“The more kelp there is the faster it spreads and the faster it grows,” he said.
“It is more like an explosion at this point,” she said, “or like the moment of crystallization in a saturated solution. Add one tiny crystal and the whole thing precipitates out one massive crystal. That’s what the kelp will do next. Right now it is learning to care for itself.”
Brett shook his head. “I know what the history says. Still … sentient plants?”
She shrugged off his incredulity like a shawl. “If the C/P is right—if they’ve all been right—Vata is the key to the kelp. She is the crystal that will precipitate its consciousness. Or its soul.”
“Vata,” he whispered, a childlike awe in his voice. He was not one for WorShip, but he respected any human being who had outlived so many generations. No Merman had ever done that. Did Scudi believe in that Chaplain/Psychiatrist stuff?
He asked her.
Scudi shrugged. “I only know what I can arrange in my mind. I have seen the kelp learn. It is sentient, but very low-grade. There is no magic in sentiency except life and time. Vata has kelp genes, that is a fact.”
“Twisp says last time it took the kelp a quarter of a billion years to come awake. How will we ever know …”
“We’ve helped. The rest is up to it.”
“What does Vata have to do with it?”
“I don’t really know. I suspect she’s some kind of catalyst. The last natural link with the kelp’s ancestor. Shadow says Vata’s really in a coma. She went into the coma when the kelp died. Shock, maybe.”
“What about Duque? Or any number of us—Mermen included—who have kelp genes? Why aren’t we the catalysts you talk about?”
“No one human has all kelp genes—such a being would be kelp, not human,” she said. “Each one may have wholly different combinations.”
“Duque says Vata dreams him.”
“Some of our more religious types say Vata dreams us all,” Scudi said. She sniffed. “The fact that you and I were prisoners and escaped, that was no dream.” She shot him a warm glance. “We are a good team.”
Brett blushed and nodded.
“How close are we to Launch Base?” he asked.
“Before nightfall,” she said.
Brett thought about the coming encounter. Launch Base would be an important place, many people. Among those people might be the ones who had deliberately destroyed Guemes. His Islander accent could mean danger. He turned to Scudi and tried to speak of this casually. He didn’t want to argue with her or scare her. But it became immediately apparent that Scudi had been thinking along the same lines.
“In the red locker beside the main hatch,” she said. “Dive suits and kitpacks. We’ll be in colder water at the Launch Base.”
“Hypothermia kills,” he said. He had seen the two words in bright yellow on the red locker, reminding him of his earliest survival lessons. Island children were taught the dangers of the cold water as soon as they could talk. Apparently Mermen taught the same lesson, although Twisp claimed that Mermen had greater tolerance for cold.
“See if you can find suits to fit us,” she said. “If we have to go over the side …” She left the sentence unfinished, knowing it was unnecessary to continue.
The sight of the pile of gray dive suits inside the locker brought a smile to Brett’s face. The organic suits, of Islander design and manufacture, represented one of the few advancements they held over the Mermen. He selected a “small” and a “medium” and tore open the packages to activate them. He picked up two of the orange kitpacks with the suits and stowed them under the command couch seats in the cabin.
“What are those kitpacks for?” he asked.
“They’re survival kits,” she said. “Inflatable raft, knife, lines, pain pills. There are even repellent grenades for dashers.”
“Have you ever had to use grenades?”
“No. But my mother did once. One of her team did not get away.”
Brett shuddered. Dashers seldom came near Islands anymore, but fishermen had been lost and there were stories of children taken by sneak attacks at an Island’s rim. Suddenly, the wide ocean around their speeding foil lost some of its warm softness, its protective familiarity. Brett shook his head to clear it. He and Twisp had lived out here on a tiny coracle. For the love of Ship! A foil could not be as vulnerable as a flimsy coracle. But they had no squawks on the foil and if they had to take to the water in dive suits … Could their own senses warn them in time? Dashers were blindingly fast.
