Zent began gasping. Gallow moaned: “Not Ship!”
Nakano’s voice gurgled and rasped but the words were clear: “The air! He’s … going … to … smother us!”
Chapter 8
Justice does not happen by chance; indeed, something that subjective may never have happened at all.
—Ward Keel, Journal
Maritime Court did not go at all as Queets Twisp had expected. Killing a Merman in the nets had never been an acceptable “accident” at sea, even when all the evidence said it was unavoidable. The emphasis was always on the deceased and the needs of the surviving Merman family. Mermen were always reminding you of all the Islanders they saved every year with their pickup crews and search teams.
Twisp walked the long mural-distorted hallway out of the Maritime offices scratching his head. Brett almost skipped along beside him, a wide grin on his face.
“See?” Brett said. “I knew we were worried for nothing. They said it wasn’t a Merman in our net—no Mermen lost, nobody that wasn’t accounted for. We didn’t drown anybody at all!”
“Wipe that grin off your face!” Twisp said.
“But Queets …”
“Don’t interrupt me!” he snapped. “I had my face down there in the net—I saw the blood. Red. Dasher blood’s green. Now, didn’t it seem to you that they got us out of court too fast?”
“It’s a busy place and we’re small-time. You said that yourself.” Brett paused, then asked, “Did you really see blood?”
“Too much for a few beat-up fish.”
The hallway let them out into the wide third-level perimeter concourse with its occasional viewports opening out onto the surging sea and the spume flying past. Weather had said there was a fifty-klick wind today with chance of rain. The sky hung gray, hiding the one sun that had headed downward into the horizon, the other already gone.
Rain?
Twisp thought Weather had made one of its infrequent errors. His fisherman’s sense said the wind would have to increase before any rain came today. He expected sunshine before sunset.
“Maritime has other things to do than worry about every small-time …” Brett broke off as he saw the bitter expression on Twisp’s face.
“I mean …”
“I know what you mean! We’re really small-time now. Losing that catch cost me everything: depth gear, nets, new stunshield charges, food, the scull …”
Brett was almost breathless trying to keep up with the older man’s longer, firmer strides. “But we can make another start if …”
“How?” Twisp asked with a toss of one long arm. “I can’t afford to outfit us. You know what they’ll advise me in Fisherman’s Hall? Sell my boat and go back to the subs as a common crewman!”
The concourse widened into a long ramp. They walked down without speaking and out onto the wide second-level terrace with its heavily cultivated truck gardens. Mazelike access lanes crooked their way to the high railing overlooking the wider first level. As they emerged, gaps began to appear in the overcast and one of Pandora’s suns made liars out of the meteorologists at Weather. It bathed the terrace in a welcome yellow light.
Brett pulled at Twisp’s sleeve. “Queets, you wouldn’t have to sell the boat if you got a loan and—”
“I’ve got loans up to here!” Twisp said, touching his neck. “I’d just cleared my accounts when I brought you on. I won’t go through that again! The boat goes. That means I have to sell your contract.”
Twisp sat on a mound of bubbly at the rail and looked out over the sea. The wind-speed was dropping fast, just as he’d expected. The surge at the rim of the Island was still high but the spume shot straight up now.
“Best fishing weather we’ve had in a long time,” Brett said.
Twisp had to admit this was true.
“Why did Maritime let us off so easy?” Twisp muttered. “We had a Merman in the
net. Even you know that, kid. Something funny’s going on.”
“But they let us off, that’s the important thing. I thought you’d be happy about it.”
“Grow up, kid.” Twisp closed his eyes and leaned back against the rail. He felt the cool water breeze against his neck. The sun was hot on his head. Too many problems, he thought.
Brett stood directly in front of Twisp. “You keep telling me to grow up. It looks to me like you could do some growing up yourself. If you’d only get a loan and—”
“If you won’t grow up, kid, then shut up.” “It couldn’t have been a tripod fish in the net?” Brett persisted.
“No way! There’s a different feel. That was a Merman and the dashers got him.” Twisp swallowed. “Or her. Up to something, too, from the look of things.” Without changing his position against the rail, Twisp listened to the kid shift from foot to foot.
“Is that why you’re selling the boat?” Brett asked. “Because we accidentally killed a Merman who was where he wasn’t supposed to be? You think the Mermen will be out to get you now?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
Twisp opened his eyes and looked up at Brett. The kid had narrowed his overly large eyes into a tight squint, his gaze steady on Twisp.
“The Merman observers at Maritime didn’t object to the court’s decision,” Brett said.
“You’re right,” Twisp said. He jerked a thumb upward toward the Maritime offices. “They’re usually ruthless in cases like this. I wonder what we saw … or almost saw.”
Brett moved to one side and plopped himself onto the bubbly beside Twisp. They listened for a time to the thlup-thlup-thlup of waves against the Island’s rim.
“I expected to be sent down under,” Twisp said. “And you with me. That’s what usually happens. You go to work for the dead Merman’s family. And you don’t always come back topside.”
Brett grunted, then: “They’d have sent me, not you. Everybody knows about my eyes, how I can see when it’s almost dark. The Mermen would want that.”
