The head nodded slightly, and the voice slurped, "Yes. Yes, that would be most helpful. I will make arrangements through our offices. Thank you for your time, Committee."
The screen went blank before Keel could respond. Amid the mutterings of his colleagues he found himself wondering, What the devil is she up to? He knew that it must deal with the Mermen somehow, and the itch between his shoulder blades told him it was more serious than this conversation suggested.
We'll find out how serious soon enough, he thought. If it's bad, the appointment will be for me alone.
Ward Keel had done a little psychiatric study himself and he was not one to waste a skill. He resolved to be particularly attentive to detail when he met later with Kareen Ale. The C/P's intrusion coincided with the Merman ambassador's appointment too well - surely more than coincidence.
Actually, I think I'll cancel the appointment, he thought, and make a few calls. This meeting had best be on my time, on my turf.
How cruel of Ship to leave everything we need circling out of reach above us while this terrible planet kills us off one by one. Six births last nightside, all mutant. Two survive.
- Hali Ekel, the Journals
Feeling the warmth of the suns through the open hatch, Iz Bushka rubbed the back of his neck and shook himself. It was as close as he could let his body get to a shudder in the presence of Gallow and the other men of this Merman submersible crew.
Pride made me accept Gallow's invitation, Bushka decided. Pride and curiosity - food for the ego. He thought it odd that someone, even someone as egocentric as Gallow, would want a "personal historian." Bushka felt the need for caution all around him.
The Merman sub they occupied was familiar enough. He had visited aboard Merman subs before when they docked at Vashon. They were strange craft, all of their equipment hard and unforgiving - dials and handles and glowing instruments. As a historian, Bushka knew these Merman craft were not much different from those constructed by Pandora's first colonists before the infamous Time of Madness that some called the "Night of Fire."
"Quite a bit different from your Islander subs, eh?" Gallow asked.
"Different, yes," Bushka said, "but similar enough that I could run it."
Gallow cocked an eyebrow, as if measuring Bushka for a different suit. "I was on one of your Islander subs once," Gallow said. "They stink."
Bushka had to admit the organics that formed and powered Islander submersibles did give off a certain odor reminiscent of sewage. It was the nutrient, of course.
Gallow sat at the sub's controls to one side and ahead of Bushka, holding the craft steady on the surface. The space around them was larger than anything Bushka had seen in an Islander sub. But he had to avoid bumping into hard edges. Bushka had already collected bruises from hatch rims, seat arms and the handles of compartment doors.
The sea was producing a long swell today, gentle by Islander standards. Just a little wash and slap against the hull.
They had not been long into this "little excursion," as Gallow called it, before Bushka began to suspect that he was in actual danger - ultimate danger. He had the persistent feeling that these people would kill him if he didn't measure up. And it was left to him to find out what "measuring up" might mean.
Gallow was planning some kind of revolution against the Merman government, that much was clear from the idle chatter. "The Movement," he called it. Gallow and his "Green Dashers" and his Launch Base One. "All mine," he said. It was so explicit and unmistakable that Bushka felt the ages-old fear that crept up on those who'd dared record history while it happened all down the ages. It had a sweaty side.
Gallow and his men were revealed as conspirators who had talked too much in the presence of an ex-Islander.
Why did they do that?
It was not because they truly considered him one of their own - too much innuendo indicated otherwise. And they didn't know him well enough to trust him, even as Gallow's personal historian. Bushka was sure of that. The answer lay there, obvious to someone of Bushka's training - all of that historical precedent upon which to draw.
They did it to trap me.
The rest of it was just as obvious. If he were implicated in Gallow's scheme - whatever that turned out to be - then he would be Gallow's man forever because it would be the only place he could go. Gallow did indeed want a captive historian in his service, and maybe more. He wanted to go down in history on his own terms. He wanted to be history. Gallow had made it clear that he had researched Bushka -"the best Islander historian."
