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“You use those beautiful separation membranes and the high pressure of deep water,” she said.
“Score one for organics.”
“But organics are not the best way to build a whole technology,” she said. “Look how it’s bogged you down. Your technology should support and protect you, help you to progress.”
“That was argued out generations ago,” he said. “Islanders know what you think about organics.”
“That argument is not over,” she insisted. “And with the hyb tanks …”
“You’re coming to us, now,” he said, “because we have a way with tissues.” He allowed himself a tight smile. “And I note that you also come to us for the most delicate surgery.”
“We understand that organics once represented the most convenient way for you to survive topside,” she said. “But times are changing and we—”
“You are changing them,” he challenged. He backed off at the frustration visible in her clenched jaw, noting the flash of something bright in her blue eyes. “Times are always changing,” he said, his voice softer. “The question remains: How do we best adapt to change?”
“It requires all of your energies just to maintain yourselves and your organics,” she snapped, not softening. “Islands starve sometimes. But we do not starve. And within a generation we will walk beneath open sky on dry land!”
Keel shrugged. The shrug irritated the prosthetic supports for his large head. He could feel his neck muscles growing tired, snaking their whips of pain up the back of his neck, crowning his scalp.
“What do you think of that old argument in light of this change?” she asked. It was voiced as a challenge.
“You are creating sea barriers, new surflines that can sink Islands,” he said. “You do this to further a Merman way of life. An Islander would be foolish not to ask whether you’re doing this to sink the Islands and drown us Mutes.”
“Ward.” She shook her head before continuing. “Ward, the end of Island life as you know it will come in our lifetime. That’s not necessarily bad.”
Not in my lifetime, he thought.
“Don’t you understand that?” she demanded.
“You want me to facilitate your kind of change,” he said. “That makes me the Judas goat. You know about Judas, Kareen? And goats?”
A shadow of unmistakable impatience crossed her face. “I’m trying to impress on you how soon Islanders must change. That is a fact and it must be dealt with, distasteful or not.”
“You’re also trying to get our hydrogen facilities,” he said. “I’m trying to keep you above our Merman political squabbles,” she said.
“Somehow, Kareen, I don’t have confidence in you. I suspect that you don’t have the approval of your own people.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Panille interrupted. “I warned you, Kareen, that an Islander—”
“Let me handle this,” she said, and quieted him with a lift of her hand. “If it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake.”
To Keel, she said, “Can you find confidence in retrieving the hyb tanks or settling the land? Can you see the value in restoring the kelp to consciousness?”
It’s an act, he thought. She’s playing to me. Or to Shadow.
“To what end and by what means?” he asked, stalling for more time.
“To what end? We’ll finally have some real stability. All of us. It’s something that’ll pull all of us together.”
She seems so cool, so smooth, he thought. But something’s not quite right.
“What’re your priorities?” he asked. “The kelp, the land or the hyb tanks?”
“My people want the hyb tanks.”
“Who are your people?”
She looked at Panille, who said, “A majority, that’s who her people are. That’s how we operate down under.”
Keel looked down at him. “And what are your priorities, Shadow?”
“Personally?” His eyes left the screen reluctantly. “The kelp. Without it this planet’s an endless struggle for survival.” He gestured to the screens, which, Keel reminded himself, somehow had Islander lives balancing on them. “You saw what it can do,” Panille said. “Right now it’s keeping Vashon in deep water. That’s handy. It’s survival.”
“You think that’s a sure thing?”
“I do. We have everything that was recovered from the old Redoubt after the inundation. We’ve a good idea what’s in the hyb tanks. They can wait.”
Keel looked at Ale. “Sure, things worry me. I know what’s supposed to be in those tanks. What do your records say?”
“We have every reason to believe the hyb tanks contain earthside plant and animal life, everything Ship considered necessary for colonization. And there may be as many as thirty thousand human beings—all preserved indefinitely.”
