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If I return.
Keel felt sickened by the sight on the deck below him. He noted Scudi swiping at her tears. Her eyes were red and swollen. Yes, she had been helping down there, right in the middle of it, during the worst pressures.
“No need for you to stay here with me, Scudi,” Keel said. “If they need you down—”
“I’ve been relieved of duty,” she said. She shuddered, but her gaze remained on the receiving area.
Keel, too, could not take his attention from that scene of carnage. The receiving area had been cordoned off into sections by color-coded ropes. Emergency medical teams worked throughout the area, bending over pale flesh, moving patients onto litters for transfer.
A squad of Mermen entered from beneath the platform where Keel stood with Brett and Scudi. The Mermen began sorting through the sacks of bodies, opening them to attempt identification. Some of the bags contained only shreds and pieces of flesh and bone. The identification teams moved in a businesslike fashion, but where their jaws were visible, Keel detected clenched muscles. All of them appeared pale, even for Mermen. Several of the workers took pictures of faces and identifying marks. Others made notes on a portable trans-slate. Keel recognized the device. Ale had tried to interest his Committee in this system, but he had seen it as another way to keep the Islands in economic bondage. “Everything you write on the transmitter-slate is sorted and stored in the computer,” Ale had said.
Some things are best not recorded, he thought.
A man cleared his throat behind Keel. Keel turned to find Lonfinn and another Merman standing there. Lonfinn carried a plaz box under his left arm.
“Mr. Justice,” Lonfinn said. “This is Miller Hastings of Registration.”
In contrast to the dark, heavyset Lonfinn, Hastings was a tall, dark-haired man with a thick lower jaw and unwavering blue eyes. Both men wore crisp Merman suits of plain gray cloth—the kind of smoothly pressed and well-tended clothing Keel had come to identify with the worst Merman officiousness.
Hastings had turned his attention to Brett standing a few steps to one side. “We were told we would find a Brett Norton up here,” Hastings said. “There are a few formalities … for yourself, too, I’m afraid, Mr. Justice.”
Scudi moved behind Keel and took Brett’s hand, an action that Keel’s wide peripheral vision took in with some surprise. She was clearly frightened.
Hastings focused on Keel’s mouth. “Our job, Mr. Justice, is to help you adjust to this tragic—”
“Shit!” Keel said.
Brett wondered whether he had heard correctly. The look of surprise on Hastings’ face made it apparent that the Chief Justice and Chairman of the
Committee on Vital Forms had, indeed, said “Shit.” Brett looked at the Chief Justice’s face. Keel had positioned himself with one eye on the two Mermen and the other eye still looking down on that bloody deck below them. It was a split of attention that appeared to disconcert the two Mermen. Brett found it natural; everyone knew that some Islanders could do this.
Hastings made another try: “We know this is difficult, Mr. Justice, but we are prepared for such matters and have developed procedures, which—”
“Have the decency to leave before I lose my temper,” Keel said. His voice betrayed no sign of a quaver.
Hastings glanced at the plaz box under Lonfinn’s arm, then at Brett.
“Hostility is an expected reaction,” Hastings said. “But the sooner we overcome that barrier, the sooner—”
“I say it plain,” Keel said, “leave us. We have nothing to say to you.”
The Mermen exchanged glances. The looks on their faces told Brett that this pair had no intention of leaving.
“The young man should speak for himself,” Hastings said. His tone was even and cordial. “What do you say, Brett Norton? Just a few formalities.”
Brett swallowed. Scudi’s hand in his felt slick with perspiration. Her fingers were tense sticks clenched between his own. What was Keel doing? More important, perhaps: Could Keel get away with it? Keel was an Islander and a powerful one, someone to admire. This was not the Island, however. Brett squared his shoulders in sudden decision. “Stuff your formalities,” he said. “Any decent person would come another time.”
Hastings let out a long breath slowly, almost a sigh. His face darkened and he started to speak but Keel cut him short.
“What the young man is saying,” Keel said, “is that it’s pretty insensitive of you to come here with your formalities while your cousins stack the bodies of our cousins against that wall down there.”
The silence between the two groups became stiff. Brett could find no particular familial feeling toward the mangled dead being brought in from the depths, but he decided that the Mermen didn’t need to know this.