Young and lacking some practical experience, that was how Gallow rated him, Bushka realized. Something to be molded. And there was the terrifying attractiveness of that other appeal.
"We are the true humans," Gallow said.
And point by point, he had compared Bushka's appearance to the norm, concluding: "You're one of us. You're not a Mute."
One of us. There was power in that ... particularly to an Islander, and particularly if Gallow's conspiracy succeeded.
But I'm a writer, Bushka reminded himself. I'm not some romantic character in an adventure story. History had taught him how dangerous it was for writers to mix themselves up with their characters - or historians with their subjects.
The sub took an erratic motion and Bushka knew someone must be undogging the exterior hatch.
Gallow asked, "Are you sure that you could run this sub?"
"Of course. The controls are obvious."
"Are they, really?"
"I watched you. Islander subs have some organic equivalents. And I do have a master's rating, Gallow."
"GeLaar, please," Gallow said. He unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat, stood up and moved aside. "We are companions, Iz. Companions use first names."
Bushka slid into the pilot's seat at Gallow's gesture and scanned the controls. He pointed to them one by one, calling out their functions to Gallow: "Trim, ballast, propulsion, forward-reverse and throttles, fuel mixture, hydrogen conversion control, humidity injector and atmospheric control - the meters and gauges are self-explanatory. More?"
"Very good, Iz," Gallow said. "You are even more of a jewel than I had hoped. Strap in. You are now our pilot."
Realizing he had been drawn even further into Gallow's conspiracy, Bushka obeyed. The flutter in his stomach increased noticeably.
Again, the sub moved erratically. Bushka flicked a switch and focused a sensor above the exterior hatch. The screen above him showed Tso Zent and behind him, the scarred face of Gulf Nakano. Those two were living examples of deceptive looks. Zent had been introduced as Gallow's primary strategist "and of course, my chief assassin."
Bushka had stared at the chief assassin, taken aback by the title. Zent was smooth-skinned and schoolboy-innocent in appearance, until you saw the hard antagonism in his small brown eyes. The wrinkle-free flesh had that soft deceptiveness of someone powerfully muscled by much swimming. An airfish scar puckered at his neck. Zent was one of those Mermen who preferred the fish to the air tanks - an interesting insight.
Then there was Nakano - a giant with hulking shoulders and arms as thick as some human torsos, his face twisted and scarred by burns from a Merman rocket misfiring. Gallow had already told Bushka the story twice, and Bushka got the impression that he'd hear it again. Nakano allowed a few wispy beard hairs to grow from the tip of his scarred chin; otherwise he was hairless, the burn scars prominent on his scalp, neck and shoulders.
"I saved his life," Gallow had said, speaking in Nakano's presence as though the man were not there. "He will do anything for me."
But Bushka had found evidence of human warmth in Nakano - a hand outstretched to protect the new companion from falling. There was even a sense of humor.
"We measure sub experience by counting bruises," Nakano had said, smiling shyly. His voice was husky and a bit slurred.
There was certainly no warmth or humor in Zent.
"Writers are dangerous," he'd said when Gallow explained Bushka's function. "They speak out of turn."
"Writing history while it happens is always dangerous business," Gallow agreed. "But no one else will see what Iz writes until we are ready - that's an advantage."
It had been at this point that Bushka fully realized the peril of his position. They had been in the sub, seventy klicks from the Merman base, anchored on the fringes of a huge kelp bed. Both Gallow and Zent had that irritating habit of speaking about him as though he were not present.
Bushka glanced at Gallow, who stood, back to the pilot's couch, peering out one of the small plazglas ports at whatever it was that Zent and Nakano were making ready out there. The grace and beauty of Gallow had taken on a new dimension for Bushka, who had marked Gallow's deep fear of disfiguring accidents. Nakano was a living example of what Gallow feared most.
