He snarled something in my direction.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, spread those legs, you bitch …”
Not having legs, I assumed that wasn’t directed to me and waited as he grumbled to his feet. His grimy fingers (new webbing set between them) scrabbled on the grimier plastic of the registration desk. “You need a room?” he mumbled, only slightly louder this time. He reached below the counter, then slapped down a registration pad. His hand stayed on it, fingers splayed so that the speckled webbing was prominent. “Usually, we’re closed by now,” he stated. “I stayed up past my usual time ’cause I knew there was a passenger on the shuttle.”
His right eye stared, vague shapes moved in his left. A chorus of insects moaned around him. “Nice of you to do that,” I ventured.
“I’m missing the best part of my favorite show now.” A forefinger tapped the pad.
I fumbled in my pocket—the one without stones—and fished out the coins I found there. I placed them alongside the pad. His hand spider-crawled over to the money, and I put my hand on the pad. It beeped and chirped. “Room’s just down the hall,” the hostel owner said.
I nodded to the owner; his duty accomplished and tip secured, he was already lost in his entertainment; he didn’t even notice my lack of legs. His eyes were closed, his lips moved with the verse of some unheard song.
I went down the hall to my room.
I stayed long enough to unpack a few things, then hobbled out of the hostel toward the lone Blackstone tavern, fumbling with anxious fingers at the five or six polished stones in my pocket. Fifteen years ago, the establishment had been called “By The Sea,” and Avariel and I had eaten and gotten drunk there a few times before we left the port. The sign outside the establishment proclaimed that it was now “Venus Genetrix”—Mother Venus. I doubted that anyone here either knew or cared. I was just glad to leave the wet, steep streets and the suspicious stares for the bar.
“Fuck, look at that,” someone said as I entered, in an inebriated stage whisper. Half the patrons of the tavern glanced around at me with that, and in the blur of faces, I saw her. In an alcove to the back, she sat in the dim light. Seeing Avariel reminded me of too many things. I wanted to hide. I wanted to run.
Running is one thing I’m no longer capable of; walking’s the best I can manage.
Instead, I smiled, rattled the stones in my pocket, and walked toward their alcove.
Next to her was a shreeliala, the tubes of a bubbler wrapped around its purple-and-green neck over the gill slits, its long, webbed fingers lifted as if it were in midspeech with Avariel though its mouth was closed, and it, too, was looking my way. Its huge eyes blinked once: the transparent underlids sliding sideways, the translucent overlids sliding up from their pouch under the eyes. The shreeliala had the slash of an overseer tattooed on the lilac scales of the crown of its head; beneath it was the emerald dot that said that it was a member of the Council. There was another mark, too: a short, yellow-white bar, bulging slightly at either end: this shreeliala possessed “bones-of-air”—a mutation that caused some shreeliala to have lightweight, air-pocketed bones, which meant it could never sink into the Great Darkness to rest with its own kind, the normal shreeliala with what they call “bones-of-stone.” Instead, this shreeliala would be burned here on the island when it died, in the caldera at the summit of Blackstone—the place the shreeliala call the Pit.
Avariel watched my approach with a careful almost-smile on her face; the Venusian watched as well, but I knew that attempting to read any human emotion into that face would be a mistake. “Avariel,” I said when I reached their table. “I thought I might find you here.”
She looked … older. Somehow, I hadn’t expected that. There were severe lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth that hadn’t been there before, and creases around her neck. Gray had settled in the dark brown hair of her temples. Her arms were covered with white patches of scars, some of them new. But she was still muscular and fit. Still the athlete, ready to conquer any physical task to which she set herself.
Her smile flickered. Settled. “Tomio,” she answered flatly. The shreeliala’s huge eyes swiveled in their sockets as it looked from her to me. Bubbles thrashed their way through the clear plastic pipes connecting its gill bubbler to the tank on its back. “I have to admit that I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Really?” I answered, returning her meaningless smile. “After the Green Council’s decision? I thought you’d expect me to come here—if only because I knew you’d be the first one here.”
“Tomio …” A sigh. Her fingertips tapped an aimless rhythm on the tabletop near her ale. “There’s no going back to what we were. I’m sorry. You really shouldn’t have come here.”
I raised my hand. “Uh-uh,” I said. “Our relationship isn’t at issue. You know, despite everything, I would have come if you’d asked, if you’d stayed in touch after …” I gestured at the empty space below the stumps of my legs and the floor.
“Don’t lay that guilt at my door, Tomio,” she said. “I won’t accept it.”
The shreeliala seemed to hiss, spraying a fine mist of water from its mouth; it adjusted the bubbler. The salty droplets pooled on the varnish of the table; we all looked at it. “The humans know one another?” Heh hoomanths noah won hunover? It had been a long time since I’d heard the shreeliala accent; I had to replay the comment in my head before I understood what it had said, by which time Avariel had already answered.
“Tomia was here with me the last time, Hasalalo,” she said. “We went down into the Great Darkness together.” The shreeliala nodded. The last time … The water going from green to blue to black. I’d thought it would be easy. I thought we’d just swim down and down until we reached the bottom …
Avariel’s comment was all that was needed; Hasalalo seemed to know immediately what she referred to, even if for the short-lived shreeliala the events of fifteen Earth years ago were a generation removed. Hasalalo, who looked to be in his prime years, probably hadn’t been alive then, or was just a newly sprouted bud.
“Will it …?” Hasalalo stumbled over the pronoun, and spat water again. “I mean, he be going with you this time?”
“No,” Avariel answered. Her gaze was on me, and the smile had seemingly vanished. “He won’t. In fact, he shouldn’t be here now.”
She started to get up; I reached out and found her arm.
“Avariel, I’m sorry. Really. Please, don’t go.” In the dim light, her eyes were bright with reflections. “The Great Darkness took my legs,” I said. “I think that’s all the motivation I need. Avariel, you knew you were coming back as soon as the Green Council would allow it, but you weren’t sure that I would. I wasn’t the one who left the relationship as soon as possible after I was hurt.” I saw a trail of moisture on her face, and I suddenly hated myself. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was unfair.”
“No,” she answered, very softly. “I don’t think that was unfair at all.”
“Then we could still do this together?” Optimism rose like a bird …
“No.”… and plummeted stricken back to the floor. “But I understand why you had to ask.”
Neither of us said anything for long seconds after that. Avariel sighed and reached down below her chair, pulling up a backpack. She put the straps around her shoulders and cinched the left side tightly, muscles knotting along her jaw. “Getting to the bottom of the Great Darkness was the only time I failed at something I tried,” she answered finally. “That’s why I’m here.” Avariel adjusted the other strap and got to her feet, hefting the pack. “People sometimes need something so badly that they’d sacrifice nearly anything to attain it,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to be any other way. Not for me.”