A foot scraped the deck as Bushka shifted his weight. "According to Gallow, they did it without word topside."
Silence settled between them for a time. Twisp kept his attention on the guiding arrow, a red glowing pointer. How could some of the things Bushka said be believed? The barrier above the sea was real, though. And there was no doubt Bushka had run-for-it fever - something truly big and ugly chased him.
For his part, Bushka lay prisoned in his own thoughts. I should've had the guts to kill them. But the thing Gallow represented was bigger than Gallow. No mistaking that. To a historian, it was a familiar pattern. Ship's surviving records reported a plenitude of violence, leaders who tried to solve human problems by mass killing. Until the madness of Guemes, Bushka had thought such things distantly unreal. Now, he knew the madness, a thing with teeth and shadows.
Pale dawn lightened the wavetops and revealed Twisp working over a small cooking burner on the seat beside him. Bushka wondered whether, in the growing clarity of daylight, Twisp might not rather foreclose on the loan of the kid's shirt and pants.
Seeing Bushka's attention on him, Twisp asked, "Coffee?"
"Thanks." Then: "How could I have been that blind and ignorant?"
Twisp stared at Bushka silently for a while, then asked, simply, "Going along with them, or letting them go?"
Bushka coughed and cleared his throat. His mouth felt full of lint as soon as he swallowed the hot coffee.
I'm still afraid, he thought. He looked up at Twisp, cooling his coffee at the tiller. "I've never been that afraid," he said.
Twisp nodded. The signs of fear on Bushka were easily read. Fear and ignorance drifted the same currents. There would be anger soon, when the fear receded. For now, though, Bushka's mind was chewing on itself.
"Pride, that's what made me do it," Bushka said. "I wanted Gallow's story, history in the making, political ferment - a powerful movement among the Mermen. One of their best took a liking to me. He knew I'd work hard. He knew how grateful I'd be ..."
"What if this Gallow and his crew are dead?" Twisp asked. "You scuttled their sub and only you are left to say what happened at Guemes."
"I tell you, I made sure they could escape!"
Twisp suppressed a grim smile. The anger was beginning to surface.
Bushka studied Twisp's face in the gray light. The fisherman was dark in the way of many Islanders who worked out in the weather. Vagrant breezes whipped Twisp's shaggy brown hair across his eyes. A two days' growth of beard shadowed his jaws and caught an occasional strand of hair. Everything in the man's manner - the steady movement of his eyes, the set of his mouth - spoke to Bushka of strength and resolution. Bushka envied the untroubled clarity in Twisp's gaze. Bushka was sure that no mirror would ever again return such clarity to his own eyes - not after the Guemes massacre. Bushka could see his own death in that butchery.
How could anybody believe I didn't know what was happening until it happened? How can I believe it?
"They tricked me good," Bushka said. "And oh, was I ready! I was all ready to trick myself."
"Most people know what it's like to be tricked," Twisp agreed. His voice was flat and almost devoid of emotion. It kept Bushka talking.
"I won't sleep for the rest of my life," Bushka muttered.
Twisp looked away at the surging sea around them. He didn't like the note of self-pity in Bushka's tone.
"What about the survivors of Guemes?" He spoke flatly. "What about their dreams?"
Bushka stared at Twisp in the growing light. A good man trying to save a partner's life. Bushka scrunched his eyes tightly closed but the images of Guemes imprinted themselves on his eyelids.
His eyes snapped open.
Twisp was staring intently off to the right ahead of them.
"Where's this Launch Base we're supposed to see at dawn?"
"It'll show before long."
Bushka stared at the lowering sky ahead of them. And when the Launch Base did show ... what then? The question tightened a band around his chest. Would the Mermen believe? Even if they did believe, would they act on that belief in a way to protect Islanders?
***
Never trust a great man's love.