Another chanted notation went into Bushka's "true history," the one he elected to keep only in his mind in the ages-old Islander fashion. Much of Islander history was carried in memorized chants, rhythms that projected themselves naturally, phrase by phrase. Paper was fugitive on the Islands, subject to rot, and where could it be stored that the container itself would not eat it? Permanent records were confined to plazbooks and the memories of chanters. Plazbooks were only for the bureaucracy or the very rich. Anyone could memorize a chant.
"GeLaar fears the scars of Time," Bushka chanted to himself. "Time is Age and Age is Time. Not the death but the dying."
If only they knew, Bushka thought. He brought a notepad from his pocket and scribbled four innocuous lines on it for Gallow's official history - date, time, place, people.
Zent and Nakano entered the cabin without speaking. Sea water slopped all around them as they took up positions in seats beside Bushka. They began a run-through on the sub's sensory apparatus. Both men moved smoothly and silently, grotesque figures in green-striped, skin-tight dive suits. "Camouflage," had been Gallow's response to Bushka's unasked question when he first saw them.
Gallow watched with quiet approval until the check-list had been run, men said, "Get us under way, Iz. Course three hundred and twenty-five degrees. Hold us just beneath wave turbulence."
"Check."
Bushka complied, feeling the unused power in the craft as he gentled it into position. Energy conservation was second nature to an Islander and he trimmed out as much by instinct as by the instruments.
"Sweet," Gallow commented. He glanced at Zent. "Didn't I tell you?"
Zent didn't respond, but Nakano smiled at Bushka. "You'll have to teach me how you do that," he said. "So smooth."
"Sure."
Bushka concentrated on the controls, familiarizing himself with them, sensing the minute responses transmitted from water to control surface to his hands. The latent power in this Merman craft was tempting. Bushka could feel how it might respond at full thrust. It would gulp fuel, though, and the hydrogen engines would heat.
Bushka decided he preferred Islander subs. Organics were supple, living-warm. They were smaller, true, and vulnerable to the accidents of flesh, but there was something addictive about the interdependence, life depending on life. Islanders didn't go blundering about down under. An Islander sub could be thought of as just big valves and muscle tissue - essentially a squid without a brain, or guts. But it gave a pulsing ride, soothing and noiseless - none of this humming and clicking and metal throbbing, none of these hard vibrations in the teeth.
Gallow spoke from close to Bushka's ear: "Let's get more moisture in the air, Iz. You want us all to dry out?"
"Here." Nakano pointed at a dial and alphanumerical readout above Bushka's head on the sloping curve of the hull. A red "21" showed on the air-moisture repeater. "We like it above forty percent."
Bushka increased humidity in gentle increments, thinking that here was another Merman vulnerability. Unless they became acclimated to topside existence - in the diplomatic corps or some commercial enterprise - Mermen suffered from dry air; cracked skin, lung damage, bloody creases in exposed soft tissues.
Gallow touched Zent's shoulder. "Give us the mark on Guemes Island."
Zent scanned the navigation instruments while Bushka studied the man furtively. What was this? Why did they want to locate Guemes? It was one of the poorest Islands - barely big enough to support ten thousand souls just above the lip of malnutrition. Why was Gallow interested in it?
"Grid and vector five," Zent said. "Two eighty degrees, eight kilometers." He punched a button. "Mark." The navigation screen above them came alight with green lines: grid squares and a soft blob in one of them.
"Swing us around to two hundred and eighty degrees, Iz," Gallow said. "We're going fishing."
Fishing? Bushka wondered. Subs could be rigged for fishing but this one carried none of the usual equipment. He didn't like the way Zent chuckled at Gallow's comment.
"The Movement is about to make its mark on history," Gallow announced. "Observe and record, Iz."
The Movement, Bushka thought. Gallow always named it in capital letters and frequently with quotation marks, as though he saw it already printed in a plazbook. When Gallow spoke of "The Movement," Bushka could sense the resources behind it, with nameless supporters and political influence in powerful places.
