Crashlander

I did some research. Pacifica wasn't just a zoo. It looked more like an underwater village, with listings for caterers, costume shops, subs, repair work, travel, hotels … but Wil had worked with sea life. Might that give me a handle?

I couldn't see how.

It wasn't that I didn't have an answer; I just didn't like it. Wil and Tor had to hand my vest to the cops. When Persial January Hebert was reported rescued, I would send them a gift.

Feather didn't know my alternate name. But if she had access to the Fafnir police, she'd tanj sure recognize that vest!

With the rest of the afternoon I bought survival gear: a backpurse, luggage, clothing.

On Earth I could have vanished behind a thousand shades of dyes. Here … I settled for a double dose of tannin secretion, an underdose of sun block, a darkened pair of mag specs, my height, and a local beard and hairstyle.

Arming myself was a problem.

The disk hadn't spoken of weapons on Fafnir. My safest guess was that Fafnir was like Earth: they didn't put weapons in the hands of civilians. Handguns, rifles, martial arts training belong to the police.

The good news: everyone on the islands carried knives. Those flying sharks that attacked me during the sunbunny run were one predator out of thousands.

Feather would arm herself somehow. She'd look through a sporting goods store, steal a hunting rifle … nope, no hunting rifles. No large prey on Fafnir, unless in the kzinti jungle, or underwater.

There were listings for scuba stores. I found a stun gun with a big parabolic reflector, big enough to knock out a one-gulp, too big for a pocket. I took it home, with more diving gear for versimilitude and a little tool kit for repairing diving equipment. With that I removed the reflector.

Now I couldn't use it underwater; it would knock me out, because water conducts sound very well. But it would fit my pocket.

* * *

I took my time over a sushi dinner, quite strange. Some time after sunset I stepped into a transfer booth, and stepped out into a brilliant dawn on Shasht.

Outbound Enterprises was open. I let a Ms. Machti take Martin Wallace Graynor's retina prints. «Your ticket is still good, Mr. Graynor,» Ms. Machti said. «The service charge will be eight hundred stars. You're four months late!»

«I was shipwrecked,» I told her. «Did my companions make it?»

Iceliner passengers are in no hurry. The ships keep prices down by launching when they're full. I learned that the Zombie Queen had departed a week after our landing, about as expected. I gave Ms. Machti the names. She set the phone system searching, and presently said, «Your husband and the children boarded and departed. Your wives' tickets are still outstanding.»

«Both?»

«Yes.» She did a double take. «Oh, good heavens, they must think you're dead!»

«That's what I'm afraid of. At least, John and Tweena and Nathan would. They were revived in good shape?»

«Yes, of course. But the women — could they have waited for you?»

Stet: Carlos, Tanya, and Louis were all safe on Home and had left the spaceport under their own power. Feather and Sharrol — «Waited? But they'd have left a message.»

She was still looking at her screen. «Not for you, Mr. Graynor, but Mr. John Graynor has recorded a message for Mrs. Graynor … for Mrs. Adelaide Graynor.»

For Feather. «But nothing for Milcenta? But they both stayed? How strange.» Ms. Machti seemed the type of person who might wonder about other people's sexual arrangements. I wanted her curious, because this next question — «Can you show me what John had to say to Adelaide?»

She shook her head firmly. «I don't see how —»

«Now, John wouldn't have said anything someone else couldn't hear. You can watch it yourself — «Her head as still turning left, right, left. «In fact, you should. Then you can at least tell me if there's been, if, well. I have to know, don't I? If Milcenta's dead.»

That stopped her. She nodded, barely, and tapped in the code to summon Carlos's message to Feather.

She read it all the way through. Her lip curled just a bit; but she showed only solemn pity when she turned the monitor to face me.

It was a posed scene. Carlos looked like a man hiding a sickness. The view behind him could have been a manor garden in England, a tamed wilderness. Tanya and Louis were playing in the distance, hide-and-seek in and out of some Earthly tree that dripped a cage of foliage. Alive. Ever since I had first seen them frozen, I must have been thinking of them as dead.

Carlos looked earnestly out of the monitor screen. «Adelaide, you can see that the children and I arrived safely. I have an income. The plans we made together, half of us have carried out. Your own iceliner slots are still available.

«I know nothing of Mart. I hope you've heard from him, but he should never have gone sailing alone. I fear the worst.