- Islander proverb
Keel looked down from the observation platform onto a nightmare scene of controlled pandemonium - rescue sleds wallowed into a small docking basin, coming through hatches lining the far wall of the courtyard below him. This was no nightmare, Keel reminded himself. Triage teams moved among the human shapes that littered the deck. Trauma teams conducted emergency surgery on the scene while other survivors were carried or carted off. The dead, and Keel had never imagined that much death, were stacked like the meat they were against the wall to his left. A long, oval port above the hatches gave a sea view of the arriving rescue sledges queued up and waiting their turns at the hatches. Trauma teams serviced these, too, as best they could.
Behind Keel, Brett uttered a sharp gasp as the shreds of someone's lower jaw tumbled to the deck from a body bag in transit to the mounting pile of similar bags against the wall. Scudi, standing beside Brett, shook with silent sobs.
Keel felt numb. He began to understand why Kareen Ale had sent Scudi to fetch him and Brett. Ale had not really grasped the enormity of this tragedy. Seeing it, she had wanted Islander witnesses to the fact that Mermen were doing everything physically possible for the survivors.
And she'll bring up the dirty work of the dead, he thought.
Keel glimpsed Ale's red hair among the medics working over the few survivors scattered across the courtyard. From the piles of dead, it was obvious that survivors were not even meeting the odds of pure chance. They were a tiny minority.
Scudi moved up beside him, her attention fixed on the deck below them. "So many," she whispered.
"How did it happen?" Brett demanded, speaking from beside Keel's left elbow.
Keel nodded. Yes, that was the real question. He did not want to conjecture on the matter, he wanted to be certain.
"So many," Scudi repeated, louder this time.
"The last census put Guemes at ten thousand souls," Keel said. This statement surprised him even as it escaped his mouth. Souls. The teachings of Ship did come to the surface in a crisis.
Keel knew he should assert himself, use the power of his position to demand answers. He owed it to the others if not to himself. The C/P would be after him the minute he returned, for one thing. Rocksack still had family on Guemes, of this Keel was certain. She would be angry, terribly angry in spite of her training, and she would be a force to reckon with.
If I return.
Keel felt sickened by the sight on the deck below him. He noted Scudi swiping at her tears. Her eyes were red and swollen. Yes, she had been helping down there, right in the middle of it, during the worst pressures.
"No need for you to stay here with me, Scudi," Keel said. "If they need you down -"
"I've been relieved of duty," she said. She shuddered, but her gaze remained on the receiving area.
Keel, too, could not take his attention from that scene of carnage. The receiving area had been cordoned off into sections by color-coded ropes. Emergency medical teams worked throughout the area, bending over pale flesh, moving patients onto litters for transfer.
A squad of Mermen entered from beneath the platform where Keel stood with Brett and Scudi. The Mermen began sorting through the sacks of bodies, opening them to attempt identification. Some of the bags contained only shreds and pieces of flesh and bone. The identification teams moved in a businesslike fashion, but where their jaws were visible, Keel detected clenched muscles. All of them appeared pale, even for Mermen. Several of the workers took pictures of faces and identifying marks. Others made notes on a portable trans-slate. Keel recognized the device. Ale had tried to interest his Committee in this system, but he had seen it as another way to keep the Islands in economic bondage. "Everything you write on the transmitter-slate is sorted and stored in the computer," Ale had said.
A man cleared his throat behind Keel. Keel turned to find Lonfinn and another Merman standing there. Lonfinn carried a plaz box under his left arm.
"Mr. Justice," Lonfinn said. "This is Miller Hastings of Registration."
In contrast to the dark, heavyset Lonfinn, Hastings was a tall, dark-haired man with a thick lower jaw and unwavering blue eyes. Both men wore crisp Merman suits of plain gray cloth - the kind of smoothly pressed and well-tended clothing Keel had come to identify with the worst Merman officiousness.
Hastings had turned his attention to Brett standing a few steps to one side. "We were told we would find a Brett Norton up here," Hastings said. "There are a few formalities ... for yourself, too, I'm afraid, Mr. Justice."
Scudi moved behind Keel and took Brett's hand, an action that Keel's wide peripheral vision took in with some surprise. She was clearly frightened.
