Noise

IX Interference

Personnel from the Aorangi ships slid overboard and waded toward the party on the hill, helmets open. Keo, the only one still aboard Mata, followed their example, but snapped his helmet shut before he went overside. The term “shallow water,” used outdoors, was to him among the silliest of oxymorons.

Wanaka, concealing any surprise she might have felt, now handed the pod to Hinemoa, and there was silence while it was passed around among the others. Each time it was handed along, a single word was uttered by the passer. Mike had trouble making it out over the background thunder; it sounded like waru, but he could see no relevance in the number eight.

The pod was returned to the captain, but she was none the wiser about its identity. She was able, with practically no help from Mike, to suggest that it might nevertheless be of some trading value. Hinemoa agreed.

“None of us right here is a trader, but I’m sure there are people in Aorangi who would like to take a chance on it. If you care to entrust the pod to me, I can pass it on to the school; the chemists there might be able to tell us enough to make a better guess at its real value. But perhaps”—a smile was just visible behind her mask—“you’d rather not have that knowledge spread too far before the sale.” Wanaka smiled also; she of course did not regard the suggestion as insulting, but handed the packet of dust over without comment. She also began to doubt the statement that no one there was a trader.

“You might think about whether you should place a starting bid very low or very high in iron-equivalents,” Hinemoa added. “Too far either way I suppose would discourage risk-taking. Personally, I’d suggest starting low.”

“It will take some thinking,” Wanaka agreed, carefully not implying a preference. Her doubt was growing stronger. After some discussion, it was settled that word would be spread among the metal dealers of the city, and that these would be on hand at the next sunrise to inspect the cargo and make offers. Wanaka mentioned that she did have other metals to trade if they were wanted—iron, copper, and titanium. No one seemed greatly interested, and even Mike began to wonder whether some or all of the group might not actually be traders in spite of Hinemoa’s denial.

He also, although a much better historian than salesman, could understand what lay behind Wanaka’s final sentence: “Since we still don’t know what this stuff is, I plan to sell no more than a third of it here. If anyone wants more, I’ll need strong persuasion.” Her listeners showed no surprise at this either; if none of them was a trader, they were at least not naive.

The meeting broke up. The local adults spread out to greet the crews of the newly arrived ships. Some of these spoke briefly with Mata’s crew as well as they could without Mike’s help, but none admitted having anything to trade. Mike wondered what they might have been doing at sea, since even his inexperienced eye could tell that the ships in the lake were indeed floating high and probably were in fact carrying little or no cargo.

Keo confirmed the latter observation when they waded back to their own ship. Mike observed proper helmet discipline carefully this time.

The mate had also been wondering about how the rendezvous between city and newcomers could have been accomplished with the former’s location presumably unknown even to its inhabitants. He remarked on this at once, evidently sharing the captain’s suspicions that they had not been told the whole truth. Wanaka, quite reasonably, had a different priority problem: how was Mata to get back to sea?

“We’ll trade tomorrow if we can,” she said, “and leave as soon as possible afterward, also if we can. We won’t need to do any special water bargaining. Even if these people are the sort to hold someone up on water, which is hard to believe but would tell us a lot, we have plenty; and ’Oloa can get us back pretty close to where we got this load, anyway. The real question is how we get back to sea at all. It obviously can be done, since their own ships were washed up here with ours—and all of you surely realize that was planned. Intended. That wave didn’t come when it did by chance. I can’t even guess how it was done, or how they knew it was coming, but all our imaginations need to go to work on that. Even if we figure it out we’ll need these folks’ permission and probably their help to leave, but I’ll still feel better understanding that bit, too.”

“There are youngsters in the group ashore,” pointed out the mate. “Maybe ’Ao should practice a little hospitality, being sure to remind her doll about the talking rules first. It’ll be good to have a bunch of local kids chattering in the cabin with ’Ao and ’Oloa both listening, but remember the kids will be listening, too. Any of them could put two and two together if they heard the doll, and no matter how honest these people are we might find ourselves short one highly useful sample of concealed silicon.”