Keel snorted at the phrase “every reason to believe.” They don’t know after all, he thought. This is a blind shot. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking of those bits of plasteel and plaz and all that flesh swinging in a wide loop around Pandora, year after year.
“There could be anything up there,” Keel said. “Anything.” He knew it was fear speaking. He looked accusingly at Ale. “You claim to represent a majority of Mermen, yet I sense a furtiveness in your activities.”
“There are political sensitivities—” She broke off. “Ward, our space project will continue whether I’m successful with you or not.”
“Successful? With me?” There seemed to be no end to her manipulative schemes.
Ale exhaled, more of a hiss than a sigh. “If I fail, Ward, the chances for the Islanders look bad. We want to start a civilization, not a war. Don’t you understand? We’re offering the Islanders land for colonization.”
“Ahhhh, the bait!” he said.
Keel thought about the impact such an offer might have on Islanders. Many would leap at it—the poor Islanders, such as those of Guemes, the little drifters living from sea to mouth. Vashon might be another matter. But Merman riches were being exposed in this offer. Many Islanders harbored deep feelings of jealousy over those riches. It would worsen. The complexity of what Ale proposed began to lay itself out in his mind—a problem to solve.
“I need information,” he said. “How close are you to going into space?”
“Shadow,” Ale said.
Panille punched keys on his console. The screen in front of him displayed a pair of images with a dividing line down the middle. On the left was an underwater view of a tower,-its dimensions not clear to Keel until he realized that the tiny shapes around it were not fish, but Mermen workers. The view on the right showed the tower protruding from the sea and, with the proportions clear from the left screen, Keel realized that the thing must lift fifty meters above the surface.
“There will be one space launch today or tomorrow, depending on the weather,” Ale said. “A test, our first manned shot. It won’t be long after that when we go up after the hyb tanks.”
“Why has no Island reported that thing?” Keel asked.
“We steer you away from it,” Panille said with a shrug.
Keel shook his aching head.
“This explains the sightings you’ve heard of, the Islander claims that Ship is returning,” Ale said.
“How amusing for you!” Keel blurted. “The simple Islanders with their primitive superstitions.” He glared at her. “You know some of my people are claiming your rockets as a sign the world is ending. If you’d only brought the C/P into this …”
“It was a bad decision,” she said. “We admit it. That’s why you’re here. What do we do about it?”
Keel scratched his head. His neck ached abominably against the prosthetic braces. He sensed things between the lines here … Panille coming in on cue. Ale saying mostly what she had planned to say. Keel was an old political in-fighter, though, aware that he could not tip his hand too soon. Ale wanted him to learn things—things she had planned for him to learn. It was the concealed lesson that he was after.
“How do we make Isl
anders comfortable with the truth?” Keel countered.
“We don’t have time for Islander philosophizing,” she said.
Keel bristled. “That’s just another way of calling us lazy. Just staying alive occupies most of us full-time. You think we’re not busy because we’re not building rockets. We’re the ones who don’t have time. We don’t have time for pretty phrases and planning—”
“Stop it!” she snapped. “If the two of us can’t get along, how can we expect better of our people?”
Keel turned his head to look at her with one eye and then with the other. He suppressed a smile. Two things amused him. She had a point, and she could lose her composure. He lifted both hands and rubbed at his neck.
Ale was instantly solicitous, aware of Keel’s problem from their many encounters on the debate floor. “You’re tired,” she said. “Would you like to rest and have a cup of coffee or something more solid?”
“A good cup of Vashon’s best would suit me,” he said. He tugged at the prosthetic on his right. “And this damned thing off my neck for a while. You wouldn’t happen to have a chairdog, would you?”
“Organics are rare down under,” she said. “I’m afraid we can’t provide Islander comforts for everything.”
“I just wanted a massage,” he said. “Mermen are missing a bet by not having a few chairdogs.”
“I’m sure we can find you a massage,” Kareen said.
