a promise: 'I will not again curse the ground for mankind's sake.'"
Nakano took a backward step away from Twisp. "You're crazy! You were standing out in the sun all alone."
"No workshop?" Twisp asked, his voice plaintive. "No bearded man in the shadows?"
"There were no shadows. You probably had a touch of the sun. No hat. Big Sun beating down on you. Forget it."
"I can't forget it. I felt him touch me, his finger on my face. He was blind."
"Well, put it behind you. We're about to see GeLaar Gallow and if you're going to bargain with him you'll need your wits about you."
The moving cubicle came to a stop and the hatch opened onto a passage. Nakano and Twisp emerged and were flanked immediately by six armed Mermen.
"This way," Nakano said. "Gallow is waiting for you."
Twisp took a deep, trembling breath and allowed himself to be escorted along the Merman corridor with its sharp corners and hard sides, its unmoving, solid deck.
That Noah was really there, Twisp told himself. The experience had contained too much sense of reality. The kelp! He tingled out to the tips of his fingers with realization. Somehow, the kelp had insinuated itself into his mind, taken dominion over his senses!
The realization terrified him and his step faltered.
"Here! Keep up, Mute!" one of the escort barked.
"Easy does it," Nakano cautioned the guard. "He's not used to a deck that doesn't move."
Twisp was surprised by the friendliness in Nakano's voice, his sharpness with the escort. Does Nakano really sympathize with me?
They stopped at a wide, rectangular hatchway open to the passage. The room exposed beyond it was large by Islander standards - at least six meters deep and about ten or eleven meters wide. Gallow sat before a bank of display screens near the back wall. He turned as Twisp and Nakano entered, leaving the escort in the passage.
Twisp was immediately struck by the even regularity of Gallow's features, the silkiness of that long golden mane, which reached almost to the Merman's shoulders. The cold blue eyes studied Twisp carefully, pausing only briefly on Twisp's long arms. Gallow came to his feet easily as Nakano and Twisp stopped about two paces from him.
"Welcome," Gallow said. "Please do not consider yourself our prisoner. I look upon you as a negotiator for the Islanders.
Twisp scowled. So Nakano had revealed everything!
"Not you alone, of course," Gallow added. "We will be joined presently by Chief Justice Keel." Gallow's voice was softly persuasive. He smiled warmly.
A charmer, Twisp thought. Doubly dangerous!
Gallow studied Twisp's face a blink, those cold blue eyes peeling the Islander. "I'm told" - he glanced at Nakano standing near Twisp's left shoulder, then back to Twisp -"that you do not trust the kelp."
Nakano pursed his lips when Twisp glanced at him. "It's true, isn't it?" Nakano asked.
"It's true." The admission was wrenched from Twisp.
"I think we have created a monster in bringing the kelp to consciousness," Gallow said. "Let me tell you that I have never believed in that part of the kelp project. It was demeaning ... immoral ... treachery against everything human."
Gallow waved his hand, the gesture saying clearly that he had explained himself sufficiently. He turned to Nakano. "Will you ask the guard out there if the Chief Justice has recovered enough to be brought in here?"
Nakano turned on one heel and went out into the passage where a low-voiced conversation could be heard. Gallow smiled at Twisp. Presently, Nakano returned.
"What's wrong with Keel?" Twisp demanded. "Recovered from what?" And he wondered: Torture? Twisp did not like Gallow's smile.
"The Chief Justice, as I prefer to call him, has a digestion problem," Gallow said.
A scuffling sound at the entrance to the room brought Twisp's attention around. He stared hard as two of the escort brought Chief Justice Ward Keel into the room, supporting him as he shuffled stiffly along.
Twisp was shocked. Keel looked near death. Where his skin was visible it was pale and moist. There was a glazed look in his eyes and they did not track together - one peering back toward the passage, the other looking down where he placed each painful step. Keel's neck, supported by that familiar prosthetic framework, still appeared unable to support the man's large head.
Nakano brought a low chair from the side and placed it carefully behind Keel. The escort eased Keel gently into the chair, where he sat a moment, panting. The escort departed.
"I'm sorry, Justice Keel," Gallow said, his voice full of practiced commiseration. "But we really