“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.”
“Then what are they doing?” Scudi repeated. “They’re not drifting very fast anymore. It’s as though they were assembling here.”
“The hyb tanks?” Kareen asked.
“How could the kelp—” Scudi began. She broke off, then: “Is this where they’re supposed to come down?”
“Near enough,” Kareen said. “Shadow?”
“The correct quadrant,” he said. He glanced at a chrono. “By the original schedule, splashdown’s already overdue.”
“There’s a strange hylighter,” Brett said. “Or is that really an LTA?” He pointed upward, his finger almost touching the overhead plaz.
“Parachute!” Panille said. “Ship’s guts! There comes the first hyb tank!” “Look at the hylighters!” Scudi said.
The colorful bags had begun a swirling motion, opening a space in their center. The open space drifted somewhat south and a bit west, presenting a net of sea to catch the descending parachute.
Something could be seen dangling from the parachute now—a silvery cylinder that reflected bright flashes from the suns.
“Ship! That thing is big!” Panille said. “I wonder what’s in it,” Kareen whispered.
“We’re about to discover that,” Brett said. “Look! Above the parachute—there comes another one … and another.”
“Ohhhh, if I could only get my hands on one of them … just one,” Panille said.
The first hyb tank was now little more than a hundred meters above the water. It descended swiftly, the actual splashdown concealed within the ring of hylighters. A second hyb tank fell into the open circle, a third … fourth … The watchers counted twenty of them, some larger than the foil.
The circle of hylighters closed in as the last tank hit the water. Immediately, a lane through the kelp began to spread from the foil’s blocked position to where the hylighters had collected.
“We’re being asked to join them,” Scudi said. She fired up the rams and eased the foil ahead at hull speed, keeping it just off the step. A bow wave spread on both sides. The hylighters parted as the foil drew near them, opening a passage into a kelp-free circle where the great tanks bobbed.
The occupants of the foil stared in wonder at the vista opened to them. Hylighter tentacles could be seen working over the closure mechanisms of the tanks, opening them and snaking inside. Wide curved hatches swung aside to the probing tentacles. Abruptly, one of the opened tanks tipped, admitting a surge of water. White-bellied sea mammals emerged and immediately dove into the water.
“Orcas,” Panille breathed. “Look!” He pointed across Brett’s shoulder. “Humpback whales! Just the way they looked in the holos.”
“My whales,” Scudi whispered.
The channel that had been opened for the foil curved left now, directing them to a cluster of six tanks being held side by side in a nest of kelp. Hylighter tentacles could be seen writhing and twisting into the tanks.
As the foil neared this cluster, a dark tentacle emerged with a struggling human form—pale-skinned and naked. Another tentacle came up with another human … another … another … A spectrum of skin shades came out of the tanks—from darker than Scudi to paler than Kareen Ale.
“What are they doing with those poor people?” Kareen demanded.
The faces of the people being taken from the tanks betrayed obvious terror, but the terror began to subside even as the foil’s occupants watched. Slowly, hylighters carrying humans began to drift toward the foil.
“There’s why we were brought in,” Brett said. “Come on, Shadow. Let’s open the hatch.”
Scudi silenced the foil’s jets. “We can’t handle that many people,” she said. She pointed at the massed hylighters removing other humans from the adjacent tanks. More than a hundred human figures could be seen grasped in hylighter tentacles and more humans were being removed from the tanks every second. “That many will sink us!” Scudi said.
Brett, hesitating in the passageway to follow the direction of Scudi’s pointing finger, said: “We’ll have to tow them to the outpost. We’ll see if we can get a line to them.” He whirled and dashed down the passage toward the main hatch. Panille could be heard running behind him.
Hylighters already were clustering around the hatchway when Brett opened it. A tentacle snaked in the opening and grasped Brett. He froze. Words filled his mind, clear and perfect, without any secondary sounds to distort them.
“Gentle human who is loved by Avata’s beloved Scudi, do not fear. We bring you Shipclones to live in peace beside all of you who share Pandora with Avata.”
Brett gasped and sensed Panille beside him: muddy thoughts—nowhere near as clear as those bell-like words entering his senses through the hylighter tentacles. Panille projected awe, schoolboy memories of holoviews displaying hylighters, family stories of that first Pandoran Panille … then fear that the mass of humans being delivered by the hylighters would sink the foil.
