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Gallow asked, “Are you sure that you could run this sub?”

“Of course. The controls are obvious.”

“Are they, really?”

“I watched you. Islander subs have some organic equivalents. And I do have a master’s rating, Gallow.”

“GeLaar, please,” Gallow said. He unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat, stood up and moved aside. “We are companions, Iz. Companions use first names.”

Bushka slid into the pilot’s seat at Gallow’s gesture and scanned the controls. He pointed to them one by one, calling out their functions to Gallow: “Trim, ballast, propulsion, forward-reverse and throttles, fuel mixture, hydrogen conversion control, humidity injector and atmospheric control—the meters and gauges are self-explanatory. More?”

“Very good, Iz,” Gallow said. “You are even more of a jewel than I had hoped. Strap in. You are now our pilot.”

Realizing he had been drawn even further into Gallow’s conspiracy, Bushka obeyed. The flutter in his stomach increased noticeably.

Again, the sub moved erratically. Bushka flicked a switch and focused a sensor above the exterior hatch. The screen above him showed Tso Zent and behind him, the scarred face of Gulf Nakano. Those two were living examples of deceptive looks. Zent had been introduced as Gallow’s primary strategist “and of course, my chief assassin.”

Bushka had stared at the chief assassin, taken aback by the title. Zent was smooth-skinned and schoolboy-innocent in appearance, until you saw the hard antagonism in his small brown eyes. The wrinkle-free flesh had that soft deceptiveness of someone powerfully muscled by much swimming. An airfish scar puckered at his neck. Zent was one of those Mermen who preferred the fish to the air tanks—an interesting insight.

Then there was Nakano—a giant with hulking shoulders and arms as thick as some human torsos, his face twisted and scarred by burns from a Merman rocket misfiring. Gallow had already told Bushka the story twice, and Bushka got the impression that he’d hear it again. Nakano allowed a few wispy beard hairs to grow from the tip of his scarred chin; otherwise he was hairless, the burn scars prominent on his scalp, neck and shoulders.

“I saved his life,” Gallow had said, speaking in Nakano’s presence as though the man were not there. “He will do anything for me.”

But Bushka had found evidence of human warmth in Nakano—a hand outstretched to protect the new companion from falling. There was even a sense of humor.

“We measure sub experience by counting bruises,” Nakano had said, smiling shyly. His voice was husky and a bit slurred.

There was certainly no warmth or humor in Zent.

“Writers are dangerous,” he’d said when Gallow explained Bushka’s function. “They speak out of turn.”

“Writing history while it happens is always dangerous business,” Gallow agreed. “But no one else will see what Iz writes until we are ready—that’s an advantage.”

It had been at this point that Bushka fully realized the peril of his position. They had been in the sub, seventy klicks from the Merman base, anchored on the fringes of a huge kelp bed. Both Gallow and Zent had that irritating habit of speaking about him as though he were not present.

Bushka glanced at Gallow, who stood, back to the pilot’s couch, peering out one of the small plazglas ports at whatever it was that Zent and Nakano were making ready out there. The grace and beauty of Gallow had taken on a new dimension for Bushka, who had marked Gallow’s deep fear of disfiguring accidents. Nakano was a living example of what Gallow feared most.

Another chanted notation went into Bushka’s “true history,” the one he elected to keep only in his mind in the ages-old Islander fashion. Much of Islander history was carried in memorized chants, rhythms that projected themselves naturally, phrase by phrase. Paper was fugitive on the Islands, subject to rot, and where could it be stored that the container itself would not eat it? Permanent records were confined to plazbooks and the memories of chanters. Plazbooks were only for the bureaucracy or the very rich. Anyone could memorize a chant.

“GeLaar fears the scars of Time,” Bushka chanted to himself. “Time is Age and Age is Time. Not the death but the dying.”

If only they knew, Bushka thought. He brought a notepad from his pocket and scribbled four innocuous lines on it for Gallow’s official history—date, time, place, people.

