very dry. “I’ll act just as harassed and impatient as ever with Dr. Dart. And if Takkata-Jim asks for you I’ll … I’ll tell him you’re off somewhere, er, sulking.”
Gillian was holding her drysuit in front of her, preparing to step into it. She looked up at him, surprised by the wryness of his remark. Then she laughed.
In two long-legged strides she was over to him, seizing him into another hug. Without a thought Toshio put his arms around the smooth skin of her waist.
“You’re a good man, Tosh,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek. “And, you know, you’ve grown quite a bit taller than me? You lie to Takkata-Jim for me and I promise we’ll make a proper mutineer of you in no time at all.”
Toshio nodded and closed his eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he held her tight.
44
Creideiki
His skin itched. It had always itched, since that dim time when he rode alongside his mother in her slipstream—when he had first learned about touch from nursing and the gentle nuzzles she used to remind him to rise for air.
Soon he had learned that there were other kinds of touching. There were walls and plants and the sides of all the buildings of the settlement at Catalina-Under; there was the stroking, butting, and yes! biting play of his peers; there was the soft, oh, so deliciously varied touch of the mels and fems—the humans—who swam about like pinnipeds, like sea lions, laughing and playing catch with him underwater and above.
There was the feel of water. All the different kinds of feel there were to water.
The splash and crash of falling into it! The smooth laminar flow of it as you speared along faster than anyone ever could have gone before! The gentle lapping of it, just below your blowmouth as you rested, whispering a lullaby to yourself.
O, how he itched!
Long ago he had learned to rub against things, and he discovered what that could do to him. Ever since then, he had masturbated whenever he felt like it, just like any other healthy fin would …
Creideiki wanted to scratch himself. He wanted to masturbate.
Only there was no wall nearby to rub against. He seemed unable to move, or even to open his eyes to see what surrounded him.
He was floating in midair, his weight held up by nothing … by a familiar magic … “anti-gravity.” The word—like his memories of floating this way many times before—for some reason felt alien, almost meaningless.
He wondered at his lassitude. Why not open his eyes and see? Why not click out a soundbeam and hear the shape and texture of this place?
At intervals he felt a spray of moistness that kept his skin wet. It seemed to come from all directions.
He considered, and came to the conclusion that something must be very wrong with him. He must be sick.
An involuntary sigh made him realize he was still capable of some sound. He searched for the right mechanisms, experimented, then managed to repeat the faint moan.
They must be working to fix me, he thought. I must have been hurt. Though I don’t feel any pain, I feel a vacancy. Something has been taken from me. A ball? A tool? A skill? Anyway, the people are probably trying to put it back.
I trust people, he thought happily. And the apex of his mouth curled into a slight smile.
* !!!! *
The apex of his mouth did what?
Oh. Yes. Smiling. That new thing.
New thing? I’ve done it all my life!
Why?
It’s expressive! It adds subtlety to my features! It …
It is redundant.
Creideiki let out a weak, warbling cry of confusion.
* In the brightness
Of the sunshine—
* Answers swarm
In schools, like fishes *
He remembered a little, now. He had been dreaming. Something terrible had happened, plunging him into a nightmare of bewilderment. Shapes had darted toward and away from him, and he had felt ancient songs take new, eerie, forms.
He realized he must still be dreaming, with both hemispheres at the same time. That explained why he couldn’t move. He tried to coax himself awake with a song.
* Levels there are—
Known only to sperm whales
* Physeter, who hunts
In chasms of dreaming
* To battle the squid
Whose beaks are sea-mounts
* And whose great arms
Encompass oceans.…
It was not a calming rhyme. It had overtones of darkness that made him want to fly away in horror. Creideiki tried to halt it, fearing what the chant might call up. But he could not stop crafting the sound-glyphs.
* Go down to levels—
In the