WE were looking for Dewi Dammo and stood a better chance than most. We had an informer: careful, clever, threatened Peter Pederson, a double agent betrayed and hunted, fully conditioned by Dewi and about to die. He sat across from us in the quiet lobby of the Grand Hotel in Angel Bay, and we could see at a glance that Dewi had gotten to him. The face was haggard, the eyes he turned on us were dull from the death-conditioning. Every thought about Dewi's affairs merely hastened his end, and had brought Pederson to the point where the suffering was too great.

Death was the only choice, and he had come to us because he knew we were after Dewi.

"We want him, Peter," I said, and my gesture included not only the small group of us from Rynosseros sitting in the big lobby chairs on this quiet afternoon, but the white-suited doctor Peter had told his story to on the phone and had arranged to meet at this fateful rendezvous. Jarvain Alis, flanked by his two silent assistants, was a member of the exclusive Inner Eye medical-religious sect, and his people had ample cause to hate Dewi.

"Like you, Captain Tom, I have been briefed on the phone," Doctor Alis said.

"Peter is an old patient of mine. It was easy to invoke some hypnotic restrainers we once used, to ease his spirits now and relieve the suffering. He is still very aware. He knows you cannot undo an expensive, professionally-seeded death-conditioning like these new ones, especially one so advanced. Cryogenics postpones it, nothing more; lobotomies give you a half-life, without awareness ever again. Peter has chosen a quick moment of

"At present, my son and I are extremely interested in genetics and heredity." agony on the chance that what he tells us might bring Dewi to justice. Is this correct, Peter?"

Pederson nodded, his face showing intense concentration. With the strange detachment of his sect, Jarvain Alis continued. "You won't get much, gentlemen. Ten words maximum. The constrainer is first class. We must listen carefully."

I leant forward in my chair, ready to do just that. My companions — Shannon, Rim and Scarbo — did the same.

"Peter, we need an identity clue of some kind and a location. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Pederson said, his face pale with stress, his mouth a tight line. Despite Doctor Alis' hypnotically-implanted distractors, the effort to speak at all had become an incredible burden. The voice was a ghost of the strong tones I had heard on the phone an hour before, asking us to come to the Grand Hotel.

I turned to Shannon, Rim and Scarbo. "This is it," I said and switched on the portable recorder we had with us. I moved closer to Pederson. "All right, Peter. An identity clue and a location. Doctor Alis, release him."

"Sovereign!" Alis said, giving the keyword. Pederson slumped a little. His dull eyes gained some life, darted a wild glance about the room. looked at Alis and pleadingly at the rest of us.

"Now!" I said.

"Three ...!" Pederson managed to say, then screamed, doubling up in agony, unable to finish. "Location." I cried.

Pederson shouted words garbled by pain and, death. He dropped to the floor, spasmed twice and was dead.

Jarvain Alis went to him at once, made a quick, examination, then gestured to his two assistants, who came and carried the body away. In the space, of a minute, it was as if all that terror and suffering had not existed. The lobby was quiet, deserter but fordthe five of us. The hotel staff had not even broken their siestas to see what had happened. Questions were rarely asked in Angel Bay.

I passed out pieces of paper and pencils for the next part of the proceedings.

"Playback!" Doctor Alis said, with the same coolness as before. I touched the contact. Pederson's voice came back to us, anything like words enhanced, the sounds of his agony dampened by the machine's sorters. Adefinite word pattern was evident in the tonalities. We played it six, nine, twelve times, each of us writing down our interpretations on the pieces of paper.

We were some time at it, but eventually the writing stopped and the papers were passed in. I recorded the suggestions on the white message boardd we had borrowed from the reception desk earlierer.

"We all agree on Peter's first word: Three," I said. "These are the final interpretations offered for the others."

I love the debtors.

I love the detours.

I love (a name: Ladetous?)

I love the dead too.

Isle of Ladettus.

"Only the last one seems to be a location," Jarvain Alis said. "Where is Ladettus?"

Behind me, old Ben Scarbo made a thoughtful sound. "No, Doctor. It's a consonance, d'ye see? We at least know it's an island. "I love" is 'Isle of'. The other suggestions don't begin to satisfy Tom's arrangement with Pederson for a location."

"Ben's right," I said. "Compare 'Ladettus' in the last one with the final words in the first two: 'the debtors' and 'the detours'."

"Yeah," Scarbo continued. "Like your Inner Eye — a consonance." Alis' manner became even more cool. "What do you mean?" Scarbo snorted. "Inner Eye is a schism, a religious medical order like the Knights Hospitaller used to be or the Cistercians or..."

"No, Captain. Let your friend continue!"

"...a splinter sect of Christianity, based on the letters above Christ's head on Calvary: INRI. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. I-N-R-I, you see? Inner Eye. A consonance."

"That is not true!"

"I wouldn't know, Doctor. But that pupil-less eye you wear is the sign of the fish, Ichthus, the sign for Jesus, very stylised. Don't take offence. It's just an example."

But Jarvain Alis was on his feet, staring down at us. "Our sign is from Egypt's Old Kingdom, from the Third Dynasty. It represents the modified Eye of Ra and pre-dates Christianity. It goes back to Imhotep and the early Pyramid Age. It takes on some of the Atenist teachings. Why do you persist in this?

Why not speak of the Third Eye, the pineal gland, or the Cult of the Secret Self?"

"I-N-R-I," Scarbo said.

"I will not put up with this, Captain Tom! I wish you luck. I trust you will keep my people informed so that we too can seek retribution from Dewi Dammo in our turn."

He stalked off, joined his assistants at the door to the street, and left the hotel.

I stared at Scarbo. "Ben, why?"

Our wiry old kitemaster went to the board. "I don't trust him, Tom. You know as well as I do that those distractors in poor Pederson could've been repressors, put there by the man supposed to help him. Doctor Alis could be working with Dewi; he could be Dewi Dammo for all we know.!"

"So why have him leave? Why not keep him here where we can watch him?"

"Because we don't want him to know what we know."

"What do we know, Ben?" Rim said.

Scarbo took up the board marker and added five more words to the list.

"Isle of the Dead Tours," he said. "We've got our location. The Inland Sea. The mortuary islands."