Wanaka nodded. “She won’t say anything that an ordinary doll wouldn’t if anyone but regular crew is in hearing. She already knows that. Mike, I’m afraid I’m more worried about your possible indiscretions than about ’Oloa’s. No insult intended.”

“None felt. I’m worried myself. That’s why I called you into the talk even though you’d said I could say anything. If I have to chat with any more of these people, except when I’m translating for you, I’ll certainly be careful. Just remember, I’m a scholar before I’m a trader. Words are communication tools to me, not game pieces.”

“I’ve noticed,” was all the captain answered. Mike couldn’t decide whether he had relieved her worries or added to them, but didn’t feel insulted.

The four went back ashore, where even more people were now assembled. Many of these gathered around to ask questions, and Mike was kept busy translating. It was easy enough for him; the local language, not too surprisingly from the city’s name, was indeed nearly unaltered Maori. Aorangi was the name of a mountain on the South Island, and probably of the ship that had brought these folks’ ancestors to Kainui.

’Ao was talking to people her own age, making as little use of Mike’s services as she could; and presently she and three others made their way—helmets sealed, this time, because all had to swim—back to Mata where, after some minutes of examining the deck and outside equipment, all crowded into the air lock.

While this was going on, Hinemoa had worked her way through the crowd back to Wanaka’s neighborhood, and invited her and her crew into the city. The captain was more than willing.

“Should we leave a deck watch?” she asked. “Your own crews don’t seem to be.”

“The ships are safe, but no one will be insulted if you do. You are in an unfamiliar port.”

“How about deploying our leaf? It’s less efficient this far south, and it’s the only way we can power our breathing equipment.”

Hinemoa was interested, and asked for a more complete explanation of Mata’s photosynthetic apparatus. Wanaka, glad of the chance to improve relations, provided the explanation and supplied several clippings of the structure when it had been deployed. It would, of course, heal itself.

“We’d better all come inside together so that we will know where we sleep,” the captain suggested. “I can decide about a watch later.”

“Of course. Most of us are going in now, but someone will gladly wait until your apprentice has finished entertaining. One of her guests is my son; we can board your vessel and make introductions if you like. You’ll want to know your ’Ao’s new friends. Then we can all go to Kone’s and my home and party properly.”

Wanaka responded suitably. Mike was pretty sure she meant it; it would be good, he realized, if more than just ’Ao heard the talk of the children.

They waited until nearly all the Aorangi had vanished, however, before going out to Mata ; interrupting an adult party would have been all right—they would simply have been joining in—but an all-child get-together was different. Hinemoa showed no signs of impatience, but Wanaka finally suggested, “Mike, you might visit the cabin and ask if anyone is having word troubles.”

“They won’t think I’m intruding?”

Hinemoa smiled behind her mask. “Eru will assume it’s a hint from me. The others won’t think about it except that adults are always interrupting. Go ahead.”

Actually, Hoani’s entrance did little to end the party; he was immediately put to work clarifying questions the visiting children had not been able to get across to ’Ao. Eventually, Hinemoa herself entered and invited everyone to her home.

This involved a trip across the ice for several hundred meters to a tunnel opening in the side of a hummock; through an air lock much more than large enough to take all the group at once; more tunnel to an area where several dozen people of both sexes and a wide spectrum of age staffed desks and tables—evidently a message and general information center, rather than a place for checking in from and out to the surface, Wanaka noted with some relief; and finally along a nottoo-complex set of smaller tunnels, still walled with the ice-coral growth, to Hinemoa’s home.

The party lasted there until the hostess pointed out that the newcomers should be shown their quarters and given a chance to sleep if they wished. None of the children argued.

Eru, however, promptly asked whether ’Ao could stay at their own home, and Wanaka, after a moment’s thought, approved. Then she added that the child should at least come to see where her shipmates were staying and make sure she could find them if she had to. Eru came along, with the result that ’Ao got only a few words across to Keo in a moment when she was asking him to keep the doll for her. He declined on grounds that an adult male with a doll would be suspicious behavior. She didn’t argue.

