a warning commotion, but it subsided immediately. Dashers patrolled just out of sight, wary of the lasgun. A sizable hunt of them, Twisp thought. Hunger drove them in and fear kept them away.
Scudi said, "Should we come aboard?"
"Yes," Twisp said, and heaved Brett aboard, then helped Scudi gently over the gunwale and onto the seat-slat in front of him. He secured the line to keep the raft tight against the boat, then stowed the handlight under his seat. Twisp put a hand on Brett's arm, keeping it there, unwilling to break off the reassuring touch.
"They wouldn't listen to you, would they?" Bushka demanded. "You had to run for it again. What happened to your foil?"
"Do we run for Vashon?" Twisp asked.
Brett held both hands up to slow them down. "I think we'd better discuss it," he said. He recounted the story of Gallow and Nakano as briefly as he could. It was a bare-bones account, which Twisp heard with a growing admiration for Brett.
A good head there, he thought.
When Brett had finished, Bushka said, "Let's get away from here! Those are devils, not men. They probably followed you and when they come -"
"Oh, shut up!" Twisp snapped. "If you don't, I'll shut you up." He turned to Brett and asked, in a calmer voice, "What do you think? They have two foils now and could hunt us down with -"
"They're not going to hunt for us, not yet," Brett said. "They have other fish to fry."
"You're a fool!" Bushka blurted.
"Hear him out," Scudi said. Her voice was as flat and solid as plasteel.
"They said they were waiting to capture a doctor," Brett continued, "probably true, from the way they acted. It looked like they tried something and failed. They were shook up and trying to hide it from us. A lot of bragging."
"That's Gallow," Bushka muttered.
"So what were they doing besides waiting to get a doctor?" Twisp asked.
"They were near the Launch Base," Brett said. "With Gallow, I suspect nothing is coincidence. My guess is they want those hyb tanks."
"Of course they do," Bushka said. "I told you that."
"He wants them real bad," Brett said. He nodded to himself. The hyb tanks circling up there in space were the single most speculative subject on Pandora. Guessing the manifests of the hyb tanks ranked right up there with the weather as a conversational staple.
"But what about this threat that he'll prevent the Mermen from reclaiming more open land?" Twisp asked. "Could he do that with one sub and a couple of foils?"
"I think Vashon's in danger," Brett said. "Guemes was much smaller, but still ... sinking Islands is just too simple a diversion for somebody like Gallow to resist. About the time those tanks come down, he'll try to sink Vashon. I'm sure of it."
Chapter 20
"Did he say anything specific?" Twisp asked. "Could he have found a real hyb tank manifest?"
Brett shook his head. "I don't know. Something that big ... he'd have to brag about it. Bushka, he ever say anything to you about what's up there?"
"Gallow has ... dreams of grandeur," Bushka said. "Anything that'll feed those dreams is real to him. He never claimed to know what was in the tanks; he just knew the political value of having them."
"Brett's right about Gallow," Scudi said.
Twisp could make out the dark flash of her eyes in the growing light. "Gallow's like a lot of Mermen - they believe the hyb tanks will save the world, destroy the world, make you rich or curse you forever."
"Same with Islanders," Brett said.
"Speculation, but no facts," Twisp said.
Scudi looked from Brett to Twisp and back to Brett. How like Twisp Brett sounded! Laconic, practical - all based on rocklike integrity. She studied Brett more carefully then, seeing the stringy strength in his young body. She sensed the power of the adult he would become. Brett was already a man. Young, but solid inside. It came over her like a quick-dive narcosis that she wanted him for a lifetime.
Twisp turned to the controls, started up the motor and set a course for Vashon. The coracle surged across the kelp into open water.
Scudi glanced around the brightening day. She scratched under the neck seal of her dive suit, and, with an impatient gesture, shucked out of the suit and spread it across the thwarts to dry. She did this after one smiling glance at Brett, who smiled back.
Twisp glanced once at her, noting the vestigial webs between her toes, but otherwise an ideal, Merman-normal body.