Sparks stood where he was, suddenly as strengthless as if it had been a child of his in Jerusha’s arms, while Moon and Ngenet rose from their seats and moved past him. He watched them go to Jerusha, the conversation they had all just been having forgotten as utterly as he was himself. Ngenet shooed the children aside; they stood back obediently, impressed by his sudden intentness.
“Still alive—?” he asked, answering the question for himself as he ran experienced hands over the merling, and studied its small, unresponsive face. It made a tiny whimpering as he opened its eye; the fragile thread of sound turned Sparks cold inside. He looked away, his hands remembering the velvet soft texture of their thick fur; wanting to move forward, to stand with the rest, but unable to, unnoticed, unwanted—
“We found an adult female too,” Jerusha said, “but she was already dead.”
“What killed her?” Ngenet asked. Sparks looked back at them, found Moon’s gaze on his face; she looked away again abruptly.
“I don’t know.” Jerusha shook her head. “There was nothing wrong that I could see. Maybe the storm—” The mers had no natural enemies, except their creators.
Sparks let his breath out. Jerusha glanced at him as if she had sensed his response; only then did he realize that he had been expecting to hear her speak his name, blaming him.
Ngenet shrugged, glancing up as Borah Clearwater and Gran came into the house “Or parasites, or bad food … but usually the colony keeps watch when one of their own is in trouble. To find them all alone like that is damned rare. And so is finding a young one, at this time in the High Year… .” He reached out to take the merling from Jerusha’s arms, but she resisted, rocking slowly, almost unthinkingly, from foot to foot, like a mother rocking her child. Ngenet’s expression changed, and he let his hands drop. “Maybe they were separated from the rest by the storm Or maybe …” He shook his head again. “I don’t understand it. But this one will starve before the day is out, let alone before we locate the colony, if we don’t take care of it right now.” He started out of the room, already calling to someone in the kitchen.
“Will a colony take in an orphan?” Moon asked, her own eyes on the small head resting listlessly against Jerusha’s shoulder.
“I’ve never encountered a solitary merling before,” Ngenet said. “We’ll find out.” Mers separated forcibly from their own kind invariably died, but he did not mention that. He paused, giving directions to the startled cook who had appeared in the doorway, sending her off again in search of something suitable to feed a young mer.
“What if the mers don’t want their baby back, Uncle Miroe?” Tammis asked, his eyes dark with concern as he gazed at the merling. “Will it be all alone? Who will take care of it?”
Ngenet glanced over at the boy, a smile cracking the shell of his preoccupation. He had studied the mers for a lifetime, but even he knew little concrete about their society, the relationships they formed or did not form, how they raised their young. “Then we’ll keep the baby here. But we’ll worry about that later. First we’ll make the baby strong and healthy “
“Is the baby going to get well?” Meroe asked, pressing forward hesitantly against Gran’s gentle restraint.
“We’ll do our best to help her,” Ngenet said gently, not really answering the question. Sparks saw the doubt in his eyes, and knew the concern that ran like a dark river below it. Ngenet touched the motionless merhng again. He had always fought for the mers’ survival, with a determination that would have earned him deportation if it had not earned him the love and tolerance of the Hegemonic Police Commander
“Miroe,” Moon said almost hesitantly, her own eyes never leaving the merhng, “if you can save her, if you can actually raise her … it could be a way of reaching the others. It could help us learn—”
Ngenet looked from Moon’s face to Jerusha rocking the merhng in her arms “I’m way ahead of you,” he said, with an unexpected smile. “Come on—” He nodded, starting for the doorway, and the others followed.
Sparks watched them go, still rooted where he stood, unable to go after them Anele came back through the doorway alone, looking curiously at him. “Come on, Da!” She came across the room to his side.
He put his arms around her, holding her close for a moment.
She squirmed free, tugged at his hand. “Come on, Da, come help the mer—”
“I can’t, Anele,” he whispered, barely audible even to himself. “I don’t know how.” He freed his hand from her grip, and started back across the room to the door He went out without another word, slamming the door behind him.
TIAMAT: Carbuncle
“Wasn’t it wonderful, Mama?” Anele returned her mother’s good-night hug, hanging on her in an ecstasy of excitement. “We had so much fun! Now we can have our own mer to be our pet. I want to call her Silky, because she’s so soft!” She squirmed as Moon tried to cover her with blankets.
Moon started in surprise, as the name reflected unexpectedly in her memory “Our friend,” she corrected softly, stroking Ariele’s hair. “We don’t own them, any more than they own us. Our people, the Summers, call them the Goddess’s other children, and say the Sea is the Mother of both our peoples… . But I think Silky is a perfect name,” she added. “I had a … friend once, from offworld, named Silky. He was more like the mers than anyone I knew. I think he would be glad to be remembered this way. And maybe Silky will help us understand the mers better as she grows.” She kissed her daughter gently on the forehead. “Lie down and go to sleep.”
“It’s so early—”
“And you’re so tired.”
“I want to help learn about them—”
“I know. Shh.” She turned away, going to Tammis’s bed across the darkened of the room they shared. There were enough unused rooms in the palace for them each to have one of their own. But the rooms were vast and sterile, and seemed to her always so cold, that she had chosen to keep the twins together in the nursery, close by her own room, until they were old enough to complain, or at least old enough never to wake from a nightmare, terrified to find themselves alone.
But maybe no one ever outgrew those dreams… . She still woke at night, feeling lost, terrified, alone; even though she slept next to a man who loved her, a | man she had known all her life.
“I want to help too!” Tammis said, propped on one elbow, listening.
“I know.” She hugged him, kissed him on the forehead, smelling the scent of sea and wind in his hair. “We’ll all do it, together.”
“When can we see the mer baby again? Tomorrow?”
“Silky—!” Ariele whispered loudly. “I want to name her Silky, don’t you?”
“We just came back.” Moon smiled. “We’ll go again soon. Not tomorrow. You have lessons to study.”
Tammis made a face. “Where’s Da? Isn’t he going to play his flute for us?”
Moon glanced toward the empty doorway of the room, feeling her face tighten. “Not tonight. He’s very tired.” He had been impatient and moody through the long, weary trip back up the coast. The only words he had spoken to any of them had stung like nettles; until all that she could do was try to keep herself, and the children, out of his sight. He had not said anything about the reason for his smoldering anger, but she knew. It was the merling. “I’ll sing you a song.” She closed her eyes, letting go of her frustration; letting her mind carry her back until she was a child in Summer again. She remembered being rocked in the arms of her strong, sandy-haired mother, who came home with the fishing fleet smelling of the wind and the sea; who had sung them songs about the mers like the one she began to sing for her children now. She let herself imagine that they all sat before the fire in a tiny, stone-walled cottage on a tiny windswept island, in a room that had always seemed warmer, safer, more real than any room she ever found herself in these days. She wished, with a sudden souldeep longing, that she could take herself and her family back to that dreaming island, away from this haunted city.