duty."
"Search and Rescue?" Keel asked. "Are some of your people in trouble?"
"No," she replied with a tight set to her jaw, "your people."
Keel clamped his mouth shut. His gaze skittered across the room at the intense faces studying each viewscreen, at the cacophony of typing set up by the blur of two dozen technicians' hands at their keyboards. It was all very confusing. Was this the beginning of that threat Ale had mentioned? Keel found it difficult to remain silent ... but she had said "Search and Rescue." This was a time to watch carefully and record.
Immediately after the medics had passed their death sentence on him, Keel had begun to feel that he was living in a vacuum that desperately needed filling. He felt that even his long service on the Committee on Vital Forms had been emptied. It was not enough to have been Chief Justice. There must be something more ... a thing to mark his end with style, showing the love he had for his fellows. He wanted to send a message down the long corridors that said: "This is how much I cared." Perhaps there was a key to his need in this room.
Ale whispered in his ear. "Shadow - his friends call him that, a more pleasant name than 'Dark' - he's our ablest coordinator. He has a very high success rate recovering Islander castaways."
Was she hoping to impress him with her benign concern for Islander lives? Keel spoke in a low voice, his tone dry: "I didn't know it was this formalized."
"You thought we left it to chance?" she asked. Keel noted the slight snort of disgust. "We always watch out for Islanders in a storm or during a wavewall."
Keel felt an emotional pang at this revelation. His pride had been touched.
"Why haven't you made it known that you do this for us?" he asked.
"You think Islander pride would abide such a close watch?" Ale asked. "You forget, Ward, that I live much topside. You already believe we're plotting against you. What would your people make of this set-up?" She gestured at the banks of controls, the viewscreens, the subdued clicking of printers.
"You think Islanders are paranoid," Keel said. He was forced to admit to himself that this room's purpose had hurt his pride. Vashon Security would not like the idea of such Merman surveillance, either. And their fears might be correct. Keel reminded himself that he was only seeing what he was shown.
A large screen over to the right displayed a massive section of Island hull.
"That looks like Vashon," he said. "I recognize the drift-watch spacing."
Ale touched Panille's shoulder and Keel wondered at the proprietary air of her movement. Panille glanced up from the keys.
"An interruption?" she asked.
"Make it short."
"Could you put Justice Keel's fears to rest? He has recognized his Island there." She nodded toward the viewscreen on the right. "Give him its position relative to the nearest barrier wall."
Panille turned to his console and tapped out a code, twisted a dial and read the alphanumerics on a thin dark strip at the top of his board. The smaller screen above the readout shifted from a repeat of the hull view to a surrounding seascape. A square at the lower right of the screen flashed "V-200."
"Visibility two hundred meters," Ale said. "Pretty good."
"Vashon's about four kilometers out from submerged barrier HA-nine, moving parallel the wall," Panille said. "In about an hour we'll begin to take it farther out. The wavewall had it within two-kilometer range. We had to do some shuffling, but nothing to worry about. It was never out of control."
Keel had to suppress a gasp at these figures. He fought down anger at the younger man's presumption and managed to ask, "What do you mean, 'Nothing to worry about'?"
Panille said, "We have had it under control -"
"Young man, diverting a mass like Vashon" - Keel shook his head -"we're lucky to adjust basic positioning when we contact another Island. Getting out of the way of danger in a mere two kilometers is not possible."
The corners of Panille's mouth came up in a tight smile - the kind of know-it-all smile that Keel really hated. He saw it on many adolescents, sophomoric youths thinking that older people were just too slow.
"You Islanders don't have the kelp working for you," Panille said. "We do. That's why we're here and we haven't time for your Islander paranoia."
"Shadow!" Ale's voice carried a cautionary note.
"Sorry." Panille bent to his controls. "But the kelp gives