"You're a Ceepee?" Panille was surprised.
"Didn't Waela tell you?" Thomas came back down the ladder.
"...." She blushed a deep purple. "It slipped my mind."
"Perhaps The Boss has his own plans for the kelp," Panille said.
Thomas pounced on this. "What do you mean?"
Panille repeated what Hali Ekel had told him about the threat to exterminate the kelp.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Waela demanded.
"I thought Hali might be mistaken an.... the opportunity to tell you did not arise."
"Everybody stay put," Thomas said, "while I see if there are any more little surprises in here."
He bent to his examination.
"You seem to know what you're looking for," Waela said.
"I've had some training in this."
She found this a disturbing idea: Thomas trained to locate sabotage?
Panille listened to them with only part of his attention. He released himself from his seat and looked up at the open hatch. There was a sweet smell to the salt-washed air blowing in the hatchway. He found the smell invigorating. Through an unblocked area beside his console, he could see the flock of hylighters tacking closer across the wind. The motions of the gondola, the smells - even the survival from the perils of the dive - all charged him with a sense of being intensely alive.
Thomas finished his examination.
"Nothing," he said.
Waela said: "I still find it difficult t...."
"Believe it anyway," Panille said. "There are things happening around Oakes that the rest of us are not supposed to learn."
She was outraged. "Ship wouldn't allo...."
"Hah!" Thomas grimaced. "Oakes may be right. Ship or the ship? How can we be sure?"
Such open blasphemy intrigued Panille. From another Ceepee, too! But it was the old philosophical question he had debated many times with Ship, merely cast in a more direct form. As he thought about this, Panille watched the approach of the hylighters, and now he pointed downwind.
"Look at those hylighters!"
Waela glanced over her shoulder. "A lot of them and big ones. What're they doing?"
"Probably coming to investigate us," Thomas said.
"They won't get too close, do you think?"
Panille stared at the orange flock. They were alive, perhaps sentient. "Have they ever attacked?"
"There's argument about that," Waela said. "They use hydrogen for buoyancy, you know, very explosive if ignited. There have been incident...."
"Lewis argues that they sacrifice themselves as living bombs," Thomas said. "I think they're just curious."
"Could they wreck us?" Panille asked. He stared all around the horizon. No land in sight. He knew they had food and water in the compartments under their feet. Waela had inspected those before takeoff while he held a handlight.
"They could blacken the gondola's skin a bit," Thomas said. He spoke while working at his console. "I've activated the locator beacon, but there's a lot of static on those frequencies. Radio appears to be workin...."
"But we can't punch past the interference without the 'sonde," Waela said. "We're marooned."
Panille, holding himself against the pitching of the gondola, climbed several steps of the ladder until his shoulders cleared the hatch. One glance showed the hylighters still working their way toward the gondola. He turned his attention to the 'sonde-release package attached to the plaz beside the hatch.
"What're you doing?" Thomas demanded.
"There's a lot of the 'sonde's antenna wire still in its reel."
Thomas moved to the foot of the ladder, peered up. "What're you thinking?"
Panille stared at the hylighters, at the wind-whipped sea surface. He felt an unexpected freedom here, as though all of that time confined in Ship's artificial environment had merely been preparation for this release. All of the holorecords, the history and the intense hours of study could not touch one blink of this reality. The preparations had, however, armed him with knowledge. He looked down at Thomas.
"A kite could lift our antenna high enough."
"Kite?" Waela stared up through the plaz at him. Kites were carrion-eating birds.
Thomas, knowing the other meaning, looked thoughtful. "Do we have the material?"
"What are you talking about?" Waela demanded.
Thomas explained.
"Ohhh, festival flyers," she said. She glanced around the gondola. "We have fabrics. What're these?" She unsnapped a sealing strip from an instrument panel, flexed it. "Here's material for the bracing."
Panille, looking down at them, said: "Then let'...." He broke off as a shadow passed over him.
They all looked up.
Two large hylighters passed directly over the gondola, some of their tendrils tucked up while others held large rocks in the water to steady them. The ballast tendrils of one hylighter rubbed across the gondola, rocking it sharply.
Panille clutched the hatch rim for support. The ballast rock sped past below him in a foaming wake.
"What're they doing?" Waela shouted.
"That gas we threw out killed a lot of the kelp," Thomas said. "You don't suppose hylighters protect the kelp?"
"Here come some more of them!" Panille called.