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“Brett,” Keel said, “I will speak openly, because one of us may be able to get back topside to warn the other Islands. My suspicions are being confirmed at every turn. I believe our Island way of life is about to be drowned in a shallow sea.”
Scudi lifted her chin and stared up at him with dismay. Brett could not find his voice.
Keel looked down at Scudi, thinking how her pose reminded him of a many-legged mollusk that rolled up into a tight ball when disturbed.
“The popular teaching,” Keel said, “is that Island life is just temporary until we get back to the land.”
“But Guemes …” Brett said. He could not get further.
“Yes, Guemes,” Keel said. “No!” Scudi blurted. “Mermen couldn’t have done that! We protect the Islands!”
“I believe you, Scudi,” Keel said. His neck pained him but he lifted his great head the way he did when passing judgment in his own court. “Things are happening that the people are not aware of … the people topside and the people down under.”
Scudi asked Keel, “You really think Mermen did this?”
“We must reserve judgment until all the evidence is gathered,” he said. “Nevertheless, it seems the most likely possibility.”
Scudi shook her head. Brett saw sorrow and rejection there. “Mermen wouldn’t do such a thing,” she whispered.
“It’s not the Merman government,” Keel said. “Principles of government sometimes take one course while people take another—a political double standard. And perhaps neither really controls events.”
What’s he saying? Brett wondered.
Keel continued: “Mermen and Islanders both have tolerated only the loosest kind of government. I am Chief Justice of a most powerful arm of that government—the one that says whether the newborn of our Islands will live or die. It pleases some to call me Chairman and others to call me Chief Justice. I do not feel that I dispense justice.”
“I can’t believe anyone would just eliminate the Islands,” Scudi said.
“Someone certainly eliminated Guemes,” Keel said. One sad eye drifted toward Brett, the other remained focused on Scudi. “It should be investigated, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” She nodded against her knees.
“It would be good to have inside help,” Keel said. “On the other hand, I would not want to endanger anyone who helped me.”
“What do you need?” Scudi asked.
“Information,” he said. “Recent news recordings for the Merman audience. A survey of Merman jobs would help—which categories still have openings, which are filled to overflowing. I need to know what’s really happening down here. And we’ll need comparable statistics on the Islander population that’s living down under.”
“I don’t understand,” Scudi said.
“I’m told you mathematic the waves,” Keel said, looking at Brett. “I want to mathematic Merman society. I cannot assume that I’m dealing with traditional Merman politics. I suspect that even Mermen don’t realize they’re no longer in the grip of their traditional politics. News is a clue to fluctuations. Jobs, too. They might be a clue to permanent changes and the intent behind those changes.”
“My father had a comconsole in his den,” Scudi said. “I’m sure I could get some of this through it … but I’m not sure I understand how you … mathematic it.”
“Judges are sensitized to the assimilation of data,” Keel said. “I pride myself on being a good judge. Get me this material, if you can.”
Brett suggested, “Maybe we should see other Islanders living down under.”
Keel smiled. “Don’t trust the paperwork already, huh? We’ll save that for later. It could be dangerous right now.” Good instincts, he noted.
Scudi pressed her palms to her temples and closed her eyes. “My people don’t kill,” she said. “We aren’t like that.”
Keel stared down at the girl, thinking suddenly how similar at the core were Mermen and Islanders.
The sea.
He had never before thought of the sea in quite this way. How must their ancestors have adapted to it? The sea was always there—interminable. It was a thing unending, a source of life and a threat of death. To Scudi and her people, the sea was a silent pressure, whose sounds were always muted by the depths, whose currents moved in great sweeps along the bottom and through the shadows up to light. For the Merman, the world was muted and remote, yet pressing. To an Islander, the sea was noisy and immediate in its demands. It required adjustments in balance and consciousness.
The result was a quickness about Islanders which Mermen found charming. Colorful! Mermen, in contrast, were often studied and careful, measuring out their decisions as though they shaped precious jewels.
Keel glanced from Scudi to Brett and back to Scudi. Brett was taken by her, that much was clear. Was it the infatuation of differences? Was he some exotic mammal to her, or a man? Keel hoped something deeper than adolescent sexual attraction had been ignited there. He did not think himself so crass as to believe that Islander-Merman differences would be solved in the sexual thrashings of the bedroom. But the human race was still alive in these two and he could feel it moving them. The thought was reassuring.
“My father cared for both Islanders and Mermen,” Scudi said. “His money made the Search and Rescue system a system.”
“Show me his den,” Keel said. “I would like to use his comconsole.”
She stood and crossed to a passage hatch on the far side of the atrium. “This way.”
Keel motioned for Brett to stay behind while he followed Scudi. Perhaps if the young woman were away from the distractions of Brett’s presence she might think more clearly—less defensive, more objective.
When Keel and Scudi had gone, Brett turned to the locked hatch. He and Keel and Scudi had been sealed away from whatever the exterior Merman world might reveal. Ale had wanted them to see that world, but others objected. Brett felt this the complete answer to his present isolation.
What would Queets do? he wondered.
Brett felt it unlikely that Queets would stand vacant-eyed in the middle of a strange room and stare stupidly at a locked hatch. Brett crossed to the hatch and ran a finger around the heavy metal molding that framed the exit.
Should’ve asked Scudi about communications systems and the ways they move freight, he thought. He could remember nothing of the passageways except their sparse population—sparse by crowded Islander standards.
“What are you thinking?
”
Scudi’s voice from close behind him startled him. Brett hadn’t heard her approach over the soft carpet.
“Do you have a map of this place?” he asked.
“Somewhere,” she said. “I’ll have to look.”
“Thanks.”
Brett continued to stare at the locked hatch. How had they locked it? He thought of Island quarters, where the simplest slash of a knife would let you through the soft organics separating most rooms. Only the laboratories, Security’s quarters and Vata’s chamber could be said to have substantial resistance to entry—but that was as much a function of the guards as of the thickness of the walls.
Scudi returned with a thin stack of overlays, on which thick and thin lines with coded symbols indicated the layout of this Merman complex. She put it into Brett’s hands as though giving away something of herself. For no reason he could explain, Brett found her gesture poignant.
“Here we are,” she said, pointing to a cluster of squares and rectangles marked “RW.”
He studied the overlays. This was not the free-flowing, action-dictated environment of an Island, where the idiosyncrasies of organic growth directed the kind of changes that flaunted individuality. Islands were personalized, customized, carved, painted and dyed—shaped to the synergistic needs of support systems and those the systems supported. The schematic in Brett’s hands reeked of uniformity—identical rows of cubicles, long straight passages, tubing and channels and access tunnels that ran as straight as a sun’s rays through dust. He found it difficult to follow such uniformity, but forced his mind to it.
Scudi said: “I asked the Justice if a volcano might have destroyed Guemes.”
Brett raised his attention from the schematic. “What did he say?”
“There were too many people shredded and not burned.” She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyelids. “Who could do … that?”
“Keel’s right about one thing,” Brett said, “we need to find out who as soon as possible.”
He returned his attention to the stack of colloids and its mysterious mazes. All at once he was awash with the simplicity of it. It was clear to him that Mermen must find it impossible to travel any Island, where sheer memory guided most people. He set about memorizing the schematics, with their lift shafts and transport tubes. He closed his eyes and confidently read the map that displayed itself behind his eyelids. Scudi paced the room behind him. Brett opened his eyes.
