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But that was the past. Bushka cleared his throat, breaking Panille’s reverie. “They were Gallow’s people,” Bushka said. “What does it matter?”
“Nakano was one of Gallow’s people,” Twisp said.
“It’s not an easy choice,” Nakano said. “Gallow saved my life once. But so did you, Twisp.”
“So you go with whoever saved you most recently,” Twisp said, scorn in his voice.
Nakano spoke in a curious lilting tone: “I go with the kelp. There is my immortality.”
Brett’s throat went dry. He had heard that tone in Guemes fanatics, the hardest of the hard-core WorShipers.
Twisp, obviously having a similar reaction, shook his head from side to side. Nakano did not care who he killed! The kelp justified everything!
“Gallow wants Vata,” Bushka said. “We can’t allow that.” He passed the lasgun to Nakano, who slipped it into its holster at his thigh.
At Bushka’s movement, Twisp put his hand on his own weapon. He did not relax even when Nakano displayed empty hands and smiled at him.
“Seven of us,” Twisp said. “And we’re supposed to attack a place that could have more than three hundred armed people in it!”
Bushka closed the hatchway before looking at Twisp. “The kelp told me how to kill Gallow,” he said. “Do you doubt the kelp?”
“You’re damned right I do!”
“But we are going to do it,” Bushka said. He pushed past Twisp and went up the passageway toward the pilot cabin. Brett took Scudi’s hand and followed. He could hear the others coming after them, Twisp muttering: “Stupid, stupid, stupid …”
For Brett, Twisp’s voice lay immersed in what the kelp had insisted, a chant imprinted on the vocal centers. Certainly this was what the kelp had told Bushka.
Drive Gallow out. Avata will do the rest.
The chant surged there, background to a persistent image of Ward Keel imprisoned in plaz, beckoning to him. Brett felt sure that Keel was Gallow’s prisoner at this outpost.
Panille went to the left-hand pilot’s seat and checked the instruments. The foil was making minimal headway in the wide circle of open water enclosed by kelp fronds.
Brett stopped near the pilot station. Feeling Scudi’s hand tremble in his, he squeezed her hand firmly. She leaned against him. He looked out the plaz to his right. Framed there was a churning gray sea. Rain slanted with a stiff breeze. Kelp fronds lifted and danced on the wavetops, smoothing them and dampening the chop. Even as he looked, darkness settled over the sea. Automatic lighting came on to rim the edges of the cabin ceiling. Course vector lights winked on the screens in front of Panille.
Twisp had stopped at the entrance to the cabin, his hand on the lasgun, his attention on Nakano.
Noting this, Nakano smiled. He moved across in front of Brett and went to the pilot station beside Panille, activating the exterior lights. A spotlight fanned brilliant illumination across the open water and the edge of kelp. Abruptly, swift motion entered the illuminated area.
“Dashers!” Panille said.
“Look at that big bull!” Nakano said.
Brett and Scudi stared out at the scene, the blanket of kelp, the hunt of dashers.
“I’ve never seen such a big one,” Ale said.
The hunt swept along in an undulating glide behind the monster bull. Nakano tracked them with the spotlight. They circled the dark perimeter of kelp, then worked into the leaves.
Nakano turned from the control station and opened the plaz hatch beside him, letting in a damp rush of wind and rain. Lifting his lasgun, he sent a burning arc at the hunt, tumbling the lead bull and two followers. Their dark green blood washed over the kelp fronds, foaming in the waves.
The rest of the hunt turned on its own dead, spreading blood and torn flesh across the fan of light. Abruptly, kelp stalks as thick as a man’s waist lifted from the sea, whipped the gore to a foam and drove the dashers from their feed.
Nakano drew back and secured the hatch. “You see that?” he asked.
No one answered. They had all seen it.
“We will submerge,” Bushka said. “We will go in with the foil underwater. Nakano will be visible. The rest of us will appear to be captives until the last blink.”
Brett released Scudi’s hand and crossed to confront Bushka.
“I’ll not have Scudi used as bait!”
Bushka made a grab for his lasgun but Brett caught the man’s wrist. Young muscles, made powerful by months of hauling nets, flexed once, twisted Bushka’s wrist and the lasgun dropped to the deck. Brett kicked it toward Twisp, who picked it up and hefted it.
Bushka eyed the weapons he had left near the passage entrance.
“You’d never make it,” Twisp said. “So relax.” He held the lasgun casually, muzzle pointed downward, but his manner suggested poised readiness.
“So what do we do now?” Ale asked.
“We could run for the Launch Base and alert everyone to what’s happening,” Panille said.
“You’d start a civil war among Mermen and the Islanders would be drawn into it,” Bushka protested. He rubbed at his wrist where Brett had twisted it.
“There’s something else,” Scudi said. She glanced at Brett, then at Twisp. “Chief Justice Keel is being held prisoner here by Gallow.”
“In Ship’s name, how do you know that?” Twisp demanded.
“The kelp says it,” Scudi said.
“It showed me a vision of Keel in captivity,” Brett said.
“Vision!” Twisp said.
“The only important thing is to kill Gallow,” Bushka muttered.
Twisp looked at Kareen Ale. “The only reason we went back to the cargo bay was to ask you for advice,” he said. “What does the ambassador suggest?”
“Use the kelp,” she said. “Take the foil down to the inner edge of the kelp in sight of the outpost … and we wait. Let them see Scudi and me. That should tempt Gallow to come out. And yes, Justice Keel is there. I’ve seen him.”
“I say we run for Vashon,” Brett said.
“Let me remind you,” Ale said, “that the hyb tanks will be brought down here. The pickup team is at this outpost.”
“And they’re either Gallow’s people or Gallow’s captives,” Twisp sneered. “Any way you look at it, the hyb tanks are his.”
Ale glanced at the chrono beside the control panel. “If all goes well, the tanks could be here in a little more than eight hours.”
“With seven of us aboard, we couldn’t stay down eight hours,” Panille said.
Bushka began to giggle, startling them. “Empty argument,” he said. “Empty words. The kelp won’t permit us to leave until we do its bidding. It’s kill Gallow or nothing.”
Nakano was the first to break the subsequent silence. “Then we’d better get busy,” he said. “Personally, I like the ambassador’s plan but I think we also should send in a scout party.”
“And you’re volunteering?” Twisp asked.
“If you have a better idea, let’s hear it,” Nakano said. He returned to the cabin’s rear bulkhead and opened a supply locker, exposing fins, air tanks, breathers and dive suits.
“You saw the kelp crush that sub,” Brett reminded Twisp. “And you saw what happened with the dashers.”
“Then I’m the one who goes in,” Twisp said. “They don’t know me. I’ll carry our message so they get it real clear.”
“Twisp, no!” Brett protested.
“Yes!” Twisp glanced at the others, focusing on each face for a blink, then: “With the exception of the ambassador there, who can’t go in for obvious reasons—they want her, for Ship’s sake! But except for her, I’m the obvious one. I’ll take Nakano with me.” Twisp sent a dasher grin at Nakano, who looked both surprised and pleased.