Of all the terraforming projects carried out by the Ab'0 Princess in the new Australia, the Inland Sea is arguably the most beautiful. The vast freshwater lake lies to the north-east of the burning inner deserts, 70 square miles of warm clear water lapping at the doorsteps of twelve resort towns, bordered by marinas and narrow fertile strips as dependent on the cooling breezes and the irrigation channels as ever the lands of Egypt and Sumer were on their rivers of plenty.

Dotted across the Inland Sea are the small mortuary islands, created, maintained and owned by the different tribes, who rent out their facilities. If Pederson's last words could be believed, it would be just like Dewi to be hiding there, working his mischief through agents.

That much conformed with what we knew of Dewi. By all accounts he was a ruthless individual, completely self-serving and very cruel, if the stories could be believed. Some maintained he was the ageing scientist who had devised the charling process, who had gone to the Inland Sea to die, following the dictates of Inner Eye. But these were only rumours. Dewi could well be half a continent away. We knew for certain only that he had operations along the Charling Coast, that he had some way of keeping the powerful Ab'O tribes there reasonably in check, that the great fortune he had amassed was used to pay for expensive hi-tech assistance, to help him run his many illicit operations: weapons and drug smuggling, black-marketing in hi-tech and charling products. More importantly, the isles of the dead were there and it was the only clue we had.

We set out from Angel Bay the next morning, running under twenty cables and forty kites along Adanaya-Nos, the

Road to the Sea.

We had the desert to ourselves. A tribal sand-ship left Angel Bay as we did, but it was a small charvi and its fourteen kites could not compete with the mighty tiers and parafoils Scarbo put in the warm blue sky. Rynosseros was a splendid sight under her canopy, the "proud heart of the peacock" to use Scarbo's talk.

I stood on the poop with Shannon and Ben, watching the desert and laughing at Scarbo's excesses. There is always something exhilarating about heading for the Inland Sea at the heart of the continent. Despite the serious nature of our mission, the mood affected us all, and Scarbo was using the perfect conditions to dress Rynosseros for both speed and display, thinking to roll into Port Merilyn as what the caste conscious Ab'Os call a god-ship. Shannon and I watched him minding the cables with his keen eye, running back and forth from cable-boss to helm, shouting instructions to Rim, Strengi and Hammon. Shannon and I made our jokes but it was good to see Scarbo this happy. He is a grand master of the aeropleuristic art, possibly the best living kitesman there is. Jib-kites, moonrakers, harvesters, Rogallo limp-wings, the fanciful insect-shaped semis, the Edo and Sode variables, the five-point stars, the six-points, the Bede Wing, the man-lifters, the deep-skies, the wind-misers and angels, Scarbo knows them all. I cannot count the times other charvis have matched speed with us and sent their kitemasters across on a bosun's line so they can ask Scabo about line-fouling or multiple-drogues or arranging top-kites and racing footmen — kiting lore so many younger kitesmen have lost or never bothered to learn.

There have been famous duels too. Red Lucas, the Queenslander, once raced us from Sollelen to Ayuguyar, an undeclared contest between his kitemaster, a Tongan named Mussezo, and Scarbo. For the better part of a day, Lucas' charvi matched Rynosseros, but with Ayuguyar in sight, Scarbo sent up two splendid Chinese Hawks, judging the winds so perfectly that the twenty-six cables he had running weren't fouled. We won that race by a hundred lengths. Mussezo had his own ship given to him by the Prince of the San-Topuri that day, though Scarbo refused the offer first, to my delight. I told Ben he could have been unrivalled king of the bright new Australian deserts, but he just grinned and said he was that already surely.

Shannon pointed to Scarbo's latest success—four brightly-coloured rollers. I laughed at the extravagance, at the sheer recklessness of it. Rollers are next to useless but they are beautiful to see, fabulous spinning tubes of colour that made Rynosseros seem like a strange machine frantically harvesting the sky.

"They'll never forget us!" I shouted down at the old man, and Scarbo grinned back.

But then two of our primary parafoils exploded above our heads and the sky shed ribbons of fire.

"Stations!" I cried, though the crew had already reacted. Scarbo showed the other side of his mastery then. The instant he saw we were under attack, he was at the cable-boss, freeing cables, dumping the display, shedding most of the upper canopy. Only he could do that so swiftly by hand, dodging the cables whipping up around him even as Shannon, in perfect synchronisation, brought costly stored power to the hull, pulling us safely clear of the settling canopy.

We hadn't seen our attacker yet, too much was happening, but if it was behind us then our falling kites worked in our favour, becoming a definite navigation hazard.

As the canopy sheared away, above and behind, Scarbo sent up our four racing footmen, the small sturdy wind-runners, and the wind-thieves to give us speed. The armatures and booms went out, Strengi got a pair of death-lamps clear of Scarbo's lines, the small refractive surfaces angling for the sun. Hammon brought up snaphaunces while Rim got a deck-lens working. Now we saw them — three charvis running at us from the stern, a mile distant but closing, low swift hulls each under a parasol of drab battle kites, with death lamps out above like the

uppermost mantle in a rainforest, twisting and flashing, sending streaks of deadly light at us. Miraculously, all three had escaped our dumped canopy, or perhaps, further back, out of clear sight now with the dust-haze that had risen, another ship was at rest, having deliberately snared our kites so the others could proceed.

Rynosseros ran at 110k's. For a moment, we pulled ahead, but then our pursuers went to stored power as well and started gaining.

"Something's wrong!" Rim cried, at the controls of our lamps. "They're hitting us but we're not hitting them!"

Overhead, one of our footmen then another streamed a trail of smoke and began falling. Scarbo dumped them. I turned to Rim.

"Insulated hulls?" I asked.

"More than that," he said. "They're too close. Our lamps should be doing more in that grouping."

It was true, and it confirmed a suspicion I had. Fully-kited charvolants cannot travel so closely together at such speeds — too many accidents can happen, line-fouling, collisions from pitted road surfaces and faulty drive-cables, so many other factors. It was as unlikely as all three ships avoiding our canopy earlier, or all those death-lamps causing so little damage to us.

I stopped looking at three separate ships, studied instead the overall configuration of hulls and kites.

"Too much symmetry!" I cried.

"The left one's a fake!" Rim said at the same moment.

