She ought to take a look at Meany's boat, too. They'd left it in Alaganik at anchor. Someone had given the son a ride to his family's setnet site, where his mother and uncle were supposed to be. Her next stop, she thought drearily.

They were startled out of their separate reveries by the crackle of the radio and Lamar Rousch's voice, rendered thin and reedy by the FM bandwidth, announcing the next fishing period. Gull leaned over to turn up the volume, and when Lamar signed off, turn it down again. "No period," he said. "Escapement must be down."

"For crying out loud," Kate said, "about a million reds must have gone up the Kanuyaq yesterday from Alaganik Bay alone, and nobody was hanging any nets in their way. Well, two, but hell."

Gull gave his head a sympathetic wag. "I wonder sometimes myself how accurate those fish counts can be. You know, there was a trader from Andromeda riding deadhead on the last SeaLandSpace freighter through here, he was telling me"

A movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Old Sam heading down the ramp. "Oops. There's my boss. Gotta go. Thanks again for the truck."

Gull waved her off with a regal hand, very much master of all he surveyed. "Okay, Kate. See you."

She caught up with Old Sam as he was about to board the Freya. "Hey, Sam."

"Hey, girl." Nimble in the face of eighty winters, Sam hopped over the gunnel and landed lightly on the deck.

She followed him into the galley, and sat down as he began assembling the ingredients for dinner. With something of a shock, Kate realized that it wasn't even six o'clock. It had been a full day. "Listen, Sam?"

"What?" he said, pulling a package of mooseburger out of the sink where he'd left it to thaw at breakfast. He turned a burner on and got out a frying pan.

She sidled in next to him and made her own patty. She liked hers thicker than he did his. "Could we maybe head back for Alaganik after dinner?"

He paused. "Why? It's early yet. And we don't even know what hours the period's going to be, let alone is anybody fishing it."

"There isn't one," Kate said. "It was on the radio in the harbormaster's office."

"No period?"

Kate shook her head.

"Why the hell not?" Old Sam said indignantly. "Christ on a crutch, what about all the fish we saw heading north yesterday? And hardly anyone with a net in the water?" He slammed his patty into the frying pan with unnecessary force, and the resulting sizzle nearly took off his eyebrows. "It's those goddam sport fishermen, is what it is, and their idiot escape demands. That goddam Bill Nickle won't be satisfied until the only red taken from the Sound is taken with a silver spinner."