To your mind,mosul said. I was born here, to me it doesnt seem infinite at all, I could never be lost. But space, thats something else. In space you can set out in a straight line and never return. Thats scary.
They spent the morning talking, exchanging the memories of particularly intense or moving or treasured incidents from their respective lives. Syrinx found herself feeling slightly envious of his simplistic life of fishing and sailing, realizing that was the instinctive attraction she had felt at their first meeting. Mosul was so wonderfully uncomplicated. In turn he was almost in awe of her sophistication, the worlds shed seen, people shed met, the arduous naval duty.
Once the sun had risen high enough to be felt on her skin, Syrinx stripped off and rubbed on a healthy dose of screening cream.
Thats another difference,she said as mosul ran his hands over her back, between her shoulder blades where she couldnt reach. Look at the contrast, Im like an albino compared to you.
I like it, he told her. All the girls here are coffee coloured or darker, how are we supposed to tell if were African-ethnic or not?
She sighed and stretched out on a towel on the cabins roof, forward of the sail membrane. It doesnt matter. All our ethnic ancestors disowned us long ago.
Theres a lot of resentment in that thought. I dont know why. The Adamists we get here are pleasant enough.
Of course they are, they want your foodstuffs.
And we want their money.
The sail creaked and fluttered gently as the day wore on. Syrinx found the rhythm of the boat lulling her, and coupled with the warmth of the sun she almost went to sleep.
I can see you,Oenone whispered on that unique section of affinity which was theirs alone.
Without conscious thought she knew its orbit was taking it over the Spiros. She opened her eyes and looked into boundless azure sky. My eyes arent as good as your sensor blisters. Sorry.
I like seeing you. It doesnt happen often.
She waved inanely. And behind the velvet blueness she saw herself prone on the little ship, waving. The boat dropped away, becoming a speck, then vanishing. Both universes were solid blue.
Hurry back,Oenone said. Im crippled this close to a planet.
I will. Soon, I promise.
They sighted the whales that afternoon.
Black mountains were leaping out of the water. Syrinx saw them in the distance. Huge curved bodies sliding out of the waves in defiance of gravity, crashing down amid breakers of boiling surf. Fountain plumes of vapour rocketing into the sky from their blow-holes.
Syrinx couldnt help it, she jumped up and down on the deck, pointing. Look, look!
I see them,mosul said, amusement and a strange pride mingling in his thoughts. They are blue whales, a big school, I reckon theres about a hundred or more.
Can you see?syrinx demanded.
I can see,Oenone reassured her. I can feel too. You are happy. I am happy. The whales look happy too, they are smiling.
Yes!syrinx laughed. their mouths were upturned, smiling. A perpetual smile. And why not? Such creatures existing was cause to smile.
Mosul angled Spiros in closer, ordering the edges of the sail to furl. The noise of the school rolled over the boat. The smack of those huge bodies as they jumped and splashed, a deep gullet-shaking whistle from the blow-holes. She tried to work out how big they were as the Spiros approached the schools fringes. Some, the big adult bulls, must have been thirty metres long.
A calf came swimming over to the Spiros ; over ten metres long, spurting from his blow-hole. His mother followed him closely, the two of them bumping together and sliding against each other. Huge forked tails churned up and down, flukes slapping the water, while flippers beat like shrunken wings. Syrinx watched in utter fascination as the two passed within fifty metres of the boat, rocking it alarmingly in their pounding wake. But she hardly noticed the pitching, the calf was feeding, suckling from its mother as she rolled onto her side.
That is the most stupendous, miraculous sight, she said, spellbound. Her hands were gripping the rail, knuckles whitening. And theyre not even xenocs. Theyre ours. Earths.
Not any more. Mosul was at her side, as mesmerized as she.
Thank Providence we had the sense to preserve the genes. Although Im still staggered the Confederation Assembly allowed you to bring them here.
The whales dont interfere with the food chain, they stand outside it. This ocean can easily spare a million tonnes of krill a day. And nothing analogous could ever possibly evolve on Atlantis, so theyre not competing with anything. The whales are mammals, after all, they need land for part of their development. No, the largest thing Atlantis has produced is the redshark, and thats only six metres long.
Syrinx curled her arm round his, and pressed against him. I meant, its pretty staggering for the Assembly to show this much common sense. It would have been a monumental crime to allow these creatures to die out.
What a cynical old soul you are.
She kissed him lightly. A foretaste of whats to come.then rested her head against him, and returned her entire attention to the whales, gathering up every nuance and committing it lovingly to memory.
They followed the school for the rest of the afternoon as the giant animals played and wallowed in the ocean. Then when dusk fell, Mosul turned the Spiros s bow away. The last she saw of the school was their massive dark bodies arching gracefully against the golden red skyline, whilst the roar of the blow-holes faded away into the oceans swell.
That night twisters of phosphenic radiance wriggled through the water around the hull, casting a wan diamond-blue light over the half-reefed sail membrane. Syrinx and Mosul brought cushions out onto the deck, and made love under the stars. Several times Oenone gazed down on their entwined bodies, its presence contributing to the wondrous sense of fulfilment in Syrinxs mind. She didnt tell Mosul.
The Laymil projects Electronics Division was housed in a three-storey octagonal building near the middle of the campus. The walls were a soft white polyp with large oval windows, and climbing hydrangeas had reached the bottom of the second-storey windows. Chuantawa trees from Raouil were planted around the outside, forty-metre-high specimens, their rubbery bark and long tongue-shaped leaves a bright purple, clusters of bronze berries dangling from every branch.
Ione walked towards it down the amaranthus-lined path from the nearest of the campuss five tube stations, three serjeant bodyguards in tow. Her hair was still slightly damp from her swim with Haile, and the ends brushed against the collar of her formal green-silk suit jacket. She drew wide-eyed stares and cautious smiles from the few project staff wandering around the campus.
Parker Higgens was waiting just outside the main entrance, dressed as ever in his hazel-coloured suit with red spirals on the flared arms. The trousers were fashionably baggy, but he was filling out the jacket quite comfortably. His mop of white hair hung down over his forehead in some disarray.