Hastings focused on Keel's mouth. "Our job, Mr. Justice, is to help you adjust to this tragic -"
"Shit!" Keel said.
Brett wondered whether he had heard correctly. The look of surprise on Hastings' face made it apparent that the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Committee on Vital Forms had, indeed, said "Shit." Brett looked at the Chief Justice's face. Keel had positioned himself with one eye on the two Mermen and the other eye still looking down on that bloody deck below them. It was a split of attention that appeared to disconcert the two Mermen. Brett found it natural; everyone knew that some Islanders could do this.
Hastings made another try: "We know this is difficult, Mr. Justice, but we are prepared for such matters and have developed procedures, which -"
"Have the decency to leave before I lose my temper," Keel said. His voice betrayed no sign of a quaver.
Hastings glanced at the plaz box under Lonfinn's arm, then at Brett.
"Hostility is an expected reaction," Hastings said. "But the sooner we overcome that barrier, the sooner -"
"I say it plain," Keel said, "leave us. We have nothing to say to you."
The Mermen exchanged glances. The looks on their faces told Brett that this pair had no intention of leaving.
"The young man should speak for himself," Hastings said. His tone was even and cordial. "What do you say, Brett Norton? Just a few formalities."
Brett swallowed. Scudi's hand in his felt slick with perspiration. Her fingers were tense sticks clenched between his own. What was Keel doing? More important, perhaps: Could Keel get away with it? Keel was an Islander and a powerful one, someone to admire. This was not the Island, however. Brett squared his shoulders in sudden decision. "Stuff your formalities," he said. "Any decent person would come another time."
Hastings let out a long breath slowly, almost a sigh. His face darkened and he started to speak but Keel cut him short.
"What the young man is saying," Keel said, "is that it's pretty insensitive of you to come here with your formalities while your cousins stack the bodies of our cousins against that wall down there."
The silence between the two groups became stiff. Brett could find no particular familial feeling toward the mangled dead being brought in from the depths, but he decided that the Mermen didn't need to know this.
Them and us.
But there was still Scudi's hand in his. Brett felt that the only Merman he could trust might be Scudi ... and perhaps that medic in the passageway, Shadow Panille. Panille had clear eyes and ... he cared.
"We didn't kill those people," Hastings said. "Please note, Mr. Justice, that we have gotten right down to the dirty work of bringing them in, identifying the dead, helping the survivors -"
"How noble of you," Keel said. "I was wondering how long it would take to get down to this. You haven't mentioned your fee, of course."
Both Mermen looked grim but they did not appear particularly flustered.
"Someone has to pay," Hastings said. "No one topside has the facilities to -"
"So you pick up the dead," Keel said. "And their families topside pay for your trouble. With a tidy profit for certain contractors, too."
"Nobody expects to work for nothing," Hastings said.
Keel rolled one eye toward Brett, then back. "And when you rescue a live fisherman, you find a way to accommodate him, keeping a close account of the expenses, naturally."
"I don't want anything for my part," Scudi said. Her eyes flashed anger at both Keel and Hastings.
"I respect that, Scudi," Keel said. "I wasn't indicting you. But your fellow Mermen here have a different viewpoint. Brett has no fishing gear to seize, no nets or sonar or beaten-up boat. How will he pay for his life? Ten years of chopping onions in a Merman kitchen?"
Hastings said, "Really, Mr. Justice, I don't understand your reluctance to make matters easier."
"I was lured here under false pretenses," Keel said. "I haven't been out of sight of my ... hosts ... long enough to spit." He pointed to the view port across from them. "Look there!" He lowered his pointing finger to indicate the deck below. "Those bodies are shredded, burned, cut to pieces. Guemes was assaulted! I think a reconstruction will show that it was assaulted from below by a hardshell sub."
For the first time, Hastings appeared as though he might lose control. His eyes squinted and his brows drew down over his beak of a nose. His jaw clenched and he hissed between his teeth: "See here! I'm only doing what Merman law requires me to do. In my judgment -"
"Oh, please," Keel interrupted, "judgment is my job and I'm experienced in it. To me, you look like a pair of leeches. I don't like leeches. Please leave us."
