Гарднер Дозуа - Mermaids!

At the rendezvous point, Captain MacNair dropped anchor, and the crew began to lower Wilson's outrigger over the side. The sea was relatively calm, and overhead the hot sun of late January poured down upon the sweating men.

"Now, remember," said Wilson finally, just before he went down the ladder to the outrigger that bobbed lazily on the blue waters, "I'll give you a call every six hours." He glanced at the sealed skin diver's wristwatch he was carrying. "If I don't call, get in that 'copter and come a-running. Got it?"

"Yes, sir; I do," said Captain MacNair.

"Good." Wilson clambered down the ladder, boarded the outrigger, and cast free. When the wind caught the sail, he aimed her for her destination, waved toward the Lorelei , then concentrated on his course.

Six hours later, he reported to Captain MacNair. "I'm within sight of the island group, Captain. I'll take a look around the smaller islands, but I think I'll beach the boat on the biggest one."

"Very well, sir; but you'd best hurry. Sunset in forty-five minutes."

"Will do."

Wilson felt pretty good, all things considered. He had arrived at high tide, just as he had planned, which meant that all but the highest islands of the Reef were underwater. He had already done some aerial reconnaissance earlier in the month, and found that this particular group of tiny coral islands contained the only island that was both close to the predicted coordinates and large enough to have plants growing on it. It was also a Hell of a long way from any other island of any consequence. It must be—it had to be—the island where The Mermaid would come.

Already, in his own mind, she had ceased to be simply "A mermaid"; she had become The Mermaid—with capitals.

All these things buoyed him up. But one thing depressed him. His stomach.

Well, actually, it wasn't his stomach; it was his palate that had been insulted. He had to admit that his stomach was not upset in the least; he felt no queasiness whatever. It had, after all, been more than twenty-four hours since he had eaten that horrible mess, just before the Lorelei had left the mainland of Australia.

It was supposed to have been baked shark's fin, and no one else in the little restaurant in Yeereemeeree had noticed anything particularly wrong with it, but to a connoisseur, it had given the impression that the shark had been dredged from the interior of a whale, along with a bumper crop of ambergris and decayed squid. Normally, Jack would have taken a single whiff and shipped the whole thing back to the kitchen by rocket express, but it had been specially selected by Donna Brennan, a lush beauty who had come all the way from Melbourne to see him. He could hardly have refused.

But his insulted taste buds still felt indignant, and that now-faint but still perceptible indignation was the only thing that took the fine edge off Wilson's glow of adventure. In fact, as he sailed around the tiny islands in the vicinity of the larger one, the surge of excitement within him almost completely drowned out the memory of that despicable shark's fin.

Maneuvering the boat required great care; even at high tide, there were places where the jagged surface of the Great Reef was only inches below the top of the water, capable of ripping the bottom out of the boat.

There wasn't a sign of anyone or anything in the area, except for the brightly-colored fish that darted about in the clear waters. The sky, now colored a brassy orange from the reddened rays of the sun as it approached the horizon, was empty. Not a single bird floated overhead. The breeze was barely perceptible, and the only sound was the wash of the waves against the coral crags.

Wilson made his way to the largest island, beached the boat, and dragged it up on the sands. Then he looked around. The island would have delighted any cartoonist. It was somewhat larger, perhaps, than the cartoonist might have liked, since it measured about fifty yards long by thirty wide, and there was a little more vegetation on it than most cartoonists portray, but it certainly showed that tiny islands with a handful of palm trees on them did exist.

Wilson was working on the theory that a mermaid would not be frightened by a single, unarmed man. Historical evidence indicated that they avoided big concentrations of humanity, but that a lone individual didn't bother them. At least. Jack Wilson hoped it would work that way.

By the time he had made a complete survey of the island, the last red rim of the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. There was no one there but himself. He gathered armfuls of dried driftwood, scooped out a pit in the gritty coral sand, and built himself a small fire.

His stomach was of two minds. It wanted to be filled, but the memory of that shark's fin rejected the notion of eating just yet. Jack decided to wait until he was really hungry before he put any of the tinned beef or turtle soup into it. Meanwhile, he'd be satisfied with a cup of coffee. It was a remarkable thing, painfully remarkable, how full the sea was of good things to eat and how empty the earth of people capable of cooking them.

Twenty minutes later, he was sipping a cup of hot, black, sweet coffee à la grecque and contentedly smoking a cigarette as he gazed into the dancing flicker of the small driftwood fire. It was the only light in a sea of blackness that surrounded him. The night was moonless, and in the clear sky only the stars rivaled the ruddy glow from the sandpit.

How long, he wondered, would it be before The Mermaid showed up? Niggling doubts about her ever showing up he dismissed as too absurd to countenance. Hadn't she been sighted time after time? Weren't her movements so regular as to... Just so. Exactly. She would be along. Wilson lay back on his sleeping bag and blew plumes of smoke toward the stars. Her hair would be long and sun-blonde, her teeth like perfectly matched Bahrain pearls, her eyes as blue as the Bay of Naples on a sunny day, her skin milky white, her breasts...

"Ahum!"

He jerked his head up and looked around. The noise had sounded for all the world like someone clearing his throat. Wilson found that looking at the fire had made him a bit night-blind for the moment. Until his vision cleared...

"Ah hum! " The noise came again, this time with more persistence. He located its source as being somewhat to the right, near a coral outcropping. He suddenly wished he had brought a gun.

Very cautiously, he said: "Hello?"

" 'Ullo, Cocky," came a somewhat diffident voice. "Could you spare a gasper?" The voice was a sort of whiskey tenor, and by now Jack could make out a dimly-lit shape in the flickering fire. Someone was leaning across the low ridge of coral, arms folded, like a friendly bartender. Someone with a light mop of stringy hair. Someone with odd, very odd, skin coloration—great splotches of pink, black, and white, like a piebald pony.

Half-caste abo. , Wilson's mind said. Semi-albinism. Must have seen my light and paddled over creeping around in the dark...

"Who is that?" he asked, trying to peer further into the gloom.

"Me nyme's Mavis." The voice pronounced it My-vis . "Wot's yours, Cocky?"

The voice didn't fit in with his vision at all. Not one damn bit. Nor did anything else about the figure. But Jack Wilson's mind jumped straight to one sudden, dreadful conclusion, and his heart gave a truly horrifying leap. "You're a—a mermaid?"

"Not 'ardly. Old Mavis eyen't been exactly wotcher might call a myde for, oh, ever so long. More wotcher might call a mer- lydy —if you tykes me meaning, Cocky." There was a rather coarse giggle. "And now wot about that gasper?"

Wilson's mind felt numb, barely capable of functioning. "Why, sure. Mavis," he heard his voice saying, "but why don't you come over by the fire? I've got some hot coffee, and..." He came to an abrupt halt as he realized how utterly ordinary his voice sounded.