It's waking up, he answered. And it absorbs the memories of the living and the newly dead. Therein lay great temptation for Ward Keel.
I could leave more than scratchings in these journals, he thought. I could leave everything. Everything! Think of that! He entered these thoughts into his journal, and wished that he had his journals and his life's collection of notes around him now. It was possible, he knew for fact, that no Islander had given more direct thought to life and life forms than Justice Keel. Some of these observations he knew to be unique -- sometimes illogical, but vital every one. These data he hated to see lost when a struggling humanity needed them so very much.
Someone else will think those thoughts, in time. If there is more time.
His attention was caught by the arrival of another sub overhead. The sub gave the kelp a wide berth. Gallow's orders. As the sub disappeared on its way to the interior docking bay, Keel marveled at the movement of the kelp. Huge stalks tracked the sub's path even though it came in against the current. Like a blossom following the slow arc of sunlight across the sky, the kelp followed all of the incoming Mermen. An occasional blur of gray moved amongst the tendrils as one snapped out suddenly toward an intruder, but all Mermen kept well out of reach.
If the kelp is waking, he thought, the future of all the humans left may be at stake.
Perhaps after contacting enough humans the kelp would find some way of saying, "Like me. If you're human, you're like me." There was a biological kinship, after all. Keel swallowed, and hoped silently that it was true that Vata was the key to the kelp. He hoped, too, that mercy was a part of Vata's personality.
Keel thought he detected a change in the perimeter. It was hard to tell, with night coming on and visibility so poor anyway, but he was sure that the two-hundred-meter perimeter had closed. Not much, but enough to notice.
Keel cast about in his memory for all the information that he'd ever stored on the kelp. Sentient, capable of nonverbal communication by touch, firmly anchored to ballast-rocks and mobile in its bloom state -- except the bloom state had been extinct for hundreds of years. That was the kelp the first humans on Pandora destroyed. What surprises lay in store with this new kelp? This creature had been regrown from gene-prints present in human carriers. Could it be that the kelp has learned how to move? It didn't feel like a trick of the imagination. The dark outside was now nearly total, only a thin barrier of light escaped from the outpost itself.
Morning will tell, he thought. If there is a morning. He chuckled to himself. With most of his world dark, Keel was left staring at himself in the port, haloed by the glare of the one bare light. He moved away from the plaz after a passing glance at his nose. It spread over his face like a mashed fruit, the tip touched his upper lip whenever he pursed his mouth in thought.
The hatch door behind him slammed into the wall and startled him. His stomach took a bad turn, then turned again when he saw Gallow, alone, carrying two liters of Islander wine.
"Mr. Justice," Gallow said, "I thought I'd liberate these from the men. I present them to you as a gesture of hospitality."
Keel noted that the label showed that the wine was from Vashon, not Guemes, and breathed easier. "Thank you, Mr. Gallow," he said. He allowed his head to drop in a slight bow. "I seldom have the pleasure of a good wine anymore -- sour stomach comes with age, they say." Keel sat heavily and indicated the other chair next to his bunk. "Have a seat. Cups are on the sideboard."
"Good!" Gallow flashed the wide, white smile that Keel was sure opened many a reluctant hatch.
And many a lady, he thought. He shook it off, suddenly embarrassed by himself. Gallow took two stoneware cups from a shelf and set them on the desk. The handles, Keel noted, were thick to accommodate the calloused fingers of outpost riders.
Gallow poured but did not sit.
"I have ordered supper for us," Gallow said. "One of my men is a passable cook. The outpost is crowded, so I took the liberty of ordering the meal delivered here. I hope that meets your approval?"
How very polite, Keel thought. What does he want? He took a cup of the amber wine. Both lifted cups, but Keel only sipped.
"Pleasant," Keel said. His stomach churned with bitter wine and the thought of lumps of hot food. It churned at the prospect of listening to more of Gallow's egocentric prattle.
"Cheers," Gallow said, "and to the health of your children." It was a traditional Islander toast that Keel acknowledged with a raised eyebrow. Several acid replies teased the tip of his tongue, but he bit them back.
