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She moved the stick in her right hand, swinging it to starboard and pulling back on it slightly. “This steers us,” she said. “Pull back to lift, down to dive.”
Brett nodded.
“These …” She indicated a bank of instruments across the top of the board. “You read the labels: topside fuel flow, ballast—slower than on a sub. Ignition. Air supply for down under. Always remember to switch it off topside. If the cockpit is breached, we’re automatically ejected. Manual ejection is by that red lever at the center.”
Brett responded with a series of grunts or “Got it.” He was thankful that all the switches and instruments carried clear labels.
Scudi pointed overhead where a black hood framed a large, gridded screen. “Charts are projected there. That’s something Islanders have been trying to get for a long time.”
“Why can’t we have it?” Brett knew the system she had indicated. Fishermen grouched about it often. Steeran, the Mermen called it. A navigation system that worked by reading Merman fixed underwater transmission stations.
“Too complicated and too costly for upkeep. You just don’t have the support facilities.”
He had heard that story before. Islanders didn’t believe it, but Scudi obviously did.
“Topside,” she announced.
The foil broke the surface in a long wave trough that crested under them. Water cascaded off the plaz all around.
Brett clapped his hands over his eyes. The stabbing blast of light made his eyeballs feel like two hot coals in his head. He ducked his face down onto his knees with a loud moan.
“Is something wrong?” Scudi asked. She did not look at him but busied herself dropping the foils from their hull slots and increasing speed.
“It’s my eyes,” he said. He blinked them open, adjusting slowly. Tears washed over his cheeks. “It’s getting better.”
“Good,” she said. “You should watch what I do. It’s best to put the foil up on the step parallel to the waves, then quarter into them as you bring it up to speed. I’ll get the course in a blink after we’re at cruise. Look back and see if there’s any pursuit.”
Brett turned and stared back along their wake, aware suddenly of how fast they already were moving. The big foil throbbed and bounced under them, then suddenly the ride smoothed and there was only the high whine of the hydrogen rams and the jumping jostle of the foils bridging the waves.
“Eighty-five knots,” Scudi said. “Are they after us yet?”
“I don’t see anything.” Brett wiped at his eyes. The pain was almost gone.
“I don’t see anything on the instruments,” she said. “They must know it’s hopeless. Every other foil in the bay has at least some cargo aboard. We have none and full fuel tanks.”
Brett returned his attention to the front, blinking away the pain as his eyes reacted to the sunlight off the waves.
“The RDF is over to your right, that green panel,” she said. “See if you can raise Vashon’s signal.”
Brett turned to the radio direction finder. He saw at once it was a more sophisticated model than the one on which Twisp had trained him, but the dials were labeled and the frequency arc was immediately identifiable. He had the signal in a moment. The familiar voice of Vashon’s transmission to its fishing fleet crackled from the overhead speakers.
“It’s a good fishing day, everyone, and big cargoes expected. Muree are running strong in quadrant nineteen.” Brett turned down the volume.
“What is quadrant nineteen?” Scudi asked.
“It’s a grid position relative to Vashon.”
“But the Island moves as it drifts!”
“So do the muree, and that’s all that’s important.”
Brett twisted the dials, homed on the signal and read the coordinates. “There’s your course,” he said, pointing to the dial above the RDF. “Is that sun-relative or compass?”
“Compass.”
“Doppler distance reads five hundred and ninety klicks. That’s a long way!”
“Seven plus hours,” she said. “We can run ten hours without stopping to recharge fuel. We can regenerate our own hydrogen from seawater during daylight hours, but we’ll be sitting squawks if they come after us or try to block us from some station up ahead.”
“They could do that?” “I’m sure they’ll try. There are four outposts along our course.”
“We would need more fuel,” he said.
“And they’ll be looking for us from down under.”
“What about one of the smaller Islands?”
“I saw the latest plot on the current board yesterday. Vashon’s closest by more than five hundred klicks.”
“Why can’t I get on the emergency frequency and tell Vashon what we know. We should report in anyway,” he added.
“What do we know?” she asked, adjusting the throttle. The foil lurched slightly and tipped, climbing one of the periodic high waves.
“We know they’re holding the Chief Justice against his will. We know there are a lot of dead Islanders.”
“What about his suspicions?”
“They’re his suspicions,” Brett said, “but don’t you think he deserves a hearing?”
“If he’s right, have you thought about what may happen if the Islands try to force his return?”
Brett felt a lump in his throat. “Would they kill him?”
“Somewhere, there seem to be people who kill,” she said. “Guemes proves that.” “Ambassador Ale?”
“It occurs to me, Brett, that Hastings and Lonfinn may be watching her to see that she does not do something dangerous to them. My father was very rich. He warned me often that this created danger for everyone around him.”
“I could just call in and tell Vashon I’m safe and returning,” he said. He shook his head. “No. To those that listen in—”
“And they are listening,” she added.
“It would be the same thing as just spilling the story right now,” he said. “What?
??ll we do?”
“We will go to the Launch Base,” she said. “Not to Outpost Twenty-two.”
“But you told Justice Keel—”
“And if they force him to talk, they will look for us in the wrong place.”
“Why the Launch Base?” he asked.
“No single group controls that,” she said. “That’s a part of all of our dreams—get the hyb tanks down from where Ship left them in orbit.”
“It’s still a Merman project.”
“It is all Merman. We will say our piece there. Everyone will hear it. Then all will know what a few people may be doing.”
Brett stared straight ahead. He knew he should feel elation at their escape. He was in the biggest vessel he had ever seen, rocketing along the wavetops at more than eighty knots, faster than he had ever gone before. But unknowns crowded in on him. Keel did not trust the Mermen. And Scudi was Merman. Was she being honest? Had he heard her real reasons for wanting him to avoid the radio? He looked at Scudi. For what other reason could she help him escape?
“I’ve been thinking,” Scudi said. “If no word has reached them, your family will be sick with worry about you. And your friend, Twisp. Call Vashon. We’ll make do. Maybe my suspicions are foolish.”
He saw her throat pulse with a swallow and he remembered her tears over the heaped bodies of the Islanders.
“No,” he said, “we should go to your Launch Base.”
Again, Brett concentrated on the sea ahead of them. The two suns lifted heat-shimmers off the water. When he had been much younger, seeing the Island rim for the first time, the heat shimmers had created images for him. Long-whiskered sea dragons coiled above the ocean surface, giant muree and fat scrubberfish. The shimmer play now was nothing but heat reflected off water. He felt the warmth on his face and arms. He thought of Twisp leaning back against the coracle’s tiller, eyes closed, soaking up the heat through his hairy chest.
“Where is this base?” he asked.
She reached up and turned a small dial below the overhead screen. Beside the dial, an alphanumerical keyboard glowed with its own internal lights. She typed HF-i, then LB-1. The screen flashed 141.2, then overprinted a spray of lines with a common focal point. A bright green spot danced at the wide outer arc of the lines. Scudi pointed at the spot.