Them and us.
But there was still Scudi’s hand in his. Brett felt that the only Merman he could trust might be Scudi … and perhaps that medic in the passageway, Shadow Panille. Panille had clear eyes and … he cared.
“We didn’t kill those people,” Hastings said. “Please note, Mr. Justice, that we have gotten right down to the dirty work of bringing them in, identifying the dead, helping the survivors—”
“How noble of you,” Keel said. “I was wondering how long it would take to get down to this. You haven’t mentioned your fee, of course.”
Both Mermen looked grim but they did not appear particularly flustered. “Someone has to pay,” Hastings said. “No one topside has the facilities to—”
“So you pick up the dead,” Keel said. “And their families topside pay for your trouble. With a tidy profit for certain contractors, too.”
“Nobody expects to work for nothing,” Hastings said.
Keel rolled one eye toward Brett, then back. “And when you rescue a live fisherman, you find a way to accommodate him, keeping a close account of the expenses, naturally.”
“I don’t want anything for my part,” Scudi said. Her eyes flashed anger at both Keel and Hastings.
“I respect that, Scudi,” Keel said. “I wasn’t indicting you. But your fellow Mermen here have a different viewpoint. Brett has no fishing gear to seize, no nets or sonar or beaten-up boat. How will he pay for his life? Ten years of chopping onions in a Merman kitchen?”
Hastings said, “Really, Mr. Justice, I don’t understand your reluctance to make matters easier.”
“I was lured here under false pretenses,” Keel said. “I haven’t been out of sight of my … hosts … long enough to spit.” He pointed to the view port across from them. “Look there!” He lowered his pointing finger to indicate the deck below. “Those bodies are shredded, burned, cut to pieces. Guemes was assaulted! I think a reconstruction will show that it was assaulted from below by a hardshell sub.”
For the first time, Hastings appeared as though he might lose control. His eyes squinted and his brows drew down over his beak of a nose. His jaw clenched and he hissed between his teeth: “See here! I’m only doing what Merman law requires me to do. In my judgment—”
“Oh, please,” Keel interrupted, “judgment is my job and I’m experienced in it. To me, you look like a pair of leeches. I don’t like leeches. Please leave us.”
“Since you are who you are,” Hastings said, “I will accept that for the moment. This boy, however—”
“Has me here to look out for his interests,” Keel said. “This is not the time nor the place for your services.”
Lonfinn stepped to one side, casually blocking the exit passage from the observation platform.
“The boy will answer for himself,” Hastings said.
“The Justice asked you to leave,” Brett said.
Scudi squeezed Brett’s hand and said, “Please. I will be responsible for them. Ambassador Ale sent me personally to bring them here. Your presence is disruptive.”
Hastings looked her in the eyes as though he wanted to say, “Big talk for a little girl,” but he swallowed it. His right index finger indicated the plaz box un
der Lonfinn’s arm, then dropped. “Very well,” he said. “We were trying to smooth out the red tape but the situation is difficult.” He shot a quick glance at the congested deck below them. “However, I am required to escort you back to Ryan Wang’s quarters. It may have been a mistake to bring you here.”
“I find it agreeable to leave,” Keel said. “I’ve seen enough.” His voice was once more smooth and diplomatic.
Brett heard the double meaning in Keel’s statement and thought, That old spinnarett has a web or two left in him.
The thought stayed with Brett as they returned to Wang’s spacious quarters. It had been wise to follow the Chief Justice’s lead. Even Scudi had fallen in with Keel. She had kept her hand in Brett’s most of the way back to her father’s quarters, in spite of disapproving little glances from Hastings and Lonfinn. Her hand in his conveyed a feeling of closeness that Brett enjoyed.
Once inside the plush room of colored cushions, Keel said, “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m sure we can contact you if you’re needed.”
“You’ll hear from us,” Hastings said before he sealed the hatch behind him.
Keel crossed to the hatch and pressed the switch but nothing happened. The hatch stayed sealed. He glanced at Scudi.
“Those men worked for my father,” she said. “I don’t like them.” She slipped her hand from Brett’s and crossed to a dark red cushion where she sat with her chin on her knees and her arms clasped around her legs. The yellow-and-green stripes along her singlesuit curved as she curved.
