sometimes. But we do not starve. And within a generation we will walk beneath open sky on dry land!"
Keel shrugged. The shrug irritated the prosthetic supports for his large head. He could feel his neck muscles growing tired, snaking their whips of pain up the back of his neck, crowning his scalp.
"What do you think of that old argument in light of this change?" she asked. It was voiced as a challenge.
"You are creating sea barriers, new surflines that can sink Islands," he said. "You do this to further a Merman way of life. An Islander would be foolish not to ask whether you're doing this to sink the Islands and drown us Mutes."
"Ward." She shook her head before continuing. "Ward, the end of Island life as you know it will come in our lifetime. That's not necessarily bad."
Not in my lifetime, he thought.
"Don't you understand that?" she demanded.
"You want me to facilitate your kind of change," he said. "That makes me the Judas goat. You know about Judas, Kareen? And goats?"
A shadow of unmistakable impatience crossed her face. "I'm trying to impress on you how soon Islanders must change. That is a fact and it must be dealt with, distasteful or not."
"You're also trying to get our hydrogen facilities," he said.
"I'm trying to keep you above our Merman political squabbles," she said.
"Somehow, Kareen, I don't have confidence in you. I suspect that you don't have the approval of your own people."
"I've had enough of this," Panille interrupted. "I warned you, Kareen, that an Islander -"
"Let me handle this," she said, and quieted him with a lift of her hand. "If it's a mistake, it's my mistake." To Keel, she said, "Can you find confidence in retrieving the hyb tanks or settling the land? Can you see the value in restoring the kelp to consciousness?"
It's an act, he thought. She's playing to me. Or to Shadow.
"To what end and by what means?" he asked, stalling for more time.
"To what end? We'll finally have some real stability. All of us. It's something that'll pull all of us together."
She seems so cool, so smooth, he thought. But something's not quite right.
"What're your priorities?" he asked. "The kelp, the land or the hyb tanks?"
"My people want the hyb tanks."
"Who are your people?"
She looked at Panille, who said, "A majority, that's who her people are. That's how we operate down under."
Keel looked down at him. "And what are your priorities, Shadow?"
"Personally?" His eyes left the screen reluctantly. "The kelp. Without it this planet's an endless struggle for survival." He gestured to the screens, which, Keel reminded himself, somehow had Islander lives balancing on them. "You saw what it can do," Panille said. "Right now it's keeping Vashon in deep water. That's handy. It's survival."
"You think that's a sure thing?"
"I do. We have everything that was recovered from the old Redoubt after the inundation. We've a good idea what's in the hyb tanks. They can wait."
Keel looked at Ale. "Sure, things worry me. I know what's supposed to be in those tanks. What do your records say?"
"We have every reason to believe the hyb tanks contain earthside plant and animal life, everything Ship considered necessary for colonization. And there may be as many as thirty thousand human beings - all preserved indefinitely."
Keel snorted at the phrase "every reason to believe." They don't know after all, he thought. This is a blind shot. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking of those bits of plasteel and plaz and all that flesh swinging in a wide loop around Pandora, year after year.
"There could be anything up there," Keel said. "Anything." He knew it was fear speaking. He looked accusingly at Ale. "You claim to represent a majority of Mermen, yet I sense a furtiveness in your activities."
"There are political sensitivities -" She broke off. "Ward, our space project will continue whether I'm successful with you or not."
"Successful? With me?" There seemed to be no end to her manipulative schemes.
Ale exhaled, more of a hiss than a sigh. "If I fail, Ward, the chances for the Islanders look bad. We want to start a civilization, not a war. Don't you understand? We're offering the Islanders land for colonization."
"Ahhhh, the bait!" he said.
Keel thought about the impact such an offer might have on Islanders. Many would leap at it - the poor Islanders, such as those of Guemes, the little drifters living from sea to mouth. Vashon might be another matter. But Merman riches were being exposed in this