Robert Silverberg - The Face of the Waters

“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.

Someone sobbed. Mendy Tanamind giggled again. Brondo Katzin broke from his stasis and began bitterly to mutter, over and over, “The fucking stinking Gillies! The fucking stinking Gillies!”

“What’s the trouble here?” Delagard asked, finally coming stumping up along the path from Lawler’s vaargh.

“Your boys Bamber and Gospo took it upon themselves to carry the news,” Lawler said. “Everybody knows.”

“What? What? The bastards! I’ll kill them!”

“It’s a little too late for that.”

Others were entering the plaza now. Lawler saw Gabe Kinverson, Sundira Thane, Father Quillan, the Sweyners. And more right behind them. They came crowding in, forty, fifty, sixty people, practically everybody. Even five or six of the Sisters were there, standing close together, a tight little female phalanx. Safety in numbers. Dag Tharp appeared. Marya and Gren Hain. Josc Yanez, Lawler’s seventeen-year-old apprentice, who was going to be the island’s next doctor someday. Onyos Felk, the mapkeeper. Natim Gharkid had come up from his algae beds, his trousers soaked to the waist. The news must have travelled through the whole community by this time.

Mostly their faces showed shock, astonishment, incredulity. Is it true? they were asking. Can it be?

Delagard cried out, “Listen, all of you, there’s nothing to worry about! We’re going to get this thing smoothed over!”

Gabe Kinverson came up to Delagard. He looked twice as tall as the shipyard owner, a great slab of a man, all jutting chin and massive shoulders and cold, glaring sea-green eyes. There was always an aura of danger about Kinverson, of potential violence.

“They threw us out?” Kinverson asked. “They really said we had to leave?”

Delagard nodded.

“Thirty days is what we have, and then out. They made that very clear. They don’t care where we go, but we can’t stay here. I’m going to fix everything, though. You can count on that.”

“Seems to me you’ve fixed everything already,” Kinverson said. Delagard moved back a step and glared at Kinverson as if bracing for a fight. But the sea-hunter seemed more perplexed than angry. “Thirty days and then get out,” Kinverson said, half to himself. “If that don’t beat everything.” He turned his back on Delagard and walked away, scratching his head.

Perhaps Kinverson really didn’t care, Lawler thought. He spent most of his time far out at sea anyway, by himself, preying on the kinds of fish that didn’t choose to come into the bay. Kinverson had never been active in the life of the Sorve community; he floated through it the way the islands of Hydros drifted in the ocean, aloof, independent, well defended, following some private course.

But others were more agitated. Brondo Katsin’s delicate-looking little golden-haired wife Eliyana was sobbing wildly. Father Quillan attempted to comfort her, but he was obviously upset himself. The gnarled old Sweyners were talking to each other in low, intense tones. A few of the younger women were trying to explain things to their worried-looking children. Lis Niklaus had brought a jug of grapeweed brandy out of her cafй and it was passing rapidly from hand to hand among the men, who were gulping from it in a sombre, desperate way.