"You Islanders have mastered the grape," Gallow said. "Everything we have down under tastes like formaldehyde."
"The grape needs weather," Keel said, "not racks of lamps. That's why each season has its own distinct flavor -- you taste the story of the grape. Formaldehyde is an accurate summation of conditions down under, from the grape's point of view."
Gallow's expression darkened for a blink, the barest hint of a frown. Again, the wide, winning grin. "But your people are anxious to leave all this behind. They prepare to move down under en masse. It seems they have developed a taste for formaldehyde."
So it would be that kind of a meeting. Keel had heard these conversations before -- the justifications of men and women in power for their abuse of that power. He imagined that many a condemned man had to listen to the guilty prattle of his jailer.
"Right is self-evident," Keel said. "It needs no defense, just good witness. What is it that you come here for?"
"I come here for conversation, Mr. Justice," Gallow said. He brushed a stray shock of blonde hair back from his forehead. "Conversation, dialogue, whatever you might call it -- it's not readily available among my men."
"You must have leaders, officers of some sort. Why not them?"
"You find this curious? Perhaps a bit frightening that the one privacy of your imprisonment is breached here? At your ease, Mr. Justice, conversation is all I'm after. My men grunt, my officers plan, my enemies plot. My prisoner thinks, or he wouldn't keep a journal, and I admire anyone who thinks. The rational mind is a rare creature, one to be respected and nurtured."
Now Keel was positive that Gallow wanted something -- something particular.
Watch yourself, Keel cautioned, he's a charmer. The sip of wine found the hot spot deep in Keel's belly and started its slow burn into his intestines. He was tempted to end this conversation. How much respect did you have for the minds on Guemes? But he couldn't afford to end the conversation, not when there was a source of hard information that the Islanders might desperately need.
As long as I'm alive I'll do what I can for them, Keel thought.
"I'll tell you the truth," Keel said.
"The truth is most welcome," Gallow answered. A deferential nod graced the comment, and Gallow drained his wine. Keel poured him another.
"The truth is that I have no one to talk with, either," Keel said. "I am old, I have no children and I don't want to leave the world emptier when I go. My journals" -- Keel gestured at the plaz-jacketed notebook on his bunk --"are my children. I want to leave them in the best possible shape."
"I've read your notes," Gallow said. "Most poetic. It would please me to hear you read from them aloud. You have more interesting musings than most men."
"Because I dare to muse when your men dare not."
"I am not a monster, Mr. Justice."
"I am not a Justice, Mr. Gallow. You have the wrong person. Simone Rocksack is Justice now, as well as C/P. My influence is minimal."
Gallow toasted him again with the wine. "Most perceptive," he said. "Your information is correct -- Simone is Chief Justice and C/P. A first. But because of the memory of one corrupt C/P, others have always been under scrutiny. You, as Justice, have satisfied the people that there is a balance of power. They wait to hear from you. It is you who can relieve their worries, not Simone. And for good reason."
"What is the reason?"
Gallow's easy smile uncurled and his eyes leveled their cold blue power at Keel.
"That doesn't surprise me," Keel said, though it did. He tried to keep his voice even, conversational.
Get everything out of him, he thought, that's the only skill I have left.
"I think it did surprise you," Gallow said. "Your body betrays you in subtle ways. You and the C/P aren't the only ones trained in observation."
"Yes, well . . . I find it hard to believe that she'd go along with the Guemes massacre."
"She didn't know," Gallow said, "but she'll adjust. She's a very depressing woman when you get to know her. Very bitter. Did you know that there's a mirror on every wall in her quarters?"
"I've never been to her quarters."
"I have." Gallow's chest swelled with the statement. "No other man has. She raves about her ugliness, tears at her skin, contorts her face in the mirror until she can bear its natural form. Only then will she leave her room. Such a sad creature." Gallow shook his head and freshened his cup of wine.
"Such a sad human, you mean?" Keel asked.
"She doesn't consider herself human."
"Has she told you this?"
"Yes."