“Don’t give yourself airs, kid. Mermen are damned cautious about who they let into their gene pool. They call us Mutes, you know. And they don’t mean something nice when they say it. We’re mutants, kid, and when we go down under it’s to fill a dead man’s dive suit … nothing else.”
“Maybe they didn’t want this job filled,” Brett said.
Twisp tapped a fist on the resilient organics of the rail. “Or they didn’t want anybody from topside to know what that Merman’s job was.”
“That’s crazy!”
Twisp did not respond. They sat quietly for a while as the lone sun dipped lower. Glancing over his shoulder, Twisp stared at the horizon. It bent away in the distance to a bank of black sky and water. Water everywhere.
“I can get us outfitted,” Brett said.
Twisp was startled but remained silent, looking at the kid. Brett, too, was staring off at the horizon. Twisp noticed that the boy’s skin had become fisherman-dark, not the sickly pale he had displayed when he first boarded the coracle. The kid looked leaner, too … and taller.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Brett asked. “I said—”
“I heard you. For somebody who pissed and moaned most of the time he was out
there fishing, you sound pretty anxious to get back on the water.”
“I didn’t moan about—”
“Just joking, kid.” Twisp raised a hand to stop the objections. “Don’t be so damned touchy.”
His face flushed, Brett looked down at his boots. Twisp asked, “How would you get this loan?”
“My parents would loan it to me and I’d loan it to you.”
“Your parents have money?” Twisp studied the kid, aware that this revelation did not surprise him. In all the time they’d spent together, though, Brett had never talked about his parents and Twisp discreetly had never asked. Islander etiquette.
“They’re close to Center,” Brett said. “Next ring out from the lab and Committee.”
Twisp whistled between his teeth. “What do your parents do that
gets them quarters at Center?”
Brett’s mouth turned up in a crooked grin. “Slurry. They made their fortune in shit.”
Twisp laughed in sudden awareness. “Norton! Brett Norton! Your folks are the Nortons?”
“Norton,” Brett corrected him. “They’re a team and they bill themselves as one artist.”
“Shitpainting,” Twisp said. He chuckled.
“They were the first,” Brett said. “And it’s nutrient, not shit. It’s processed slurry.”
“So your folks dig shit,” Twisp teased.
“Come on!” Brett objected. “I thought I got away from that when I left school. Grow up, Twisp!”
“All right, kid,” he laughed, “I know what slurry is.” He patted the bubbly beside him. “It’s what we feed the Island.”
“It’s not that simple,” Brett said. “I grew up with it, so I know. It’s scraps from the fish processors, compost from the agraria, table scraps and … just about everything.” He grinned. “Including shit. My mother was the first chemist to figure out how to color the nutrient like they do now without hurting the bubbly.”
“Forgive an old fisherman,” Twisp said. “We live with a lot of dead organics, like the membrane on the hull of my coracle. Islandside, we just pick up a bag of nutrient, mix it with a little water and spread it on our walls when they get a little gray.”
“Don’t you ever try the colored stuff and make a few of your own murals on your walls?” Brett asked.
“I leave that to the artists like your folks,” Twisp said. “I didn’t grow up with it the way you did. When I was a kid, we only had a bit of graffiti, no pictures. It was all pretty bland: brown on gray. We were told they couldn’t introduce other colors because that interfered with absorption by the decks and walls and things. And you know, if our organics die …” He shrugged. “How’d your folks stumble onto this?”
“They didn’t stumble! My mother was a chemist and my father had a flair for design. They went out with a wall-feeding crew one day and did a nutrient mural on the radar dome near the slurryside rim. That was before I was born.”
“Two big historical events,” Twisp joked. “The first shit painting and the birth of Brett Norton.” He shook his head in mock seriousness. “Permanent work, too, because no painting lasts more than about a week.”
Brett spoke defensively. “They keep records. Holos and such. Some of their friends have worked up musical scores for the gallery and theater shows.”
“How come you left all that?” Twisp asked. “Big money, important friends … ?”
“You never had some bigshot pat you on the head and say, ‘Here’s our new little painter.’”
“And you didn’t want that?”
Brett turned his back on Twisp so fast that Twisp knew the kid was hiding something. “Haven’t I worked out well enough for you?” Brett asked.
“You’re a pretty good worker, kid. A little green, but that’s part of the bargain on a new contract.”
Brett didn’t respond and Twisp saw that the kid was staring at the Maritime mural on the inner wall of the second level. It was a big and gaudy mural aglow in the hard light of the setting sun—everything washed a fine crimson.
“Is that one of their murals?” Twisp asked. Brett nodded without turning.
Twisp took another look at the painting, thinking of how easy it was these days to walk past the decorated hallways, decks and bulkheads without even noticing the color. Some of the murals were sharply geometric, denying the rounded softness of Islander life. Famous murals, ones that kept Norton in constant, high priced demand, were the great historical pieces barely applied before they began their steady absorption toward the flat gray of hungry walls. The Maritime mural was something new in a Norton wall—an abstraction, a study in crimson and the fluidity of motion. It glowed with an internal power in the low light of the sun, seeming to boil and seethe along its rim like an angry creature or a thunderstorm of blood.
