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“It’s tearing him apart!” Scudi gasped.
The others sloshed to a position behind Scudi and looked outside. The foil slithered upward against giant kelp fronds, giving those inside the pilot cabin a dimly lighted view of Bushka close beside them. One large kelp tentacle, wrapped around his body, held Bushka fast while another tentacle gripped his left arm. A cloud of dark liquid flooded the water around Bushka’s arm.
Kareen gasped.
Brett understood then—the cloud: blood! The arm had been torn from Bushka’s body.
As though it wanted to spit him out, the kelp tentacles whipped away from Bushka and shunted him swiftly upward.
Scudi tipped the foil’s nose up and drove for the surface. They found Bushka there, half-conscious and bleeding dangerously. A hunt of dashers, coming to the smell of blood, was whipped back by kelp fronds.
Later, after Kareen had treated Bushka, Brett and Panille lashed him to the cot and carried him forward. Ale walked alongside. “He’s lost a lot of blood,” she said. “The brachial artery was wide open.”
Scudi remained at the helm, sparing only a brief glance at Bushka’s pale face as the cot was lowered to the deck behind her. She held the foil in a tight circle within a kelp-free area. Choppy waves drummed a dulled tunk-tunk against the hull. The last of the unwanted water had gone overboard but the decks were still damp with it.
Scudi, the image of Bushka’s injuries fresh in her mind, thought: Ship save us! The kelp has turned vicious!
Panille stood above Bushka. A wash of agony grayed Bushka’s face but he appeared conscious. Seeing this, Panille demanded, “What were you trying to do?”
“Shhhh,” Ale cautioned. “‘S’all right,” Bushka managed. “Was gonna kill Gallow.” Panille could not suppress his outrage. “You almost killed us all!”
Kareen pulled Panille away.
Brett slid into the seat beside Scudi and looked out at the dark pile of the outpost with its foam-laced base. Little Sun had risen and the water was bright with the double light.
“Kelp,” Bushka said.
“Hush,” Ale said. “Save your strength.”
“Gotta talk. Kelp has all the Guemes dead … in it. All there. Said I tore off arm of humanity … punished me in kind. Damn! Damn!” He tried to look at the place where his arm had been but the lashings on the cot restrained him.
Scudi stared wide-eyed at Brett. Was it possible the kelp took on the personality of all the dead it had absorbed? Would all the old scores be settled? Given consciousness finally and words in which to express itself, the kelp spoke in violent action. She shuddered as she looked out at the green fronds surrounding the foil.
“There are dashers all over the place,” Scudi said. “Where … where’s my arm?” Bushka moaned.
His eyes were closed and his large head looked even larger against the pale fabric of the cot.
“Packed in ice in the cooler,” Ale said. “We’ll interfere as little as possible with the wound tissue. Better chance for reattachment.”
“Kelp knew I was just a fool that Gallow … took advantage of,” Bushka groaned. He twisted his head from side to side. “Why’d it hurt me?”
A heavy gust of wind popped the foil hard and thrust it sideways against the kelp. A loud thump sounded amidships and the foil heeled, righting itself with a rasping hiss.
“What is it? What’s that?” Ale demanded.
Brett pointed to the sky above the outpost. “I think we’ve just had our attention called to something. Look! Have you ever seen that many LTAs?”
“LTAs hell!” Panille said. “Ship’s guts! Those are hylighters! Thousands of them.”
Brett stared open-mouthed. Like all Pandoran children, he had watched holos of the kelp’s spore carriers, a phenomenon unseen on Pandora for generations.
Panille was right! Hylighters!
“They’re so beautiful,” Scudi murmured.
Brett had to agree. The hylighters, giant organic hydrogen bags, danced with rainbow colors in the doubled sunlight. They drifted high across the outpost, moving southwest on a steady wind.
“It’s out of our hands now,” Panille said. “The kelp will do its own propagating.”
“They’re coming down,” Brett said. “Look. Some of them are trailing tentacles in the water.
The flight of hylighters, well past the outpost now, moved in a gentle slope of wind toward the sea.
“It’s almost as though they were being directed,” Scudi said. “See how they move together.”
Once more, something hard banged against the foil’s hull. A channel opened beside them, spreading outward toward the place where the hylighters were coming down close above the water. Slowly at first, a current moved the foil into the new channel.
“Better go along with it,” Panille said. “But Twisp is still there at the outpost!” Brett objected.
“Kelp’s directing this show,” Panille said. “Your friend will have to take his own chances.”
“I think Shadow’s right,” Scudi ventured. She pointed toward the outpost. “See? There are more hylighters. They’re almost touching the rock.”
“But what if Twisp comes back and we aren’t …”
“I’ll bring us back as soon as the kelp lets us,” Scudi said. She fired up the ramjets.
“No! I’ll take breather tanks and go out to—”
“Brett!” Scudi put a hand on his arm. “You saw what it did to Bushka.”
“But I haven’t hurt it … or anyone. That Merman would have killed me.”
“We don’t know what it’ll do,” Scudi said.
“She’s right,” Panille said. “What good would you be to your friend without arms?”
Brett sank back into the seat.
Scudi pushed the throttles ahead and lowered the foils. The boat gathered speed, lifted and swept down the channel toward the descending hylighters.
Brett sat in silence. He felt suddenly that his Mermen companions had turned against him, even Scudi. How could they know what the kelp wanted? So it opened a channel through its heavy growth! So it directed a current through that channel! Twisp might need him back there where they were supposed to be waiting.
Abruptly, Brett shook his head. He thought how Twisp would react to such protests. Don’t be a fool! The kelp had spoken without misunderstanding. Bushka … the channel … the current—words could say no clearer what had to be done now. Scudi and the others had merely understood and accepted it more quickly.
With a quick chopping motion, Scudi cut the power and the foil settled in a heaving surge that sent waves curling outward on both sides.
“We’re blocked,” she said.
They looked ahead. Not only had kelp closed the channel through which the foil had come, but fronds and stalks lifted out of the water ahead of them. A low, thick forest of green blocked their passage.
Brett glanced left. The outpost loomed high there, no more than three klicks away. Hylighters continued to descend about a klick ahead of them, massed flocks of them.
Panille spoke from directly behind Brett. “I don’t remember them as being that colorful in the holos.”
“A new breed, no doubt of it,” Kareen said.
“What do we do now?” Brett asked.
“We sit here until we find out why the kelp directed us to this place,” Scudi said.
Brett looked up at the descending flocks of hylighters. Dark tentacles reached down toward the water. Sunlight flashed rainbow iridescence off the great bags.
“The histories say the kelp makes its own hydrogen the way you Islanders do,” Panille said. “The bags are extruded deep underwater, filled and sent flying to spread the spores. One of my ancestors rode a hylighter.” He spoke in a breathless whisper. “They’ve always fascinated me. I’ve dreamed of this day.”
“What are they doing?” Scudi asked. “Why would they bring spores here? There’s kelp all around us.”
“You’re assuming they’re intelligently directed,” Kare
en said. “They’re probably going wherever the wind takes them.”
Panille shook his head sharply. “No. Who controls the currents controls the temperature of the surface water. Who controls that directs the winds.”
