Algae, he thought. He was thankful for something familiar. There was no such structure or rigidity on an Island. Organic conduits grew where they were guided to grow, but guidance had its limits.
At the first ledge, Scudi put an arm around his waist and helped him to a place against another ladder. She waited a blink while he caught his breath, then:
“We have to hurry. They may guess where we’ve gone.”
“Can they know where we are?”
“There are no sensors here, and they won’t know I have a key to the service passages.”
“How did you get it?”
“From my father’s desk. I found it while showing the Justice the den.”
“Why would your father have had such a key?”
“Probably for the same reason we’re using it. Emergency escape.”
She patted his chest gently and turned away. With a sigh, she started on the next stage of their climb.
Again, Brett followed.
He pressed faster and faster, but she was always farther up, widening the distance between them. Then there was the second ledge and Brett drew himself onto it, panting. Scudi guided him to the next ladder. When he could control his breathing, he asked, “How do you move so fast?”
“I run the passageways and work out in the gym,” she said. “Those of us who will go back to the open land must be prepared for the demands to be made on our bodies. It will be different from the sea.”
He knew it was an inadequate response, but all he could manage was, “Oh.”
“Are you rested enough for the last stage?” she asked.
“Lead on.”
This time, he stayed with her enough that his hand met her foot from time to time. He knew she was setting a slower pace because of him and this pained him. Still, he was glad for the reserves it might give him. There was still that yawning void below, a place made even more frightening by its drop into a dim void. When he felt the final rung and another ledge, he wrapped an arm around the ladder’s vertical supports and drew in deep, gasping breaths.
Scudi’s hand touched his head. “You all right?”
“Just … catching my breath.”
She put a hand underneath his right arm. “Come up. I will help. It is safer up here. There is a railing.”
With Scudi’s hand lifting, Brett crawled over the lip of the ledge. He saw the rail and caught a good grip on it, pulling himself the last few millimeters and then stretching out on the hard metal grate. Scudi rested a hand on his back and, when she felt his breathing smooth out, drew away.
“Let’s review the plan,” she said. She sat with her back against a metal wall.
“Go ahead,” he said. He drew himself up beside her, smelling the sweet freshness of her breath, feeling the brush of her hair against his cheek.
“The hatch is directly behind me. It’s a double hatch. The docking bay is kept under enough pressure to hold a working level on the water. We’ll open in an alcove off the docking bay. If no one is there, we will just go out and walk normally toward one of the foils. You are my charge and I am showing you around.”
“What if someone sees us coming out of the hatch?”
“We laugh and giggle. We’re young lovers on a rendezvous. We may get a lecture. If so, we should at least appear to be sorry.”
Brett looked at the smooth profile of Scudi’s face.
Clever. Close enough to the truth that he wished it were so. “Where can we hide in this docking bay?” he asked.
“We won’t hide. We will go to one of the foils, one where the operating crew is not aboard. We will escape topside in the foil.”
“Can you really operate a foil?”
“Of course. I go topside often in the lab foil.” She was all seriousness. “Do you understand what we’re going to do?”
“Lead the way,” he said.
Scudi slid away from him. There was the slightest sound of metal grating against metal. A small hatch swung wide, letting in dim light. It was bright enough to Brett that he was forced to squint. Scudi slipped out and reached back a hand for him. Brett followed, wriggling through the tight opening. He found himself in a low, rectangular space with gray metal walls. Light came in from a port at the far end. Scudi dogged the hatch behind them, then opened the far hatch. As she had promised, they emerged into a narrow alcove.
“Now,” she whispered, taking his hand. “I am showing you the landing bay and the foils.”
She led Brett out onto a narrow platform with a railing and stairs down to a deck about three meters below them. Brett stopped and resisted Scudi’s attempts to drag him farther. They were under a transparent dome that stretched away from him for several hundred meters.
Plaz, he thought. Has to be. Nothing else could take that pressure. The docking bays were located inside this gigantic inverted cup that held out the sea. A plaz umbrella! He looked up at the surface, no more than fifty meters away, a milky silver region with the doubled shafts of light indicating that both suns stood above the horizon.
Scudi tugged at his arm.
