"We will rest and when we wake, you will meet some of our people who can help. Mermen travel far. We pass along the word. You will hear of him and he of you ... if that's your wish."

"My wish?" He stared at her, absorbing this. "You mean I could choose to ... disappear?"

She shrugged her eyebrows, accenting the gamin look. "Where you want to be is where you should be. Who you want to be is the same, not so?"

"It can't be that simple."

"If you have not broken the law, there are possibilities down under. The Merman world is big. Wouldn't you like to stay here?" She coughed and he wondered if she had been about to say "stay here with me?" Scudi suddenly seemed much older, more worldly. Talk among the Islanders gave Brett the impression that Mermen had an extra sophistication, a sense of belonging anywhere they went, of knowing more than Islanders.

"Do you live alone?" he asked.

"Yes. This was my mother's place. And it's close to where my father lived."

"Don't Merman families live together?"

She scowled. "My parents ... stubborn, both of them. They couldn't live together. I lived with my father for a long time, but ... he died." She shook her head and he saw the memories pain her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Where's your mother?"

"She is dead too." Scudi looked away from him. "My mother was net-bound less than a year ago." Scudi's throat moved with a convulsive swallow as she turned back to him. "It has been difficult ... there is a man, GeLaar Gallow, who became my mother's ... lover. That was after ..." She broke off and shook her head sharply.

"I'm sorry, Scudi," he said. "I didn't mean to bring back painful -"

"But I want to talk about it! Down here, there is no one I can ... I mean, my closest friends avoid the subject and I ..." She rubbed her left cheek. "You are a new friend and you listen."

"Of course, but I don't see what ..."

"After my father died, my mother signed over ... You understand, Brett, that my father was Ryan Wang, there was much wealth?"

Wang! he thought. Merman Mercantile. His rescuer was a wealthy heiress!

"I ... I didn't ..."

"It is all right. Gallow was to be my stepfather. My mother signed over to him control of much that my father left. Then she died."

"So there's nothing for you."

"What? Oh, you mean from my father. No, that is not my problem. Besides, Kareen Ale is my new guardian. My father left her ... many things. They were friends."

"What ... you said there's a problem."

"Everyone wants Kareen to marry Gallow and Gallow pursues this."

Brett noted that Scudi's lips tightened every time she spoke Gallow's name. "What is wrong with this Gallow?" he asked.

Scudi spoke in a low voice. "He frightens me."

"Why? What's he done?"

"I don't know. But he was on the crew when my father died ... and when my mother died."

"Your mother ... you said a net ..."

"An Islander net. That is what they said."

He lowered his gaze, remembering his recent experience with a Merman in the net.

Seeing the look on his face, Scudi said: "I have no resentment toward you. I can see that you are sorry. My mother knew the danger of nets."

"You said Gallow was with your parents when they died. Do you ..."

"I have never spoken of this to anyone before. I don't know why I say it to 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?"

"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 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."