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Bushka lifted a tear-streaked face to Twisp at the tiller. “You don’t know all of it. You don’t know what a perfect fool I was. Fool and tool!”
It all came out, then—the bookish Islander who wanted to be a Merman, the way Gallow had fastened on this dream, luring the innocent Islander into a compromising position.
“Why didn’t you take the sub back to this Rescue Base?” Twisp asked.
“It’s too far. Besides, how do I know who’s with them and who’s against? It’s a secret organization, even from most Mermen. I saw you and … I just had to get away from them, out of that sub.”
Hysterical kid! Twisp thought. He said, “The Mermen won’t care a lot for your scuttling their sub.”
A short, bitter laugh shook Bushka. “Mermen don’t lose anything! They’re the greatest scavengers of all time. If it goes to the bottom, it’s theirs.”
Twisp nodded. “Interesting story, Iz. Now I’ll tell you what happened. The part about Guemes, I believe that and I—”
“It’s true!”
“I’d like to disbelieve you, but I don’t. I also think you got sucked into it by this Gallow. But I don’t think you’re all as innocent as you let on.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t know what he intended!”
“Okay, Iz. I believe you. I believe you saw me on the sub’s scanner. You came up intending to be rescued by me.”
Bushka scowled.
Twisp nodded. “You swam at an angle away from me so I’d be sure to go after you instead of making a try for the sub. You wanted to pass yourself off as Merman, have me take you to this base, and you were going to use your knowledge of the Guemes destruction to insure that Mermen really made good on keeping you down under. You were going to trade that for—”
“I wasn’t! I swear.”
“Don’t swear,” Twisp said. “Ship’s listening.”
Bushka started to speak, thought better of it and remained silent. A religious bluff usually worked with Islanders, even if they claimed nonbelief.
Twisp said: “What did you do topside? What Island?”
“Eagle. I was a … historian and pump-control tech.”
“You’ve been to Vashon?”
“A couple of times.”
“That’s probably where I saw you. I seldom forget a face. Historian, eh? Inside a lot. That accounts for your pale complexion.”
“Have you any idea,” Bushka asked, “of the historical records the Mermen have preserved? The Mermen themselves don’t even know everything they have. Or the value of it.”
“So this Gallow saw you as valuable to record his doings?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Making history’s a little different from writing it. I guess you found that out.”
“Ship knows I did!”
“Uh huh. Bushka, for now, we’re stuck with each other. I’m not going to throw you overboard. But your story doesn’t make me comfortable, you understand? If there’s a base where you say there’s one … well, we’ll see.”
“There’s a base,” Bushka said. “With a tower sticking out of the water so far you can see it for fifty klicks.”
“Sure there is,” Twisp said. “Meanwhile, you stay over there by the cuddy and I’ll stay here at the tiller. Don’t try to leave your position. Got that?”
Bushka put his face back into the blanket without answering. By the rocking of his body and the shaking sobs, it was obvious to Twisp that he’d heard.
Chapter 17
What’s so tough about making love to a Mute?
Finding the right orifice.
—Merman joke
Following Ale at a pace painful for his old and weak legs, Ward Keel stepped through a hatchway marked by a red circle. He found himself in a roomful of noisy activity. There were many viewscreens, every one attended by a tech, at least a dozen console desks with Merman-style control switches and graphics. Alphanumerical indicators flashed wherever he looked. He counted ten very large viewscreens showing underwater and topside vistas. It all had been crowded into a space only a bit larger than Ale’s quarters.
But it’s not cramped, he thought.
Somewhat like Islanders, these Mermen had become skillful at using limited areas, although Keel noted that what they thought small an Islander would see as spacious.
Ale moved him around the desks and screens for introductions. Each worker glanced up when introduced, nodded curtly and returned to work. From the looks they shot Ale, Keel could tell that his presence in this room was particularly distressing to several of the Mermen.
She stopped him at a slightly larger desk set on a low dais to command the entire room. Ale had called the young man at this desk “Shadow” but introduced him as Dark Panille. Keel recognized the surname—a descendant of the pioneer poet and historian, no doubt. Panille’s large eyes stared out with demanding focus over high cheekbones. His mouth moved only minimally from its straight line when he acknowledged the introduction.