"Since you are who you are," Hastings said, "I will accept that for the moment. This boy, however -"
"Has me here to look out for his interests," Keel said. "This is not the time nor the place for your services."
Lonfinn stepped to one side, casually blocking the exit passage from the observation platform.
"The boy will answer for himself," Hastings said.
"The Justice asked you to leave," Brett said.
Scudi squeezed Brett's hand and said, "Please. I will be responsible for them. Ambassador Ale sent me personally to bring them here. Your presence is disruptive."
Hastings looked her in the eyes as though he wanted to say, "Big talk for a little girl," but he swallowed it. His right index finger indicated the plaz box under Lonfinn's arm, then dropped. "Very well," he said. "We were trying to smooth out the red tape but the situation is difficult." He shot a quick glance at the congested deck below them. "However, I am required to escort you back to Ryan Wang's quarters. It may have been a mistake to bring you here."
"I find it agreeable to leave," Keel said. "I've seen enough." His voice was once more smooth and diplomatic.
Brett heard the double meaning in Keel's statement and thought, That old spinnarett has a web or two left in him.
The thought stayed with Brett as they returned to Wang's spacious quarters. It had been wise to follow the Chief Justice's lead. Even Scudi had fallen in with Keel. She had kept her hand in Brett's most of the way back to her father's quarters, in spite of disapproving little glances from Hastings and Lonfinn. Her hand in his conveyed a feeling of closeness that Brett enjoyed.
Once inside the plush room of colored cushions, Keel said, "Thank you, gentlemen. I'm sure we can contact you if you're needed."
"You'll hear from us," Hastings said before he sealed the hatch behind him.
Keel crossed to the hatch and pressed the switch but nothing happened. The hatch stayed sealed. He glanced at Scudi.
"Those men worked for my father," she said. "I don't like them." She slipped her hand from Brett's and crossed to a dark red cushion where she sat with her chin on her knees and her arms clasped around her legs. The yellow-and-green stripes along her singlesuit curved as she curved.
"Brett," Keel said, "I will speak openly, because one of us may be able to get back topside to warn the other Islands. My suspicions are being confirmed at every turn. I believe our Island wa
y of life is about to be drowned in a shallow sea."
Scudi lifted her chin and stared up at him with dismay. Brett could not find his voice.
Keel looked down at Scudi, thinking how her pose reminded him of a many-legged mollusk that rolled up into a tight ball when disturbed.
"The popular teaching," Keel said, "is that Island life is just temporary until we get back to the land."
"But Guemes ..." Brett said. He could not get further.
"Yes, Guemes," Keel said.
"No!" Scudi blurted. "Mermen couldn't have done that! We protect the Islands!"
"I believe you, Scudi," Keel said. His neck pained him but he lifted his great head the way he did when passing judgment in his own court. "Things are happening that the people are not aware of ... the people topside and the people down under."
Scudi asked Keel, "You really think Mermen did this?"
"We must reserve judgment until all the evidence is gathered," he said. "Nevertheless, it seems the most likely possibility."
Scudi shook her head. Brett saw sorrow and rejection there.
"Mermen wouldn't do such a thing," she whispered.
"It's not the Merman government," Keel said. "Principles of government sometimes take one course while people take another - a political double standard. And perhaps neither really controls events."
What's he saying? Brett wondered.
Keel continued: "Mermen and Islanders both have tolerated only the loosest kind of government. I am Chief Justice of a most powerful arm of that government - the one that says whether the newborn of our Islands will live or die. It pleases some to call me Chairman and others to call me Chief Justice. I do not feel that I dispense justice."
"I can't believe anyone would just eliminate the Islands," Scudi said.
"Someone certainly eliminated Guemes," Keel said. One sad eye drifted toward Brett, the other remained focused on Scudi. "It should be investigated, don't you think?"
"Yes." She nodded against her knees.
"It would be good to have inside help," Keel said. "On the other hand, I would not want to endanger anyone who helped me."
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