He saw the whiteness retreat from her knuckles. The foil lurched and shuddered along the wavetops and Brett wondered how long it could take such punishment. Twisp and Bushka began a conversation too low for Brett to make out more than the occasional word. He glanced back at them and focused on the lasgun still held firmly in Bushka's hands. Its muzzle pointed in the general direction of Twisp and the Merman.
What was Bushka really doing? Was it only rage? Surely Bushka could never escape memories of his part in the Guemes massacre. Killing Gallow wouldn't erase those memories, it would only add more.
Scudi leaned toward Brett then and whispered, "It's going to be a bad storm."
Brett jerked his attention around and looked out the sweep of plaz, aware for the first time that the weather was changing dramatically. A gusting wind from port had begun to blast the tops off the waves, whipping scuds of foam along the surface. A gray curtain of rain slanted into the sea ahead, closing the tenuous gap between black clouds and gray water. The day suddenly had the feel of cold metal. He glanced up at the position vector on the overhead screen and tried to estimate their time to Gallow and his hunt of Green Dashers.
"Two hours?" he asked.
"That's going to slow us." Scudi nodded toward the storm line ahead. "Fasten your safety harness."
Brett swung the shoulder strap across his chest and locked it in place.
They were into the rain then. Visibility dropped to less than a hundred meters. Great pelting drops roared on the foil's metal fabric and overcame the airblast wipers on the cabin plaz. Scudi backed off the throttle and the foil began to pitch even more with the steepening waves.
"What's going on?" Bushka demanded.
"Storm," Scudi said. "Look at it."
"How soon will we get there?" Bushka asked.
His voice had taken on a new note, Brett realized. Not exactly fear ... Anxiety? Uncertainty? Bushka had the Islander's dreamlike admiration for foils but really did not understand them. How would the foil survive a storm? Would they have to stop and submerge?
"I don't know how long," Scudi said. "All I know is we're going to have to slow down more, and soon."
"Don't waste any time!" Bushka ordered.
It had grown darker in the cabin and the wave action outside looked mean - long, rolling combers with their tips curling white. They were still in kelp, though, with a broken channel through it.
Scudi switched on the cabin lights and began paying more attention to the screens overhead and in front of her.
Brett saw his own reflection in the plaz and it startled him. His thick blonde hair fanned his head in a wild halo. His eyes were two dark holes staring back at him. The gray of the storm had become the gray of his eyes, almost dasher-black. For the first time, he realized how close to Merman-normal he appeared.
I could pass, he thought.
He wondered then how much this fact figured in his attraction for Scudi. It was an abrupt and startling thought, which made him feel both closer and more removed from her. They were Islander and Merman and they always would be. Was it dangerous to think that they might pair?
Scudi saw him staring toward the plaz in front of them.
"Can you see anything?" she asked.
He knew immediately she was asking whether his mutant eyesight could help them now.
"Rain's just as bad for my eyes as it is for yours," he told her. "Trust your instruments."
"We've got to slow down," she said. "And if it gets much worse we'll have to submerge. I've never -"
She broke off as a violent, creaking shudder engulfed the foil, rattling the hardware until Brett thought the boat might split. Scudi immediately backed the throttle. The foil dropped off the step with an abrupt plowing motion that sent it sliding down a wave face and pitched it up the next one. Brett was hurled against his safety harness hard enough to take his breath away.
Curses and scrambling noises came from behind him. He whirled and saw Bushka picking himself up off the deck, clutching the grabs beside the couch he had occupied. His right hand still gripped the lasgun. Twisp had been dumped into a corner with the captive Merman atop him. One long arm came out of the tangle, pushing the captive aside, finding a handhold and lifting himself to a standing position at the side of the cabin.
"What's happening?" Bushka shouted. He shifted his