“Piru” was her important word. Then the other three were left alone, and Keo reported.

“Gold!” exclaimed Wanaka. “What use is that to anyone?”

Mike answered with a single word.

“Chemical.”

Wanaka pounced. “Chemical, as in seed design?”

“Sure. All sorts of atoms can turn out to be good catalysts or coenzymes, especially heavies.”

“Of course. I should have remembered that. I’m going to hold those traders up tomorrow—no, I’m not, either.”

“Why not?” the two men asked simultaneously.

“These Aorangi folks may not be pirates, but if they’ve found a use for lots of gold, important enough to justify designing a special fish to collect it, they may want to keep it to themselves for a while. Of course you can’t keep knowledge from spreading, but controlling the only source of a key material is something else. We could wind up here as firmly invited guests. I’ve already mentioned selling only part of the load here, and if they have a good reason for wanting to corner the gold supply then ’Ao might wind up having to look for a husband right here in thirty-five or forty years, and we’d be even longer seeing our own kid again, if we ever did.”

“And any big economic reason is a good one,” Mike interjected.

“Of course. And it would be as bad or even worse for you. I can’t see anyone even from offworld spending a single pod of iron looking for a missing Earth native who most probably had gotten himself lost at sea. Especially not on this planet. I suppose a world only half covered by a couple of kilometers of ocean would be a different matter.”

“I wouldn’t count on that, especially if that ocean had sharks. That’s still an awful lot of water and a lot more under water. So what do we do, Captain?”

“We get out of here, preferably long enough before they spot us and can launch a ship so we can get out of sight in the haze. There are seven other ships on that lake, or dock, or whatever we should call it. I don’t see how we get out of there alone, regardless of how one does get out, and we don’t know how fast any of them can sail—at least, we don’t know how much faster than we any of them can. Ideas in order, gentlemen, preferably before sunrise tomorrow when I’m supposed to start auctioning something I’m not supposed to know the name or nature of. I’m as likely to make a word slip there as I was afraid Mike would a little while ago.

“Fellow brains, all of you hoist sail and set course on any bearing that seems good to you. Pardon the mixed metaphor.”

“I s’pose they’ll be watching us all night,” Keo suggested.

“I would in their place.” She smiled. “You and Mike better relieve their minds. Go outside now and look around the city; get lost if you want, it’ll help our reputation. You’re the ones most likely to do that, I hope they’ll think. Get some idea of population, tunnel complexity, and how noticeable you seem to be. I’m afraid we can guess that already, for Mike. If either of you gets an idea, don’t come in together. Separating would be a good idea anyway; you’re more likely to get lost, and it’ll look less as though you’re doing something specific or underhanded together. Wear your armor. See if they’ll fuss about your going outside, and if they don’t, take a look to make sure there’s really no watch on any of those ships. If there isn’t, fine. If there is, we’ll be even surer that our hostess was lying; go and talk to the watches. Try to make sure Keo was right about the ships themselves being empty. Especially try, if you get any sort of chance, to tell how much water they have aboard; if they have to load up on that before starting a chase, we have a much better chance.”

“We’d have to check all of them for that to be useful,” pointed out Mike.

“True. But do your best without looking suspicious. Whatever you’ve managed to think of or haven’t, both of you come in again at second sunset.”

“We’ll have to be outside to know when that is. Don’t count on perfection, Captain dear.”

“I won’t, one and only mate. Off you go.”

Outside, where the pair eventually found their way without interference, there was a thunderstorm overhead. They had not yet separated, thinking it better to learn some geography together first. Keo automatically dashed for the lake, the ship, and the drinking breakers, then stopped when he remembered the last were already full.