Responding to Gallow's orders, Bushka kicked the dive planes out of their locks, checked the range detectors for obstructions, scanned the trim display and the forward screen. It had become almost automatic. The sub glided into an easy descent as it came around on course.
"Depth vector coming up," Zent said, smiling at Bushka. Bushka noted the smile in the reflections of the screens and made a mental note. Zent must know it irritated a pilot to read his instruments aloud that way without being asked. Nobody likes being told what they already know.
Cabin air getting sticky, Bushka noted. His topside lungs found the high humidity stifling. He backed off the moisture content, wondering if they would object to thirty-five percent. He locked on course.
"On course," Zent said, still smiling.
"Zent, why don't you go play with yourself?" Bushka asked. He leveled the dive planes and locked them.
"I don't take orders from writers," Zent said.
"Now, boys," Gallow intervened, but there was amusement in his voice.
"Books lie," Zent muttered.
Nakano, wearing the hydrophone headset, lifted one earphone. "Lots of activity," he said. "I count more than thirty fishing boats."
"A hot spot," Gallow said.
"There's radio chatter from the Island, too," Nakano reported. "And music. That's one thing I'll miss - Islander music."
"Is it any good?" Zent asked.
"No lyrics, but you could dance to it," Nakano said.
Bushka shot a questioning look at Gallow.
What did Nakano mean, he would miss Islander music?
"Steady on course," Gallow said.
Zent took over Nakano's headphones and said, "GeLaar, you said Guemes Islanders were damned near floating morons. I thought they didn't have much radio."
"Guemes has lost almost half a kilometer in diameter since I started watching it last year," Gallow said. "Their bubbly's starving. They're so poor they can't afford to feed their Island."
"Why are we here?" Bushka asked. "If they only have low-grade radio and malnutrition, what good are they to The Movement?" Bushka experienced a bad feeling about all this. A very bad feeling. Are they trying to set me up? Make the Islander a patsy for some of their dirty work?
"A perfect first demonstration," Gallow said. "They're traditionalists, hard-core fanatics. I'll give 'em credit for one piece of good sense. When other Islands suggest it might be time to move down under, Guemes sends out delegations to stop it."
Was that Gallow's secret? Bushka wondered. Did he want all the Islanders to stay strictly topside?
"Traditionalists," Gallow repeated. "That means they wait for us to build land for them. They think we like them so much we'll make them the gift of a couple of continents. Keep toting that rock, slapping that mud! Plant that kelp!"
The three Mermen laughed and Bushka smiled in response. He didn't feel like smiling at all, but there was nothing else to do.
"Things would go much easier if Islanders would learn to live the way we do," Nakano said.
"All of them?" Zent asked.
Bushka noted a growing tension as Nakano failed to respond to Zent's question.
Presently, Gallow said, "Only the right ones, Gulf."
"Only the right ones," Nakano agreed, but there was no force in his voice.
"Damned religious troublemakers," Gallow blurted. "You've seen the missionaries from Guemes, Iz?"
"When our Islands have been on proximate drifts," Bushka said. "Any excuse for visiting is a good one, then. Mixing and visiting is a happy time."
"And we're always pulling your little boats out of the sea or giving you a tow," Zent said. "For that you want us to keep slopping mud!"
"Tso," Gallow said, patting Zent's shoulder, "Iz is one of us now."
"We can't get this foolishness under control any too soon for me," Zent said. "There's no reason for anyone to live anywhere but down under. We're already set up."
Bushka marked this comment but wondered at it. He felt Gallow's hatred of Guemes but the Mermen were saying that everyone should live down under.
Everyone living as rich as the Mermen? There was some sadness to that thought. What would we lose of the old Islander ways? He glanced up at Gallow. "Guemes, are we ... ?"
"It was a mistake to elevate a Guemian to C/P," Gallow said. "Guemians never see things our way."
"Island on visual," Zent reported.
"Half speed," Gallow ordered.
Bushka complied. He felt the reduction in speed as an easing of the vibration against his spine.
