hand.
Twisp nodded at the net of weapons Bushka had taken from the LTA survivors. "Then maybe we all better be armed."
"I'm thinking on it," Bushka said. Again, his hand rasped across the drying kelp.
"Panille," Twisp said, "how are outposts defended?"
Scudi, seated on the deck across from Twisp, answered for him. "Outposts aren't expected to need defenses."
"They have the usual sonar, perimeter alarms against dashers, that sort of thing," Panille said. "Each outpost has at least one LTA for weather observation."
"But what weapons?" Twisp asked.
"Tools, mostly," Scudi said.
Bushka nudged the netful of captured weapons at his feet. "They will have lasguns. Gallow arms his people."
"But they'd be effective only inside the outpost compound," Panille said. "We're safe in the water."
"Which is why I stopped here," Brett said. "Do you think they know we're here?"
"They know," Bushka said. "They just don't know who we are." He peeled the dried kelp from his dive suit and dropped it to the deck.
Scudi stood and moved to Brett's side, resting an arm on the back of his seat. "They will have welders, plasteel cutters, some stunshields, knives, pry-bars. Tools are very effective weapons." She looked at Bushka. "As Guemes should have taught us."
Panille swiveled and looked at the passage that led back to the cargo compartment. "Some of those people back there might know some details about what we can expect down there -"
"This is stupid!" Brett said. "What can we do against Gallow and all his men?"
"We will wait for nightfall," Bushka said. "Darkness is a great equalizer." He looked at Scudi. "You say you've worked at this outpost. You can draw up a plan of the access hatches, the power station, tool storage, vehicle bays ... that sort of thing."
Scudi looked at Brett, who shrugged.
Twisp glanced once at the lasgun in Bushka's hand, then at his face. "You really mean for us to attack them, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Unarmed?"
"We will have the inestimable arm of surprise."
Twisp let out a barking laugh.
"Let me talk to Kareen," Panille said. "She can't be one of them. She may have learned -"
"She's not to be trusted," Bushka said. "She belonged to Ryan Wang when he was alive, and now she belongs to Gallow."
"No, she doesn't!"
"Men are so easily manipulated by sex," Bushka sneered.
Panille's dark face darkened further with anger, but he held his silence for a blink. Then: "The kelp! The kelp can tell us what we need to know!"
"Do not trust the kelp, either," Bushka said. "Every sentient thing in this universe thinks of itself first. We don't know what the kelp fears or desires."
Panille glanced at the bit of dried kelp on the deck. "Scudi, what do you say about the kelp? You've worked in and around it more than any of us."
"She is Ryan Wang's daughter!" Bushka blared. "You ask the enemy for advice?"
"I ask where I might get an answer," Panille said. "And if you're not going to use that lasgun, quit waving it around." He turned from a flabbergasted Bushka to Scudi. "What's the kelp's range, from your experience?"
"Worldwide," she said, "and almost instantaneous."
"That fast?"
Scudi shrugged. "And what it learns, it never forgets." She noted the look of surprise on Panille's face and went on. "We've made reports. Most supervisors don't go out there, so they write this off to narcosis and keep us out of deep water for a week."
"What else might help us?"
"There are weak spots," Scudi said. "Immature kelp is strictly a conductor. Mature kelp carries a presence all its own."
"What do you mean?" Twisp asked.
"If I touch a young patch of kelp and you touch a mature one, we sense each other. But now ... it is doing something more. Bushka's right that it may do things on its own."
"It has learned to kill," Bushka said.
Scudi said, "I always thought it could transmit, but not translate."
Bushka asked, "How many people can the outpost support?"
Scudi juggled the question a moment. "They have accommodations, food and other supplies for about three hundred. But they have open land at the center. They could shelter a lot more people."
Brett turned to Bushka. "Does Gallow have three hundred people?"
Bushka nodded. "More."
"Then we can't confront them," Twisp said. "This is crazy."
"I'm going to kill Gallow," Bushka said.
"That's it?" Twisp demanded. "That's all? Then they'll quit and go home?"
Bushka would not meet Twisp's gaze. "All right," he said with a flick of the weapon, "let's see what Kareen Ale has to say. Put the foil on autopilot, Brett."
"Autopilot?" Brett asked. "Why?"
"We're all going back to see