"Then she needs help. Friends around her. Someone to --"
"They only remind her of her ugliness," Gallow interrupted. "That's been tried. Pity, she has a succulent body under all those wraps. I am her friend because she considers me attractive, a model of what humanity could be. She wants no child to grow up ugly in an ugly world."
"She told you this?"
"Yes," Gallow said, "and more. I listen to her, Mr. Justice. You and your Committee, you tolerate her. And you lost her."
"It sounds like she was lost before I ever knew her."
Gallow's white smile returned. "You're right, of course," he said. "But there was a time when she could have been won. And I did it. You did not. That may shape the whole course of history."
"It may."
"You think your people will continue to revel in their deformities forever? Oh, no. They send their good children to us. You take in our rejects, our criminals and cripples. What kind of life can they build that way? Misery. Despair . . ." Gallow shrugged as though the matter were unarguable.
Keel didn't remember Islander life that way at all. It was crowded beyond Merman belief, true. Islands stank, also true. But there was incomparable color and music everywhere, always a good word. And who could explain to someone under the sea the incredible pleasure of sunrise, warm spring rain on face and hands, the constant small touchings of person to person that proved you were cared for merely by being alive.
"Mr. Justice," Gallow said, "you're not drinking your wine. Is the quality not to your liking?"
It's not the wine. Keel thought, but the company. Aloud, he said, "I have a stomach problem. I have to take my wine slow. I generally prefer boo."
"Boo?" Gallow's eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise. "That nerve-runner concoction? I thought it --"
"That only degenerates drank it? Perhaps. It's soothing, and to my taste even if it is dangerous to collect the eggs. I don't do the collecting." That's one he can relate to.
Gallow nodded, then his lips pressed into a firm, white line. "I heard that boo causes chromosome damage," he said. "Aren't you Islanders pushing your luck with that stuff?"
"Chromosome damage?" Keel snorted. He didn't even try to suppress a laugh. "Isn't that a little like roulette with a broken wheel?"
Keel sipped his wine and sat back to see Gallow fully. The look of disgust that shadowed the Merman's face told Keel that Gallow had been reached.
Anyone who can be reached can be probed. Keel thought. And anyone who can be probed can be had. His position on the Committee had taught him this.
"You can laugh at that?" Gallow's blue eyes blazed. "As long as you people breed, you endanger the whole species. What if . . . ?"
Keel raised his hand and his voice. "The Committee concerns itself with matters of 'what if,' Mr. Gallow. Any infant that carries an endangering trait is terminated. For a people trained in life-support, this is a most painful event. But it guarantees life to all the others. Tell me, Mr. Gallow, how can you be so sure that there are only harmful, ugly or useless mutations?"
"Look at yourself," Gallow said. "Your neck can't support your head without that . . . thing. Your eyes are on the sides of your head --"
"They're different colors, too," Keel said. "Did you know that there are more brown-eyed Mermen than blue-eyed by four to one? Doesn't that strike you as a mutation? You're blue-eyed. Should you, then, be sterilized or destroyed? We draw the line at mutations that actually endanger life. You prefer cosmetic genocide, it seems. Can you justify that to me? Can you be sure that we haven't 'bred' some secret weapons to meet the contingency you've presented us?"
Find his worst fears, Keel thought, and turn them on himself.
The clatter of loose dishes sounded from the hatchway and a small cart bounced over the threshold. The young man who pushed it stood in obvious awe of Gallow. His eyes took in every move his boss made and his hands shook as they distributed the dishes on a small folding table. He served the steaming food into bowls and Keel smelled the delicious tang of fish stew. When the steward finished laying out the bread and a small cake dessert he picked up a small dish of his own and spooned a taste of everything.
So, Keel thought, Gallow's afraid he's going to be poisoned. He was glad to see the orderly delicately taste Keel's portions, as well. Things are not going quite as Gallow would like us to believe. Keel couldn't let the moment pass.
"Do you taste to educate your palate?" he asked.
The orderly shot a quizzical look at Gallow and Gallow smiled back. "All men in power have enemies," he said. "Even yourself, I'm told. I choose to encourage protective habits."