Brett looked down to the deck—a giant metal grate with piers stretching out the far side toward the descending lip of the facility’s plaz cover. As he watched, a submerged foil cruised under the far lip and lifted into the bay with a cascade of water off its hull. The foil slid into an empty bay, its engines a painful growl in his ears even at this low speed. With the newcomer, Brett counted six of the huge boats lined up in a row. Mermen worked busily around them on the piers, securing the lines of the new arrival, wheeling cargo on carts to and from the open hatches in the line of craft.
“They’re so big,” Brett said, craning his neck at the prow of the foil directly ahead of them. Someone was working up there, dreamily scraping a dry skin of green kelp off the extruded fenders.
“Come along,” she said, her voice slightly louder than conversation required, “I’ll take you aboard one of them. Kareen wants you to see it all.”
This, Brett realized, was for the benefit of a Merman who had stopped below them and was watching them with a questioning tilt to his head. As Scudi spoke, he smiled and strode away.
Brett allowed her to lead him down the stairs.
“Food transport uses only the seventy-meter cargo model,” she said. “In spite of their size, they’ll do at least eighty knots. Somewhat slower in heavy seas. I’m told they can top a hundred knots with a light load.”
Her hand in his, Scudi guided Brett down the line of foils, weaving in and out of the passing workers and stepping aside for loaded carts. At the end, they met six white-uniformed workers wheeling a covered cart toward them along the pier.
“Repair crew,” Scudi explained. She spoke to the first man in the group. “Something wrong with this one?”
“Just a little trouble with the thrust reverser, Miss Wang.” All six stopped while the leader spoke to Scudi. They all looked very much alike in their white coveralls. Brett saw no name tags.
“Can I take our guest aboard to show him around? I’m familiar with this one,” she said. Brett thought he detected a note of false petulance in her voice.
“I’m sure you are,” the crewman said. “But be careful. They’ve just finished refueling it for the test run. You’ll have to be out in about an hour. The next shift will be loading it then.”
“Oh, good,” Scudi said, dragging Brett around the repair cart. “We’ll have it all to ourselves and I can show you everything.” She called back over her shoulder. “Thanks!”
The crewman waved and helped his men trundle their cart down the pier.
Midway down the hull, Scudi led the way up a narrow gangplank. Brett followed her into a passage lighted by overhead tubes. She motioned for him to wait while she peered back out the open hatch. Presently, she pressed a switch beside the hatch. A low hum sounded and the gangplank slid in. The hatch sealed behind it with a soft hiss.
“Quick!” she said. She turned and once more they were running. Scudi led him up a series of gang
ways and along a wide corridor, emerging finally into a plaz-windowed control room high above the prow.
“Take the other seat.”
She slid into one of the two command couches that faced a bank of instruments. “I’ll show you how to run one of these things. It’s really simple.”
Brett watched her, seeing the way she became another person as she touched the controls. Every movement was quick and sure. “Now this one,” she said, hitting a yellow button.
A low thrumming could be felt through the deck under their feet. Several Mermen working on the pier below them turned and looked at the foil.
Scudi moved her hand up to a red button labeled “Emergency release—docking lines.” She touched the button and immediately drew a lever at her left all the way back. The foil slid smoothly out of its dock. Mermen below them began to run and wave at the foil.
Before they cleared the dock Scudi began pumping ballast aboard. The foil slipped under the water, banking sharply to the left. Scudi lifted a stick from the deck beside her. Brett saw that it was socketed into the deck and wondered what it controlled. Her left hand moved the lever on the other side of her, throwing it full forward. The foil dove toward the lip of the inverted plaz cup. Brett looked up as they passed under the lip, watching the lighted edge pass away astern.
Once on the other side, Scudi began blowing ballast as she lifted the bow toward the surface. Brett swiveled around and saw the docking bay recede behind them. There was no pursuit yet.
Brett was stunned at the size of the boat. Seventy meters. That’s ten coracles long!
“Watch what I’m doing,” Scudi ordered. “You might have to run one of these things.”
Brett turned back to take in the levers, buttons, gauges and switches.
“Hydrogen ramjets for both underwater and surface,” she said. “Fuel conservation system reduces our speed underwater. Here’s the governor.” She indicated a clip-locked toggle between them. “Dangerous to exceed governed speed but it can be done in an emergency.”