The sun lay almost below the horizon, throwing the sea’s surface into the little dusk. A fine line of double light skittered across the top of the painting, then the sun dipped below the horizon and they were left with the peculiar afterglow of sunset on Pandora.
“Brett, why didn’t your parents buy your contract?” Twisp asked. “With your eyesight, it seems to me you’d have made a fine painter.”
The dim silhouette in front of Twisp turned, a fuzzed outline against the lighter background of the mural.
“I never offered my contract for sale,” Brett said.
Twisp looked away from Brett, oddly moved by the kid’s response. It was as though they suddenly had become much closer friends. The unspoken revelations carried a kind of cement, which sealed all of their shared experiences out on the water … out there where each depended on the other for survival.
He doesn’t want me to sell his contract, Twisp thought. He kicked himself for being so dense. It wasn’t just the fishing. Brett could get plenty of fishing after his apprenticeship with Queets Twisp. The contract had increased in value simply because of that apprenticeship. Twisp sighed. No … the kid did not want to be separated from a friend.
“I still have credit at the Ace of Cups,” Twisp said. “Let’s go get some coffee and … whatever …”
Twisp waited, hearing the little shufflings of Brett’s feet in the growing dark. The Island’s rimlights began their nightly duty—homing beacons for the time between suns. The lights started with a blue-green phosphorescence of wave tops, bright because the night was warm, then grew even brighter as the organics ignited. Out of the corners of his eyes, Twisp saw Brett wipe his cheeks quickly as the lights came up.
“Hell, we’re not breaking up a good team, yet,” Twisp said. “Let’s go get that coffee.” He had never before invited the kid to share an evening at the Ace of Cups, although it was well-known as a fisherman’s hangout. He stood and saw an encouraging lift to Brett’s chin.
“I’d like that,” Brett said.
They walked quietly down the gangway and along the passages with their bright blue phosphorescence to light the way. They entered the coffeehouse through the wool-lined arch and Twisp allowed Brett a moment to look around before pointing out the really fancy feature for which the Ace of Cups was known throughout the Islands—the rimside wall. From deck to ceiling, it was solid wool, a softly curling karakul of iridescent white.
“How do they feed it?” Brett whispered.
“There’s a little passageway behind it that they use for storage. They roll the nutrient on from that side.”
There were only a few other early drinkers and diners and these paid little attention to the newcomers. Brett ducked his head slightly into his shoulder blades, trying to see everything without appearing to look.
“Why did they choose wool?” Brett asked. He and Twisp threaded their way through the tables to the rimwall.
“Keeps out noise during storms,” Twisp said. “We’re pretty close to the rim.”
They took chairs at a table against the wall—both table and chairs made of the same dried and stretched membrane as the coracles. Brett eased himself into a chair gingerly and Twisp remembered the kid’s first time in the coracle.
“You don’t like dead furniture,” Twisp said. Brett shrugged. “I’m just not used to it.”
“Fishermen like it. It stays put and you don’t have to feed it. What’ll you have?”
Twisp waved a hand toward Gerard, the owner, who lifted head and shoulders from the raised well behind the bar, a questioning look on his enormous head. Tufts of black hair framed a smiling face.
“I hear they have real chocolate,” Brett whispered.
“Gerard will slip a little boo in it if you ask.”
“No … no thanks.”
Twisp lifted two fingers with the palm of his other hand over them—the house signal for chocolate—then he winked once for a dash of boo in his own. Presently, Gerard signaled back that the order was ready. All of the regulars knew Gerard
’s problem—his legs fused into a single column with two toeless feet. The proprietor of the Ace of Cups was confined to a Merman-made motorized chair, a sure sign of affluence. Twisp rose and went to the bar to collect their drinks.
“Who’s the kid?” Gerard asked as he slid two cups across the bar. “Boo’s in the blue.” He tapped the blue cup for emphasis.
“My new contract,” Twisp said. “Brett Norton.”
“Oh, yeah? From downcenter?”
Twisp nodded.
“His folks are the shitpainters.”
“How come everybody except me knew that?” Twisp asked.
“‘Cause, you keep your head buried in a fish tote,” Gerard said. His ridged forehead drew down and his green eyes twinkled in amusement.
“It’s a mystery whatever brought him out to fish,” Twisp said. “If I believed in luck, I’d say he was bad luck. But he’s a damned nice kid.”
“I heard about you losing your gear and your catch,” Gerard said. “What’re you going to do?” He nodded toward where Brett sat watching them. “His folks have money.”
“So he says,” Twisp said. He balanced the cups for his return to the table. “See you.”
“Good fishing,” Gerard said. It was an automatic response and he frowned when he realized he’d said it to a netless fisherman.
“We’ll see,” Twisp said and returned to the table. He noted that the action of the deck underfoot had picked up slightly. Could be a storm coming.
They sipped quietly at their chocolate and Twisp felt the boo settling his nerves. From somewhere in the quarters behind the counter someone played a flute and someone else tapped out a back-up on water drums.
“What were you two talking about?” Brett asked.
“You.”
Brett’s face flushed noticeably under the dim lights of the coffeehouse. “What … what were you saying?”