"What's our vertical relationship?" Gallow asked.
"We're coming in about thirty meters below their keel," Zent said. "Shit! They don't even have outwatchers. Look, no small boats at all ahead of their drift."
"It's a wonder they're still in one piece," Nakano said. Bushka caught a wry edge to the statement that he didn't quite understand.
"Set us directly under their keel, Iz," Gallow said.
What are we doing here? Bushka wondered as he obeyed the order. The forward display screen showed the bulbous lower extremity of Guemes - a thick red-brown extrusion of bubbly with starved sections streaming from it. Yes, Guemes was in bad condition. They were starving essential parts of their Island. Bushka inhaled quick, shallow breaths of the thick moist air. The Merman sub was too close for simple observation. And this was not the way you approached an Island for a visit.
"Drop us down another fifty meters," Gallow ordered.
Bushka obeyed, using the descent propulsion system and automatically adjusting trim. He felt proud that the sub remained straight and level as it settled. The upward display, set wide-angle, showed the entire Island as a dark shadow against the surface light. A ring of small boats dappled its edges like beads in a necklace. Bushka estimated that Guemes was no more than six klicks in diameter at the waterline. He put the depth at three hundred meters. Long strips of organics floated dreamlike in the currents around the Island. Entire bulkheads of bubbly blackened the surrounding water with dead-rot. Thatchings of thin membranous material patched the holes.
Probably spinneret webbing.
Bushka saw raw sewage pumping out of a valve off to his right, sure evidence that the Guemes nutrient plant had suffered a major breakdown.
"Can you imagine how that place smells?" Zent asked.
"Very nice on a hot day," Gallow said.
"Guemes needs help," Bushka offered.
"And they're going to get it," Zent said.
"Look at all the fish around them," Nakano said. "I'll bet the fishing's real good right now." He pointed at the upward display as a giant scrubberfish, almost two meters long, floated past the external sensor. Half of the fish's whiskers had been nibbled away and the one visible eye socket was empty and white.
"It's so rotten around here that even the scrapfish are dying," Zent said.
"If the Island's this sick, you can bet the people are in sad shape," Nakano added.
Bushka felt his face get red, and pressed his lips shut tight.
"Those boats all around, maybe they're not fishing," Zent said. "Maybe they're living on their boats."
"This whole Island is a menace," Gallow said. "There must be all kinds of diseases up there. There's probably an epidemic in the whole system of organics."
"Who could live in shit and not be sick?" Zent asked.
Bushka nodded to himself. He thought he had figured out what Gallow was doing here.
He's brought the sub in close to confirm their desperate need for help.
"Why can't they see the obvious?" Nakano asked. He patted the hull beside him. "Our subs don't need nutrient slopped all over them. They don't rot or oxidize. They don't get sick or make us sick ..."
Gallow, watching the upward display, tapped Bushka's shoulder. "Down another fifteen meters, Iz. We still have plenty of room under us."
Bushka complied and again it was that smooth, steady descent that brought an admiring look from Nakano.
"I don't see how Islanders can live under those conditions." Zent shook his head. "Sweating out weather, food, dashers, disease - any one of a hundred mistakes that would send the whole pack of them to the bottom."
"They've made that mistake, now, haven't they, Tso?" Gallow asked.
Nakano pointed at a corner of the upward display. "There's nothing but some kind of membrane where their driftwatch should be."
Bushka looked and saw a dark patch of spinnarett webbing where the large corneal bubble should have been, the observer tucked safely behind it watching for shallows, coordinating with the outwatchers. No driftwatch - Guemes probably had lost its course-correction system, too. They were in terrible condition! Guemes would probably do anything for the offer of help.
"The corneal bubble has died," Bushka told them. "They've patched it over with spinnarett webbing to keep watertight."
"How long do they think they can drift blind before scraping bottom someplace?" Nakano muttered. There was anger in his voice.