“What is this place?” Keel asked.
“Current Control,” Ale said, “You’ll learn details momentarily. They are involved in an emergency right now. We must not interfere. You see those orange lights flashing over there? Emergency calls for Search and Rescue teams who are on standby duty.”
“Search and Rescue?” Keel asked. “Are some of your people in trouble?”
“No,” she replied with a tight set to her jaw, “your people.”
Keel clamped his mouth shut. His gaze skittered across the room at the intense faces studying each viewscreen, at the cacophony of typing set up by the blur of two dozen technicians’ hands at their keyboards. It was all very confusing. Was this the beginning of that threat Ale had mentioned? Keel found it difficult to remain silent … but she had said “Search and Rescue.” This was a time to watch carefully and record.
Immediately after the medics had passed their death sentence on him, Keel had begun to feel that he was living in a vacuum that desperately needed filling. He felt that even his long service on the Committee on Vital Forms had been emptied. It was not enough to have been Chief Justice. There must be something more … a thing to mark his end with style, showing the love he had for his fellows. He wanted to send a message down the long corridors that said: “This is how much I cared.” Perhaps there was a key to his need in this room.
Ale whispered in his ear. “Shadow—his friends call him that, a more pleasant name than ‘Dark’—he’s our ablest coordinator. He has a very high success rate recovering Islander castaways.”
Was she hoping to impress him with her benign concern for Islander lives? Keel spoke in a low voice, his tone dry: “I didn’t know it was this formalized.”
“You thought we left it to chance?” she asked. Keel noted the slight snort of disgust. “We always watch out for Islanders in a storm or during a wavewall.”
Keel felt an emotional pang at this revelation. His pride had been touched.
“Why haven’t you made it known that you do this for us?” he asked.
“You think Islander pride would abide such a close watch?” Ale asked. “You forget, Ward, that I live much topside. You already believe we’re plotting against you. What would your people make of this set-up?” She gestured at the banks of controls, the viewscreens, the subdued clicking of printers.
“You think Islanders are paranoid,” Keel said. He was forced to admit to himself that this room’s purpose had hurt his pride. Vashon Security would not like the idea of such Merman surveillance, either. And their fears might be correct. Keel reminded himself that he was only seeing what he was shown.
A large screen over to the right displayed a massive section of Island hull. “That looks like Vashon,” he said. “I recognize the drift-watch spacing.”
Ale touched Panille’s shoulder and Keel wondered at the proprietary air of her movement. Panille glanced up from the keys.
“An interruption?” she asked.
“Make it short.”
“Co
uld you put Justice Keel’s fears to rest? He has recognized his Island there.” She nodded toward the viewscreen on the right. “Give him its position relative to the nearest barrier wall.”
Panille turned to his console and tapped out a code, twisted a dial and read the alphanumerics on a thin dark strip at the top of his board. The smaller screen above the readout shifted from a repeat of the hull view to a surrounding seascape. A square at the lower right of the screen flashed “V-200.”
“Visibility two hundred meters,” Ale said. “Pretty good.”
“Vashon’s about four kilometers out from submerged barrier HA-nine, moving parallel the wall,” Panille said. “In about an hour we’ll begin to take it farther out. The wavewall had it within two-kilometer range. We had to do some shuffling, but nothing to worry about. It was never out of control.”
Keel had to suppress a gasp at these figures. He fought down anger at the younger man’s presumption and managed to ask, “What do you mean, ‘Nothing to worry about’?”
Panille said, “We have had it under control—”
“Young man, diverting a mass like Vashon”—Keel shook his head—“we’re lucky to adjust basic positioning when we contact another Island. Getting out of the way of danger in a mere two kilometers is not possible.”
The corners of Panille’s mouth came up in a tight smile—the kind of know-it-all smile that Keel really hated. He saw it on many adolescents, sophomoric youths thinking that older people were just too slow.
“You Islanders don’t have the kelp working for you,” Panille said. “We do. That’s why we’re here and we haven’t time for your Islander paranoia.”
“Shadow!” Ale’s voice carried a cautionary note.