Mike had followed him more slowly. Together, they spent the next quarter hour sweeping hailstones from the deck and cabin roof into the lake and noticing with interest that no one was in sight to do the same on any of the nearby craft. There might, of course, have been some asleep in the cabins, but shore watches don’t sleep. Maybe they’d heard some truth. The two discussed this as they worked, concluding that there was no unsuspicious way to settle the question. After the storm had passed, they went ashore, without helmet discipline though Keo made a start, and walked away from the pool for a short distance rather than toward any of the ships.

“I wonder how they get in and out of this place, anyway. I still can’t imagine any way of calling up a wave when they want it.”

“That might be only for getting in, anyway,” pointed out Keo. “There might be some way of digging or blasting or simply opening a quick channel to let everything wash out as the lake empties. We could check the coral pattern for signs of something they could slide out of the way—some sort of channel gate.”

“But some of the ships are aground now. That technique could be embarrassing.”

The mate nodded silently.

“Does this city have or use any other ships?” asked Mike after a pause. “There are always lots around Muamoku, dozens of different types and sizes. This place doesn’t seem to have much in the way of docking facilities, unless we missed an awful lot on our earlier walk.”

“Most of our ships aren’t too different from these,” answered Keo. “We’ve never done much ship design ourselves. We seem to have brought all the varieties we’ve ever needed with us. Our ancestors knew Kainui was all ocean, of course. We’ve bought seeds from other cities sometimes, but the ships they grew weren’t enough better to be worth the cost. The ice near the pole seems to call for tricky sailing, sometimes, but we very seldom need to go there.”

They walked slowly back toward the city entrance, sometimes feeling a little uncertain of their way among the irregular ice hummocks. They had almost succeeded in taking the captain’s advice about getting lost when they sighted two men—their gender was plain since, evidently not planning to leave shore, they were not wearing sound armor—who walked as though they knew where they were going. Trying not to be too conspicuous about it, Mike and Keo followed them, and in a few minutes recognized their surroundings once more. In another hundred meters they saw the city entrance.

The suns were still well up, and Mike suggested that they now follow Wanaka’s advice, or order, to separate. Keokolo could go back to their quarters, make a preliminary report, and come out again on his own if the captain wanted; Mike would get into conversations, which they hadn’t managed yet though it had not occurred to either of them that the locals might be avoiding them for some reason.

It did cross Hoani’s mind that by himself he might more plausibly be asking questions in a Kainuian city than when accompanied by one who was not obviously a stranger. It did not occur to him that at least some of the natives of Aorangi might hope that Mike himself might be more willing to talk about other cities on the planet, such as Muamoku, than would people who lived in them. His grasp of intercity attitudes and politics of Kainui was decidedly incomplete, though he was coming to understand Wanaka’s personality better every day. He also had, though in not too serious a form, the ordinary human tendency to stereotype—to assume, in this case, that he could talk to any citizen of Aorangi about any part of the city or aspect of its life and get informed and useful answers.

He had, of course, attracted the attention of the men he and Keo had been following. When he looked around alternately at the icescape and the tunnel entrance after the mate’s departure, simulating indecision about his next step, both of them approached him.

Neither seemed at all suspicious of anything, as far as Mike could tell. Certainly they were talkative enough and could tell him a great deal about Aorangi. It had indeed grown from a ship of that name, which had arrived on the antarctic ice cap. Its friction-heated hull had melted its way inward far enough to trap it when the water refroze, and the colonists had had no choice but to build where they were, using what was available in ship and surroundings. The latter, of course, had been mainly liquid and solid water, and heat energy at a rather low concentration. He asked about the cap, of which he had heard no details in Muamoku though it had been visible enough from space, and was told that for some degrees of latitude around the pole itself there was a continuous floating ice sheet, its edge disturbed by storms often enough and violently enough to form temporary inlets some kilometers in length, and to send floes drifting for large distances northward. Mike could see why this might call for maneuverability of any local vessels. Less happily, he could also see that it might call for speed. Escape might be even more difficult than Wanaka hoped. Some Aorangi lived on the cap in experimental stations, working on projects such as designing better ice-coral structures. The speakers had a low opinion of this work, which seemed to produce mostly expensive failures. Mike suspected a possible source for the deserted ice-coral masses they had encountered earlier.

