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He liked the rational sense of her words and returned to the fish, enjoying it more with each bite. Scudi, he saw, was eating as much as he even though she was much smaller. He liked the delicate flick of her chopsticks into the bowl and at the edge of her mouth.
What a beautiful mouth, he thought. He remembered how she had given him that first breath of life.
She caught him staring and he quickly returned his attention to his bowl.
“The sea takes much energy, much heat,” she said. “I wear a dive suit as little as possible. Hot shower, much hot food, a warm bed—these are always needed. Do you work the Islander subs topside, Brett?”
Her question caught him off guard. He’d begun to think that she had no curiosity about him.
Maybe I’m just some kind of obligation to her, he thought. If you save someone, maybe you’re stuck with them.
“I’m a surface fisherman for a contractor named Twisp,” he said. “He’s the one that
I most want to get word to. He’s a strange man, but the best in a boat I’ve seen.”
“Surface,” she said. “That’s much danger from dashers, isn’t it? Have you seen dashers?”
He tried to swallow in a suddenly dry throat. “We carry squawks. They warn us,
you know.” He hoped that she wouldn’t notice the dodge.
“We’re afraid of your nets,” she said. “Sometimes visibility is bad and they can’t be seen. Mermen have been killed in them.”
He nodded, remembering the thrashing and the blood and Twisp’s stories of other Mermen deaths in the nets. Should he mention that to Scudi? Should he ask about the strange reaction of the Maritime Court? No … she might not understand. This would be a barrier between them.
Scudi sensed this, too. He could tell because she spoke too quickly. “Would you not prefer to work in your subs? I know they are soft-bellied, not like ours at all, but …”
“I think … I think I’d like to stay with Twisp unless he goes back to the subs. I’d sure like to know if he’s all right.”
“We will rest and when we wake, you will meet some of our people who can help. Mermen travel far. We pass along the word. You will hear of him and he of you … if that’s your wish.”
“My wish?” He stared at her, absorbing this. “You mean I could choose to … disappear?”
She shrugged her eyebrows, accenting the gamin look. “Where you want to be is where you should be. Who you want to be is the same, not so?”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“If you have not broken the law, there are possibilities down under. The Merman world is big. Wouldn’t you like to stay here?” She coughed and he wondered if she had been about to say “stay here with me?” Scudi suddenly seemed much older, more worldly. Talk among the Islanders gave Brett the impression that Mermen had an extra sophistication, a sense of belonging anywhere they went, of knowing more than Islanders.
“Do you live alone?” he asked.
“Yes. This was my mother’s place. And it’s close to where my father lived.”
“Don’t Merman families live together?”
She scowled. “My parents … stubborn, both of them. They couldn’t live together. I lived with my father for a long time, but … he died.” She shook her head and he saw the memories pain her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Where’s your mother?”
“She is dead too.” Scudi looked away from him. “My mother was net-bound less than a year ago.” Scudi’s throat moved with a convulsive swallow as she turned back to him. “It has been difficult … there is a man, GeLaar Gallow, who became my mother’s … lover. That was after …” She broke off and shook her head sharply.
“I’m sorry, Scudi,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring back painful—”
“But I want to talk about it! Down here,there is no one I can … I mean, my closest friends avoid the subject and I …” She rubbed her left cheek. “You are a new friend and you listen.”
“Of course, but I don’t see what …”
“After my father died, my mother signed over … You understand, Brett, that my father was Ryan Wang, there was much wealth?”
Wang! he thought. Merman Mercantile. His rescuer was a wealthy heiress!
“I … I didn’t …”
“It is all right. Gallow was to be my stepfather. My mother signed over to him control of much that my father left. Then she died.”
“So there’s nothing for you.”
“What? Oh, you mean from my father. No, that is not my problem. Besides, Kareen Ale is my new guardian. My father left her … many things. They were friends.”
“What … you said there’s a problem.” “Everyone wants Kareen to marry Gallow and Gallow pursues this.”
Brett noted that Scudi’s lips tightened every time she spoke Gallow’s name. “What is wrong with this Gallow?” he asked.
Scudi spoke in a low voice. “He frightens me.”
“Why? What’s he done?”
“I don’t know. But he was on the crew when my father died … and when my
mother died.”
“Your mother … you said a net …”
“An Islander net. That is what they said.”
He lowered his gaze, remembering his recent experience with a Merman in the net.
Seeing the look on his face, Scudi said: “I have no resentment toward you. I can see that you are sorry. My mother knew the danger of nets.”
“You said Gallow was with your parents when they died. Do you …”
“I have never spoken of this to anyone before. I don’t know why I say it to you, but you are sympathetic. And you … I mean …”
“I owe you.”
“Oh, no! It is nothing like that. It’s just … I like your face and the way you listen.”
Brett lifted his gaze and met her staring at him. “Is there no one who can help you?” he asked. “You said Kareen Ale … everyone knows about her. Can’t she—”
“I would never say these things to Kareen!”
Brett studied Scudi for a moment, seeing the shock and fear in her face. He already had a sense of the wildness in Merman life from the stories told among Islanders. Violence was no stranger down here, if the stories were to be believed. But what Scudi suggested …
“You wonder if Gallow had anything to do with the deaths of your parents,” he said.
She nodded without speaking. “Why do you suspect this?”
“He asked me to sign many papers but I pleaded ignorance and consulted Kareen. I don’t think the papers he showed her were the same ones he brought to me. She has not said yet what I should do.”
“Has he … ” Brett cleared his throat. “What I mean is … you are … that is, sometimes Islanders marry young.”
“There has been nothing like that, except he tells me to hurry and grow up. It is all a joke. He says he is tired of waiting for me.”
“How old are you?”
“I will be sixteen next month. You?”
“I’ll be seventeen in five months.”
She looked at his net-calloused hands. “Your hands say you work hard, for an Islander.” Immediately, she popped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide.
Brett had heard Merman jokes about lazy Islanders sunning themselves while Mermen built a world under the sea. He scowled.
“I have a big mouth,” Scudi said. “I find someone at last who can really be my friend and I offend him.”
“Islanders aren’t lazy,” Brett said.
Scudi reached out impulsively and took his right hand in hers. “I have only to look at you and I know the stories are lies.”
Brett pulled his hand away. He still felt hurt and bewildered. Scudi might say something soothing to smooth it over, but the truth had come out involuntarily.
I work hard, for an Islander!
Scudi got to her feet and busied herself removing the dishes and the remains of their meal. Everything went into a pneumatic slot at the kitchen wall an
d vanished with a click and a hiss.
Brett stared at the slot. The workers who took care of that probably were Islanders permanently hidden from view.
“Central kitchens and all this space,” he said. “It’s Mermen who have things easy.”
She turned toward him, an intent expression on her face. “Is that what Islanders say?”
Brett felt his face grow hot. “I don’t like jokes that lie,” Scudi said. “I don’t think you do, either.”
Brett swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat. Scudi was so direct! That was not the Islander way at all, but he found himself attracted by it.
“Queets never tells those jokes and I don’t either,” Brett said.