"Mirror-ships!" Scarbo yelled up from the commons. We all saw it. There was only one ship. The other two were enantiomorphs, dense high-resolution holoforms projected on a broad and powerful band —

mirror images, reversed to give variations. It was a breach of Ab'0 codes —

our attacker had illegal technology aboard and was not afraid to use it. Dewi was taking no chances. He could afford such risks, though by playing his hand he had at least confirmed Pederson's clue.

The Inland Sea, the Charling Coast, was it.

Now there was the sharp racket of snaphauce fire. Young Hamon was firing shot after shot at the death-lamps of the middle charvi, ignoring the two at the sides. Down on the commons, Scarbo and Strengi were coupling up two fighting kites: Spider, our black Javanese Avenger with its sharp edges, hooks and snare lines, and a special fighter known as Pinata.

When I saw what Ben was planning, I began losing speed, but gradually so our pursuer would not guess. With so few kites left, it seemed a natural development; we were a ship with low power reserves.

Spider shot out on helium lifts towards the charvi a hundred metres behind us. At the same time, up went Pinata, an innocent-looking inflatable, trailing back as if too hastily lofted and misdirected by a loose cable. Dewi's ship retaliated at once, not with lamps, lenses or mirror-flash, but with more illegal hi-tech. A beam of dazzling coherent light stabbed out from a deck-laser. Spider was gone in a burst of flame. But it had been a decoy, giving a more immediate target and letting Pinata get well clear of Rynosseros on its trailing line.

The laser bolt which then struck our silver inflatable did two things. It sent a power surge down the conducting cable into our accumulators, and it ruptured the insulated bladder, releasing a matrix of expanding grapple-lines which settled over the raider's canopy and dragged it to the desert. I added more drive to the wheels, using the new power to draw Rynosseros slowly clear of our pursuer. At the same time, Rim and Strengi used deck-lenses to burn the falling kites. There was an explosion, a whoof of flame as a parafoil went up — hydrogen-filled, a careless expedient on a war craft. The raider slowed, veered to one side, exposing its wheels. Rim got a burn-point on the tyres; another series of explosions there. The travel platform sagged and skewed about, the charvi nosed into the sand under its own burning kites and came to a stop.

It was a bizarre spectacle. The projector was operating through it all, and each stage in the raider's misfortune was duplicated by the ghost-ship to either side. The last thing we saw as we pulled ahead was the real ship's crew abandoning their burning vessel, again shown in triplicate. We soon discovered why.

Dewi's use of hi-tech had been monitored at last by an Ab'0 satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the Inland Sea territories. The tiny figures were barely clear when beams of light struck from the sky. The three burning ships became one as the projector was destroyed; the one exploded in a gout of white light so that only a smoking black hulk remained.

WE reached the Inland Sea with a much more modest display than we had intended

— a blackened, damaged hull with drab and functional battle-kites for a canopy and death-lamps aloft, bright twisting diamonds in the afternoon sky. The Adanaya-Nos became the Great Circuit Road linking the famous resort towns: Merlina, Inlansay, La Jetee, Port Merilyn, to the Bay of Shallows and the rest of the Charling Coast.

We began winding down our fighters, and fell into line behind two magnificent tribal charvolants, both god-ships, racing fully-kited across the graded sand, splendid canopies stretched out before them like the disembodied wings of enormous butterflies.

Scarbo sent up our big parafoil, Red Man, and two bright blue Angels, all we had, and we rolled into Port Merilyn as bravely as we could. An hour later, we were dining on the terrace of the Hotel Dis, looking out across the Sea to the islands in the distance. A welcome breeze ruffled the water and cooled the lakeside terraces. Around the shore, in plain view of where we sat, was the marina where the charling fleets moored and the excursion boats waited to take tourists and clients out to the mortuary islands — the Bocklins, the nearer Ambrilles and a few of the others. By shading my eyes from the glare, I could just make out the island where my ex-crewman, Griff, had gone to die and be changed, a tiny dark point where the dazzling waters of the lake met the sky. My mind wandered. I was lost in the dazzle, in thoughts of poor old Griff and Dewi and the Inland Sea and the isles of the dead.

Of all the strange and different funeral customs observed by the Ab'0 tribes, there is none more bizarre than the practice of charling. For a start,it is available to all Ab'Os, not just to the Princes, Elders and Clever Men who almost always go into the gas at Crater Lake, submitting themselves to those creatures called vanities and becoming sacred Stone Men. Charling is for the common folk: the warriors, the women, the young and the old, even for Nationals like ourselves who find the thought of this brief afterlife acceptable. Just as the Clever Men go to Crater Lake, Ab'Os from all across Australia arrange to have themselves brought to the Inland Sea when they die, and their bodies given the injections which introduce the parasite and lead to their transitory new lives as water-creatures. I have seen the preparations only once, when old Griff asked me to be his usher. We went to the Inland Sea together, took an excursion boat out to one of the Bocklins, and on a brilliantly fine day, he committed himself to the necropolis for his final hours. I sat with him in the small waiting cell cut into the living stone of the island and watched him die. Three days I sat at his side, listening to the numbing constant drone of cicadas in the cedars above the hypogea, watching dust motes dance in the bar of hot sunlight from the single narrow door.

When the life went out of him, a sensor chimed. The old Ab'0 doctors came in and with rough but practised hands injected the strange charling cultures into the base of his spine, his neck, his belly — still full with the forced meal they had given him only a few hours before.

I stayed on the island till the growths took hold, till the first signs of change were evident: the swelling and sharpening of the dear old face, the thickening of the torso, flanks and thighs, the disturbing, quite distinct beginnings of the sleek, nuked, motile form he would become. I left then, returning to the resort town on the shore, going back to the Rynosseros and the deserts, and though it is a delicacy, I have not eaten charling since.

The others at the table did not seem to care, however. They ate their assorted dishes with relish, and if any of them had been out to the mortuary islands and seen the preparations, they had obviously overcome their revulsion. I knew many connoisseurs who had preferred not to think of the origins of the meat at all, and others who professed to accept the Ab'0 Inner Eye idea that something of the dead host's identity was passed on, something more than the human skeleton about which the charling ultimately formed itself once the flesh was consumed. One or two gastronomes openly acknowledged their ghoulishness, saying it was exactly the circumstances of how the meat was made which gave it such zest, such appeal. though all but Calmani made sure the catches they dined from were carefully assayed so there was no sign of corpse-taint. Calmani said he actually preferred the slightest hint of carrion in his charling.

