AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How soon will we get there?” Bushka asked.
His voice had taken on a new note, Brett realized. Not exactly fear … Anxiety? Uncertainty? Bushka had the Islander’s dreamlike admiration for foils but really did not understand them. How would the foil survive a storm? Would they have to stop and submerge?
“I don’t know how long,” Scudi said. “All I know is we’re going to have to slow down more, and soon.”
“Don’t waste any time!” Bushka ordered.
It had grown darker in the cabin and the wave action outside looked mean—long, rolling combers with their tips curling white. They were still in kelp, though, with a broken channel through it.
Scudi switched on the cabin lights and began paying more attention to the screens overhead and in front of her.
Brett saw his own reflection in the plaz and it startled him. His thick blonde hair fanned his head in a wild halo. His eyes were two dark holes staring back at him. The gray of the storm had become the gray of his eyes, almost dasher-black. For the first time, he realized how close to Merman-normal he appeared.
I could pass, he thought.
He wondered then how much this fact figured in his attraction for Scudi. It was an abrupt and startling thought, which made him feel both closer and more removed from her. They were Islander and Merman and they always would be. Was it dangerous to think that they might pair?
Scudi saw him staring toward the plaz in front of them. “Can you see anything?” she asked.
He knew immediately she was asking whether his mutant eyesight could help them now.
“Rain’s just as bad for my eyes as it is for yours,” he told her. “Trust your instruments.”
“We’ve got to slow down,” she said. “And if it gets much worse we’ll have to submerge. I’ve never—”
She broke off as a violent, creaking shudder engulfed the foil, rattling the hardware until Brett thought the boat might split. Scudi immediately backed the throttle. The foil dropped off the step with an abrupt plowing motion that sent it sliding down a wave face and pitched it up the next one. Brett was hurled against his safety harness hard enough to take his breath away.
Curses and scrambling noises came from behind him. He whirled and saw Bushka picking himself up off the deck, clutching the grabs beside the couch he had occupied. His right hand still gripped the lasgun. Twisp had been dumped into a corner with the captive Merman atop him. One long arm came out of the tangle, pushing the captive aside, finding a handhold and lifting himself to a standing position at the side of the cabin.
“What’s happening?” Bushka shouted. He shifted his grip to a handhold behind his couch and eased himself onto the cushions.
“We’re into kelp,” Scudi said. “It’s fouled the struts. I’ve had to retract them, but they’re not coming fully back.”
Brett kept his attention on Bushka. The foil was riding easier, its jet only a low murmur far back in the stern. It was in Scudi’s hands now and he half suspected she had exaggerated the nature of their predicament. Bushka, too, looked undecided. His large head bobbed in the constant motion of the foil as he tried to peer past Scudi at the storm. Brett was suddenly struck by how Mermanlike Bushka appeared—powerful shoulders tapering to sinewy, almost delicate hands.
The assault of the wind and waves against the hull increased.
“There’s a heavy kelp bed in our path,” Scudi said. “It shouldn’t be here. I think it may have broken loose in the storm. We don’t dare go up on the step again.”
“What can we do?” Bushka demanded.
“First, we’ll have to clear the struts so I can retract them,” she said. “Hull integrity is vital for control. Especially if we have to submerge.”
“Why can’t we just clear the struts and go back up on the foils?” Bushka asked. “We have to get to the outpost before Gallow suspects!”
“Lose a strut at high speed, very bad,” Scudi said. She gestured at the captive Merman. “Ask him.”
Bushka looked at the man on the deck.
“What does it matter?” The Merman shrugged. “If we die in kelp we are immortal.”
“I think he just agreed with you,” Twisp said. “So, how do we clear the struts?”
“We go out and do it by hand,” Scudi said.
“In this?” Twisp looked out at the long, white-capped rollers, the gray bleakness of the storm. The foil rode the waves like a chip, quartering into them and twisting at every crest when the wind hit it with full force.
“We will use safety lines,” Scudi said. “I have done it before.”
She hit the crossover switch to activate Brett’s controls. “You take it, Brett. Watch out at the crests. The wind wants to take it and the struts being half-out that way makes it hard to control.”
Brett gripped the wheel, feeling perspiration slippery against his palms.
Scudi released her safety harness and stood, holding fast to her seatback against the roll and pitch of the foil. “Who’s going to help me?”
“I will,” Twisp said. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”
“Just a minute!” Bushka snapped. He studied Twisp and Scudi for a long blink. “You know what happens to the kid if you cause me any trouble?”
“You learned very fast from this man Gallow,” Twisp said. “Are you sure he’s your enemy?”
Bushka paled with anger but remained silent.
Twisp shrugged and made his way along overhead grabs to the rear hatch. “Scudi?”
“All right.” She turned to Brett. “Hold it steady as you can. It’s going to be rough out there.”
“Maybe I’m the one should go with you.”
“No … Twisp has no experience handling a foil.”
“Then he and I could—”
“Neither of you knows how to clear the struts. This is the only way. We will be careful.” Abruptly, she leaned down and kissed his cheek, whispering, “It is all right.”
Brett was left with a warm sense of completeness. He felt he knew exactly what to do at the foil’s controls.
Bushka checked the Merman’s restraints, then joined Brett at the controls. He took Scudi’s seat. Brett only sp
ared the slightest glance for him, noting the lasgun still at the ready. Heavy seas swept them steadily sideways at every crest and the foil barely had enough headway to recover. Brett listened to voices out on the deck, Scudi shouting to Twisp. A steep swell broke over the cabin, then another. Two long rollers swept under them, then one more breaking crest curled over the plaz. The foil stood almost vertical on its stern, slapped back into the trough and the crest crashed onto the cabin-top. The boat shuddered and wallowed in a side-slip while Brett fought to bring its nose back into the weather.
Twisp shouted something. Abruptly, his voice came crying up the passage: “Brett! Circle port! Scudi’s lost her safety line!”
Without any thought for whether the foil could take it, Brett cranked the hard left and held it. The boat turned on a crest, slipped sideways down wave, lifted at the stern and water washed down the long passage into the It swirled around their feet, lifting the captive and sending him against Bushka’s thigh. The foil almost rolled over on the next wave. It came up broadside to the weather as it continued its mad circle. Brett felt the sea slosh through the cabin and realized that Twisp had opened the rear hatch to be heard.
Get her, Brett prayed. He wanted to abandon the wheel and run back to help but knew he had to keep the foil tight in this pattern. Twisp was experienced—he would know what to do.
A wave in the cabin broke almost up to his waist and Bushka cursed. Brett saw that Bushka was struggling to keep the Merman in one place.
Brett’s mind kept repeating: Scudi Scudi Scudi …
The storm’s roar in the cabin diminished slightly and Bushka shouted, “He’s closed the hatch!”
“Help them, Bushka!” Brett hollered. “Do something for once!”
The foil lifted once more over a crest, rolled heavily with the weight of the water they’d taken on.
“No need!” Bushka shouted. “He has her.”
