Twisp changed course to intercept the swimmer. Cupping his great hands around his mouth, Twisp shouted: "This way! Over here!"

The swimmer did not change course.

Twisp swung wide and pulled up alongside the man, cut the motor and extended a hand.

Now in the coracle's shadow, the swimmer twisted his head upward and gave Twisp a frightened look, seeing the extended hand.

"Come aboard," Twisp said. It was a traditional Islander greeting, matter-of-fact. Not even an implied question, such as "What in Ship's name are you doing out here?"

The swimmer took Twisp's hand and Twisp pulled him aboard, nearly swamping the coracle as the man clumsily tried to grasp a thwart. Twisp pulled him to the center and returned to the tiller.

The man stood there a moment, looking all around, dripping a damp pool into the bilges. His bare chest and face were pale, but not as pale as most Mermen's.

Is this a Merman who lives a lot topside? Twisp wondered. And what the hell happened to him?

The swimmer looked older than Brett but younger than Twisp. His green utility pants were dark with seawater.

Twisp glanced to where the sub had been. Only a slow roiling of the water showed where it had gone down.

"Trouble?" Twisp asked. Again, it was the Islander way - a laconic overture that said: "What help do you need that I can give?"

The man sat down and lay back against the coracle's deck cover. He drew in several deep, shuddering breaths.

Recovering from shock, Twisp thought, studying him. The man was small and heavyset, with a large head.

An Islander? Twisp wondered. He put it as a question, hoping directness would shock the man back to normal.

The man remained silent, but he scowled.

That was a reaction, anyway. Twisp took his time examining this strange figure from the sea: dark brown hair lay dripping against a wide forehead. Brown eyes returned Twisp's gaze from beneath thick brows. The man had a wide nose, wide mouth and square chin. His shoulders were broad, with powerful upper arms thinning to rather delicate forearms and slender hands. The hands appeared soft but the fingertips were calloused and shiny. Twisp had seen such fingertips on people who spent a lot of time at keyboard controls.

Hooking a thumb back to where the sub had gone down, Twisp asked: "You care to tell me what that was all about?"

"I was escaping." The voice was a thin tenor.

"The sub's hatch was still open when it went under," Twisp said. That was just a comment and could be taken as such if the man desired.

"The rest of the sub was secured," the man said. "Only the engine compartment will flood."

"That was a Merman sub," Twisp said; another comment.

The man pushed himself away from the deck cover. "We'd better get out of here," he said.

"We're staying while I look for a friend," Twisp said. "He was lost overboard in that last wave wall." He cleared his throat. "You care to tell me your name?"

"Iz Bushka."

Twisp felt that he had heard that name before, but could not make the connection. And now as he looked at Bushka there was a sensation that Twisp had seen this face before - in a Vashon passage, perhaps ... somewhere.

"Do I know you?" Twisp asked.

"What's your name?" Bushka asked.

"Twisp. Queets Twisp."

"Don't think we're acquainted," Bushka said. He sent another fearful gaze across the water around the coracles.

"You haven't said what you were escaping from," Twisp said. Another comment.

"From people who ... we'd all be better off if they were dead. Damn! I should've killed them but I couldn't bring myself to do it!"

Twisp remained silent in shock. Did all Mermen speak so casually of killing? He found his voice: "But you sent them down under with a flooded engine room!"

And unconscious, too! But they're Mermen. They'll get out when they recover. Come on! Let's get out of here."

"Perhaps you didn't hear me, Iz. I'm looking for a friend who went overboard from Vashon."

"If your friend's alive, he's safe down under. You're the only thing on the surface for at least twenty klicks. Believe it. I was looking. I came up because I saw you."

Twisp glanced back at the distant white line of the surf. "That's on the surface."

"The barrier? Yeh, but there's nothing else. No Merman base, nothing."

Twisp considered for a moment - the way Bushka said "Merman." Fear? Loathing?

"I know where there's a Search and Rescue base," Bushka said. "We could be there by daybreak tomorrow. If your friend's alive ..." He left it there.

Talks a bit like an Islander, acts a lot like a Merman, Twisp thought. Damn! Where have I seen him?

Twisp glanced at the distant surfline. "You called that a barrier."

"Mermen are going to have land on the surface. That's part of it."

Twisp let this sink in, not believing it or disbelieving it. Fascinating, if true, but there were other muree to fry at that moment.

"So you scuttled a sub and you're escaping from people who would be better dead."

Twisp did not believe half of this Bushka's story. The hospitality of the sea said you had to listen. Nothing said you had to agree.

Bushka sent an agitated gaze over their surroundings. Second sun was up but in this season it made a quick sweep and the half-night would be on them soon. Twisp was hungry and irritated.

"Do you have a towel and some blankets?" Bushka asked. "I'm freezing my ass off!"

Abruptly contrite because he had failed to provide for the man's comfort, Twisp said: "Towel and blankets are rolled up in the cuddy behind you."

As Bushka turned and found the roll, Twisp added: "You saw me so you came up hoping I'd save you."

Bushka looked out from beneath the towel with which he was drying his hair. "If I'd left them under CO2 any longer it would've killed them. I couldn't do it."

"Are you going to tell me who they are?"

"People who'd kill us while eating lunch and not miss a bite!"

Something in the way Bushka said this set Twisp's stomach trembling. Bushka believed what he said.

"I don't suppose you have an RDC," Bushka said. He spoke with more than a little snobbishness.

Twisp kept his temper and uncovered the instrument near his feet. His relative drift compensator was one of his proudest possessions. The compass arrow in its top was pointing now far off their course.

Bushka approached and looked down at the RDC. "A Merman compass is more accurate," he said, "but this will do."

"Not more accurate between Islands," Twisp corrected him. "Islands drift and there's no fixed point of reference."

Bushka knelt beside the RDC and worked its settings with a sureness that told Twisp this was not the first time the man had used such an instrument. The red arrow atop the housing swung to a new setting.

"That should get us there," Bushka said. He shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how we found any place without Merman instruments."

We? Twisp wondered.

"I think you're an Islander," Twisp accused, barely holding in his anger. "We're a pretty backward lot, aren't we!"

Bushka stood and returned to his position near the opening of the cuddy.

"Better work a bit more with that towel," Twisp said. "You missed behind your ears!"

Bushka ignored him and sat down with his back against the cuddy.

Twisp fed more power to his motor and swung around on the course indicated by the RDC arrow. Might as well go to this Rescue Base! Damn that Bushka! Was he one of those down-under Islanders who had become more Merman than the Mermen?

"You going to tell me what happened on that sub?" Twisp asked. "I'm through playing and I want to know what I'm into."

With a sullen expression, Bushka settled himself into his former position against the deck. Presently, he began describing his trip with Gallow. When he got to the part about Guemes Island, Twisp stopped him.