Part 63 (1/2)

”You're as crazy as they are!”

Mataroreva rushed the Commissioner, both mas- sive hands raised to strike,

Cora found herself on his back, pounding at his ears with her tiny fists. He shook her off, threw her to the floor. She lay there, head ringing from the im- pact.

Merced slipped in between Mataroreva and his spindly quarry and did something Cora didn't see.

Mataroreva grunted in surprise, then sat down, hold- ing his middle. Merced stood nearby, hands in front

of him, ready to defend himself or retreat depending on the larger man's actions.

But Sam's gaze was already clearing. ”Th-thanks, Pucara.” He smiled wanly. ”They almost had me again.” He looked up at Hwos.h.i.+en. ”Yu, I-”

”Never mind.” The oldster spoke thoughtfully.

”Evidently they won't wait for our air to run out.

They'll keep trying to control us that way. Eventually I think they'll get what they want.” Then he frowned at the sweating, panting Cora. ”Are you all right?”

”We're going to die. I know that now.” She looked up and across to her daughter. ”And since we're going to die, there's something you should know, Rachael.”

”They're working on you now. Mother. Con- trol ...”

”No. No.” She slimbed to her feet, slumped into one of the control chairs. She rested the back of a wrist against her forehead, closed her eyes, and tried to force out the words. It was difficult. She had worked to suppress them for twenty years.

”I've been hard on you, Rachael. I know that, and I'm sorry. I've been taking out on you the resentment I held against your father. I loved him once, origi- nally. I grew to hate him. Yet when he died I felt guilty. Maybe I should have been more of a woman ... I don't know what it was. I've just been trying so hard ever since to see that you didn't make the same mistakes, that you didn't fall into the same traps that life sets for us. That...”

Rachael was shaking her head slowly, and smiling.

”I know how you felt about him. Mother. Do you think children are blind?” Cora's arm slipped and her eyes functioned. Her daughter stood staring calmly down at her. ”I noticed everything. I knew what was going on.”

”So many years,” Cora whispered. ”Why didn't you ever tell me you knew?”

”I was afraid. Children don't mix in adult affairs.

264 CACHALOT.

It's an unwritten law of nature. I could see how it, how he, hurt you. So when you hurt me back”-she shrugged-”I took it. You had suffered enough.”

She bent, hugged hard. It was reciprocated. ”I hated him, too.”

”You never showed it. I always thought you loved him.”

Rachael's expression twisted. ”I hated him ever since I was old enough to understand how he was hurting you. But I thought that if I loved him enough, it would make him stop making you cry so much.

You're very good at understanding the ways of echinoderms and teleosts and alien water-dwellers, Mother, but not so good with little girls.” Then she started to sob. Cora joined her.

Mataroreva turned away, looked at Merced with great respect. ”That's the second time they nearly made me kill someone. I would have, if not for you, Colonel. Maururu an. I thank you.”

”Not as much as I do,” Hwos.h.i.+en murmured.

”Just trained.” Merced winced. ”There . . . they just tried me again. It's hard to fight. Sooner or later they'll turn subtle again and make us do something that we think we're doing because we want to. Everyone has to consider everyone else's actions from now on with the greatest caution.

”We can't surface,” he observed, changing the sub- ject. ”The first thing we should do is communicate all we've learned to the s.h.i.+p waiting above so they can relay it to Mou'anui. They'll be safe, with that herd of catodons to protect them from any induced baleen attack.”