The two suns had moved perceptibly closer to each other, nearing their sunset meeting. Brett stared ahead, looking for the first sign of their goal. He knew this fear of dashers was foolishness, something they’d laugh about someday …
Something bobbing on the water ahead commanded his whole attention.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a spot far ahead and slightly to starboard.
“I think it’s a boat,” Scudi said.
“No,” he mused, “whatever it is, it’s two things.”
“Two boats?”
The foil’s speed was bringing the objects closer at an astonishing rate. His voice was barely audible: “Two coracles.”
“One is towing the other,” Scudi said. She veered the foil toward them.
Brett stood and leaned against the control console, squinting out at the coracles. He waved a hand at Scudi, palm down: “Slow down!” She throttled back and he gripped the console to keep his balance as the hull dropped into the water with a surge of the bow wave.
“It’s Queets!” Brett shouted, pointing at the man at the tiller. “Ship’s teeth, it’s Queets!”
Scudi shut down one ram and maneuvered the foil upwind of the coracles. Brett fumbled at the dogs to the canopy and swung it back, leaning out to shout at the boats only fifty meters downwind. “Twisp! Queets!”
Twisp stood and shielded his eyes with a hand, the long arm held awkwardly against his side.
“Kid!”
Brett tossed him a traditional greeting of fishermen at sea: “Do you have a full load?”
Twisp stood at the tiller, rocking the coracle from side to side, and clapped his hands high over his head. “You made it!” he hollered. “You made it.”
Brett pulled back into the cockpit. “Scudi, take us alongside.”
“So that’s Queets Twisp,” she said. She restarted the ram and eased them gently ahead. She rounded the coracles in a wide curve and came alongside the lead boat, opening the access hatch as the coracles drew near.
Twisp grabbed a foil brace and in less than a minute he was inside the cockpit, his long arms wrapped around Brett. His huge hands pummeled Brett’s back.
“I knew I’d find you!” Twisp held Brett at a long arm’s length and gestured wide to take in the foil, Scudi, his clothes and dark glasses. “What’s all this?”
“A very long story,” Brett said. “We’re heading for a Merman Launch Base. Have you heard anything … ?”
Twisp dropped his arms and sobered. “We’ve been there,” he said. “At least, near enough as makes no difference.” He turned, indicating the other man in the coracle. “That bit of flotsam is Iz Bushka. I tried to take him to Launch Base on a piece of very heavy business.”
“Tried?” Scudi asked. “What happened?”
“Who’s this little pearl?” Twisp asked, extending a hand. “I’m Queets Twisp.”
“Scudi Wang,” she and Brett said at once.
They laughed.
Twisp stared at her, startled. Was this the beautiful young Merman rescuer he had visualized in his daydreams? No! That was foolishness.
“Well, Scudi Wang,” Twisp said, “they wouldn’t listen to us at the Launch Base—wouldn’t let us into the base at all.” Twisp pursed his lips. “Towed us away with a foil bigger than this one. Told us to stay away. We took their advice.” He glanced around him. “So what’re you doing here, anyway? Where’s the crew?”
“We’re the crew,” Brett said.
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Brett explained why they were heading for the base, what had happened to them, the Chief Justice and the political scene down under. Bushka stepped into the cabin as Brett was finishing. Brett’s recital had a marked effect on Bushka, who grew pale and breathed in shallow gasps.
“They’re ahead of us,” Bushka muttered, “I know they are.”
He stared at Scudi.
“Wang,” he said. “You’re Ryan Wang’s daughter.”
Brett, edging toward a temper flare-up, asked Twisp, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Something on his conscience,” Twisp said. He, too, looked at Scudi. “Is that right? Are you Ryan Wang’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I told you!” Bushka wailed.
“Oh, shut up!” Twisp snapped. “Ryan Wang’s dead and I’m tired of listening to your crap.” He turned to Brett and Scudi. “The kid says you saved his life. Is that right?”
“Yes.” She spoke with one of her small shrugs. Her eyes stared into the console’s instruments.