“Is either of you a sailor?”

“No. We’re not much of anything; we graduate from messenger status in about half a year. There aren’t enough ships to need many sailors, and neither my cousin nor I like the idea of going to sea anyway.” This remark slightly jolted Mike’s stereotyping of Polynesians but opened another possibly useful line of questioning.

“Were you outside when we arrived today?”

“Yes. Watching a landing is interesting, and anyway we were both on salvage standby. Ships sometimes ground too hard when they land.” Mike jumped at the chance.

“How about when they leave?”

“That’s safer. The port is filling up then, so they rise instead of grounding.”

Mike was uncharacteristically quick on the uptake. “My captain will want to see that. She’ll probably need to be told just how to maneuver. Do you know when the next departure should be?”

“They launch at sunrise every day for the regular search.” Mike decided not to ask what was regularly being sought and surrendered the conversational ball. Maybe he had learned enough along that line already. Wanaka would certainly be interested.

“You’re from Muamoku, aren’t you?” asked one of the others.

“The captain and the others are. You can see I’m not from Kainui at all.”

“We’d noticed, yes. Does your world have oceans?”

“We call them that. They average only about four kilometers deep, and cover scarcely three-quarters of the planet. A major sailing problem there is to keep from running into land, or worse, into land that doesn’t show above the surface.”

This started a lengthy period of what would have been shop talk if any of the speakers had been sailors. Hoani might have learned more but decided not to ask further leading questions; he had already heard enough to demand deep and detailed thinking.

A mutual eclipse of the suns gave him a chance to change the subject, and after a brief description of the locally rare solar eclipses of Earth he bade his informants a casual farewell and entered the city. He did not quite need help finding Wanaka and Keo’s assigned living space, and in a relatively few minutes was reporting to her. Keo had gone out again.

The captain was thoughtful. “Sunrise. Just when I’m supposed to start auctioning, if I really am. Maybe I’d better see Hinemoa—but maybe I’m not supposed to know about this launch business; how do I get around that, I wonder?”

“I’d expect her to come to you, if there’s anything about the launch to affect the auction.”

“If another wave is going to come into that lake, it will affect where I have to lay out the metal. I think we’d all better be there awhile before sunrise and start setting up, and let her hold the tiller. Presumably something would have to be done to keep Mata from getting washed out with the others—or maybe—” She fell silent for fully a minute. “I’ll see her now and ask—no, tell her that I’ll need ’Ao at the ship half an hour before sunrise to help unload, and let her take it from there. You may as well get to your own quarters. Take care of your life support, sleep if you want. Keo or I will get you when we need you. No, wait. Stay here until he gets back, tell him what you told me and what I’m doing, then you’re on your own.”

The mate returned first, so Mike didn’t hear what might have transpired between Wanaka and Hinemoa. ’Ao wakened him, presumably the next morning although there seemed to be no clock in his quarters, by rapping on the coral door and calling his name. They were on the way to the city entrance, armored, within minutes.

The suns weren’t up yet, as Wanaka had planned. There were, however, people already at the lake, or port, or whatever it should be called, and one of these approached Mata’s crew.

“Hinemoa advises that you bring your metal up there as quickly as you can, and then man your ship. We will be launching in a few minutes, there are no real mooring facilities, and it will probably be washed out with the others. Would you like help moving your metal?”

If there was any hesitation in the captain’s answer, Mike failed to spot it.

“No, thanks. We’ll do what we can before your launch. Give us five minutes’ warning and we’ll get aboard. Afterward, we’ll get out the rest, and see customers. Will that fit your routine?”

“Perfectly, I think. Hinemoa will arrive shortly, I expect.”

