story. The hospitality of the sea said you had to listen. Nothing said you had to agree.
Bushka sent an agitated gaze over their surroundings. Second sun was up but in this season it made a quick sweep and the half-night would be on them soon. Twisp was hungry and irritated.
"Do you have a towel and some blankets?" Bushka asked. "I'm freezing my ass off!"
Abruptly contrite because he had failed to provide for the man's comfort, Twisp said: "Towel and blankets are rolled up in the cuddy behind you."
As Bushka turned and found the roll, Twisp added: "You saw me so you came up hoping I'd save you."
Bushka looked out from beneath the towel with which he was drying his hair. "If I'd left them under CO2 any longer it would've killed them. I couldn't do it."
"Are you going to tell me who they are?"
"People who'd kill us while eating lunch and not miss a bite!"
Something in the way Bushka said this set Twisp's stomach trembling. Bushka believed what he said.
"I don't suppose you have an RDC," Bushka said. He spoke with more than a little snobbishness.
Twisp kept his temper and uncovered the instrument near his feet. His relative drift compensator was one of his proudest possessions. The compass arrow in its top was pointing now far off their course.
Bushka approached and looked down at the RDC. "A Merman compass is more accurate," he said, "but this will do."
"Not more accurate between Islands," Twisp corrected him. "Islands drift and there's no fixed point of reference."
Bushka knelt beside the RDC and worked its settings with a sureness that told Twisp this was not the first time the man had used such an instrument. The red arrow atop the housing swung to a new setting.
"That should get us there," Bushka said. He shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how we found any place without Merman instruments."
We? Twisp wondered.
"I think you're an Islander," Twisp accused, barely holding in his anger. "We're a pretty backward lot, aren't we!"
Bushka stood and returned to his position near the opening of the cuddy.
"Better work a bit more with that towel," Twisp said. "You missed behind your ears!"
Bushka ignored him and sat down with his back against the cuddy.
Twisp fed more power to his motor and swung around on the course indicated by the RDC arrow. Might as well go to this Rescue Base! Damn that Bushka! Was he one of those down-under Islanders who had become more Merman than the Mermen?
"You going to tell me what happened on that sub?" Twisp asked. "I'm through playing and I want to know what I'm into."
With a sullen expression, Bushka settled himself into his former position against the deck. Presently, he began describing his trip with Gallow. When he got to the part about Guemes Island, Twisp stopped him.
"You were at the controls?"
"I swear to you I didn't know what he was doing."
"Go on. What happened next?"
Bushka picked up his story after the sinking of the Island. Twisp stared at him with a hard expression throughout the recital. Once, Twisp felt under the tiller housing behind him for the lasgun he stored there - a real Merman lasgun that had cost him half a boatload of muree. The cold touch of the weapon settled his mind somewhat. He couldn't help asking himself, What if this Bushka's lying?
When Bushka finished, Twisp thought a moment, then: "You strapped the crew into their seats, including this Gallow, and sent them to the bottom. How do you know you didn't kill them?"
"They were tied loose enough to get free once they came around."
"I think I'd have ..." Twisp shook his head sharply. "You know, don't you, that it's your word against theirs and you were at the controls?"
Bushka buried his face in the blanket around his knees. His shoulders shook and it was a few blinks before Twisp realized the man was sobbing.
For Twisp, this was the ultimate intimacy between two men. He had no more doubts that the story was true.
Bushka lifted a tear-streaked face to Twisp at the tiller. "You don't know all of it. You don't know what a perfect fool I was. Fool and tool!"
It all came out, then - the bookish Islander who wanted to be a Merman, the way Gallow had fastened on this dream, luring the innocent Islander into a compromising position.
"Why didn't you take the sub back to this Rescue Base?" Twisp asked.
"It's too far. Besides, how do I know who's with them and who's against? It's