The land is being restored.

The good life is coming.

This is why Ship gave Pandora to us.

To us - to Mermen - not to Islanders.

Keel's throat pained him when he tried to swallow. The kelp project lay at the base of it all, and that had gone too far to be lost or slowed. It was being taken over, instead. Justifications for the project could not be denied. The late Ryan Wang's comconsole was full of those justifications: Without the kelp the suns would continue to fatigue the crust of Pandora, constant earthquakes and volcanics would ravage them as they had all those generations back.

Lava built up undersea plateaus along fault lines. Mermen were taking advantage of this for their project. The last wave-wall had been a consequence of a volcanic upheaval, not the gravitational swings that inflicted themselves on Pandora's seas.

Brett was speaking: "I would like to see the Nest and the Islanders there. Maybe that's where we should go."

Out of the mouths of babes, Keel thought.

Scudi shook her head in negation. "They would find us there easily. Security there is not like here - there are badges, papers ..."

"Then we should run topside," Brett said. "The Justice is right. He wants us to tell the Islanders what's happening down here."

"And what is happening?" she asked.

Keel stepped out of the shadows, speaking as he moved: "Pandora is being changed - physically, politically, socially. That's what's happening. The old life will not be possible, topside or down under. I think Scudi's father had a dream of great things, the transformation of Pandora, but someone else has taken it over and is making it a nightmare."

Keel stopped, facing the two young people. They stared back at him, aghast.

Can they feel it? Keel wondered.

Runaway greed was working to seize control of this new Pandora.

Scudi jabbed a finger at the schematic, which Brett still held. "The Launch Base and Outpost Twenty-two," she said. "Here! They are near Vashon's current drift. The Island will be at least a full day past this point by now but ..."

"What're you suggesting?" Keel asked.

"I think I can get us to Outpost Twenty-two," she said. "I've worked there. From the outpost, I could compute Vashon's exact position."

Keel looked at the chart in Brett's hands. A surge of homesickness surged through the Justice. To be in his own quarters ... Joy near at hand to care for him. He was going to die soon ... how much better to die in familiar surroundings. As quickly as it came, the feeling was suppressed. Escape? He did not have the energy, the swiftness. He could only hold these young people back. But he saw the eagerness in Scudi and the way Brett picked up on it. They might just do it. The Islands had to be told what was happening.

"Here is what we will do," Keel said. "And this is the message you will carry."

A flock of wild squawks came flying past the coracles, their wings whistling in the dull gray light of morning. Twisp turned his head to follow the birds' path. They landed about fifty meters ahead of him.

Bushka had sat up at the sudden sound, fear obvious in his face.

"Just squawks," Twisp said.

"Oh." Bushka subsided with his back against the cuddy.

"If we feed 'em, they'll follow us," Twisp said. "I've never seen 'em this far from an Island."

"We're near the base," Bushka said.

As they approached the swimming flock, Twisp tipped some of his garbage over the side. The birds came scrambling for the handout. The smaller ones churned their legs so fast they skipped across the water.

It was the birds' eyes that interested him, he decided. There was living presence in those eyes you never saw in the eyes of sea creatures. Squawk eyes looked back at you with something of the human world in them.

Bushka moved up and sat on the cuddy top to watch the birds and the horizon ahead of them. Where is that damned Launch Base? The motions of the birds kept attracting his attention. Twisp had said the squawks acted out of an ancient instinct. Probably true. Instinct! How long did it take to extinguish instinct? Or develop it? Which way were humans going? How strongly were they driven by such inner forces? Historian questions thronged his mind.

"That dull-looking squawk is a female," Bushka said, pointing to the wild flock. "I wonder why the males are so much more colorful?"

"Has to be some survival in it," Twisp said. He looked at the flock swimming beside the coracle, their eyes alert for another handout. "That's a female, all right." A scowl settled over his face. "One thing you can say for that hen squawk: she'll never ask a surgeon to make her normal!"

Bushka heard the bitterness and sensed the old familiar Islander story. It was getting to be ever more common these days: A lover had surgery to appear Merman-normal, then pressured the partner to do the same. A lot of angry fights resulted.

"Sounds like you got burned," Bushka said.

"I was crisped and charred," Twisp said. "Have to admit it was fun at first ..." He hesitated, then: "... but I hoped it would be more than fun, something more permanent." He shook his head.

Bushka yawned and stretched. The wild flock took his movement as a threat and scattered in a flurry of splashes and loud cries.

Twisp stared toward the wild birds, but his eyes were not focused on them. "Her name's Rebeccah," he said. "She really liked my arms around her. Never complained about how long they were until -" He broke off in sudden embarrassment.

"She chose surgical correction?" Bushka prompted.

"Yeah." Twisp swallowed. Now what set me talking about Rebeccah to this stranger? Am I that lonesome? She had liked to feed the squawks at rimside every evening. He had enjoyed those evenings more than he could tell, and remembered details in a flood that he shut off as soon as it started.

Bushka was staring at his own hands. "She dumped you after the surgery?"

"Dumped me? Naw." Twisp sighed. "That would've been easy. I know I'd always feel like some kind of freak around her afterwards. No Mute can afford to feel that way, ever. It's why a lot of us more obvious types shy away from the Mermen. It's the stares and the way we think of ourselves then - our own eyes looking back from the mirror."

"Where is she now?" Bushka asked.

"Vashon," Twisp said. "Someplace close to Center, I'd guess. That's one thing good looks can get you on Vashon. I'd bet big money she's down there where the rich and powerful live. Her job was preparing people psychologically for surgical correction - she was sort of a living model of how life would be if they went through everything right."

"She made the choice, and it worked for her."

"If you talk about something like that long enough it becomes an obsession. She used to say: 'Changing some bodies is easy. A good surgeon knows just where to work. Minds are a little tougher.' I think she didn't really listen to herself."

Bushka looked at Twisp's long arms, a sudden insight flooding his mind.

Twisp saw the direction of Bushka's gaze and nodded. "That's right," he said. "She wanted me to get my arms fixed. She didn't understand, not even with all of her psychological crap behind her. I wasn't afraid of the knife or any of that eelshit. It was that my body would be a lie, and I can't stand liars."

This is no ordinary fisherman, Bushka thought.

"I finally figured it out about her," Twisp said. "A little too much boo and she started with this pitch for all of us to be 'as normal as possible.' Like you, Bushka."

"I don't feel that way."

"'Cause you don't have to. You're all ready to join the Mermen on their open land, on their terms."