Would the Mermen believe? Even if they did believe, would they act on that belief in a way to protect Islanders?
***
Never trust a great man's love.
- Islander proverb
Keel looked down from the observation platform onto a nightmare scene of controlled pandemonium - rescue sleds wallowed into a small docking basin, coming through hatches lining the far wall of the courtyard below him. This was no nightmare, Keel reminded himself. Triage teams moved among the human shapes that littered the deck. Trauma teams conducted emergency surgery on the scene while other survivors were carried or carted off. The dead, and Keel had never imagined that much death, were stacked like the meat they were against the wall to his left. A long, oval port above the hatches gave a sea view of the arriving rescue sledges queued up and waiting their turns at the hatches. Trauma teams serviced these, too, as best they could.
Behind Keel, Brett uttered a sharp gasp as the shreds of someone's lower jaw tumbled to the deck from a body bag in transit to the mounting pile of similar bags against the wall. Scudi, standing beside Brett, shook with silent sobs.
Keel felt numb. He began to understand why Kareen Ale had sent Scudi to fetch him and Brett. Ale had not really grasped the enormity of this tragedy. Seeing it, she had wanted Islander witnesses to the fact that Mermen were doing everything physically possible for the survivors.
And she'll bring up the dirty work of the dead, he thought.
Keel glimpsed Ale's red hair among the medics working over the few survivors scattered across the courtyard. From the piles of dead, it was obvious that survivors were not even meeting the odds of pure chance. They were a tiny minority.
Scudi moved up beside him, her attention fixed on the deck below them. "So many," she whispered.
"How did it happen?" Brett demanded, speaking from beside Keel's left elbow.
Keel nodded. Yes, that was the real question. He did not want to conjecture on the matter, he wanted to be certain.
"So many," Scudi repeated, louder this time.
"The last census put Guemes at ten thousand souls," Keel said. This statement surprised him even as it escaped his mouth. Souls. The teachings of Ship did come to the surface in a crisis.
Keel knew he should assert himself, use the power of his position to demand answers. He owed it to the others if not to himself. The C/P would be after him the minute he returned, for one thing. Rocksack still had family on Guemes, of this Keel was certain. She would be angry, terribly angry in spite of her training, and she would be a force to reckon with.
If I return.
Keel felt sickened by the sight on the deck below him. He noted Scudi swiping at her tears. Her eyes were red and swollen. Yes, she had been helping down there, right in the middle of it, during the worst pressures.
"No need for you to stay here with me, Scudi," Keel said. "If they need you down -"
"I've been relieved of duty," she said. She shuddered, but her gaze remained on the receiving area.
Keel, too, could not take his attention from that scene of carnage. The receiving area had been cordoned off into sections by color-coded ropes. Emergency medical teams worked throughout the area, bending over pale flesh, moving patients onto litters for transfer.
A squad of Mermen entered from beneath the platform where Keel stood with Brett and Scudi. The Mermen began sorting through the sacks of bodies, opening them to attempt identification. Some of the bags contained only shreds and pieces of flesh and bone. The identification teams moved in a businesslike fashion, but where their jaws were visible, Keel detected clenched muscles. All of them appeared pale, even for Mermen. Several of the workers took pictures of faces and identifying marks. Others made notes on a portable trans-slate. Keel recognized the device. Ale had tried to interest his Committee in this system, but he had seen it as another way to keep the Islands in economic bondage. "Everything you write on the transmitter-slate is sorted and stored in the computer," Ale had said.
Some things are best not recorded, he thought.
A man cleared his throat behind Keel. Keel turned to find Lonfinn and another Merman standing there. Lonfinn carried a plaz box under his left arm.
"Mr. Justice," Lonfinn said. "This is Miller Hastings of Registration."
In contrast to the dark, heavyset Lonfinn, Hastings was a tall, dark-haired man with a thick lower