a lot of dead Islanders."
"What about his suspicions?"
"They're his suspicions," Brett said, "but don't you think he deserves a hearing?"
"If he's right, have you thought about what may happen if the Islands try to force his return?"
Brett felt a lump in his throat. "Would they kill him?"
"Somewhere, there seem to be people who kill," she said. "Guemes proves that."
"Ambassador Ale?"
"It occurs to me, Brett, that Hastings and Lonfinn may be watching her to see that she does not do something dangerous to them. My father was very rich. He warned me often that this created danger for everyone around him."
"I could just call in and tell Vashon I'm safe and returning," he said. He shook his head. "No. To those that listen in -"
"And they are listening," she added.
"It would be the same thing as just spilling the story right now," he said. "What'll we do?"
"We will go to the Launch Base," she said. "Not to Outpost Twenty-two."
"But you told Justice Keel -"
"And if they force him to talk, they will look for us in the wrong place."
"Why the Launch Base?" he asked.
"No single group controls that," she said. "That's a part of all of our dreams - get the hyb tanks down from where Ship left them in orbit."
"It's still a Merman project."
"It is all Merman. We will say our piece there. Everyone will hear it. Then all will know what a few people may be doing."
Brett stared straight ahead. He knew he should feel elation at their escape. He was in the biggest vessel he had ever seen, rocketing along the wavetops at more than eighty knots, faster than he had ever gone before. But unknowns crowded in on him. Keel did not trust the Mermen. And Scudi was Merman. Was she being honest? Had he heard her real reasons for wanting him to avoid the radio? He looked at Scudi. For what other reason could she help him escape?
Chapter 17
"I've been thinking," Scudi said. "If no word has reached them, your family will be sick with worry about you. And your friend, Twisp. Call Vashon. We'll make do. Maybe my suspicions are foolish."
He saw her throat pulse with a swallow and he remembered her tears over the heaped bodies of the Islanders.
"No," he said, "we should go to your Launch Base."
Again, Brett concentrated on the sea ahead of them. The two suns lifted heat-shimmers off the water. When he had been much younger, seeing the Island rim for the first time, the heat shimmers had created images for him. Long-whiskered sea dragons coiled above the ocean surface, giant muree and fat scrubberfish. The shimmer play now was nothing but heat reflected off water. He felt the warmth on his face and arms. He thought of Twisp leaning back against the coracle's tiller, eyes closed, soaking up the heat through his hairy chest.
"Where is this base?" he asked.
She reached up and turned a small dial below the overhead screen. Beside the dial, an alphanumerical keyboard glowed with its own internal lights. She typed HF-i, then LB-1. The screen flashed 141.2, then overprinted a spray of lines with a common focal point. A bright green spot danced at the wide outer arc of the lines. Scudi pointed at the spot.
"That's us." She pointed to the base of the spray. "We go here on course one forty-one point two." She pointed to a dial with a red arrow on the console in front of them. The arrow indicated 141.2.
"That's all there is to it?"
"All?" Scudi smiled. "There are hundreds of transmitter stations all around Pandora, a whole manufacturing and servicing complex - all to insure that we get from here to there."
Brett looked up at the screen. The spray of lines had pivoted until the bright green dot lay centered on course. The 141.2 still glowed in the lower left corner of the screen.
"If we require a course change, it will sound a klaxon and show the new numbers," she said. "Steeran homing on LB-one."
Brett looked out across the water beside them, seeing the spray kicked up by the foils, thinking how valuable such a system would be to Vashon's fishing fleet. The sun burned hot on him through the plaz, but the air felt good. Rich topside air blew in the vents. Scudi Wang was at his side and suddenly Pandora didn't seem to be the adversary that he'd always imagined. Even if it was a deadly place, it had its measure of beauty.
***
One measure of humanity lies in