"There's a willy-nilly," Gallow said.
Bushka bridled. He knew Mermen called Islands "willy-nillys." Islands drifted unguided, and this was the Merman way of sneering at such uncontrolled wandering.
"That's Vashon," Ale said.
Bushka nodded. There was no mistaking his home Island. The organic floating metropolis had a distinctive shape known to all of its inhabitants - Vashon, largest of all Pandora's Islands.
"Willy-nilly," Gallow repeated. "I should imagine they don't know where they are half the time."
"You're not being very polite to our guest, GeLaar," Ale said.
"The truth is often impolite," Gallow said. He directed an empty smile at Bushka. "I've noticed that Islanders have few goals, that they're not very concerned about 'getting there.'"
He's right, damn him, Bushka thought. The drifting pattern had seated itself deeply in the Islander psyche.
When Bushka did not respond, Ale spoke defensively: "Islanders are necessarily more weather-oriented, more tuned to the horizon. That should not be surprising." She glanced questioningly at Bushka. "All people are shaped by their surroundings. Isn't that true, Islander Bushka?"
"Islanders believe the manner of our passage is just as important as where we are," Bushka said. He knew his response sounded weak. He turned toward the screens. Two of them now showed transmissions from the sonde. One pointed backward to the stabilized camera platform on the surface. It showed the platform being withdrawn into the safety of the calm undersea. The other sonde view tracked the drift path. Full in this view lay the bulk of Vashon. Bushka swallowed as he stared at his home Island. He had never before seen this view of it.
A glance at the altitude repeater below the screen said the view was from eighty thousand meters. The amplified image almost filled the screen. Grid lines superimposed on the screen gave the Island's long dimension at nearly thirty klicks and slightly less than that across. Vashon was a gigantic oval drifter with irregular edges. Bushka identified the bay indentation where fishboats and subs docked. Only a few of the boats in Vashon's fleet could be seen in the protected waters.
"What's its population?" Gallow asked.
"About six hundred thousand, I believe," Ale said.
Bushka scowled, thinking of the crowded conditions this number represented, comparing it with the spaciousness of Merman habitats. Vashon squeezed more than two thousand people into every square klick ... a space more correctly measured in cubic terms. Cubbies were stacked on cubbies high above the water and deep beneath it. And some of the smaller Islands were even more condensed, a crowding that had to be experienced to be believed. Space opened on them only when they began to run out of energy - dead space. Uninhabitable. Like people, organics rotted when they died. A dead Island was just a gigantic floating carcass. And this had happened many times.
"I could not tolerate such crowding," Gallow said. "I could only leave."
"It isn't all bad!" Bushka blurted. "We may live close but we help each other."
"I should certainly hope so!" Gallow snorted. He turned until he was facing Bushka. "What is your personal background, Bushka?"
Bushka stared at him, momentarily affronted. This was not an Islander question. Islanders knew the backgrounds of their friends and acquaintances, but the rules of privacy seldom permitted probing.
"Your working background," Gallow persisted.
Ale put a hand on Gallow's arm. "To an Islander, such questions are usually impolite," she said.
"It's all right," Bushka said. "When I got old enough, Merman Gallow, I was a wavewatcher."
"A sort of lookout to warn of wavewalls," Ale explained.
"I know the term," Gallow said. "And after that?"
"Well... . I had good eyes and a good sense of distance, so I did my time as a driftwatch and later in the subs ... then, as I showed navigational ability, they trained me as a timekeeper."
"Timekeeper, yes," Gallow said. "You're the ones who dead-reckon an Island's position. Not very accurate, I'm told."
"Accurate enough," Bushka said.
Gallow chuckled. "Is it true, Islander Bushka, that you people think we Mermen stole the kelp's soul?"
"GeLaar!" Ale snapped.
"No, let him answer," Gallow said. "I've been hearing recently about the fundamentalist beliefs of Islands such as Guemes."
"You're impossible, GeLaar!" Ale said.
"I have an insatiable curiosity," Gallow said. "What about it, Bushka?"
Bushka knew he had to answer but his voice was dismayingly loud when he responded. "Many Islanders believe Ship will return to forgive us."
"And when will that be?" Gallow asked.
"When we regain the Collective Consciousness!"
"Ahhhh, the old Transition Stories," Gallow sneered. "But do you believe this?"
"My hobby is history," Bushka said. "I believe something important happened to human consciousness during the Clone Wars."
"Hobby?" Gallow asked.
"Historian is not a fully accredited Islander job," Ale explained. "Superfluous."
"I see. Do go on, Bushka."
Bushka clenched his fists and fought down his anger. Gallow was more than self-important ... he was truly important ... vital to Bushka's hopes.
"I don't believe we stole the kelp's soul," Bushka said.
"Good for you!" Gallow really smiled this time.
"But I do believe," Bushka added, "that our ancestors, possibly with kelp assistance, glimpsed a different kind of consciousness ... a momentary linkage between all of the minds alive at that time."
Gallow passed a hand across his mouth, an oddly furtive gesture. "The accounts appear to agree," he said. "But can they be trusted?"
"There's no doubt we have kelp genes in the human gene pool," Bushka said. He glanced across the control room at Panille, who was watching him intently.
"And who knows what may happen if we revive the kelp to consciousness, eh?" Gallow asked.
"Something like that," Bushka agreed.
"Why do you think Ship abandoned us here?"
"GeLaar, please!" Ale interrupted.