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Galloedged hiaze fixed on the display screens, which showed Island tissueaway from the heliarcs

"There is no Ship!" Gallow exulted "You see! Would Ship allow a lazed eyes on Bushka at the controls "I told you! Ship&039;s an artifact, a thing made by people like us God! There is no God!"

Bushka tried to speak but his throat was too dry

"Take us back down, Iz," Gallow ordered

"What&039;re you doing?" Bushka e Ship," Gallow said "Has Ship responded?" A wild laugh issued from his throat Only Zent joined it

"Take us down, I said!" Gallow repeated

Driven by fear, Bushka&039;s pilot-conditionedplanes And he thought: If we get out fast, some of this Island h the wreckage left by its terrible ascent Plazports and screens showed the water around theray in the harsh illuhts

"Hold us here," Gallow ordered

Bushka ignored the coe - inert bodies and pieces of bodies glimpsed in the irl&039;s dancing frock hite lace ruffles in an ancient pattern floated past a port Behind it could be seen strung out the remnants of soainst a remnant stone box: outline of a shts, blood rolled and strea down the currents

"I said hold us here!" Gallow shouted

Bushka continued to gentle the sub doard A well of tears briainst his eyelids

Don&039;t let me cry! he prayed Dammit! I can&039;t break down in front of thesetheseNo word in his memory could label what his coe in him These three Merht before the Coment must be made

Nakano reached across Bushka and adjusted the ballast controls to bring the sub&039;s descent to a stop His eyes looked a warning

Bushka looked at Nakano through a swiaze to Zent Zent still held his left ear, but he watched Bushka steadily, s that cold-liver set you topside"

Gallow reached across Zent&039;s head to the heliarc controls

"Take us straight ahead," he ordered He snapped a polarized shield in place and sighted down the twin snouts of the bow heliarc

Bushka reached to his shoulder and brought his chest harness into place, snapping it closed at his side Hestare from Zent Before Zent could react, Bushka kicked loose the dive planes, skewed the control surfaces to starboard and blew the rear ballast tanks while he opened the bow valves The sub surged over onto its nose and corkscrewed toward the botto faster and faster Nakano was thrown to the left by the force of the spin Zent lost his needle burner while trying to grab for a support His body was thrown against Gallow Both men lay pinned between hull and control panels Only Bushka, strapped in at the center of the spin, could move with relative ease

"You daht handacross the switches hts and all but the exterior bow light Outside the glow of that one beacon, darkness closed in, surrounding theray murk in which only a few shreds of torn humanity drifted and sank

"You&039;re not Ship!" Gallow screa this!"

Bushka ignored hiet out of this, Bushka," Gallow shouted "You&039;ll have to co if I ht

"You&039;re crazy, Bushka!" Gallow shouted

Bushka stared straight ahead, looking for the first gli in andco dive into the rocky botto to do it, Bushka?" That was Nakano, voice loud but level and more than a little adle of dive but kept the hard spin, knowing his Island-trained equilibriuan to vo as he tried to clear his throat in the heavy centrifugal pressure The stench beca presence in the cabin

Bushka keyed his console for display of the sub&039;s gas displaceaze traced out the linked lines Yesexhausted cabin air was bled into the ballast systey

Gallow had subsided into a loling protest while he struggled to crawl out against the force of the spin "Not Ship! Just another damn shit-eater Gonna kill hira sequence on the een mask dropped in front of hien remained securely in place Bushka pressed the mask to his face with one hand while his other hand bled CO2 fro

Gallow led and rasped but the words were clear: "The air! He&039;sgoingtosmother us!"

Justice does not happen by chance; indeed, so that subjective may never have happened at all

- Ward Keel, Journal

Maritio at all as Queets Twisp had expected Killing a Merman in the nets had never been an acceptable "accident" at sea, even when all the evidence said it was unavoidable The emphasis was always on the deceased and the needs of the surviving Mer you of all the Islanders they saved every year with their pickup crews and search teahis head Brett alrin on his face

"See?" Brett said "I kneorried for nothing They said it wasn&039;t a Merman in our net - no Mermen lost, nobody that wasn&039;t accounted for We didn&039;t drown anybody at all!"