She moved the stick in her right hand, swinging it to starboard and pulling back on it slightly. “This steers us,” she said. “Pull back to lift, down to dive.”
Brett nodded.
“These …” She indicated a bank of instruments across the top of the board. “You read the labels: topside fuel flow, ballast—slower than on a sub. Ignition. Air supply for down under. Always remember to switch it off topside. If the cockpit is breached, we’re automatically ejected. Manual ejection is by that red lever at the center.”
Brett responded with a series of grunts or “Got it.” He was thankful that all the switches and instruments carried clear labels.
Scudi pointed overhead where a black hood framed a large, gridded screen. “Charts are projected there. That’s something Islanders have been trying to get for a long time.”
“Why can’t we have it?” Brett knew the system she had indicated. Fishermen grouched about it often. Steeran, the Mermen called it. A navigation system that worked by reading Merman fixed underwater transmission stations.
“Too complicated and too costly for upkeep. You just don’t have the support facilities.”
He had heard that story before. Islanders didn’t believe it, but Scudi obviously did.
“Topside,” she announced.
The foil broke the surface in a long wave trough that crested under them. Water cascaded off the plaz all around.
Brett clapped his hands over his eyes. The stabbing blast of light made his eyeballs feel like two hot coals in his head. He ducked his face down onto his knees with a loud moan.
“Is something wrong?” Scudi asked. She did not look at him but busied herself dropping the foils from their hull slots and increasing speed.
“It’s my eyes,” he said. He blinked them open, adjusting slowly. Tears washed over his cheeks. “It’s getting better.”
“Good,” she said. “You should watch what I do. It’s best to put the foil up on the step parallel to the waves, then quarter into them as you bring it up to speed. I’ll get the course in a blink after we’re at cruise. Look back and see if there’s any pursuit.”
Brett turned and stared back along their wake, aware suddenly of how fast they already were moving. The big foil throbbed and bounced under them, then suddenly the ride smoothed and there was only the high whine of the hydrogen rams and the jumping jostle of the foils bridging the waves.
“Eighty-five knots,” Scudi said. “Are they after us yet?”
“I don’t see anything.” Brett wiped at his eyes. The pain was almost gone.
“I don’t see anything on the instruments,” she said. “They must know it’s hopeless. Every other foil in the bay has at least some cargo aboard. We have none and full fuel tanks.”
Brett returned his attention to the front, blinking away the pain as his eyes reacted to the sunlight off the waves.
“The RDF is over to your right, that green panel,” she said. “See if you can raise Vashon’s signal.”
Brett turned to the radio direction finder. He saw at once it was a more sophisticated model than the one on which Twisp had trained him, but the dials were labeled and the frequency arc was immediately identifiable. He had the signal in a moment. The familiar voice of Vashon’s transmission to its fishing fleet crackled from the overhead speakers.
“It’s a good fishing day, everyone, and big cargoes expected. Muree are running strong in quadrant nineteen.” Brett turned down the volume.
“What is quadrant nineteen?” Scudi asked.
“It’s a grid position relative to Vashon.”
“But the Island moves as it drifts!”
“So do the muree, and that’s all that’s important.”
Brett twisted the dials, homed on the signal and read the coordinates. “There’s your course,” he said, pointing to the dial above the RDF. “Is that sun-relative or compass?”
“Compass.”
“Doppler distance reads five hundred and ninety klicks. That’s a long way!”
“Seven plus hours,” she said. “We can run ten hours without stopping to recharge fuel. We can regenerate our own hydrogen from seawater during daylight hours, but we’ll be sitting squawks if they come after us or try to block us from some station up ahead.”
“They could do that?” “I’m sure they’ll try. There are four outposts along our course.”
“We would need more fuel,” he said.
“And they’ll be looking for us from down under.”
“What about one of the smaller Islands?”
“I saw the latest plot on the current board yesterday. Vashon’s closest by more than five hundred klicks.”
“Why can’t I get on the emergency frequency and tell Vashon what we know. We should report in anyway,” he added.
“What do we know?” she asked, adjusting the throttle. The foil lurched slightly and tipped, climbing one of the periodic high waves.
“We know they’re holding the Chief Justice against his will. We know there are 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?
“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.