"Protection from whom?"
Gallow was silent. The orderly's face paled.
"Very astute," Gallow said.
"By this you imply that murder is the current mode of political expression," Keel said. "Is this the new leadership you offer our world?"
Gallow's palm slapped the tabletop and the orderly dropped his bowl. It shattered. One shard of it skidded up to Keel's foot and spun there like an eccentric top winding down. Gallow dismissed the orderly with a sharp chop of his hand. The hatch closed quietly behind him.
Gallow threw down his spoon. It caught the edge of his bowl and splattered Keel with stew. Gallow dabbed at Keel's tunic with his cloth, leaning across the rickety table.
"My apologies, Mr. Justice," he said. "I'm generally not so boorish. You . . . excite me. Please, relax."
Keel nursed the ache in his knees and folded them under the short table.
Gallow tore a piece of bread from the loaf and handed Keel the rest.
"You have Scudi Wang prisoner?" Keel asked.
"Of course."
"And the young Islander, Norton?"
"He's with her. They are unharmed."
"It won't work," Keel said. "If you hinge your leadership on stealth and prisoners and murder then you set yourself up for a long reign of the same thing. No one wants to deal with a desperate man. Kings are made of better stuff."
Gallow's ears pricked at the word "king." Keel could see him trying it on his tongue.
"You're not eating, Mr. Justice."
"As I said before, I have a stomach problem."
"But you have to eat. How will you live?"
Keel smiled. "I won't."
Gallow set his spoon down carefully and dabbed at his lips with his cloth. He knit his smooth brow in an expression of concern.
"If you choose not to eat, you will be fed," Gallow warned. "Spare yourself that unpleasantry. You won't starve yourself out of my care."
"Choice has nothing to do with it," Keel said. "You snatched inferior merchandise. Eating causes pain, and the food merely passes undigested."
Gallow pushed himself back from the squat table.
"It's not catching, Mr. Ga
llow."
"What is it?"
"A defect," Keel said. "Our bioengineers helped me up to this point, but now the Greater Committee takes matters out of our hands."
"The Greater Committee?" Gallow asked. "You mean that there is a group topside more powerful than yours? A secret clan?"
Keel laughed, and the laugh added frustration and confusion to Gallow's otherwise perfect face.
"The Greater Committee goes by many names," Keel said. "They are a subversive bunch, indeed. Some call them Ship, some call them Jesus -- not the Jesus Lewis of your school-day histories. This is a difficult committee to confront, as you can see. It makes the threat of death at your hands not much of a threat at all."
"You're . . . dying?"
Keel nodded. "No matter what you do," he said, smiling, "the world will believe that you killed me."
Gallow stared at Keel for a long blink, then blotted his lips with the napkin. He extricated himself from the table.
"In that case," Gallow announced, "if you want to save those kids, you'll do exactly as I say."
. . . it comes to pass that the same evils and inconveniences take place in all ages of history.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses, Shiprecords
From his position at the foil's controls, Brett watched the late afternoon sun kindle a glow in the cloud bank ahead of him. The foil drove easily across deep storm swells, picking up speed on each downslope, losing a bit on each advancing wave. It was a rhythm that Brett had come to understand without conscious attention. His body and senses adjusted.
A gray wall of rain skulked a couple of hundred meters above the wavetops to the right. A line storm, it appeared to be rolling away from them.
Brett, his attention divided between the course monitor above him and the seas ahead, abruptly throttled back. The foil dropped off its step and moved with minimal headway beside a kelp bed that stretched away into the storm track.
The change in motion aroused the others, who, except for Bushka and the captive Merman, whom Bushka had locked in the cargo bay with the survivors of the LTA, were sprawled around the cabin catching what rest they could. Bushka sat in regal isolation on the couch at the rear of the cabin, his eyes oddly indrawn, his face a mask of concentration as he stroked a fragment of kelp that lay across his lap. The bit of kelp had come up from the sea on Twisp's rescue line and had attracted little attention until Bushka plucked it off and kept it.
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