Zent and Nakano entered the cabin without speaking. Sea water slopped all around them as they took up positions in seats beside Bushka. They began a run-through on the sub’s sensory apparatus. Both men moved smoothly and silently, grotesque figures in green-striped, skin-tight dive suits. “Camouflage,” had been Gallow’s response to Bushka’s unasked question when he first saw them.

Gallow watched with quiet approval until the check-list had been run, men said, “Get us under way, Iz. Course three hundred and twenty-five degrees. Hold us just beneath wave turbulence.”

“Check.”

Bushka complied, feeling the unused power in the craft as he gentled it into position. Energy conservation was second nature to an Islander and he trimmed out as much by instinct as by the instruments.

“Sweet,” Gallow commented. He glanced at Zent. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Zent didn’t respond, but Nakano smiled at Bushka. “You’ll have to teach me how you do that,” he said. “So smooth.”

“Sure.”

Bushka concentrated on the controls, familiarizing himself with them, sensing the minute responses transmitted from water to control surface to his hands. The latent power in this Merman craft was tempting. Bushka could feel how it might respond at full thrust. It would gulp fuel, though, and the hydrogen engines would heat.

Bushka decided he preferred Islander subs. Organics were supple, living-warm. They were smaller, true, and vulnerable to the accidents of flesh, but there was something addictive about the interdependence, life depending on life. Islanders didn’t go blundering about down under. An Islander sub could be thought of as just big valves and muscle tissue—essentially a squid without a brain, or guts. But it gave a pulsing ride, soothing and noiseless—none of this humming and clicking and metal throbbing, none of these hard vibrations in the teeth.

Gallow spoke from close to Bushka’s ear: “Let’s get more moisture in the air, Iz. You want us all to dry out?”

“Here.” Nakano pointed at a dial and alphanumerical readout above Bushka’s head on the sloping curve of the hull. A red “21” showed on the air-moisture repeater. “We like it above forty percent.”

Bushka increased humidity in gentle increments, thinking that here was another Merman vulnerability. Unless they became acclimated to topside existence—in the diplomatic corps or some commercial enterprise—Mermen suffered from dry air; cracked skin, lung damage, bloody creases in exposed soft tissues.

Gallow touched Zent’s shoulder. “Give us the mark on Guemes Island.”

Zent scanned the navigation instruments

while Bushka studied the man furtively. What was this? Why did they want to locate Guemes? It was one of the poorest Islands—barely big enough to support ten thousand souls just above the lip of malnutrition. Why was Gallow interested in it?

“Grid and vector five,” Zent said. “Two eighty degrees, eight kilometers.” He punched a button. “Mark.” The navigation screen above them came alight with green lines: grid squares and a soft blob in one of them.

“Swing us around to two hundred and eighty degrees, Iz,” Gallow said. “We’re going fishing.”

Fishing? Bushka wondered. Subs could be rigged for fishing but this one carried none of the usual equipment. He didn’t like the way Zent chuckled at Gallow’s comment.

“The Movement is about to make its mark on history,” Gallow announced. “Observe and record, Iz.”

The Movement, Bushka thought. Gallow always named it in capital letters and frequently with quotation marks, as though he saw it already printed in a plazbook. When Gallow spoke of “The Movement,” Bushka could sense the resources behind it, with nameless supporters and political influence in powerful places.

Responding to Gallow’s orders, Bushka kicked the dive planes out of their locks, checked the range detectors for obstructions, scanned the trim display and the forward screen. It had become almost automatic. The sub glided into an easy descent as it came around on course.

“Depth vector coming up,” Zent said, smiling at Bushka. Bushka noted the smile in the reflections of the screens and made a mental note. Zent must know it irritated a pilot to read his instruments aloud that way without being asked. Nobody likes being told what they already know.

Cabin air getting sticky, Bushka noted. His topside lungs found the high humidity stifling. He backed off the moisture content, wondering if they would object to thirty-five percent. He locked on course.

“On course,” Zent said, still smiling.

“Zent, why don’t you go play with yourself?” Bushka asked. He leveled the dive planes and locked them.

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