"May I join you, Captain Tom?"

I returned from the dazzle to find Jarvain Alis standing by our table. With him were two Inner Eye adepts,a young Samoan woman, slender and very beautiful,and a handsome dark man, also of Oceanian stock. All three wore the soft white garments of their sect, with the simple gold ellipse at the collars.

I gestured for them to share our table, not even bothering to mention our failure to inform Alis of our destination. What I did do was ask the maitre d'hotel to bring a monitor to our table. It cost a ridiculous fee and needed an Ab'0 to witness its use, but it was time for precautions. When the small instrument arrived, I broke the seal and handed the device to Doctor Alis. With the barest hint of a smile, he accepted it. It became quiet on the terrace, my crew and the other patrons all watching.

"Say your true name," I said.

"Jarvain Alis."

"Are you Dewi Dammo?"

"No."

The telltale shone green. Alis passed the monitorto his companions, giving it to the woman first. "Say your true name," I said again.

"Tallin Okani."

"Are you Dewi Dammo?"

"No."

The light remained green. She passed the monitor on. Jarvain Alis' smile broadened. "Say your true name."

"Pride Parran Okani."

"Are you Dewi Dammo?"

"No."

Again, no change. I took the monitor and passed it back to Alis.

"I object to this," he said.

"One more question, Doctor. Do you know who Dewi Dammo is? His identity?"

"No," Alis replied.

Tallin and Pride Okani answered the same way. There was no change. I returned the monitor to the Ab'0 and watched him go. Jarvain Alis then ordered several dishes for his group, very simple fare I noticed.

"You do not eat charling either," he commented. "I don't care for it," I replied. "What of you? Religious grounds?"

Tallin Okani stared at me across the table, the breeze off the Sea stirring her long black hair. Alis shook his head. "Oh no. I do not eat it because of Tallin and her brother."

Tallin excused herself and left the table. Alis watched her enter the hotel, glanced once at Pride and continued.

"Four years ago, their sister, Ella, was foolish enough to become involved in Dewi's affairs. She discovered too late where that led and tried to get out of it. Dewi stopped her."

"A death-conditioning?"

"Much worse, Captain Tom. Dewi Dammo was especially fond of Ella. He had her taken out to one of those islands — that small one there, very close. While she was strapped to a table, still living, he had her injected with charling cultures and left on the island to die. Her screams were heard from here. They got to her, but there was nothing they could do. The transformation is sacred; the Ab'0 doctors refused to put the girl out of her misery. It took almost an hour before she died of shock. Our sect is quite powerful, especially here at the Sea because of the charling mystique, the transubstantiation involved. We mean to get this murderer and bring him to justice, our justice if possible, not yours, Captain Tom."

"You had a location clue before we did," Shannon said, accusingly.

"We knew he had operations along the Charling Coast, yes. We knew of that island where Ella died.

There's a large population here at the Sea, we weren't sure exactly where Dewi worked from. Pederson simply confirmed it."

"Isle of the Dead Tours?" I said.

Jarvain Alis nodded. "A franchise registered here in Port Merilyn."

"Kind of you."

"Nothing. You would have discovered it." "So what happens now?" I asked him. The Doctor smiled. "We stay together, of course. It is late now, but if you like we will go Dyer to the moorings and find the vessel we want. Tomorrow we go out to the islands together. We Search. We return."

"Give me a sect oath on that, Doctor Alis." "You have it. And I take only Tallin and Pride.

I suggest you bring only one of your friends." "And now?"

"Why now, Captain Tom, we watch the Sea. We marvel at why Dewi chooses this place, since all people must be defined to some extent by the Landscapes they choose for themselves. Look here: how the lake frames the islands, the desert frames the lake. The oceans do the same for the Australian Landmass. Space frames the Earth. This Dewi Dammo likes to think he is beyond laws and codes. He is egocentric. This to him could be the centre Df the world — the new Mediterranean, the new Delphi. It is beautiful."

"Certainly it is the only place he can run a charling operation," I said. "But if what you say s true, how does Dewi placate the Ab'Os, unless he is an Ab'O?"

"A rogue? An outcast?"

"Not necessarily. Let's say he's come to an arrangement with the tribes who administer the

"This is all just a front. Actually, I'm a faith healer." territories adjoining the Sea. He has made charling what it is today, but the tribes do not excuse all of his acts."

I explained about the mirror-ships and how the Ab'Os had crossed Dewi there, though only after he had resorted to the deck laser. They had not intervened at the use of the ships themselves.

As I spoke, Tallin rejoined us. The Samoan girl had been crying, and as Alis leant over to say a few words, I gave Hammon a signal. He took the Rynosseros'

credit authorisation from Scarbo and went on his errand to the Seamaster's Office.

Half an hour later, the rest of us were on the docks, walking past the charling boats under the impassive stares of the Ab'O fishermen. It was growing late. The sun was lowering over the Sea and the excursion boats were in their places, limited by the curfews imposed by the Port Merilyn Seamaster to discourage charling smugglers.

We found the boat we wanted with no difficulty, a bluff sixty-foot vessel, painted white, its two-level superstructure mostly windows and observation deck. In black letters across the upper cabin were the words: Isle of the Dead Tours. A suntanned heavy-set man with red hair and a full red beard was working on deck. He looked up and saw us.

"Can I be helping you people?"

"We'd like to arrange a tour for tomorrow," I said. The bearded man smiled. "Surely. Come down at 0930. Nothing goes out before then. For how many?"

"No more than five or six. But we'd like a private charter. No other passengers."

"Surely. You're paying," the man said, and came over to the rail. "The only exception would be if the Seamaster wants to send along an inspector. I wouldn't be able to stop that."

"That is acceptable," Jarvain Alis said, as if to remind me that this was a joint venture now. "Provided we are free to land where we like."

"The inspectors don't interfere much there. I can call at all the islands."

"Then thank you, Captain ...?"

"Michael MacRommurque, Holiness," the man said. "Scottish by way of the French, 300 years ago." Then he made the eye-sign with his hands.

