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signs -- a flag float for a work party, one of their swift skimmers, the oily
surge of a hardbelly sub surfacing from the depths.
Nothing intruded on his small circle of horizon.
Getting away from Vashon had been a marvel of secret scurrying, all the time
expecting Security to stop him. But Islanders helped each other, even if one
of them insisted on being a fool. Gerard had packed him a rich supply of food
gifts from friends and from the pantry at the Ace of Cups. Security had been
informed of Brett's loss overboard. Gerard's private grapevine said the kid's
parents had set up a cry for "someone to do something." They had not come to
Twisp, though. Strange, that. Official channels only. Twisp suspected
Security knew all about his preparations for a search and deliberately kept
hands off -- partly out of resentment over the Norton family pressures, partly
.
. . well, partly because Islanders helped each other. People knew he had to
do this thing.
The docks had been a madhouse of repair when Twisp went down to see whether he
could recover his boat. Despite the hard work going on all around, fishermen
made time to help him. Brett had been the only person lost with this wavewall
and they all knew what Twisp had to attempt.
All through the night people had come with gear, sonar, a spare coracle, a new
motor, eelcell batteries, every gift saying: "We know. We sympathize. I'd
be doing the same thing if I were you."
At the end, ready to set off, Twisp had waited impatiently for Gerard to
appear.
Gerard had said for him to wait. The big man had come down in his motorized
chair, his single fused leg sticking out like a blunted lance to clear the
way.
His twin daughters ran skipping behind him, and behind them came five Ace of
Cups regulars wheeling carts with the food stores.
"Got you enough for about twenty-five or thirty days," Gerard had said,
humming to a stop beside the waiting boats. "I know you, Twisp. You won't
give up."
An embarrassed silence had fallen over the fishermen waiting on the docks to
see
Twisp off. Gerard had spoken what was in all of their minds. How long could
the kid survive out there?
While friends loaded the tow-coracle, Gerard said: "Word's out to the Mermen.
They'll contact us if they learn anything. Hard telling what it'll cost you."
Twisp had stared at his coracles, at the friends who gave him precious gear
and even more precious physical help. The debt was great. And if he came
back . .
. well, he was going to come back -- and with the kid. The debt would be a
bitch, though. And only a few hours ago he had been considering abandonment
of the independent fisherman's life, going back to the subs. Well . . . that
was the way it went.
Gerard's twin girls had come up to Twisp then, begging for him to swing them.
The coracles were almost ready and a strange reluctance had come over everyone
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. . including Twisp. He extended his arms to let each of the girls grip a
forearm tight, then he turned, fast, faster, swinging the children wide while
the spectators stood back from his long-armed circle. The girls shrieked when
their toes pointed at the horizon. He stumbled to a stop, dizzy and sweating.
Both girls sat hard on the pier, their eyes not quite caught up with the end
of the whirl.
"You come back, you hear?" Gerard had said. "My girls won't forgive any of us
if you don't."
Twisp thought about that oddly silent departure as he held his course with the
wind on his cheek and an eye to the light and the swift hiss of the current
under his craft. The old axiom of the fishing fleets nurtured him in his
loneliness: Your best friend is hope.
He could feel the tow coracle tug his boat at the crests. The carrier hum of
his radio provided a faint background to the slap-slap of cross-chop against
the hull. He glanced back at the tow. Only the static-charge antenna
protruded from the lashed cover. The tow rode low in the water. The new
motor hummed reassuringly near his feet. Its eelcell batteries had not
started to change color, but he kept an eye on them. Unless the antenna
picked up a lightning strike, they'd need feeding before nightfall.
Gray convolutions of clouds folded downward ahead of him. Sometime soon it
was going to rain. He unrolled the clear membrane another fisherman had given
him and stretched it over the open cockpit of his coracle, leaving a
sag-pocket to collect drinking water. The course beeper went off as he
finished the final lashings. He corrected for slightly more than five degrees
deviation, then hunkered under the shelter, sensing the imminent rain, cursing
the way this would limit visibility. But he had to keep dry.
I never really get miserable if I'm dry.
He felt miserable, though. Was there even the faintest hope he could find the
kid? Or was this one of those futile gestures that had to be made for one's
own mental well-being?
Or is it that I have nothing else to live for . . . ?
He put that one out of his mind as beyond debate. To give himself physical
activity, something to drive out his doubts, he rigged a handline with a
warning bell from the starboard thwart, baited it with a bit of bright
streamer that glittered in the water. He payed it out carefully and tested
the warning bell with a short tug on the line. The tinkling reassured him.
All I'd need, he thought. Drag a dead fish along and call in the dashers.
Even though dashers preferred warm-blooded meat, they'd go for anything that
moved when they were hungry.
A lot like humans.
Settling back with the tiller under his right armpit, Twisp tried to relax.
Still nothing on the radio's emergency band. He reached down and switched to
the regular broadcast, coming in on the middle of a music program.
Another gift, a nav-sounder, with its bottom-finding sonar and its store of
position memories, rested between his legs. He flipped it on for a position
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