e showed in the water into which he thrust the paddle.

Mercedes was studying Parker. "About this woman--"

"She was just a woman I once knew."

"You loved her, yes?"

"Well--" Parker was silent.

"Tell me what 'appened."

"Nothing," Parker said. "Oh, hell--all right. Up in LA three years ago I
knew Effra. She was a pilot too, and we got to running around together.
She liked to fly out over the Pacific all by herself. I don't know why;
she just liked to flirt with danger, maybe. One time she came in a
couple of hours over-due. Figuring she was down in the drink, I was
about to rouse out the Navy to hunt for her when she came in." He
paused.

Mercedes was silent. In the front of the raft, Retch said nothing. His
eyes were still searching the skyline.

"She was wildly excited," Parker went on. "She said she had made a
forced landing on an island somewhere off the coast of Southern Cal. She
also said there were a lot of strange people living on the island." He
shook his head. There was a feeling in him he did not like.

His eyes came to focus on a ripple in the water. A shark. It made him
think of Dr. Yammer.

"What 'appened then?" Mercedes asked softly.

"I helped her look for the island," Parker said. "We spent months
looking in our spare time. We flew over more ocean than I ever knew
existed. But we didn't find it."

"No?"

"That island was awfully important to her. She thought something
wonderful was there, what it was, she could not tell me, just that it
was there. When we could not find it, she began to doubt herself, to
think perhaps she had not seen it, that she had not landed there. She
reached the conclusion then--well, she went to see one of these fancy
mental specialists who know everything about nothing and nothing about
anything."

Under the water, he could see the eyes of the shark. They reminded him
of the expression in Dr. Yammer's eyes, except that the shark's eyes
looked more honest.

"And then?" Mercedes said, very softly.

"She--vanished," Parker said. "Yammer was going to stick her into a
hospital, use something that he called 'shock' on her, maybe operate.
She ran away."

"Did you try to find her, Beel?"

"For asking that question, Mercedes, I ought to choke you!" Parker said
hotly. "I hunted high and low. All we knew for certain was that her
plane was missing. I think she decided she would simply fly out to the
sea she loved, and never come back." Again his voice sank to a w