"You are one of us, Captain MacRommurque? A Watcher?"

"Twenty per cent on a good day, Father." He indicated the Sea. "We are in the midst of a mortuary here, we become circumspect.. All these things of death betoken life, we are told. The fishermen make their livings; the tourists come, like yourselves. Many of us give our boats eyes with no pupils in them."

"Captain," I said. "Would you object to having a monitor aboard tomorrow?" The Scotsman looked at me oddly. Monitors were used to verify clients'

identities from next of kin, to avoid inheritance fraud and other criminal acts such as smuggling.

"Not if the Seamaster approves," MacRommurque said. "Not at all. But whatever for? Are you on official business then?"

"You could say that," I replied.

"Doesn't worry me at all. Be here at 0930." The next morning, we met in the hotel lobby at 0900. Jarvain Alis, Tallin and Pride were standing with an Ab'O when Scarbo and I came clown. The Ab'O was a short middle-aged man in the fatigues of a port official. Alis introduced him as James Namuren from the Seamaster's office.

"You sent a member of your crew to obtain a monitor, Captain," Namuren said.

"May I ask why you have need of such an instrument?"

"Mr Namuren, I have been commissioned to find Dewi Dammo with both Nation Council and tribal sanctions. My crewman would have presented our authorisation."

"He did, yes. You must expect success to hire such expensive equipment."

"I hope for success, yes. Dewi Dammo has survived by his skill at concealment. The monitor will save time and avoid deceptions. The Council is paying." The Ab'O smiled. "So I understand. Since there must be an official observer for its use, I would like to be present on this voyage."

"I have no objections at all, Mr Namuren." "Good," the Ab'O said. "Doctor Alis and his friends are equally agreeable. Let us be off then." Twenty minutes later, the shoreline was behind us and we were in a world of clear dazzling water and endless blue sky. The excursion boat chugged along at an easy 15 knots. Jarvain Alis, James Namuren and Pride Okani were on the upper deck, pointing out the islands ahead. Scarbo spoke with Tallin near the stern rail, and I stood in the bow looking up at Michael MacRommurque and his wife Maura at the helm, then turning to search the Sea. I wondered at the point of our journey. Was all this for nothing? Would Dewi reveal even the smallest part of his true whereabouts to someone like Pederson? It seemed less and less likely now.

But Dewi might not be a city dweller like other criminals, or even an ordinary desert dweller like

the great pirates, Timms and Captain Ha-Ha. The stories could be true. Dewi might well choose to live on the Charling Coast, working his mischief from the place he loved. He might rule and own most of it, but he had to hide his identity from the Ab'O tribes, using proxies and respectable companies. He had learned to hide in plain sight.

I shuddered again, thinking of Griff, of Tallin's sister, Ella; thinking of Dewi and poor Pederson with his "Three" and his "Isle of the Dead Tours". It reassured me; it did feel right to be here.

Needing action then, I climbed up to the helm. Michael and Maura MacRommurque had been talking, but stopped when I reached them.

"Can I help you, Captain Tyson?" MacRommurque said.

"Can we anchor here, Captain?"

"Of course. It's not deep at all; thirty feet maybe. May I ask why? If you wish to make the circuit before curfew ..."

"Please, Captain. Drop a line, then both of you come to the main observation deck, if you would."

"Surely," MacRommurque said, frowning at the quiet dour woman beside him. The engine stopped. An anchor went down with a splash and the boat drifted, rocking ever so slightly in the cool breezes. On every side, the Inland Sea stretched away before us, blue and glistening. In the middle distance were the Bocklins, both islands clearly visible in the vivid morning light. We could see the tall cedars, the mortuary buildings, the hypogea piercing the cliffs. Beyond the Bocklins were the nearer Ambrilles, small green-blue points sharp in the midst of this vast desert lake.

It was so quiet, just the chopping of water against the hull, the soughing of breeze around the transoms, the occasional soft murmur of voices from the main observation deck.

I joined the others and went up to the port official. "With your permission, Mr Namuren, I'd like the monitor now."

"Very well, Captain," Namuren said. He took the canister from his pocket, broke the seal, and handed it to me. I moved back, removed the device from its case, and tactfully checked its operations. Then I faced the others.

"Ladies and gentlemen, forgive this interruption to our journey. We could spend all day touring these islands, stopping here and there, and learn nothing. With your cooperation, I shall now ask each of you some questions. It may save time and effort. Are we all agreed?"

There were one or two murmurs of consent, some nods, but no objections.

"Doctor Alis, you first. Then you, Scarbo. Then Tallin, Pride, Captain and Mrs MacRommurque, then you, Mr Namuren, then me."

"You?" Jarvain Alis said.

"Who not, Doctor? We dealt with mirror-ships. Dewi is no ordinary criminal. He has Ab'0 hi-tech. I could be tampered with."

"You make him sound most formidable," James Namuren said. Jarvain Alis took the monitor and switched it on, held it so we could see the small green light. "Are you Dewi Dammo?" I asked him.

"No."

"Do you know who Dewi Dammo is?"

There was a puzzled look, as if he might have misunderstood the question. Then he answered: "No."

The light remained green. It stayed that way for Scarbo, Tallin and the rest as the monitor made the rounds from hand to hand, each person responding to the same two questions.

"Satisfied, Captain?" James Namuren said, after Scarbo had questioned me.

"Yes, I am. Especially since Ben here had his runner unit going, issued by Council I might add, Mr Namuren. The monitor was not tampered with at any time. I am satisfied."

"Then we can continue," Jarvain Alis said. "Not yet, Doctor. Captain MacRommurque, would you take the monitor again please?"

"There's an inspector here from the Board of Health who would like to see the chicken soup."

"Whatever for?" the Scotsman said, but he took the instrument in his big hand.

"A different question. The name of this vessel is unusual: Isle of the Dead Tours.'

"Yes?"

"Why not Isles of the Dead? Plural?"

MacRommurque shrugged. "It's a turn of phrase. It was like that when I took over the franchise."

"Captain MacRommurque, is there a place on the Inland Sea known to you by the name Isle of the Dead?"

The Scotsman hesitated. "No," he answered carefully. The light shone red.

"Explain yourself, Captain MacRommurque," the Ab'0 port official demanded.

"There is a place," the Scotsman replied. The light went green again.