“Anything else we should know?”
“I … don’t think so,” she said.
Twisp caught Brett’s eye and decided to get all the bad news out. He hooked a thumb toward Bushka. “This bit of dasher bait here,” he said, “piloted the sub that sank Guemes. He claims he didn’t know what they had in mind until the sub chewed into the bottom of the Island. Says he was tricked by the Merman commander, a guy named Gallow.”
“Gallow,” Scudi whispered.
“You know him?” Brett asked.
“I’ve seen him many times. With my father and Kareen Ale, often—”
“I told you!” Bushka interrupted. He prodded Twisp’s ribs. Twisp grabbed Bushka’s wrist, twisted it back suddenly, then flung it aside.
“And I told you to stow it,” Twisp said. Brett and Scudi both turned to face Bushka.
He stepped back instinctively.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Bushka asked. “Twisp can tell you the whole story—I couldn’t stop them—” He broke off when they continued to stare at him silently.
“They don’t trust you,” Twisp said, “and neither do I. But if Scudi delivered you all packaged and safe to Launch Base, that might be just what this Gallow would want. If he’s a manipulator, he’ll have people crawling all over a political scene like that. You might just disappear, Bushka.” Twisp rubbed the back of his neck and spoke low. “We have to do this one right the first time. We’ll have no way of regrouping.
“Brett and I could take the coracles and get back to Vashon,” Twisp said.
“No,” Brett insisted. “Scudi and I stay together.”
“I should go to the base alone,” Scudi said. “When they see me alone, they’ll know you and I have separated and others will listen to our story.”
“No!” Brett repeated. He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “We’re a team. We stick together.”
Twisp glared at Brett, then his expression and his bearing softened. “So that’s the way it is?”
“That’s the way it is,” Brett said. He kept his arm firmly around Scudi’s shoulders. “I know you could order me to go with you. I’m still your apprentice. But I wouldn’t obey.”
Twisp spoke in a mild voice. “Then I better not be giving any orders.” He grinned to take the sting from his words.
“So what do we do?” Brett asked.
Bushka startled them when he spoke. “Let me take the foil and go to Launch Base alone. I could—”
“You could spread the word to your friends and tell them where to pick up a couple of slow-moving coracles,” Twisp said.
Bushka paled even further. “I tell you, I’m not—”
“You’re an unknown right now,” Twisp said. “That’s what you are. If your story’s true, you’re dumber than you look. Whatever, we can’t afford to trust you—not with our lives.”
“Then let me go back in the coracles,” Bushka said.
“They’d just tow you away again. Farther this time.” Twisp turned to Brett and Scudi. “You two are determined to stick together?”
Brett nodded; so did Scudi.
“Then Bushka and I go in the coracles,” Twisp said. “We’re better off split up, I’m sure of that, but we don’t want to get out of touch again. We’ll turn on our locator transmitter. You know the frequency, kid?”
“Yes, but—”
“There must be a portable RDF on this monster,” Twisp said. He glanced around the cockpit.
“There are small portable direction finders in all emergency kitpacks,” Scudi said. Her toe nudged a pack under the seat.
Twisp bent and looked at the small orange kit. He straightened. “You keep them handy, eh?”
“When we think it necessary,” she said.
“Then I suggest we follow in the coracles,” Twisp said. “If you have to take to the water, you’ll be able to find us. Or vice versa.”
“If they’re alive,” Bushka muttered.
Twisp studied Brett for a moment. Was the kid man enough to make the decision? Brett could not be shamed in front of the young woman. Scudi and Brett were, indeed, a team. One that had a bond he couldn’t match. It was the kid’s decision, and in Twisp’s mind it was making Brett a man.
Brett’s arm stroked Scudi’s shoulder. “We’ve already shown that we work well together. We got this far. What we’re going to do may be dangerous, but you always said, Twisp, that life gives you no guarantees.”
Twisp grinned. Going to do … The kid had made his decision and the young woman agreed. That was that.
