***

Brett marveled at Scudi's control. All during the ordeal in the control cabin her attention remained on the operation of the foil. She kept them skimming along the edge of the kelp in the bright light of morning, avoiding stray tangles of leaves that might catch the struts. There were moments when Brett thought the kelp opened special channels for the foil. Directing them? Why would it do that? Scudi's eyes widened from time to time. What did she see in the kelp channels to cause that reaction? Her tan face paled at what she heard behind her where Twisp and Bushka argued, but she kept the foil cruising smoothly toward its rendezvous with Gallow.

Her reaction was not natural, Brett thought. Bushka was crazy to think they could surprise Gallow and overcome him - just the four of them here. Vashon had to learn what was happening. Scudi must realize this!

Within an hour they came out of the heaviest kelp infestation onto open water where the seas were steeper and the motions of the foil more abrupt.

Bushka sat alone on the command couch at the rear of the cabin, forcing Twisp to sit on the floor well away from him. Between them, trussed like a kelp-tangled dasher, their captive Merman lay quiet. Occasionally he opened his eyes to study his surroundings.

Twisp bided his time. Brett understood the big fisherman's silent waiting. There was a limited future arguing with a man holding a lasgun.

Brett studied Scudi's profile, the way she kept her attention on the water ahead of them, the way she tensed when she corrected course. A muscle in her cheek trembled.

"Are you all right?" Brett asked.

Her knuckles whitened on the wheel and the tremble disappeared. She looked childlike in that big seat with the spread of instruments around her. Scudi still wore her dive suit and he could see a red irritation where it rubbed against her neck. This made him acutely conscious of the constrictions in his own suit.

"Scudi?"

She barely whispered: "I'm OK."

She took a deep breath and relaxed against the padded seat. He saw the whiteness retreat from her knuckles. The foil lurched and shuddered along the wavetops and Brett wondered how long it could take such punishment. Twisp and Bushka began a conversation too low for Brett to make out more than the occasional word. He glanced back at them and focused on the lasgun still held firmly in Bushka's hands. Its muzzle pointed in the general direction of Twisp and the Merman.

What was Bushka really doing? Was it only rage? Surely Bushka could never escape memories of his part in the Guemes massacre. Killing Gallow wouldn't erase those memories, it would only add more.

Scudi leaned toward Brett then and whispered, "It's going to be a bad storm."

Brett jerked his attention around and looked out the sweep of plaz, aware for the first time that the weather was changing dramatically. A gusting wind from port had begun to blast the tops off the waves, whipping scuds of foam along the surface. A gray curtain of rain slanted into the sea ahead, closing the tenuous gap between black clouds and gray water. The day suddenly had the feel of cold metal. He glanced up at the position vector on the overhead screen and tried to estimate their time to Gallow and his hunt of Green Dashers.

"Two hours?" he asked.

"That's going to slow us." Scudi nodded toward the storm line ahead. "Fasten your safety harness."

Brett swung the shoulder strap across his chest and locked it in place.

They were into the rain then. Visibility dropped to less than a hundred meters. Great pelting drops roared on the foil's metal fabric and overcame the airblast wipers on the cabin plaz. Scudi backed off the throttle and the foil began to pitch even more with the steepening waves.

"What's going on?" Bushka demanded.

"Storm," Scudi said. "Look at it."

"How soon will we get there?" Bushka asked.

His voice had taken on a new note, Brett realized. Not exactly fear ... Anxiety? Uncertainty? Bushka had the Islander's dreamlike admiration for foils but really did not understand them. How would the foil survive a storm? Would they have to stop and submerge?

"I don't know how long," Scudi said. "All I know is we're going to have to slow down more, and soon."

"Don't waste any time!" Bushka ordered.

It had grown darker in the cabin and the wave action outside looked mean - long, rolling combers with their tips curling white. They were still in kelp, though, with a broken channel through it.

Scudi switched on the cabin lights and began paying more attention to the screens overhead and in front of her.

Brett saw his own reflection in the plaz and it startled him. His thick blonde hair fanned his head in a wild halo. His eyes were two dark holes staring back at him. The gray of the storm had become the gray of his eyes, almost dasher-black. For the first time, he realized how close to Merman-normal he appeared.

I could pass, he thought.

He wondered then how much this fact figured in his attraction for Scudi. It was an abrupt and startling thought, which made him feel both closer and more removed from her. They were Islander and Merman and they always would be. Was it dangerous to think that they might pair?

Scudi saw him staring toward the plaz in front of them.

"Can you see anything?" she asked.

He knew immediately she was asking whether his mutant eyesight could help them now.

"Rain's just as bad for my eyes as it is for yours," he told her. "Trust your instruments."

"We've got to slow down," she said. "And if it gets much worse we'll have to submerge. I've never -"

She broke off as a violent, creaking shudder engulfed the foil, rattling the hardware until Brett thought the boat might split. Scudi immediately backed the throttle. The foil dropped off the step with an abrupt plowing motion that sent it sliding down a wave face and pitched it up the next one. Brett was hurled against his safety harness hard enough to take his breath away.

Curses and scrambling noises came from behind him. He whirled and saw Bushka picking himself up off the deck, clutching the grabs beside the couch he had occupied. His right hand still gripped the lasgun. Twisp had been dumped into a corner with the captive Merman atop him. One long arm came out of the tangle, pushing the captive aside, finding a handhold and lifting himself to a standing position at the side of the cabin.

"What's happening?" Bushka shouted. He shifted his grip to a handhold behind his couch and eased himself onto the cushions.

"We're into kelp," Scudi said. "It's fouled the struts. I've had to retract them, but they're not coming fully back."

Brett kept his attention on Bushka. The foil was riding easier, its jet only a low murmur far back in the stern. It was in Scudi's hands now and he half suspected she had exaggerated the nature of their predicament. Bushka, too, looked undecided. His large head bobbed in the constant motion of the foil as he tried to peer past Scudi at the storm. Brett was suddenly struck by how Mermanlike Bushka appeared - powerful shoulders tapering to sinewy, almost delicate hands.

The assault of the wind and waves against the hull increased.

"There's a heavy kelp bed in our path," Scudi said. "It shouldn't be here. I think it may have broken loose in the storm. We don't dare go up on the step again."

"What can we do?" Bushka demanded.

"First, we'll have to clear the struts so I can retract them," she said. "Hull integrity is vital for control. Especially if we have to submerge."

"Why can't we just clear the struts and go back up on the foils?" Bushka asked. "We have to get to the outpost before Gallow suspects!"