"In Port Merilyn jurisdiction?" Namuren asked him.

"Yes."

"Where, Captain MacRommurque?"

"There." The big man pointed to a small island to the south-west. Beyond it was the hazy coastline around the Inner Ambrilles, with the resort town of Inslansay low against the desert sky, indistinct with distance.

"Who called it that, Captain?" Namuren continued.

"I don't know," the Scot answered. There was silence for a moment, all of us staring at the red-haired man.

"Does Dewi go there?" I said.

"Yes and no."

"Is Dewi there now?"

"Yes and no," MacRommurque said, and the light stayed green.

"Is Dewi here now? On board?" MacRommurque stared at me, his expression unreadable.

James Namuren moved towards the man.

"Yes!" MacRommurque said, then: "No!" Then he flung the monitor out across the water. We could see its tiny green telltale as it spun in a broad arc and vanished beneath the Sea.

James Namuren cleared his throat. "Captain MacRommurque, you are under arrest!"

"We must return to Port Merilyn, Mr Namuren," Jarvain Alis said. "We must get another monitor and question this man further."

"No need," the Ab'0 port official replied. "That MacRommurque indicated is known as Marmordesse. The Ab'0 doctors there will have a monitor for client verification. We can save time."

"Good," Jarvain Alis said. "Captain Tom, you Scarbo might set our course. Pride, Mr Namuren and myself will confine the MacRommurques below."

It was an odd feeling to be at the helm of a sea-going vessel. Scarbo and I took turns, while Tallin sat glumly to one side looking at the deck. It was hard to know what to think. I realised that Dewi Dammo wanted us out here, had engineered it all, that true to his handling of Pederson and Ella Okani he wished to deal with us here in his special domain — to satisfy some sense of personal justice.

Ben turned to me from the helm. "They all said: No to your questions, Tom. The monitor was working."

"It seemed to be, Ben. It was properly sealed. But Namuren or the Seamaster himself could have interfered with it. How would we know?"

"Then Dewi could be aboard. He's actually one of us." Scarbo marvelled at the possibility.

"Pederson said: Three. Could three of them be Dewi Dammo?" Scarbo frowned. "A corporate persona?"

"Why not? Three people operating a collective alias, using it as a front, a blind. The Ab'Os have the power and the technology to maintain such a deception, using a single person to distract investigators from a more widespread corporate situation."

"Namuren?"

"They'd need one Ab'0 at least," I said. "Or the Seamaster ... no, he would have to be aboard, wouldn't he? If we trust the monitor. MacRommurque's 'No'

after the 'Yes' didn't cancel the green."

Scarbo corrected our course a few degrees.

"Another thing," he said. "Namuren identified die island as Marmordesse. Why didn't Pederson Try to give us that name?"

I studied the island ahead of us. "For a start, if he knew the name he wouldn't dare use it. Maximum stress. Just thinking about it would kill him. No, he would have had to talk his way around it. Or, maybe he never knew it by that name. It could be Dewi's special name for it."

"Which brings us back to Namuren again. Dewi certainly wants us to know that name now."

"True," I said. "And Namuren could be the Port Merilyn Seamaster for all we know. Hammon didn't see him first-hand."

Scarbo made an impatient sound. "So who else would you suspect? MacRommurque?"

"I'd say so."

Tallin Okani looked up. "Jarvain Alis," she said. "Are you serious?" I asked. She shrugged and watched the island. "You said you need an Ab'O. A Seamaster or a high port official. You have an excursion captain who loves the Sea. Why not a religious leader, someone more involved with charling profits than his sect?"

"But your sister, Tallin ..." I said.

The Samoan girl snorted with contempt. "Jarvain Alis was in love with my sister." "Then he had good cause to seek out Dewi and..."

"Ella was an identical twin!" Tallin said and turned to the rail so her back was to us. Scarbo and I considered the implications, watching the breeze stir Tallin's long dark hair.

Scarbo frowned, lowered his voice. "But they all said: No to both questions, Tom. Not being Dewi is one thing, especially if it is a shared persona. But they didn't know who Dewi was. Wouldn't that violate the monitor's function?" Ben shook his head.

"Then the device was faulty, which explains the double answer for Dewi being on board."

"So why did MacRommurque get rid of it — to stop further questions?"

"Possibly. Or just to mislead us further. The one thing we do know for certain is that Dewi wants us out here like this — otherwise MacRommurque wouldn't have been on the dock yesterday, and Alis and Namuren wouldn't have come. We would have found only hirelings, possibly innocent ones who could honestly face a monitor and leave us with no further clues." Tallin turned back to us. "Then what could Dewi's motives be?" she asked. "Why bother with this? Ben told me about the mirror-ships before. Why doesn't Dewi have you killed far from here, back at Angel Bay, even in Port Merilyn? Did he underestimate you?"

We were nearly at the island. Marmordesse rose from the warm Sea a mile ahead, the dark openings of the doors to the vigil-cells visible between the tall cedars on the central ridge, a simple whitewashed mortuary building on the beach below, with a wooden jetty reaching out into the lake on timber piles. The place looked deserted. Not a soul could be seen — just the quiet sun-drenched beach with low waves rolling between the piles of the jetty and lapping at the white sand, and the quiet shadowed groves and glades beyond. I watched the island getting closer, thinking again of Griff and Ella, then returned to Tallin's questions.

"Two things occur to me, Tallin. One is that Dewi Dammo would like someone to pierce his disguise, to appreciate the intricate operation 'he' has devised. It's a need for sensation, for an audience, even a temporary one since he can't afford to let us leave with knowledge of Marmordesse. Our elimination anywhere else removes the problem, yes, but without the pleasure of having someone know. It may just be vanity." I hesitated. "And it's possible that Ella ..."

Tallin finished for me. "That she discovered Dewi's true identity. What is the other explanation?"

"You said it yourself before: Ella was your identical twin. If Jarvain Alis is part of a corporate Dewi Dammo and he loves you, he has Ella again in a sense, safe in his domain."

"How close are you to your brother?" Scarbo asked.

"Not very," Tallin replied. "We're closer now because of Ella, though tnere was no love mere

either. They fought all the time. Pride is much closer to the sect. He could be Dewi Dammo for all I know."

