking dangerously at the crest, then into the next trough. At the following crest, he saw the gondola, a dark shape awash in the long seas. The orange bag trailed out behind it with kelp laced across it. The gondola was coming up on their right. The seas were smoother there, flattened by the great spread of the bag. Another crest and Brett saw faces pressed against the gondola’s plaz.
“There are people in there!” Twisp shouted. “I saw faces!”
“Damn!” Bushka said. “Damn, damn, damn!”
“We have to take them off,” Brett said. “We can’t leave them there.”
“I know that!” Bushka snarled.
Scudi took this moment to begin muttering … words Brett couldn’t understand.
“She’s all right,” Twisp said. “She’s coming out of it. Bushka, you come back here and look after her while I get a line aboard that gondola.”
“How’re you going to do that?” Bushka asked.
“I’m going to swim it over! What else? Brett, hold us steady as you can right here.”
“They’re Mermen,” Bushka said. “Why can’t they bring a line to us?”
“The minute they open their hatch, that gondola is going down,” Twisp said. “It’ll fill like a punctured float.”
Scudi’s voice came clearly then: “What’s … what’s happening?”
Bushka released his safety harness and made his way back to her. Brett heard the hatch open and close. Bushka’s voice, quite low, gave Scudi her answer.
“An LTA?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“Near Outpost Twenty-two.” There was a scuffling sound and Bushka’s voice: “Stay down there!”
“I have to get to the controls! It’s shallow here. Very shallow! In these seas—”
“All right!” Bushka said. “Do what you have to do.”
Scuffing footsteps on the deck, then water sloshing from a wet dive suit. Scudi’s hand gripped Brett’s shoulder. “Dammit, but my head hurts,” she said. Her hand touched his neck and he felt a flash of pain on the side of his temple. It was a throbbing pain, as though something had struck him there.
Scudi leaned across him, her hand over his shoulder to steady herself. Their cheeks touched.
Brett felt something flow between them, creating a moment of panic followed by a sudden inrush of awareness. His neck hair prickled as he realized what had happened. He felt that he was two people become one but aware of the separation—one person standing beside the other.
I’m seeing with Scudi’s eyes!
Brett’s hands moved automatically on the wheel, a new expertise he had not known he possessed. The foil gentled its way close to the gondola and hung there with just enough headway to counteract the wind.
What’s happening to us?
The words formed silently in their minds, a simultaneous question, shared in an instant and answered in an instant.