"They're probably up there praying like mad for Ship to come help them," Zent sneered.
"Or they're praying for us to stabilize the sea and bring back their precious continents," Gallow said. "And now that we're getting it whipped, they'll be crying about bottoming out on the land we've built. Well, let 'em pray. They can pray to us!" Gallow reached over Zent's shoulder and flipped a switch.
Bushka scanned the displays - up, down, forward, aft the sub's complement of tools sprang out of their hull sheaths all glittering and sharp - deadly.
So that's what Zent and Nakano had been doing out there topside! Iz realized. They'd been checking manipulators and mechanical arms. Bushka scanned them once more: trenchers, borers, tampers, cutters, a swing-boom and the forward heliarc welder on its articulated arm. They gleamed brightly in the wash of the exterior lights.
"What are you doing?" Bushka asked. He tried to swallow but his throat was too dry in spite of the humidity.
Zent snorted.
Bushka felt repelled by the look on Zent's face - a smile that touched only the corners of his mouth, no humor at all in those bottomless eyes.
Gallow gripped Bushka's shoulder with a powerful and painful pressure. "Take us up, Iz."
Bushka glanced left and right. Nakano was flexing his powerful hands and watching a sensor screen. Zent held a small needle burner with its muzzle carelessly pointed at Bushka's chest.
"Up," Gallow repeated, emphasizing the order with increased pressure on Bushka's shoulder.
"But we'll cut right through them," Bushka said. He felt his breath pumping against the back of his throat. The awareness of what Gallow intended almost gagged him. "They won't have a chance without their Island. The ones who don't drown right away will drift in their boats until they starve!"
"Without the Island's filtration system, chances are they'll die of thirst before they starve," Gallow said. "They'd die anyway, look at them. Up!"
Zent waved the needle burner casually and pressed his left phone tighter to his ear.
Bushka ignored the needle burner's threat. "Or dashers will get them!" he protested. "Or a storm!"
"Hold it," Zent said, leaning toward his left earphone while he pressed it harder. "I'm getting free sonics of some kind ... a sweeping pulse from the membrane, I think ..." Zent screamed and tore the earphone from his head. Blood trickled from his nostrils.
"Take it up, damn you!" Gallow shouted.
Nakano kicked the locks off the dive planes and reached across Bushka to blow the tanks. The sub's nose tipped upward.
Bushka reacted with a pilot's instincts. He fed power to the drivers and tried to bring them onto an even keel but the sub was suddenly a live thing, shooting upward toward the dark bottom of Guemes Island. In two blinks they were through the bottom membranes and into the Island's keel. The sub kicked and twisted as its exterior tools hacked and slashed under the direction of Nakano and Gallow. Zent still sat bent over, holding his ears with both hands. The needle burner lay useless in his lap.
Bushka pressed hard against his seatback while he watched in horror the terrible damage being done all around. Anything he did to the controls only added to the destruction. They were into the Island center now, where the high-status Islanders lived, where they kept their most sensitive equipment and organics, their most powerful people, their surgical and other medical facilities ...
The cold-blooded slashing of blades and cutters continued - visible in every screen, felt in every lurch of the sub. It was eerie that there could be this much pain and not a single scream. Soft, living tissue was no match for the hard, sharp edges that the sub intruded into this nightmare scene. Every bump and twist of the sub wrought more destruction. The displays showed bits and pieces of humanity now - an arm, a severed head.
Bushka moaned, "They're people. "They're people."
Everything he'd been taught about the sanctity of life filled him now with rebellion. Mermen shared the same beliefs! How could they kill an entire Island? Bushka realized that Gallow would kill him at the first sign of resistance. A glance at Zent showed the man still looking stunned, but the bleeding had stopped and he had recovered the burner. Nakano worked like an automaton, shuttling power where necessary as cutters and torches continued their awful havoc in the collapsing Island. The sub had begun to twist on its own, turning end for end on a central pivot.