All right. Do whatever you want. I don’t give a damn. Lawler had never been this close to a Gillie before. His head was pressed against the Gillie’s huge chest. He heard the Gillie heart beating in there, not the familiar human lub-dub but more of a thum-thum-thum, thum-thum-thum. A baffling Gillie brain was only a few centimetres from his cheek. Gillie reek flooded his lungs. He felt dizzy and sick—but, weirdly, not at all frightened. There was something so overpowering about having been swept into this bizarre Gillie-hug that there was no room in him for fear just now. The alien’s nearness stirred some kind of whirling in his mind. A sensation as powerful as a winter storm, as powerful as the Wave itself, came raging up through the roots of his soul. The taste of seaweed was in his mouth. The salt sea was coursing through his veins.
The Gillie held him for a time, as if communicating something—something—that couldn’t be expressed in words. The embrace was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was beyond Lawler’s understanding entirely. The grip of the strong arms was tight and rough, but apparently not meant to injure him. Lawler felt like a small child being hugged by some ugly, strange, unloving foster mother. Or like a doll clasped to the great beast’s bosom.
Then the Gillie released him, pushing him away with a brusque little shove, and went shuffling back to rejoin the others. Lawler stood frozen, trembling. He watched as the Gillies, taking no further notice of him, swung ponderously about, moved away, set out on their return to their village. He stood looking after them for a long while, understanding nothing. The rank sea smell of the Gillie still clung to him. It seemed to him just then that the odour would stay with him forever.
They must have been saying goodbye, he decided finally. That’s it, yes. A Gillie farewell, a tender parting hug. Or not so tender, but a kiss-off, all the same. Does that make sense? No, not really. But neither does anything else. Let’s call it a gesture of farewell, Lawler thought. And leave it at that.
The night was far along. Slowly Lawler picked his way back along the shore, past the power plant once again, down to the shipyard, toward the rickety little wooden house where Delagard lived. Delagard disdained living in vaarghs. He liked to be close to the yard at all times, he said.
Lawler found him alone, awake, drinking grapeweed brandy by the fitful light of a smoky fire. The room was small, cluttered, full of hooks and line, netting, oars, anchors, stacked rugfish hides, cases of brandy. It looked like a storeroom, not a dwelling. The house of the richest man on the island, this was.
Delagard sniffed. “You stink like a Gillie. What were you doing, letting them fuck you?”
“You guessed it. You ought to try it. You might learn a thing or two.”
“Very funny. But you do stink of Gillie, you know. Did they try to rough you up?”
“One of them brushed against me as I was leaving,” Lawler said. “I think it was an accident.”
Shrugging, Delagard said, “All right. You get anywhere with them?”
“No. Did you really think I would?”
“There’s always hope. A gloomy guy like you may not think so, but there always is. We’ve got a month to make them come around. You want a drink, doc?”
Delagard was already pouring. Lawler took the cup and drank it off quickly.
“It’s time to knock off the bullshit, Nid. Time to dump this fantasy of yours about making them come around.”
Delagard glanced upward. By the pallid flickering light his round face seemed heavier than it actually was, the shadows high-lighting rolls of flesh around his throat, turning his tanned, leathery-looking cheeks to sagging jowls. His eyes seemed small and beady and weary.
“You think?”
“No question of it. They really want to be rid of us. Nothing we could say or do will change that.”
“They tell you that, did they?”
“They didn’t need to. I’ve been on this island long enough to understand that they mean what they say. So have you.”
“Yes,” Delagard said thoughtfully. “I have.”
“It’s time to face reality. There’s not a chance in hell that we can talk them into taking back their decree. What do you think, Delagard? Is there? For Christ’s sake, is there? ”
“No. I don’t suppose there is.”
“Then when are you going to stop pretending there is? Do I have to remind you what they did on Shalikomo when they said to go and people didn’t go?”
“That was Shalikomo, long ago. This is Sorve, now.”
“And Gillies are Gillies. You want another Shalikomo here?”
“You know the answer to that, doc.”
“All right, then. You knew from the first that there wasn’t any hope of changing their minds. You were just going through the motions, weren’t you? For the sake of showing everybody how concerned you were about the mess that you had singlehandedly created for us.”
“You think I’ve been bullshitting you?”
“I do.”
“Well, it isn’t so. Do you understand what I feel like, having brought all this down on us? I feel like garbage, Lawler. What do you think I am, anyway? Just a heartless bloodsucking animal? You think I can just shrug and tell the town, Tough tittie, folks, I had a good thing going there for a while with those divers and then it just didn’t work out, so we have to move, sorry for the inconvenience, so long, see you around? Sorve is my home community, doc. I felt I had to show that I’d at least try to undo the damage I caused.”
“Okay. You tried. We both tried. And got nowhere, as we both expected all along. Now what are you going to do?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I told you before. No more windy talk about kissing the Gillies” flippers and begging them to forgive. We have to begin figuring out how we’re going to get away from here and where we’re going to go. Start making plans for the evacuation, Delagard. It’s your baby. You caused all this. Now you have to fix it.”
“As a matter of fact,” Delagard said slowly, “I’ve already been working on doing just that. Tonight while you were parleying with the Gillies I sent word to the three ships of mine that are currently making ferry trips that they should turn around and get back here right away to serve as transport vessels for us.
“Transporting us where?”
“Here, have another drink.” Delagard filled Lawler’s glass again without waiting for a response. “Let me show you something.”
He opened a cabinet and took a sea-chart from it. The chart was a laminated plastic globe about sixty centimetres in diameter, made of dozens of individual strips of varying colours fitted together by some master craftsman’s hand. From within it came the ticking sound of a clockwork mechanism. Lawler leaned toward it. Sea-charts were rare and precious things. He had rarely had a chance to see one at such close range.
“Onyos Felk’s father Dismas made this, fifty years ago,” Delagard said. “My grandfather bought it from him when old Felk thought he wanted to go into the shipping trade and needed money for building ships. You remember the Felk fleet? Three ships. The Wave sank them all. Hell of a thing, pay for your ships by selling your sea-chart, then lose the ships. Especially when it’s the best chart ever made. Onyos would give his left ball to have it, but why should I sell? I let him consult it once in a while.”