"So could you," Scarbo said.

"True," Tallin admitted calmly. "But do think of what's involved in murdering your identical twin."

I did so, then thought of Pederson's violent death at Angel Bay.The conditioning had been in him, yes, but could Jarvain Alis have followed him to make sure the dying man did not reveal too much at the moment of his death?

The mere presence of Alis would have brought on thoughts of Dewi, accelerating the process, hastening poor Peter's decline dramatically.

"What an agony it must have been for Pederson to sit there with us, with a part of Dewi present."

"So what do we do now?" Tallin said.

"We go ashore on Marmordesse as Dewi intends, though I doubt we'll find a monitor there. But first we must search this vessel as thoroughly as we can —

for another single person, for a hiding place, for anything that will explain MacRommurque's Yes-No answer."

Tallin and I went to do that while Scarbo brought us in to the small jetty. First we searched the empty upper deck and then — trying to appear as casual about it as we could — went down to where Jarvain Alis, Pride and James Namuren were talking outside a locked crew cabin.

"We have arrived I see," Namuren said. "Do we go ashore?"

"Yes, Mr Namuren. Are you armed?"

The Ab'0 produced a small laser baton. "I am."

"Then please take the MacRommurques with you. We shall meet on the beach in ten minutes."

"What of you, Captain Tyson?" Jarvain Alis asked, and I could not help but detect a new sinister intelligence behind those steady eyes. I saw no point in concealing what I intended.

"Scarbo and I wish to search the vessel. In view of Captain MacRommurque's Yes-No answer, we must make certain no-one else is on board." Jarvain Alis smiled. "Should not Mr Namuren be present?"

"He is most welcome, of course," I said. "Three of us will make quick work of it."

We watched Alis take the baton from the Ab'0 official. then set about our task.

When the search was done, we joined the small group of figures on the beach. It was noon; the sun blazed down on the island. Cicadas droned in the cedars; a stillness hung over everything, broken only by the waves rolling on to the beach.

"Nothing?" Alis said.

"Nothing," I answered. "Where are the doctors?"

"We've seen no-one. The building over there is unoccupied."

"At this hour," Namuren said, looking up at the cliff, "they are probably down in the crypts out of the heat. We must go looking." We started up the slope into the small forest, Pride and Jarvain Alis in the lead, then the grim-faced MacRommurques followed by the port official, once again holding the baton, then Scarbo, Tallin and myself. It took only minutes to reach the rockface where the 17 narrow doors opened into dark cool chambers. Some were comparatively shallow, like the place where Griff had died, with room for a bed, a chair, toilet facilities, and a small service annexe.

Two of these chambers contained dying Ab'Os, both old men, one of them tended by a tiny frail black woman who could barely move from her chair to her husband's side. Other doorways had steps leading down into darkness, into the service rooms where the charling vats were, and Namuren led us into these as well, one after the other. Each was deep enough to have a sea-door into a common channel. Each had a floor vat where the nascent charling could grow to viability before using that channel to enter the waters of the lake beyond. It was an ordeal to stand in the stink and the gloom of the five torch-lit occupied cells and see the various stages of transformation. Two cultures were still taking and not yet motile — the charling growths already showing form, working inwards, devouring their human hosts, striving to reach the spines so they could anchor their own rudimentary spinal-cords and become vertebrate. The other three were already fully formed, it seemed, and lay splashing and rolling in the darkness of their vats, waving their flukes, waiting to be released into the channel and the Sea.

"There is only one chamber left," Namuren said when we were out in the heat and glare once more.

I watched his dark eyes closely. They seemed to glitter with controlled amusement. "The Ab'0 doctors will be there, I suppose?" James Namuren smiled. His baton no longer covered the MacRommurques. In fact the Scotsman was looking unusually alert, his eyes glittering as well.

"And the monitor will be there?" Scarbo said. "And Dewi Dammo?" I added.

"Yes and no," Namuren answered, still smiling. From a tall stone doorway on the far side of a cedar, four Ab'0 doctors appeared holding laser batons, pointing them at Tallin, Scarbo and myself.

"I knew it," Scarbo said. "Alis, Namuren and MacRommurque! They're the three Pederson meant. They're Dewi."

"No, Ben," I told him. "Dewi is down in the last crypt. The three are the carriers for his personality; another example of Dewi's great skill with projections."

"Well done, Captain," Namuren said. "You are

"... quite correct ..." said MacRommurque.

"... in almost every detail," Jarvain Alis finished. "Do we meet the real Dewi?" I asked, combat-ready, watching the tips of the batons for any advantage.

"No," MacRommurque said. "Not yet." He too produced a baton. "We must not take undue risks."

"You would not like what you see," added Alis. I studied the three very different faces. "So what happens now?"

"Different things," Namuren answered, his eyes glinting with the presence of Dewi Dammo. "Pride Okani undergoes extensive surgery and receives an implant to take the signal. I become four instead of three. Then, someday, five and six ..."

"And Tallin?

Jarvain Alis answered. "Becomes my bride—in place of Ella. An Inner Eye ritual. Ella should not have refused me. This is Marmordesse ..."

"And Scarbo and myself?"

"Become charling!" Jarvain Alis was carrying the Dewi signal. The arrogance of the man was the same as before, but there was an edge of cruelty and an insanity there now, not just the ambition, the greed, the yearning for power over the tribes and the charling fleets. "The boat has explosives on board, and a timer. Closer to curfew, the vessel will be taken nearer Port Merilyn and destroyed. I there will be no searcn tor bodies because this Sea is sacred. It will look as if an Ab'0 satellite has destroyed a smuggling operation. Unfortunately, Tom Rynosseros and Kitemaster Scarbo were on board when the strike occurred." Jarvain Alis laughed, an odd harsh sound. "Ab'0

justice can be indiscriminate like this. Take them!" Three of the Ab'0 doctors came forward, and with Michael MacRommurque led Scarbo and me towards one of the empty deeper crypts, while Tallin was dragged struggling and screaming into the hypogeum we had not entered. We heard her cries echoing across the island, then silence.

"You will die in great pain," MacRommurque was saying, fully himself now. Dewi was in one of the others. "But it will be a holy death. True to Inner Eye. The proper internalisation into new flesh and form. A return to Ichthus." We reached the door and started down the steps. Our eyes had yet to adjust to the gloom and it was a confined space. There would be no better time. Scarbo was ahead of me, a doctor before him. MacRommurque and the other doctors came behind.

