Bushka lifted a tear-streaked face to Twisp at the tiller. “You don’t know all of it. You don’t know what a perfect fool I was. Fool and tool!”
It all came out, then—the bookish Islander who wanted to be a Merman, the way Gallow had fastened on this dream, luring the innocent Islander into a compromising position.
“Why didn’t you take the sub back to this Rescue Base?” Twisp asked.
“It’s too far. Besides, how do I know who’s with them and who’s against? It’s a secret organization, even from most Mermen. I saw you and … I just had to get away from them, out of that sub.”
Hysterical kid! Twisp thought. He said, “The Mermen won’t care a lot for your scuttling their sub.”
A short, bitter laugh shook Bushka. “Mermen don’t lose anything! They’re the greatest scavengers of all time. If it goes to the bottom, it’s theirs.”
Twisp nodded. “Interesting story, Iz. Now I’ll tell you what happened. The part about Guemes, I believe that and I—”
“It’s true!”
“I’d like to disbelieve you, but I don’t. I also think you got sucked into it by this Gallow. But I don’t think you’re all as innocent as you let on.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t know what he intended!”
“Okay, Iz. I believe you. I believe you saw me on the sub’s scanner. You came up intending to be rescued by me.”
Bushka scowled.
Twisp nodded. “You swam at an angle away from me so I’d be sure to go after you instead of making a try for the sub. You wanted to pass yourself off as Merman, have me take you to this base, and you were going to use your knowledge of the Guemes destruction to insure that Mermen really made good on keeping you down under. You were going to trade that for—”
“I wasn’t! I swear.”
“Don’t swear,” Twisp said. “Ship’s listening.”
Bushka started to speak, thought better of it and remained silent. A religious bluff usually worked with Islanders, even if they claimed nonbelief.
Twisp said: “What did you do topside? What Island?”
“Eagle. I was a … historian and pump-control tech.”
“You’ve been to Vashon?”
“A couple of times.”
“That’s probably where I saw you. I seldom forget a face. Historian, eh? Inside a lot. That accounts for your pale complexion.”
“Have you any idea,” Bushka asked, “of the historical records the Mermen have preserved? The Mermen themselves don’t even know everything they have. Or the value of it.”
“So this Gallow saw you as valuable to record his doings?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Making history’s a little different from writing it. I guess you found that out.”
“Ship knows I did!”
“Uh huh. Bushka, for now, we’re stuck with each other. I’m not going to throw you overboard. But your story doesn’t make me comfortable, you understand? If there’s a base where you say there’s one … well, we’ll see.”
“There’s a base,” Bushka said. “With a tower sticking out of the water so far you can see it for fifty klicks.”
“Sure there is,” Twisp said. “Meanwhile, you stay over there by the cuddy and I’ll stay here at the tiller. Don’t try to leave your position. Got that?”
Bushka put his face back into the blanket without answering. By the rocking of his body and the shaking sobs, it was obvious to Twisp that he’d heard.
Chapter 17
What’s so tough about making love to a Mute?
Finding the right orifice.
—Merman joke
Following Ale at a pace painful for his old and weak legs, Ward Keel stepped through a hatchway marked by a red circle. He found himself in a roomful of noisy activity. There were many viewscreens, every one attended by a tech, at least a dozen console desks with Merman-style control switches and graphics. Alphanumerical indicators flashed wherever he looked. He counted ten very large viewscreens showing underwater and topside vistas. It all had been crowded into a space only a bit larger than Ale’s quarters.
But it’s not cramped, he thought.
Somewhat like Islanders, these Mermen had become skillful at using limited areas, although Keel noted that what they thought small an Islander would see as spacious.
Ale moved him around the desks and screens for introductions. Each worker glanced up when introduced, nodded curtly and returned to work. From the looks they shot Ale, Keel could tell that his presence in this room was particularly distressing to several of the Mermen.
She stopped him at a slightly larger desk set on a low dais to command the entire room. Ale had called the young man at this desk “Shadow” but introduced him as Dark Panille. Keel recognized the surname—a descendant of the pioneer poet and historian, no doubt. Panille’s large eyes stared out with demanding focus over high cheekbones. His mouth moved only minimally from its straight line when he acknowledged the introduction.
“What is this place?” Keel asked.
“Current Control,” Ale said, “You’ll learn details momentarily. They are involved in an emergency right now. We must not interfere. You see those orange lights flashing over there? Emergency calls for Search and Rescue teams who are on standby duty.”
“Search and Rescue?” Keel asked. “Are some of your people in trouble?”
“No,” she replied with a tight set to her jaw, “your people.”
Keel clamped his mouth shut. His gaze skittered across the room at the intense faces studying each viewscreen, at the cacophony of typing set up by the blur of two dozen technicians’ hands at their keyboards. It was all very confusing. Was this the beginning of that threat Ale had mentioned? Keel found it difficult to remain silent … but she had said “Search and Rescue.” This was a time to watch carefully and record.
