you?"
"You're wrong about the kelp," Scudi said. "I'm speaking of the times before, when I worked at sea. I have learned from the kelp ..."
"I thought you said you taught the kelp."
"But the kelp helps me, too. That is why I have such good luck when I mathematic the waves. But now the kelp is learning words."
"What does it say to you?"
"My name and your name." She dipped a hand over the side and dragged it across a huge vine. "It says you love me, Brett."
"That's crazy."
"That you love me?"
"No ... that it knows. You know what I mean."
"Then it's true."
"Scudi ..." He swallowed. "It's obvious, huh?"
Chapter 22
She nodded. "Don't worry. I love you, too."
He felt a hot flush of exuberance plunge out of his cheeks.
"And the kelp knows that, too," she said.
Later, as Brett squatted in the coracle watching the distance to another kelp bed grow shorter and shorter, he heard Scudi's words over and over in his memory: "The kelp knows ... the kelp knows ..." The memory was like the gentle rise and fall of the seas beneath the wallowing boat.
It called our names, he thought. Admitting this did not help. It could be calling us to be its dinner.
He turned his thoughts to something else Scudi had said in the raft: "I like it that our bodies find comfort with each other."
A very practical woman. No giving in to the demands of sex, because that could complicate their lives. She did not hesitate to admit that she wanted him, though, and anticipation counted for something. Brett sensed the strength in her as he looked across the coracle to where she rested with both elbows hooked over a thwart.
"We're in the kelp," she said. She dropped her left hand over the side. Brett wished they could explain what she was doing, but he felt sure the others would think the explanation proof of insanity.
"Would you look at that!" Twisp said. He nodded toward something ahead of them.
Brett stood up and looked. A wide lane had opened through the kelp, the fronds spreading wide, then completely aside, still spreading farther ahead. He felt the water boil under them and the two coracles surged forward.
"It's a current going our way," Twisp said, astonishment in his voice.
"Merman Current Control," Bushka said. "See! They know where we are. They're delivering us someplace."
"That's right," Twisp said. "Directly toward Vashon."
Scudi straightened and brought her dripping hand out of the water. She bent forward and moved across the coracle, tipping it.
"Trim ship!" Twisp snapped.
She hesitated. "The kelp," she said. "It's helping us. This isn't Current Control at all."
"How do you know?" Twisp asked.
"It ... the kelp talks to me."
Now she's done it, Brett thought.
Bushka let out a loud snort of laughter.
Twisp, however, stared at her silently for a moment, then: "Tell me more."
"I have shared images with the kelp for a long time," she said. "At least three years since I first noticed. Now it speaks words in my head. To Brett, too. The kelp called his name."
Twisp looked at Brett, who cleared his throat and said, "Well, that's how it seemed."
"Our ancestors claimed the kelp was sentient," Twisp said. "Even Jesus Lewis said it. 'The kelp is a community mind.' You're-a historian, Bushka, you should know all this."
"Our ancestors said a lot of crazy things!"
"There's always a reason," Twisp said. He nodded at the lane through the kelp. "Explain that."
"Current Control. The girl's wrong."
"Put your hand over the side," Scudi said. "Touch the kelp as we pass."
"Sure," Bushka said. "Use your hand for bait. Who knows what you might catch?"
Twisp merely leveled a cold stare at Bushka, then steered the coracle close to the right side of the open lane and dipped his long right arm over the side. Presently, a look of amazement came over his face. The expression hardened.
"Ship save us," he muttered, but he did not withdraw his hand.
"What is it?" Brett asked. He swallowed and thought about the sensation of kelp contact. Could he put his hand over the side and renew that connection? The idea both attracted and repelled him. He no longer doubted a central reality to the night's experience, but the intent of the kelp could not be accepted without question.
Scudi almost drowned. That is a fact.
"There's a sub coming behind us," Twisp said.
All of them peered back along their course but the surface gave no sign of what might be under it.
"They have us on their locator," Twisp said, "and they mean to sink us."
Scudi