“All right, partner,” Twisp said. “No shilly-shally and no regrets.” He turned to Bushka. “Got that, Bushka? We’re the backup.”
“How long can you hang around?” Brett asked. “Count on at least twenty days, if you need that much.”
“In twenty days there might not be any Islands to save,” Brett said. “We’d better move faster than that.”
Twisp took two of the kitpacks for the coracles, and loaded a grumbling Bushka back aboard.
Scudi slipped an arm around Brett’s waist and hugged him. “We should get into those dive suits now,” she said. “We may not get time later.”
She pulled hers out from under her couch and draped it across the back of the seat. Brett did the same. Undressing was easy for him this time, and he thought maybe it was seeing all of those Mermen swimming around their base, most of them with only weightbelts full of tools around their waists. Maybe it was the ride out from the foil bay with his shirt open. It gave Brett a feeling of security in the integrity of his own skin. Besides, Scudi didn’t react one way or another. He liked that. And he liked the fact that this time she didn’t comment on his modesty. He was beginning to get a feel for the matter-of-fact Merman nudity. But he was only beginning. When Scudi slipped out of her shirt, skinning it over her head, he followed every bounce her firm breasts took and knew it would be very hard to keep from staring. He wanted to look at her forever. She kicked her deck shoes off in two easy flicks of her feet and dropped her pants behind her couch. She had a very small patch of black hair—wispy, silky and inviting.
He noted suddenly that she was standing with her head cocked to one side. She moved gently, not telling him to quit staring but letting him know that she knew what he was doing.
“You have a very beautiful body,” he said. “I don’t mean to stare.”
“Yours, too, is nice,” she said. She placed her hand in the middle of his chest, pressed her palm against him. “I just wanted to touch you,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He put his left hand on her shoulder, felt her strength and her warmth and the easy smoothness of her skin. His other hand came up to her shoulders, and she kissed him. He hoped that she liked it as much as he did. It was a soft, warm and breathless kiss. When she leaned against him her breasts flattened on his chest and he could feel the hard little knots of nipples focused there. He felt himself hard
ening against her thigh, her thigh of such strength and grace. She stroked his shoulders, then tightened both arms around his neck and kissed him hard, her small tongue tapping the tip of his own. The boat took a sudden lurch and they both fell in a heap on the deck, laughing.
“How graceful,” he said.
“And cold.”
She was right. The suns had set as Twisp and Bushka departed. Already there was a stiff chill in the air. It wasn’t the hardness of the deck that bothered him, but the sudden shock of cold metal against his sweaty skin. When they sat up he heard the strange unpeeling sound of damp skin. It was the sound that sheets of skin made when a friend had unpeeled his sunburned back as a boy.
Brett wanted to loll with Scudi forever, but Scudi was already trying to get up amid the unsteady rocking of the foil. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. He didn’t let go.
“It’s nearly dark,” he said. “Won’t we have trouble finding the base? I mean, it’s always a lot darker underwater.”
“I know the way,” she said. “And you have a night vision that could see for us both. We should go now …”
This time he kissed her. She leaned against him for a blink, soft and good-feeling, then pulled back. She still held his hand, but there was an uneasiness in her eyes that Brett translated as fear.
“What?” he asked. “If we stay here we will, you know … we’ll do what we want to do.”
Brett’s throat was dry and he knew he couldn’t talk without his voice cracking. He remained quiet, wanting to hear her out. He didn’t know much about what it was that they wanted to do, and if she could give him a few clues, he was ready. He did not want her to be disappointed and he did not know what she expected of him. Most important, he did not know how much experience she’d had in these matters and now it was important for him to find out.
She squeezed his hand. “I like you,” she said. “I like you very much. If there’s anyone I’d like to … to get that close with, it’s you. But there is the matter of a child.”
He blushed. But it was not out of embarrassment. It was out of anger at himself for not thinking of the obvious thing, for not considering that the step from child to parent could very well happen all at once and he, too, was not ready.