Brett pulled at Twisp's sleeve. "Queets, you wouldn't have to sell the boat if you got a loan and -"
"I've got loans up to here!" Twisp said, touching his neck. "I'd just cleared my accounts when I brought you on. I won't go through that again! The boat goes. That means I have to sell your contract."
Twisp sat on a mound of bubbly at the rail and looked out over the sea. The wind-speed was dropping fast, just as he'd expected. The surge at the rim of the Island was still high but the spume shot straight up now.
"Best fishing weather we've had in a long time," Brett said.
Twisp had to admit this was true.
"Why did Maritime let us off so easy?" Twisp muttered. "We had a Merman in the net. Even you know that, kid. Something funny's going on."
"But they let us off, that's the important thing. I thought you'd be happy about it."
"Grow up, kid." Twisp closed his eyes and leaned back against the rail. He felt the cool water breeze against his neck. The sun was hot on his head. Too many problems, he thought.
Brett stood directly in front of Twisp. "You keep telling me to grow up. It looks to me like you could do some growing up yourself. If you'd only get a loan and -"
"If you won't grow up, kid, then shut up."
"It couldn't have been a tripod fish in the net?" Brett persisted.
"No way! There's a different feel. That was a Merman and the dashers got him." Twisp swallowed. "Or her. Up to something, too, from the look of things." Without changing his position against the rail, Twisp listened to the kid shift from foot to foot.
"Is that why you're selling the boat?" Brett asked. "Because we accidentally killed a Merman who was where he wasn't supposed to be? You think the Mermen will be out to get you now?"
"I don't know what to think."
Twisp opened his eyes and looked up at Brett. The kid had narrowed his overly large eyes into a tight squint, his gaze steady on Twisp.
"The Merman observers at Maritime didn't object to the court's decision," Brett said.
"You're right," Twisp said. He jerked a thumb upward toward the Maritime offices. "They're usually ruthless in cases like this. I wonder what we saw ... or almost saw."
Brett moved to one side and plopped himself onto the bubbly beside Twisp. They listened for a time to the thlup-thlup-thlup of waves against the Island's rim.
"I expected to be sent down under," Twisp said. "And you with me. That's what usually happens. You go to work for the dead Merman's family. And you don't always come back topside."
Brett grunted, then: "They'd have sent me, not you. Everybody knows about my eyes, how I can see when it's almost dark. The Mermen would want that."
"Don't give yourself airs, kid. Mermen are damned cautious about who they let into their gene pool. They call us Mutes, you know. And they don't mean something nice when they say it. We're mutants, kid, and when we go down under it's to fill a dead man's dive suit ... nothing else."
"Maybe they didn't want this job filled," Brett said.
Twisp tapped a fist on the resilient organics of the rail. "Or they didn't want anybody from topside to know what that Merman's job was."
"That's crazy!"
Twisp did not respond. They sat quietly for a while as the lone sun dipped lower. Glancing over his shoulder, Twisp stared at the horizon. It bent away in the distance to a bank of black sky and water. Water everywhere.
"I can get us outfitted," Brett said.
Twisp was startled but remained silent, looking at the kid. Brett, too, was staring off at the horizon. Twisp noticed that the boy's skin had become fisherman-dark, not the sickly pale he had displayed when he first boarded the coracle. The kid looked leaner, too ... and taller.
"Didn't you hear me?" Brett asked. "I said -"
"I heard you. For somebody who pissed and moaned most of the time he was out there fishing, you sound pretty anxious to get back on the water."
"I didn't moan about -"
"Just joking, kid." Twisp raised a hand to stop the objections. "Don't be so damned touchy."
His face flushed, Brett looked down at his boots.
Twisp asked, "How would you get this loan?"
"My parents would loan it to me and I'd loan it to you."
"Your parents have money?" Twisp studied the kid, aware that this revelation did