Mike and Keo began carrying pods of metal ashore. The only clue to what the captain had in mind was her brief order, in Finger, not to hurry, but not to dawdle obviously. They obeyed. Perhaps a fifth of Mata’s gold had been off-loaded and a smaller amount of the other metals when a larger group appeared at the lake, Hinemoa among them, and the crews who had been readying the Aorangi ships stood to their posts. Someone ashore began what turned out to be a countdown, though the counts were fully half a minute apart. Wanaka was at Mata’s tiller, the men were ready to hoist sail, but ’Ao had not yet taken her masthead post. One of the suns was just up, though not really visible through the haze.

At the twelfth count, the sea poured into the lake. Mata was one of the few ships just barely afloat, and like the others was swept away from the sea by the inrush. Those still grounded followed more slowly as the water rose and floated them, too. Everyone hoisted sail, and Keo and Mike followed suit without orders. The “landward” side of the lake deepened, then the new water began to slosh back toward the sea. This seemed now to be below them. Wanaka’s full attention for several seconds was focused on avoiding collisions; like the other steersmen she was not entirely successful, though nothing dangerously violent occurred; all velocities were nearly the same. Mike couldn’t help thinking about infection. The water, bearing the eight vessels, poured out and downward over the path by which it had just passed in and downward.

The native craft, sails now fully up, bore away from the city, remaining in close formation, on a course some sixty degrees left of straight out—almost straight south.

Mike looked back toward Aorangi, wondering how they were to reenter the lake. To his own relief, he didn’t ask the question. It answered itself; Wanaka ordered them to set sail. In what Mike judged to be about twenty minutes, Aorangi’s bulk was indistinguishable. The only identifiable objects were two or three waterspouts, all of them more or less ahead, strobe-lit by the lightning flickering from every direction but down, and Kaihapa, not quite low enough to be in the heaviest haze itself. It should have been a crescent, but was merely a blurred patch of light unnoticeable except when both thunderheads and lightning were all for the moment in other directions than west.

“’Ao!” called Wanaka to the masthead. “I know it’s not really necessary, but tell ’Oloa we’ll be making random course changes twice in the next two hours. When I call again, she should direct us toward where the gold-fish ought to be, as well as she can calculate.” The child nodded understanding, without stopping the endless looking around that was her duty. No one could see her lips or fingers move or hear her voice, but no one doubted that she was passing the order to her doll.

She reported nothing to the deck before the second course change. Then the captain ordered her to the cabin, placing the doll on her own shoulder. She also ordered Keo off watch, and told Mike she would have relieved him as well if the sea had not been unusually rough. Both were wearing safety lines, but the captain seemed not fully to trust these just now. There was no actual storm, but waterspouts were surprisingly numerous at the moment and she wanted two pairs of eyes to keep track of them. It went without saying that she wanted someone to heave Mata to if she herself went overboard for any reason.

Mike’s own sailing experience on Earth had nearly all been limited to calm weather, and he was getting just a little tired of one aspect of Kainui. Nowhere on his home world’s oceans, as far as he had ever heard, was there anything like the microtsunami phenomenon, and even the best noise armor—and his, of necessity, was a special-order item—could not accustom its wearer to all the properties that made it wearable or, better, livable for many days at a time. Quite the reverse. Some aspects of its complex inner structure grew less and less comfortable as time passed.

Wanaka had tacked twice, with easily two hours between the maneuvers, when she ordered Mike to ring the cabin’s signal bell and gave up the tiller to Keo, ordering him to heave to and attach a safety line to himself. Nothing had been seen of any other craft, not that even the captain had been looking very hard. The waterspout supply had thinned noticeably, as had the haze; Kaihapa was much clearer, though not, of course, noticeably higher in the west.

The captain gestured Mike toward the air lock; she seemed to feel that the quieter ocean justified leaving Keo alone on deck. Safetied, of course.

For the next few days, the routine Mike had come to know in the early part of the voyage was gradually resumed. It took a while for both Wanaka and Keo to get over a mild fear of pursuit from Aorangi, distant as the city now should be. The hints from Hinemoa that its motion was under control meant, of course, that no guess whatever about its position could be trusted; but as ’Ao put it when the question was being discussed, there were so many directions—and its inhabitants had admitted, if that were the right word, that there was too much melting going on this far north.

