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you, but you are sympathetic. And you . . . I mean . . ."
"I owe you."
"Oh, no! It is nothing like that. It's just . . . I like your face and the
way you listen."
Brett lifted his gaze and met her staring at him. "Is there no one who can
help you?" he asked. "You said Kareen Ale . . . everyone knows about her.
Can't she
--"
"I would never say these things to Kareen!"
Brett studied Scudi for a moment, seeing the shock and fear in her face. He
already had a sense of the wildness in Merman life from the stories told among
Islanders. Violence was no stranger down here, if the stories were to be
believed. But what Scudi suggested . . .
"You wonder if Gallow had anything to do with the deaths of your parents," he
said.
She nodded without speaking.
"Why do you suspect this?"
"He asked me to sign many papers but I pleaded ignorance and consulted Kareen.
I don't think the papers he showed her were the same ones he brought to me.
She has not said yet what I should do."
"Has he . . ." Brett cleared his throat. "What I mean is . . . you are . . .
that is, sometimes Islanders marry young."
"There has been nothing like that, except he tells me to hurry and grow up.
It is all a joke. He says he is tired of waiting for me."
"How old are you?"
"I will be sixteen next month. You?"
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"I'll be seventeen in five months."
She looked at his net-calloused hands. "Your hands say you work hard, for an
Islander." Immediately, she popped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went
wide.
Brett had heard Merman jokes about lazy Islanders sunning themselves while
Mermen built a world under the sea. He scowled.
"I have a big mouth," Scudi said. "I find someone at last who can really be
my friend and I offend him."
"Islanders aren't lazy," Brett said.
Scudi reached out impulsively and took his right hand in hers. "I have only
to look at you and I know the stories are lies."
Brett pulled his hand away. He still felt hurt and bewildered. Scudi might
say something soothing to smooth it over, but the truth had come out
involuntarily.
I work hard, for an Islander!
Scudi got to her feet and busied herself removing the dishes and the remains
of their meal. Everything went into a pneumatic slot at the kitchen wall and
vanished with a click and a hiss.
Brett stared at the slot. The workers who took care of that probably were
Islanders permanently hidden from view.
"Central kitchens and all this space," he said. "It's Mermen who have things
easy."
She turned toward him, an intent expression on her face. "Is that what
Islanders say?"
Brett felt his face grow hot.
"I don't like jokes that lie," Scudi said. "I don't think you do, either."
Brett swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat. Scudi was so direct! That
was not the Islander way at all, but he found himself attracted by it.
"Queets never tells those jokes and I don't either," Brett said.
"This Queets, he is your father?"
Brett thought suddenly about his father and his mother -- the butterfly life
between intense bouts of painting. He thought about their downcenter
apartment, the many things they owned and cared for -- furniture, art work,
even some
Merman appliances. Queets, though, owned only what he could store in his
boat.
He owned what he truly needed -- a kind of survival selectivity.
"You are ashamed of your father?" Scudi asked.
"Queets isn't my father. He's the fisherman who owns my contract -- Queets
Twisp."
"Oh, yes. You do not own many things, do you, Brett? I see you looking
around my quarters and . . ." She shrugged.
"The clothes on my back were mine," Brett said. "When I sold my contract to
Queets, he took me on for training and gave me what I need. There isn't room
for useless stuff on a coracle."
"This Queets, he is a frugal man? Is he cruel to you?"
"Queets is a good man! And he's strong. He's stronger than anyone I've ever
known. Queets has the longest arms you've ever seen, perfect for working the
nets. They're almost as long as he is tall."
A barely perceptible shudder crossed Scudi's shoulders. "You like this Queets
very much," she said.
Brett looked away from her. That unguarded shudder told it all. Islanders
made
Mermen shudder. He felt the pain of betrayal deep in his guts. "You Mermen
are all the same," he said. "Mutants don't ask to be that way."
"I don't think of you as a mutant, Brett," she said. "Anyone can see that
you're normalized."
"There!" Brett snapped, glaring at her. "What's normal? Oh, I've heard the
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talk: Islanders are having more 'normal' births these days . . . and there's
always surgery. Twisp's long arms offend you? Well, he's no freak. He's the
best fisherman on Pandora because he fits what he does."
"I see that I've learned many wrong things," Scudi said, her voice low.
"Queets
Twisp must be a good man because Brett Norton admires him." A wry smile
touched her lips and was gone. "Have you learned no wrong things, Brett?"
"I'm . . . after what you did for me, I should not be talking to you this
way."
"Wouldn't you save me if I were caught in your net? Wouldn't you . . ."
"I'd go in after you and damn the dashers!"
She grinned, an infectious expression that Brett found himself answering in
kind.
"I know you would, Brett. I like you. I learn things about Islanders from
you that I didn't know. You are different, but . . ."
His grin vanished. "My eyes are good eyes!" he snapped, thinking this was the
difference she meant.
"Your eyes?" She stared at him. "They are beautiful eyes! In the water, I
saw your eyes first. They are large eyes and . . . difficult to escape." She
lowered her gaze. "I like your eyes."
"I . . . I thought . . ."
Again, she met his gaze. "I've never seen two Islanders exactly alike, but
Mermen are never exactly alike, either."
"Everyone down under won't feel that way," he accused. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]