"That's good. See if you can keep him off Dennie's back, too. You're going to be military commander now. I'm sure you'll manage fine."
Gillian turned to her small poolside campsite to gather her gear. Toshio went to the waters edge and switched on the hydrophone amplifier that would signal the two dolphins that they were wanted. Sah'ot and Keepiru had left an hour ago, to await the evening foray of the aborigines.
"I'll go back with you if you want, Gillian."
She shook her head as she gathered her notes and tools together. "No, Toshio. Dennie's work with the Kiqui is damned important. You're the one who's got to keep her from burning down the forest with a spent match while she's preoccupied. Besides, I need you to maintain a pretense that I haven t left. Do you think you can do that for me?" Gillian zipped shut her watertight satchel and started slipping out of her shirt and shorts. Toshio turned away, at first, and started to blush.
Then he noticed that Gillian didn't seem to care that he look. I might never see her again, he thought. I wonder if she knows what she's doing for me?
"Yes, sir," he said. Toshio's mouth felt very dry. "I'll act just as harassed and impatient as ever with Dr. Dart. And if Takkata-Jim asks for you… Ill 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 gave him 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 sound.
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 -
* There are answers
In schools, like fishes *
He remembered a little, now. He had been dreaming. Something terrible had happened, and he had been plunged 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 darkness
* Where your "cycloid"
Never reaches
* Where all music
Finally settles
* And it gathers
Stacked in layers
* Howling songs of
Ancient storms,
* And hurricanes
That never died…
A presence grew alongside Creideiki. A great, broad figure could be felt nearby, forming out of the fabric of his song. Creideiki sensed its slow sonar pulses, filling the small chamber he lay within… a small chamber that couldn't possibly hold the behemoth taking shape beside him.
Nukapai?
* Sounds of earthquakes -
Stored for epochs
* Sounds of molten
Primeval rocks…
The sound creature solidified with each passing verse. There was a muscular power in the presence forming beside him. The thing's slow, huge fluke strokes threatened to send him tumbling head over tail. When it blew, Its spume sounded like a storm breaking on a rocky shore.
Fear at last gave him the will to open his eyes. Moist mucus ran over his eyeballs as he labored to separate the lids. They were recessed to their deepest, and it took moments to make them switch to air-focus.
At first all he saw was a hospital suspension tank, small and confined. He was alone.
But sound told him he was in the open sea, and a leviathan rode next to him! He could feel its great power!
He blinked, and suddenly his vision shifted. Sight adopted the frame of reference of sound. The room vanished, and he saw It!
!!!!!!!
The thing beside him could never have lived in any of the oceans he had known. Creideiki almost choked in dread.
It moved with the power of tsunamis, the irresistibility of the tides.