“But they knew.”
“They knew,” Delagard said. “They know everything, the Gillies. You screw somebody else’s wife, the Gillies know about it. But they don’t care. Not about that. You kill a couple of divers and they care like crazy.”
“What did they tell you, the last time you had an accident with divers? When they warned you not to use divers again in your work, what did they say they’d do if they caught you?”
Delagard was silent.
“What did they tell you?” Lawler said again, pressing harder.
Delagard licked his lips. “That they’d make us leave Sorve,” he muttered, once again looking down at his feet like a schoolboy being reprimanded.
“And you did it anyway. You did it anyway.”
“Who would believe them? Jesus, Lawler, we’ve lived here for a hundred and fifty years! Did they mind when we moved in? We dropped out of space and squatted right down on their fucking islands and did they say, “Go away, hideous repellent four-limbed hairy alien beings?” No. No. They didn’t give a crap.”
“There was Shalikomo,” Lawler said.
“A long time ago, that was. Before either of us was born.”
“The Gillies killed a lot of people on Shalikomo. Innocent people.”
“Different Gillies. Different situation.”
Delagard pressed his knuckles together and made a little popping sound with them. His voice began to rise in pitch and volume. He seemed very swiftly to be casting off the guilt and the shame that had engulfed him. That was a knack he had, Lawler thought, the rapid restoration of his own self-esteem. “Shalikomo’s an exception,” he said. The Gillies had thought there were far too many humans on Shalikomo, which was a very small island, and had told some of them to go; but the humans of Shalikomo had been unable to agree on who should go and who could stay, and hardly anyone left the island, and in the end the Gillies decided how many humans they would allow to live there among themselves and killed the rest. “It’s ancient history,” Delagard said.
“It was a long time ago, yes,” said Lawler. “But what makes you think it can’t all happen again?”
Delagard said, “The Gillies have never been particularly hostile anywhere else. They don’t like us, but they don’t stop us from doing whatever we want to do, so long as we stay down at our end of the island and don’t get too numerous. We harvest kelp, we fish as much as we like, we build buildings, we hunt for meatfish, we do all sorts of things that aliens might be expected to resent, and not a word out of them. So if I was able to train a few divers to help me in oceanfloor metals recovery, which could only benefit the Gillies as well as us, why do you suppose I would think that they’d become so exercised over the death of a few animals in the line of work that they—they would—”
“The last straw, maybe,” Lawler said. The one that broke the camel’s back.”
“Huh? What the fuck are you saying?”
“Ancient Earth proverb. Never mind. What I’m saying is that for whatever reason, the diver thing pushed them over the edge and now they want us out of here.”
Lawler closed his eyes a moment. He imagined himself packing up his things, getting aboard a boat bound for some other island. It wasn’t easy.
We are going to have to leave Sorve. We are going to have to leave Sorve. We are going to—
He realized that Delagard was talking.
“It was a stunner, let me tell you. I never expected it. Standing there up against the wall with two big Gillies holding my arms and another one smack up in front of my nose saying, You all have to clear out in thirty days, you will vanish from this island or else. How do you think I felt about that, doc? Especially knowing I was the one responsible for it. You said this morning I didn’t have any conscience, but you don’t know a damned thing about me. You think I’m a boor and a lout and a criminal, but what do you know, anyway? You hide away in here by yourself and drink yourself silly and sit there judging other people who have more energy and ambition in one finger than you have in your entire—”
“Knock it off, Delagard.”
“You said I had no conscience.”
“Do you?”
“Let me tell you, Lawler, I feel like shit, bringing this thing down on us. I was born here too, you know. You don’t have to give me any snot-nose condescending First Family stuff, not me. My family’s been here from the beginning just like yours. We practically built this island, we Delagards. And now to hear that I’m being tossed out like a bunch of rotten meat, and that everyone else has to go too—” The tone of Delagard’s voice changed yet again. The anger melted; he spoke more softly, earnestly, sounding almost humble. “I want you to know that I’ll take full responsibility for what I’ve done. What I’m going to do is—”
“Hold it,” Lawler said, raising one hand to cut him off. “You hear noise?”
“Noise? What noise? Where?”
Lawler inclined his head toward the door. Sudden shouts, harsh cries, were coming from the long three-sided plaza that separated the island’s two groups of vaarghs.
Delagard said, nodding, “Yeah, now I hear it. An accident, maybe?”
But Lawler was already moving, out the door, heading for the plaza at a quick loping trot.
There were three weatherbeaten buildings—shacks, really, shanties, bedraggled lean-tos—on the plaza, one on each side of it. The biggest, along the upland side, was the island school. On the nearer of the two downslope sides was the little cafй that Lis Niklaus, Delagard’s woman, ran. Beyond it was the community centre.
A small knot of murmuring children stood outside the school, with their two teachers. In front of the community centre half a dozen of the older men and women were drifting about in a random, sunstruck way, moving in a ragged circle. Lis Niklaus had emerged from her cafй and was staring open-mouthed at nothing in particular. On the far side were two of Delagard’s captains, squat, blocky Gospo Struvin and lean, long-legged Bamber Cadrell. They were at the head of the ramp that led into the plaza from the waterfront, holding on to the railing like men expecting an immediate tidal surge to strike. Between them, bisecting the plaza with his mass, the hulking fish-merchant Brondo Katzin stood like a huge stupefied beast, gazing fixedly at his unbandaged right hand as though it had just sprouted an eye.
There was no sign of any accident, any victim.
“What’s going on?” Lawler asked.
Lis Niklaus turned toward him in a curiously monolithic way, swinging her entire body around. She was a tall, fleshy, robust woman with a great tangle of yellow hair and skin so deeply tanned that it looked almost black. Delagard had been living with her for five or six years, ever since the death of his wife, but he hadn’t married her. Perhaps he was trying to protect his sons” inheritance, people supposed. Delagard had four grown sons, living on other islands, each of them on a different one.
She said hoarsely, sounding half strangled, “Bamber and Gospo just came up from the shipyard—they say the Gillies were here—that they said—they told us—they told Nid—”
Her voice trailed off in an incoherent sputter.
Shrivelled little Mendy Tanamind, Nimber’s ancient mother, said in a piping tone, “We have to leave! We have to leave!” She giggled shrilly.
“Nothing funny about it,” Sandor Thalheim said. He was just as ancient as Mendy. He shook his head vehemently, making his dewlaps and wattles tremble.
“All because of a few animals,” Bamber Cadrell said. “Because of three dead divers.”
So the news was out already. Too bad, Lawler thought. Delagard’s men should have kept their mouths shut until we figured out a way to handle this.