remembered as a sprightly and boo-inspired conversation, which, as usual, ran from speculative to paranoid and back.
"I'll turn out the light for your modesty," Scudi said. She giggled and touched the light down through dim to barely shadow. He watched her fumble her way to her bed.
It's dark to her, he thought. For me she just turned down the glare. He shifted on the edge of his bed.
"You have a girlfriend topside?" Scudi asked.
"No ... not really."
"You have never shared a room with a girl?"
"On the Islands, you share everything with everyone. But to have a room, two people alone, that's for couples who are new to each other. For mating. It is very expensive."
"Oh, my," she said. In the shadow-play of his peculiar vision he watched her fingers dance nervously over the surface of her cot.
"Down under we share for mating, yes, but we also share rooms for other reasons. Work partners, schoolmates, good friends. I mean only for you to have one night of recovery. Tomorrow there will be others and questions and tours and much noise ..." Still her hands moved in that nervous rhythm.
"I don't know how I can ever repay you for being so nice to me," he said.
"But it is our custom," she said. "If a Merman saves you, you can have what the Merman has until you ... move on. If I bring life into this compound, I'm responsible for it."
"As though I were your child?"
"Something like." She sighed, and began undressing.
Chapter 9
Brett found he could not invade her privacy and averted his eyes.
Maybe I should tell her, he thought. It's not really fair to be able to see this way and not let her know.
"I would prefer not to interfere with your life," he said.
He heard Scudi slip under her blankets. "You don't interfere," she said. "This is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. You are my friend; I like you. Is that enough?"
Brett dropped his clothes and slipped under the covers, pulling them to his neck. Queets always said you couldn't figure a Merman. Friends?
"We are friends, not so?" she insisted.
He offered his hand across the space between the beds. Realizing that she couldn't see it, he picked up hers in his own. She pressed his fingers hard, her hand warm in his. Presently, she sighed and removed her hand gently.
"I must sleep," she said.
"Me, too."
Her hand lifted from the bed and found the switch on the wall. The whale sounds stopped.
Brett found the room exquisitely quiet, a stillness he had not imagined possible. He felt his ears relaxing, then, an alertness ... suddenly listening for ... what? He didn't know. Sleep was necessary, though. He had to sleep. His mind said: "Something is being done about informing your parents and Queets." He was alive and family and friends would be happy after their fears and sadness. Or so he hoped.
After several nervous minutes, he decided the lack of motion was preventing sleep. The discovery allowed him to relax more, breathe easier. He could remember with his body the gentle rocking motion topside and thought hard about that, tricking his mind into the belief that waves still lifted and fell beneath him.
"Brett?" Scudi's voice was little more than a whisper.
"Yes?"
"Of all the creatures in hyb, the ones I would like most are the birds, the little birds that sing."
"I've heard recordings from Ship," he said, his voice sleepy.
"The songs are as painfully beautiful as the whales. And they fly."
"We have pigeons and squawks," he said.
"The squawks are ducks and they do not sing," she said.
"But they whistle when they fly and it's fun to watch them."
Her blankets rustled as she turned away from him.
"Good night, friend," she whispered. "Sleep flat."
"Good night, friend," he answered. And there, at the edge of sleep, he imagined her beautiful smile.
Is this how love begins? he wondered. There was a tightness in his chest, which did not go away until he fell into a restless sleep.
***
The child Vata slipped into catatonia as the kelp and hylighters sickened. She has been comatose for more than three years now and, since she carries both kelp and human genes, it is hoped that she can be instrumental in restoring the kelp to sentience. Only the kelp can tame this terrible sea.
- Hali Ekel, the Journals
It was not so much that Ward Keel noticed the stillness as that he felt it all over his skin. Events had conspired to keep him topside throughout his