The word “admitted” bothered Mike slightly. Hinemoa, beyond argument, had been doing a certain amount of lying or, to use a word captain and mate seemed to prefer, selling. The launch warning she had sent had offered no hint that Mata would be launched with the others and that there was no way to prevent it; Wanaka had nevertheless been encouraged to unload a respectable part of her cargo. A more encouraging point seemed to be that, maneuverable or not, there was no way the iceberg city could possibly match Mata’s sailing speed.

That was obvious. Mike was a little uneasy about this word as well, but told himself that paranoia could lead in only one direction and that a very undesirable one. There was no point in worrying about everything. Human minds had limits, and there was nothing to be gained by stretching these limits too far. Let reality catch up occasionally with imagination.

Apparently the captain had not been wholly taken by surprise by the launch, Mike thought again. If either of the others had, they concealed it well. Of course, Wanaka might have briefed them before Mike had joined the party that morning, but he didn’t ask, of course.

The doll did a good job of navigation, though not a perfect one. It eventually reported that they had reached the center of its error circle for the gold-fish, a circle now somewhat enlarged because a less-than-ideal wind had forced them to do a good deal of tacking. Since the object of their search would probably not be visible more than a few hundred meters away, the search rectangles couldn’t be allowed to get much bigger each time around; and quite soon each time around was getting noticeably longer.

Everyone, even from the helm, watched eagerly for signs of their target, but the most trust was placed in ’Ao. Whenever she had to rest, day or night, Mata was hove to. It was the third day before the child screamed, “Port bow!”

“You’re sure it’s the fish?” called Wanaka.

“No, it isn’t, but I think it’s Malolo. That should still be stuck in the jelly, though. We never pulled up the sea anchor after we got there, did we?”

Keo, at the helm, had swung their bow to port without waiting for orders, and within minutes everyone could see that the child was right, both as to identification and inference. She called again.

“Keo! Heave to, or we could get stuck, too.”

The captain rescinded the order.

“No, Keo. Swing to port when you can see the fish itself from where you are, and then try to follow it around its edge. I want to get an idea how big it is. ’Ao, I don’t suppose any of your young friends who identified the gold at your party happened to mention how to tell which water pods have metal under them? I can’t believe their miners would have to do a blind search the way we did.”

The child hesitated. “Not that I remember,” she admitted after a moment.

“Well, don’t worry. You couldn’t have asked without—”

“I know. I thought of that.”

“All right. Come down. When we finish this trip around and know how big this thing is, we’ll try to replace what we left on Aorangi, and then—”

“Back to Muamoku?” asked Mike, rather hopefully.

“No. Back to Aorangi. Why do you think they fooled us into getting back afloat with so much of our cargo ashore? They knew we couldn’t get back to it. I don’t know what they want gold for, but they want it.”

Mike felt some doubt about this, but said nothing. The idea was certainly plausible, he admitted to himself. He was, however, a reasonably well-educated man, and sets of questions, all starting with “How much?” were flocking into his mind.

Soon enough all three adults were overboard. ’Ao stayed on deck, taking in the occasional metal pod that they found and trying to make some sort of record of where it had been found. Wanaka, Keo, and even Mike felt pretty sure there must be a system involved.

This meant, of course, that no one was on effective watch, since it was impractical for the child to climb up and down the mast between every two pod discoveries even though these were many minutes apart. So, at least, Wanaka decided after the first few hours of searching.

She rather regretted the decision near sunset, when they were going to have to stop the search anyway in spite of its disappointing results. No system of arrangement of the metal pods had made itself obvious yet.

She reached up for what she had decided would be the last one of the day when the expression behind ’Ao’s breathing mask caught her attention. Although still in the water, she risked flipping her helmet back to ask, “What’s the matter?”

’Ao simply gestured behind her with her head. The captain had to pull herself partway up on deck to see what she meant.

“Having any luck?” asked Hinemoa.

Mike was still out collecting, but no translation was necessary.