The sea was producing a long swell today, gentle by Islander standards. Just a little wash and slap against the hull.

They had not been long into this "little excursion," as Gallow called it, before Bushka began to suspect that he was in actual danger - ultimate danger. He had the persistent feeling that these people would kill him if he didn't measure up. And it was left to him to find out what "measuring up" might mean.

Gallow was planning some kind of revolution against the Merman government, that much was clear from the idle chatter. "The Movement," he called it. Gallow and his "Green Dashers" and his Launch Base One. "All mine," he said. It was so explicit and unmistakable that Bushka felt the ages-old fear that crept up on those who'd dared record history while it happened all down the ages. It had a sweaty side.

Gallow and his men were revealed as conspirators who had talked too much in the presence of an ex-Islander.

Why did they do that?

It was not because they truly considered him one of their own - too much innuendo indicated otherwise. And they didn't know him well enough to trust him, even as Gallow's personal historian. Bushka was sure of that. The answer lay there, obvious to someone of Bushka's training - all of that historical precedent upon which to draw.

They did it to trap me.

The rest of it was just as obvious. If he were implicated in Gallow's scheme - whatever that turned out to be - then he would be Gallow's man forever because it would be the only place he could go. Gallow did indeed want a captive historian in his service, and maybe more. He wanted to go down in history on his own terms. He wanted to be history. Gallow had made it clear that he had researched Bushka -"the best Islander historian."

Young and lacking some practical experience, that was how Gallow rated him, Bushka realized. Something to be molded. And there was the terrifying attractiveness of that other appeal.

"We are the true humans," Gallow said.

And point by point, he had compared Bushka's appearance to the norm, concluding: "You're one of us. You're not a Mute."

One of us. There was power in that ... particularly to an Islander, and particularly if Gallow's conspiracy succeeded.

But I'm a writer, Bushka reminded himself. I'm not some romantic character in an adventure story. History had taught him how dangerous it was for writers to mix themselves up with their characters - or historians with their subjects.

The sub took an erratic motion and Bushka knew someone must be undogging the exterior hatch.

Gallow asked, "Are you sure that you could run this sub?"

"Of course. The controls are obvious."

"Are they, really?"

"I watched you. Islander subs have some organic equivalents. And I do have a master's rating, Gallow."

"GeLaar, please," Gallow said. He unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat, stood up and moved aside. "We are companions, Iz. Companions use first names."

Bushka slid into the pilot's seat at Gallow's gesture and scanned the controls. He pointed to them one by one, calling out their functions to Gallow: "Trim, ballast, propulsion, forward-reverse and throttles, fuel mixture, hydrogen conversion control, humidity injector and atmospheric control - the meters and gauges are self-explanatory. More?"

"Very good, Iz," Gallow said. "You are even more of a jewel than I had hoped. Strap in. You are now our pilot."

Realizing he had been drawn even further into Gallow's conspiracy, Bushka obeyed. The flutter in his stomach increased noticeably.

Again, the sub moved erratically. Bushka flicked a switch and focused a sensor above the exterior hatch. The screen above him showed Tso Zent and behind him, the scarred face of Gulf Nakano. Those two were living examples of deceptive looks. Zent had been introduced as Gallow's primary strategist "and of course, my chief assassin."

Bushka had stared at the chief assassin, taken aback by the title. Zent was smooth-skinned and schoolboy-innocent in appearance, until you saw the hard antagonism in his small brown eyes. The wrinkle-free flesh had that soft deceptiveness of someone powerfully muscled by much swimming. An airfish scar puckered at his neck. Zent was one of those Mermen who preferred the fish to the air tanks - an interesting insight.

Then there was Nakano - a giant with hulking shoulders and arms as thick as some human torsos, his face twisted and scarred by burns from a Merman rocket misfiring. Gallow had already told Bushka the story twice, and Bushka got the impression that he'd hear it again. Nakano allowed a few wispy beard hairs to grow from the tip of his scarred chin; otherwise he was hairless, the burn scars prominent on his scalp, neck and shoulders.

"I saved his life," Gallow had said, speaking in Nakano's presence as though the man were not there. "He will do anything for me."

But Bushka had found evidence of human warmth in Nakano - a hand outstretched to protect the new companion from falling. There was even a sense of humor.

"We measure sub experience by counting bruises," Nakano had said, smiling shyly. His voice was husky and a bit slurred.

There was certainly no warmth or humor in Zent.

"Writers are dangerous," he'd said when Gallow explained Bushka's function. "They speak out of turn."

"Writing history while it happens is always dangerous business," Gallow agreed. "But no one else will see what Iz writes until we are ready - that's an advantage."

It had been at this point that Bushka fully realized the peril of his position. They had been in the sub, seventy klicks from the Merman base, anchored on the fringes of a huge kelp bed. Both Gallow and Zent had that irritating habit of speaking about him as though he were not present.

Bushka glanced at Gallow, who stood, back to the pilot's couch, peering out one of the small plazglas ports at whatever it was that Zent and Nakano were making ready out there. The grace and beauty of Gallow had taken on a new dimension for Bushka, who had marked Gallow's deep fear of disfiguring accidents. Nakano was a living example of what Gallow feared most.

Another chanted notation went into Bushka's "true history," the one he elected to keep only in his mind in the ages-old Islander fashion. Much of Islander history was carried in memorized chants, rhythms that projected themselves naturally, phrase by phrase. Paper was fugitive on the Islands, subject to rot, and where could it be stored that the container itself would not eat it? Permanent records were confined to plazbooks and the memories of chanters. Plazbooks were only for the bureaucracy or the very rich. Anyone could memorize a chant.

"GeLaar fears the scars of Time," Bushka chanted to himself. "Time is Age and Age is Time. Not the death but the dying."

If only they knew, Bushka thought. He brought a notepad from his pocket and scribbled four innocuous lines on it for Gallow's official history - date, time, place, people.

Zent and Nakano entered the cabin without speaking. Sea water slopped all around them as they took up positions in seats beside Bushka. They began a run-through on the sub's sensory apparatus. Both men moved smoothly and silently, grotesque figures in green-striped, skin-tight dive suits. "Camouflage," had been Gallow's response to Bushka's unasked question when he first saw them.

Gallow watched with quiet approval until the check-list had been run, men said, "Get us under way, Iz. Course three hundred and twenty-five degrees. Hold us just beneath wave turbulence."

"Check."

Bushka complied, feeling the unused power in the craft as he gentled it into position. Energy conservation was second nature to an Islander and he trimmed out as much by instinct as by the instruments.

"Sweet," Gallow commented. He glanced at Zent. "Didn't I tell you?"