Immediately after the medics had passed their death sentence on him, Keel had begun to feel that he was living in a vacuum that desperately needed filling. He felt that even his long service on the Committee on Vital Forms had been emptied. It was not enough to have been Chief Justice. There must be something more … a thing to mark his end with style, showing the love he had for his fellows. He wanted to send a message down the long corridors that said: “This is how much I cared.” Perhaps there was a key to his need in this room.
Ale whispered in his ear. “Shadow—his friends call him that, a more pleasant name than ‘Dark’—he’s our ablest coordinator. He has a very high success rate recovering Islander castaways.”
Was she hoping to impress him with her benign concern for Islander lives? Keel spoke in a low voice, his tone dry: “I didn’t know it was this formalized.”
“You thought we left it to chance?” she asked. Keel noted the slight snort of disgust. “We always watch out for Islanders in a storm or during a wavewall.”
Keel felt an emotional pang at this revelation. His pride had been touched.
“Why haven’t you made it known that you do this for us?” he asked.
“You think Islander pride would abide such a close watch?” Ale asked. “You forget, Ward, that I live much topside. You already believe we’re plotting against you. What would your people make of this set-up?” She gestured at the banks of controls, the viewscreens, the subdued clicking of printers.
“You think Islanders are paranoid,” Keel said. He was forced to admit to himself that this room’s purpose had hurt his pride. Vashon Security would not like the idea of such Merman surveillance, either. And their fears might be correct. Keel reminded himself that he was only seeing what he was shown.
A large screen over to the right displayed a massive section of Island hull. “That looks like Vashon,” he said. “I recognize the drift-watch spacing.”
Ale touched Panille’s shoulder and Keel wondered at the proprietary air of her movement. Panille glanced up from the keys.
“An interruption?” she asked.
“Make it short.”
“Co
uld you put Justice Keel’s fears to rest? He has recognized his Island there.” She nodded toward the viewscreen on the right. “Give him its position relative to the nearest barrier wall.”
Panille turned to his console and tapped out a code, twisted a dial and read the alphanumerics on a thin dark strip at the top of his board. The smaller screen above the readout shifted from a repeat of the hull view to a surrounding seascape. A square at the lower right of the screen flashed “V-200.”
“Visibility two hundred meters,” Ale said. “Pretty good.”
“Vashon’s about four kilometers out from submerged barrier HA-nine, moving parallel the wall,” Panille said. “In about an hour we’ll begin to take it farther out. The wavewall had it within two-kilometer range. We had to do some shuffling, but nothing to worry about. It was never out of control.”
Keel had to suppress a gasp at these figures. He fought down anger at the younger man’s presumption and managed to ask, “What do you mean, ‘Nothing to worry about’?”
Panille said, “We have had it under control—”
“Young man, diverting a mass like Vashon”—Keel shook his head—“we’re lucky to adjust basic positioning when we contact another Island. Getting out of the way of danger in a mere two kilometers is not possible.”
The corners of Panille’s mouth came up in a tight smile—the kind of know-it-all smile that Keel really hated. He saw it on many adolescents, sophomoric youths thinking that older people were just too slow.
“You Islanders don’t have the kelp working for you,” Panille said. “We do. That’s why we’re here and we haven’t time for your Islander paranoia.”
“Shadow!” Ale’s voice carried a cautionary note.
“Sorry.” Panille bent to his controls. “But the kelp gives us a control that has kept Vashon out of real danger through this area for the past few years. Other Islands, too.”
What an astonishing claim! Keel thought. He noted from the edge of his vision how carefully Ale watched every move Panille made. The young man nodded at something on his readouts.
“Watch this,” he said. “Landro!” An older woman across the room glanced back and nodded. Panille called out a series of letters and numbers to her. She tapped them into her console, paused, hit a key, paused. Panille bent to his own board. A flurry of movement erupted from his fingers across the keys.
“Watch Shadow’s screen,” Ale said.
The screen showed a long stretch of waving kelp, thick and deep. The V-200 still blinked in the corner square. From it, Keel estimated he was looking at kelp more than a hundred meters tall. As he watched, a side channel opened through the kelp, the thick strands bending aside and locking onto their neighbors. The channel appeared to be at least thirty meters wide.
“Kelp controls the currents by opening appropriate channels,” Ale said. “You’re seeing one of the kelp’s most primitive feeding behaviors. It captures nutrient-rich colder currents this way.”
Keel spoke in a hushed whisper. “How do you make it respond?”
“Low-frequency signals,” she said. “We haven’t perfected it yet, but we’re close. This is rather crude if we believe the historical records. We expect the kelp to add a visual display to its vocabulary at the next stage of development.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re talking to it?”
“In a crude way. The way a mother talks to an infant, that kind of thing. We can’t call it sentient yet, it doesn’t make independent decisions.”
Keel began to understand Panille’s know-it-all look. How many generations had Islanders been on the sea without even coming close to such a development? What else did Islanders lack that Mermen had perfected?
“Because it’s crude we allow plenty of margin for error,” Ale said.
“Four kilometers … that’s safe?” Keel asked.
“Two kilometers,” Panille said. “That’s an acceptable distance now.”