I pushed Scarbo, trusting he would land atop the man in front. At the same time, I dropped to the steps, pulling at the Scotsman's legs so he fell forward and down.

In the dim torch-light, the two doctors behind could not tell us apart. There was a laser flash, which only served to blind us further. Then an explosion shook the stone about us. "It's the Seamaster's men!" I cried, trusting, hoping that Namuren was not the seamaster. "The island's under attack! They've come for you!"

The two doctors behind us panicked, knowing the deaths they faced at tribal hands. They fled back up the steps, while I struggled with MacRommurque and Scarbo fought the remaining Ab'O.

Michael MacRommurque was stronger than I, but he was handicapped. Dewi came and went behind his eyes, trying to discover what was happening, unable to keep away. The Scotsman was disoriented and could not coordinate. I pushed him away during a personality shift, and Scarbo burned him through the skull with a baton he had wrested from the unconscious doctor's grasp.

"Quickly, Ben!" I yelled, snatching up MacRommurque's baton. There were footsteps above us. The other two doctors had realised the folly of failing Dewi and had returned. We shot them while they were still framed in the doorway above us. Then we rushed out into the glaring sunlight, and ran along the cliff face to the last doorway. Through the big cedar trunks, we caught glimpses of the beach, saw the coiling black smoke, the wreckage of the excursion boat and the jetty, the damaged mortuary building. Then we were in darkness again, hurrying down steps that curved into the rock. In a dimly-lit staging room, we met Pride Okani and Maura MacRommurque rushing towards us, no doubt sent to help the Scotsman. Dewi had probably assumed his red-haired carrier was unconscious, and needed to keep him safe. It was a matter of timing, of reflexes and luck. Scarbo and I have had weapons-training and we knew to drop to the sides of the passage. Pride and Maura did not. Pride's bolt went where I had been, and Maura simply did not react quickly enough. I shot the woman through the neck, Scarbo burned a neat hole in the Samoan's skull.

Then it was another flight of steps, and Scarbo and I burst into the primary chamber. We took in what we saw in an instant: Tallin, strapped naked to a mortuary altar, struggling, a ballgag in her mouth, her eyes wild; Jarvain Alis and Namuren standing over her, holding loaded syringes, but smaller, more delicate instruments than would normally be used to introduce the growths —

they did not wish the shots themselves to kill her. There was the remaining Ab'0 doctor holding his baton, and a fully-grown charling lying very still in the

floor vat, leads and contacts connecting its head and spine to the banks of hi-tech equipment beyond.

The Ab'0 doctor raised his baton; Scarbo shot him through the heart.

"No!" Alis cried, and it was Dewi speaking. I burned Alis where he stood. The syringe clattered on the floor and rolled to the side.

Namuren brandished his own syringe of charling culture.

"No!" he cried, and it was Dewi again.

"Do nothing, Dewi," I said, "or you die this instant! Put the hypodermic down!'

Namuren obeyed, his eyes glittering with the panic and rage of the unmoving creature in the vat.

Scarbo went to the altar and freed Tallin. She had not been harmed yet, it turned out, though she sobbed hysterically when Ben unstrapped the ball from her mouth and held her to him.

"Do nothing!" I said again to Namuren, for Dewi's final carrier was showing enormous agitation.

"The Seamaster is here?" Namuren demanded, and I couldn't be sure if it was Dewi's question or the port official's. Then I realised that Dewi would not relax his hold on Namuren for a moment, not for a second. This was his only point of contact, his only path to life.

"No," Scarbo told him, told the creature in the narrow vat. "We found the explosives on the boat and set the timer early. We knew we were in a trap."

"Explain Dewi to us!" I said.

Namuren calmed. His eyes steadied a little, perhaps sensing hope, a way for life in exchange for knowlege.

"I was Ab'0," Namuren said. "A scientist deprived of reward because what we achieve is always for the tribes, not ourselves. I was dying and I had the knowledge to keep my brain alive in charling flesh. I halted the attrition. I found a way to do it. I arranged for my closest colleagues to be carriers, to surrender moments of their lives. I did it, don't you see? I did it! I am still alive, thinking, years after bodily death."

"And insane and cruel!" Scarbo said. "The charling has changed you. You've adapted; lost your humanity!"

"No!" Namuren cried, then steadied again. "What will you do to me?"

"Disconnect you," I said. "For Pederson and Ella's sakes. Then open the gate. Release you into the Sea."

"No! No!" Namuren shrieked, and lunged for the baton dropped by the Ab'0

doctor.

But Tallin already had the weapon from Jarvain Alis' body, and she shot the port official, fired again at the dully-gleaming hi-tech beyond. There were several small explosions, the snap and chatter of circuits fusing. In the vat, the creature which was all that was left of Dewi Dammo thrashed in the shallow water, tearing free of the contacts.

But Tallin did more. She grabbed a loaded syringe from the floor, leant down over the creature's head, and thrust it into where the brain would be. It was a light needle, meant for human flesh, and it may not have pierced the special sac surrounding Dewi's brain. But it didn't bend or break, and Tallin pressed the plunger home. She left the needle fixed there, then turned and opened the sea-door by hand. The maddened charling plunged out into the channel, its flukes flailing, and was gone.

"For Ella," Tallin said, climbing up to us. "I did that for Ella." The the girl's ordeal caught up with her. She staggered, went to reach for a wall to help her stand, and stumbled forward. Scarbo and I supported her between us and helped her up to the staging room where we found her clothes. While she dressed, she studied the bodies of Pride and Maura MacRommurque without a word. We continued on out into the sunlight, then made our way through the cedar grove down to the beach. Looking towards Port Merilyn, we could see three boats approaching Marmordesse, flying the Seamaster's colours.

"It is over now, Tallin," I said. "What will you do?" She stared at the dazzling water of the Inland Sea, watching the boats draw nearer.

"Inner Eye," she said, fingering the small golden sign pinned below her collar. "It is not over yet. I will get special dispensation from the Seamaster and hire a boat. I will find that charling."

"And then?"

"Why, I will eat him," Tallin said. "I will eat him."