[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"We'll lay it here."
"I don't have a dive suit," Bushka moaned.
"You'll hide under the tarp there in the cuddy," Twisp said. "Over the side,
you two. Hurry it up, Scudi! String that net along the kelp."
Presently, after hurried preparations, Bushka burrowed his way beneath the
tarp and crawled under the forward deck. Brett and Scudi rolled backward over
the side of the boat, pulling the net with them. The sound of the approaching
foil was growing louder.
Twisp stared toward the sound. The foil was still eight or ten kilometers to
port but closing faster than he had thought possible. He hauled in his
squawks and caged them, then found two handlines. He baited them with dried
muree and slung them over the side.
The raft!
It bobbed against the side of the supply coracle like a beacon. Twisp shot
out a long arm, grabbed the line and pulled it to him. He slit it open,
rolled the air out of it as fast as he could and stowed it under his seat.
Brett and
Scudi, he saw, were getting something out of the supply coracle. Harpoon?
Damn! They had better hurry.
He glanced around his coracle then. Bushka lay concealed under the bow cuddy.
The net trailed aft. Scudi and Brett had gone under water into the kelp. Why
did Brett want a harpoon? Twisp wondered. They were safely under the kelp,
though, taking their surface air from beneath huge leaves.
Twisp cut his motor and slipped the lasgun out of its hiding place behind him.
He put it under a towel beside him on the seat and kept his hand on it.
"Bushka," he called. "Stay as quiet as a dead fish. If it's them . . . well,
we don't know. I'll give you the all-clear if it's not." He wiped the back
of his free hand across his mouth. "Here they are."
He raised a hand in greeting as the foil circled in over the kelp, scattering
torn green fronds in its wake. It avoided the net and the side of the channel
where Brett and Scudi had taken to the water.
No response came to his greeting, just intense stares from two dark figures in
the high cockpit. Twisp saw streaks of green on the figures up there. He
breathed deeply to slow his heartbeat and steady the trembling in his legs.
Be ready, he warned himself, but don't be jumpy.
The foil swung wide astern and sank into the channel through the kelp. The
jet subsided to a faint hiss. A heavy wave rolled out from the foil's bow and
rocked the coracles. The squawks set up a loud complaint.
Once more, Twisp raised a hand in greeting and waved the approaching foil to
the left, indicating the long line of his net with its bobbing floats. When
no more than twenty meters separated the craft, Twisp shouted, "Good weather
and a good catch!"
He tightened his grip on the lasgun. The choppy cross-waves set up by the
foil broke over the coracle's thwarts and soaked him.
Still no response from the foil, which now loomed high over him and no more
than ten meters away. Its side hatch slid open and a Merman appeared there in
a camouflaged dive suit -- green blobs and stripes. The foil slid alongside
and came to a stop.
The Merman standing above Twisp said, "I thought Mutes never fished alone."
"You thought wrong."
"I thought no Mute fished out of sight of his Island."
"This one does."
The Merman's quick eyes flitted over both coracles, followed the line of
floats astern, then fixed on Twisp.
"Your net's strung along a kelp bed," he said. "You could lose it that way."
Page 163
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Kelp means fish," Twisp said. He kept his voice level, calm. He even
flashed a smile. "Fishermen go where the catch is."
Under the foil's bow, too low to be visible to the Merman, Twisp saw Scudi
slip up for air, then drift down.
"Where's your catch?"
"What's it to you?"
The Merman squatted on the deck above Twisp and looked down at him. "Listen,
shit-bug, you can disappear out here. Now I've got some questions and I want
answers. If I like the answers, you keep your net, your boat, your catch and
maybe you keep alive. Do you understand?"
Twisp remained silent. Out of the corner of one eye he caught a glimpse of
Brett's head surfacing under the other side of the foil's bow. Brett's hand
came up gripping the harpoon from the supply coracle.
What's he doing with that thing? Twisp wondered. And he's in too close for me
to use the stunshield if the chance comes.
"Aye," Twisp said. "No catch yet. Just got set up." Brett and Scudi
disappeared from his sight around the other side of the foil.
"Have you seen anyone else on the water?" the Merman asked.
"Not since the wavewall."
The Merman looked at Twisp's grizzled, weather-beaten face and said, "You've
been out ever since the wavewall?" There was awe in his voice.
"Yeah."
He dropped the awe. "And no catch?" he snapped. "You're not much of a
fisherman. Not much of a liar, either. You sit still, I'm coming aboard."
He signaled his intentions to someone out of view in the foil, then flipped a
stubby ladder over the side.
The Merman's movements were deft and controlled. He used no more than the
minimal energy required for each action. Twisp noted this and felt a deep
sense of caution.
This man knows his body, Twisp thought. And it's a weapon. It would be
difficult to take this man by surprise. But Twisp knew his own strengths. He
had leverage and a net-puller's power. He also had a lasgun under his towel.
The Merman began lowering himself into the coracle. One foot probed backward
for the thwart and, as the Merman put his weight onto that foot, Twisp moved
backward as though compensating for the weight shift. The Merman smiled and
released both hands from the ladder. He turned to make the last step down
into the coracle. Twisp reached his long left arm out to steady the man and,
as he moved, shifted his weight. Twisp allowed the man to feel a firm grip in
the clasp of the hand, steadying him against the roll of the boat until the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]