"Wipe that grin off your face!" Twisp said

"But Queets "

"Don&039;t interrupt me!" he snapped "I had my face down there in the net - I saw the blood Red Dasher blood&039;s green Now, didn&039;t it seeot us out of court too fast?"

"It&039;s a busy place and we&039;re small-time You said that yourself" Brett paused, then asked, "Did you really see blood?"

"Too much for a few beat-up fish"

The hallway let them out into the wide third-level peri out onto the surging sea and the spu past Weather had said there was a fifty-klick wind today with chance of rain The sky hung gray, hiding the one sun that had headed doard into the horizon, the other already gone

Rain?

Twisp thought Weather had made one of its infrequent errors His fisherman&039;s sense said the ould have to increase before any rain came today He expected sunshine before sunset

"Maritis to do than worry about every small-time " Brett broke off as he saw the bitter expression on Twisp&039;s face

"I mean "

"I knohat youthat catch cost es, food, the scull "

Brett was al to keep up with the older er, firmer strides "But we can make another start if "

"Hoisp asked with a toss of one long arm "I can&039;t afford to outfit us You knohat they&039;ll advise o back to the subs as a co ra and out onto the wide second-level terrace with its heavily cultivated truck gardens Mazelike access lanes crooked their way to the high railing overlooking the wider first level As they ean to appear in the overcast and one of Pandora&039;s suns ists at Weather It bathed the terrace in a welcoht

Brett pulled at Twisp&039;s sleeve "Queets, you wouldn&039;t have to sell the boat if you got a loan and -"

"I&039;ve got loans up to here!" Twisp said, touching his neck "I&039;d just cleared h that again! The boat goes That means I have to sell your contract"

Twisp sat on a mound of bubbly at the rail and looked out over the sea The wind-speed was dropping fast, just as he&039;d expected The surge at the riht up now

"Best fishing weather we&039;ve had in a long time," Brett said

Twisp had to admit this was true

"Why did Maritime let us off so easy?" Twisp muttered "We had a Mer funny&039;s going on"

"But they let us off, that&039;s the iht you&039;d be happy about it"

"Grow up, kid" Twisp closed his eyes and leaned back against the rail He felt the cool water breeze against his neck The sun was hot on his head Too ht

Brett stood directly in front of Twisp "You keep tellingup yourself If you&039;d only get a loan and -"

"If you won&039;t grow up, kid, then shut up"

"It couldn&039;t have been a tripod fish in the net?" Brett persisted

"No way! There&039;s a different feel That was a Merot hi, too, froainst the rail, Twisp listened to the kid shift fro the boat?" Brett asked "Because we accidentally killed a Merman here he wasn&039;t supposed to be? You think the Meret you now?"

"I don&039;t knohat to think"

Twisp opened his eyes and looked up at Brett The kid had narrowed his overly large eyes into a tight squint, his gaze steady on Twisp

"The Merman observers at Maritime didn&039;t object to the court&039;s decision," Brett said

"You&039;re right," Twisp said He jerked a thumb upward toward the Maritime offices "They&039;re usually ruthless in cases like this I wonderor almost saw"

Brett moved to one side and plopped himself onto the bubbly beside Twisp They listened for a tiainst the Island&039;s rim

"I expected to be sent down under," Twisp said "And you with o to work for the dead Merman&039;s farunted, then: "They&039;d have sent me, not you Everybody knows about my eyes, how I can see when it&039;s alive yourself airs, kid Merene pool They call us Mutes, you know And they don&039;tnice when they say it We&039;re o down under it&039;s to fill a deadelse"

"Maybe they didn&039;t want this job filled," Brett said

Twisp tapped a fist on the resilient organics of the rail "Or they didn&039;t want anybody from topside to knohat that Merman&039;s job was"

"That&039;s crazy!"

Twisp did not respond They sat quietly for a while as the lone sun dipped lower Glancing over his shoulder, Twisp stared at the horizon It bent away in the distance to a bank of black sky and water Water everywhere

"I can get us outfitted," Brett said

Tas startled but re off at the horizon Twisp noticed that the boy&039;s skin had become fisherman-dark, not the sickly pale he had displayed when he first boarded the coracle The kid looked leaner, tooand taller