“Hylighters will buoy you,” the tentacles transmitted. “Do not fear. What a splendid day this is! What marvelous surprises have come to us, the gift of blessed Ship.”
Slowly, Brett regained the use of his own senses. He found himself braced against loops of hylighter tentacles. Naked humans were being slipped through the hatchway one after another. How tall the newcomers were! Some of them had to duck in the passageway.
Panille looked dazed in a similar tentacle grasp. He waved the newcomers up the passage toward the control cabin.
“Some of you can go into the cargo bays along this passage,” Brett called.
They went where Brett and Panille directed them … no questions, no arguments. They appeared to be in shock from awakening into the tentacles of hylighters.
“We’re being moved toward the outpost,” Panille said. He nodded toward the edge of black rock visible out the hatchway. The sound of the surf against the base of the outpost was clearly audible.
“Gallow!” Brett said.
As Brett spoke, the hylighter tentacles unwound from his body. Panille, too, was released. The space around them remained crowded with silent newcomers. More could be seen held in hylighter tentacles, other tentacles clutching the lip of the hatchway. Slowly, he began squeezing his way forward, apologizing, feeling the pressure of naked skin that made way for him.
The pilot cabin was not quite as crowded as the passage. Space had been left around the unconscious form of Bushka on the cot. More space insulated the command seats where Scudi and Kareen sat. A lacework of hylighter tentacles covered most of the plaz, leaving only small framed bits of the forward view. The outpost loomed high there, the surf sound loud.
“Kelp is right up against the outpost now,” Kareen said. “Look at it! There’s almost no open space left.”
One of the newcomers, a man so tall that his head almost touched the top of the cabin, came forward and bent to peer through a small opening in the lacework of hylighter tentacles. He straightened presently and looked down at the webs between Scudi’s toes, then to the similar growth on Kareen’s feet. He brought his attention at last to Brett’s large eyes.
“God save us!” he said. “If we breed on this planet will our offspring all be deformed?”
Brett was caught first by the man’s accent, an odd lilting in the way he spoke, then by the words. The man looked at Mermen and Islanders with the same obviously revolted expression.
Kareen, shocked, shot a glance at Brett and then at the cabin full of giant humans, the looks of dazed withdrawal slowly vanishing from all of those faces—those strangely similar faces. Kareen wondered how these people could identify each other … except for the variations in skin tone. They all looked so much alike!
It dawned on her then that she was seeing Ship-normals … human-normals. She, with her small stature and partly webbed toe
s, she was the freak.
Ship! How would these newcomers take to people like the Chief Justice or even Queets Twisp with his ungainly arms? What would they say on encountering the C/P?
The foil grated against rock then … again … again. It lifted slightly and was set down hard on a solid surface.
“We’ve arrived,” Scudi said.
“And we’re going to have to deal with GeLaar Gallow somehow,” Panille said.
“If the kelp hasn’t already done it for us,” Kareen said.
“There’s no telling what it’ll do,” Panille said. “I’m afraid Twisp was right. It’s not to be trusted.”
“It can be damned convincing, though,” Brett said, recalling the touch of hylighters at the hatchway.
“That’s its real danger,” Panille said.
Chapter 45
Fools! who slaughtered the cattle sacred to the sun-king;
behold, the god deprived them of their day of homecoming.
—Homer, Shiprecords
Twisp could hear Gallow’s people talking down in the basin, a nervousness in their chatter that told him the strength of his own position. Gallow had brought him up a narrow trail cut in the rock and out onto a flat promontory that jutted seaward on the southeastern edge of the outpost. A breeze blew against Twisp’s face.
“One day, I will have my administrative building here,” he said, gesturing expansively.
Twisp glanced around him at the black rock sparkling with mineral fragments in the light of both suns. He had seen many days such as this one—both suns up, the sea rolling easily under a blanket of kelp—but never from such a vantage. Not even the highest point on Vashon commanded such a view—high, solid and unmoving.
Gallow would build here?
Twisp tried to catch snatches of the conversations from below them, but mostly it was words of nervousness that permeated this place. Gallow was not immune to it.