“The kelp responds to a series of signal clusters,” Ale said.
Why this sudden candor with Vashon’s highest Islander official? Keel wondered.
“As you can see,” Ale said, “we’re training the kelp as we use it.” She took his arm and stared at the widening channel through the kelp.
Keel saw Panille glance at Ale’s intimate grip and caught a brief hardening of the young man’s mouth.
Jealous? Keel wondered. The thought flickered like a candle in a breezy room. Perhaps a way to put Panille off-balance. Keel patted Ale’s hand.
“You see why I brought you in here?” Ale asked.
Keel tried to clear his throat, finding it painfully restricted. Islanders would have to learn about this development, of course. He began to see Ale’s problem—the Merman problem. They had made a mistake in not sharing this development earlier. Or had they?
“We have other things to see,” Ale said. “I think the gymnasium next because it’s closest. That’s where we’re training our astronauts.”
Keel had been turning slightly as she spoke, scanning the curve of screens across the room. His mind was only partly focused on Ale’s words and he heard them almost as an afterthought. He lurched and stumbled into her, only her strong grip on his arm kept him steady.
“I know you’re going after the hyb tanks,” he said.
“Ship would not have left them in orbit if it was not intended for us to have them, Ward.”
So that’s why you’re building your barriers and recovering solid ground above the sea.”
“We can launch rockets from down here but that’s not the best way,” she said. “We need a solid base above the sea.”
“What will you do with the contents of the tanks?”
“If the records are correct, and we’ve no reason to doubt them, then the riches of life in those tanks will put us back on a human path—a human way.”
“What’s a human way?” he asked.
“Why, it’s … Ward, the life forms in those tanks can …”
“I’ve studied the records. What do you expect to gain on Pandora from, say, a rhesus monkey? Or a python? How will a mongoose benefit us?”
“Ward … there are cows, pigs, chickens …”
“And whales, how can they help us? Can they live compatibly with the kelp? You’ve pointed out the importance of the kelp …”
“We won’t know until we try it, will we?”
“As Chief Justice on the Committee on Vital Forms, and that is who you’re addressing now, Kareen Ale, I must remind you that I have considered such questions before.”
“Ship and our ancestors brought—”
“Why this sudden religious streak, Kareen? Ship and our ancestors brought chaos to Pandora. They did not consider the consequences of their actions. Look at me, Kareen! I am one of those consequences. Clones … mutants … I ask you, was it not Ship’s purpose to teach us a hard lesson?”
“What lesson?”
“That there are some changes that can destroy us. You speak so glibly of a human way of life! Have you defined what it is to be human?”
“Ward … we’re both human.”
“Like me, Kareen. That’s how we judge. Human is ‘like me.’ In our guts, we say: It’s human if it’s ‘like me.’”
“Is that how you judge on the Committee?” Her tone was scornful, or hurt.
“Indeed, it is. But I paint the likeness with a very broad brush. How broad is your brush? For that matter, this scornful young man seated here, could he look at me and say, ‘like me’?”
Panille did not look up but his neck turned red and he bent intently over his console.
“Shadow and his people save Islander lives,” she remarked.
“Indeed,” Keel said, “and I’m grateful. However, I would like to know whether he believes he is saving fellow humans or an interesting lower life form?
“We live in different environments, Kareen. Those different environments require different customs. That’s all. But I’ve begun to ask myself why we Islanders allow o
urselves to be manipulated by your standards of beauty. Could you, for example, consider me as a mate?” He put up a hand to stop her reply and noticed that Panille was doing his best to ignore their conversation. “I don’t seriously propose it,” Keel said. “Think about everything involved in it. Think how sad it is that I have to bring it up.”
Choosing her words carefully, spacing them with definite pauses, Ale said, “You are the most difficult … human being … I have ever met.”
“Is that why you brought me here? If you can convince me, you can convince anyone?”
“I don’t think of Islanders as Mutes,” she said. “You are humans whose lives are important and whose value to us all should be obvious.”
“But you said yourself that there are Mermen who don’t agree,” he said.
“Most Mermen don’t know the particular problems Islanders face. You must admit, Ward, that much of your work force is ineffective … through no fault of your own, of course.”
How subtle, he thought. Almost euphemistic.
“Then what is our ‘obvious value’?”
“Ward, each of us has approached a common problem—survival on this planet—in somewhat different ways. Down here, we compost for methane and to gain soil for the time when we’ll have to plant the land.”
“Diverting energy from the life cycle?”
“Delaying,” she insisted. “Land is far more stable when plants hold it down. We’ll need fertile soil.”
“Methane,” he muttered. He forgot what point he was going to make in the wake of the new illumination dawning on him. “You want our hydrogen facilities!”
Her eyes went wide at the quickness of his mind.
“We need the hydrogen to get into space,” she said.
“And we need it for cooking, heating and driving our few engines,” he countered. “You have methane, too.”
“Not enough.”
“We separate hydrogen electronically and—”
“Not very efficient,” he said. He tried to keep the pride out of his voice, but it leaked through all the same.