to warn Bushka. He has the weapon. We will have to lock them into one of the cargo bays."
Scudi turned away and worked her way back to Bushka, steadying herself along the overhead grabs. Brett heard her explain the situation to Bushka, saying she had recognized Nakano through the gondola's plaz.
"They've opened their hatch," Brett said. "People are coming out. I see Shadow ... there's Nakano. Waves are slopping into the hatch. Everybody's coming out."
Scudi slipped into the command seat beside Brett. "I'll take it. You help Bushka at the entry hatch."
"No tricks!" Bushka yelled as he followed Brett down the passageway.
"We've got to get Twisp out of there!" Brett said.
"He's staying at the gondola to unfasten the line when it goes under."
They were at the hatchway then, wind whipping around them and spray in their eyes. Brett was thankful for his dive suit. In spite of the chill, sweat poured from his body. The muscles of his arms and legs were tightly humming bands. A wave broke against the hull below them. Brett sighted along the line - a long row of bobbing heads worked their way toward the foil. He recognized Nakano in the lead, staying close to Panille. The line snaked up and down the waves.
"We'll bring them aboard one at a time, right into the cargo bay behind me," Bushka said.
"We'll have to disarm them."
Nakano was first through the hatch. His face had the single-minded aggressiveness of a bull dasher. Bushka leveled the lasgun from the far side of the hatchway, slipped a similar weapon from the thigh pocket of Nakano's dive suit, grabbed a knife from Nakano's waist sheath and motioned with his head for the Merman to enter the open hatch to the cargo bay.
For a blink, Brett thought Nakano would attack Bushka despite the lasgun, but the man shrugged and ducked through into the bay.
Panille stayed down below to help others and the next person through was a woman, red-haired, beautiful.
"Kareen Ale," Bushka said. "Well, well." He sent his gaze licking over her body, saw no weapon and nodded toward the cargo hatch. "In there, please."
She stared at the lasgun in Bushka's grip.
"Do it!"
A shout from below the hatch brought Brett whirling around to face the sea.
"What is it?" Bushka demanded. He was trying to divide his attention between the open cargo hatch and the outer hatch where survivors still waited to be brought aboard.
Brett peered out across Panille, who hung below the hatch with an arm wrapped through a loop in his safety line. The gondola beyond him had begun to sink, slowly dragging the orange LTA bag under the waves. The safety line lay across the waves with Twisp pulling himself along it. Something was happening about midway along the line, though, and Brett tried to make out what had caused the shout.
"What's happening?" Bushka asked.
"I don't know. There's a length of kelp across the line. Twisp released the line from the gondola and it's already under. But something's ..."
A human hand came out of the water near the kelp and one, two kelp strands whipped across the hand and the hand vanished. Twisp reached the kelp barrier and hesitated there. A questing strand of kelp touched his head, paused there and withdrew. Twisp continued his way along the line, stopping finally beside Panille, exhausted. Panille put an arm under Twisp's shoulder and helped support him. Waves lifted both men and lowered them beside the foil.
"Shall I help bring him up?" Brett called.
Twisp waved a hand to stop him. "I'll be all right." One of his long arms snaked up the line and took a firm grip.
"Two people," Twisp said. "The kelp took them. It just took them, wrapped around them and took them."
He hauled himself up the line, quivering every muscle on the way. He slumped through the hatch, then turned to help Panille. Bushka waved Panille toward the cargo bay.
"No," Brett said. He stepped between Bushka and Panille. "Shadow was a prisoner. He helped me. He's not one of them."
"Who says?"
"The kelp says," Twisp said.
***
Control the religion and the food and we own the world.
- GeLaar Gallow
Vata's growing restlessness sloshed nutrient over the rim of her tank. At times she arched her back as if in pain, and the pink knobs of her nipples broke the surface like the bright peaks of two blue-green mountains. A relief attendant, an Islander high on boo, reached out to tweak one of the gnarled, vein-swollen things and was discovered catatonic, his blasphemous