Infinity's Shore

Beyond all that, Kaa relearned how fine it was to cruise in tandem with another strong swimmer, jetting along on powerful fluke strokes, building momentum each time you plunged, then soaring through each upper arc, like flying. The true peak of exhilaration could never be achieved alone. Two or more dolphins must move in unison, each surf-riding the other’s wake. When done right, surface tension nearly vanished and the planet merged seamlessly, from core to rock, from sea to sky.

And then … to bitter-clear vacuum?

A modern poet might make that extrapolation, but it never occurred to natural cetaceans — not even species whose eyesight could make out stars — not until humans stopped hunting and started teaching.

They changed us. Showed us the universe beyond sun, moon, and tides. They even turned some of us into pilots. Wormhole divers. I guess that makes up for their ancestors’ crimes.

Still, some things never change. Like the semierotic stroke of whitecaps against flesh, or the spume of hot breath meeting air. The raw, earthy pleasure of this outing offered much that he felt lacking aboard Streaker.

It also made a terrific opening to courtship.

Assuming she thinks the same way I do.

Assuming I can start winning her esteem.

They were approaching shore. He could tell by the echoes of rock-churned surf up ahead. A mist-shrouded mountain could be glimpsed from the top of each forward leap. Soon they would reach the hidden cave where his spy equipment lay. Then Kaa must go back to dealing with Peepoe in awkward, inadequate words.

I wish this could just go on without end, he thought.

A brief touch of sonar, and he knew Peepoe felt the same. She, too, yearned for this moment of primitive release to last.

Kaa’s sonic sense picked out a school of pseudo-tunny, darting through nearby shoals, tempting after a pallid breakfast of synthi flesh. The tunny weren’t quite in their path — it would mean a detour. Still, Kaa squirted a burst of Trinary.

In summer sunlight,

Fish attract like edible

Singularities!

Kaa felt proud of the haiku — impulsive, yet punning as it mixed both space-and planet-bound images. Of course, free foraging was still not officially sanctioned. He awaited Peepoe’s rejection.

Passing an abyss, or bright reef,

Or black hole — what sustains us?

Our navigator!

Her agreement filled Kaa’s pounding heart, offering a basis for hope.

Peepoe’s strong, rhythmic strokes easily kept pace alongside as he angled toward a vigorous early lunch.

Sooners

Lark

I ’VE BEEN ABOARD A FLYING MACHINE BEFORE, HE told himself. I’m no simple nature child, astonished by doors, metal panels, and artificial light.

This place should not terrify me.

The walls aren’t about to close in.

His body wasn’t convinced. His heart raced and he could not rest. Lark kept experiencing a disturbing impression that the little room was getting smaller.

He knew it must be an illusion. Neither Ling nor Rann showed outward concern over being crushed in a diminishing space. They were used to hard gray surfaces, but the metal enclosure seemed harsh to one who grew up scampering along the branch-top skyways of a garu forest. The floor plates brought a distant vibration, rhythmic and incessant.

Lark suddenly realized what it reminded him of — the machinery of his father’s paper mill — the grinders and pulping hammers — designed to crush scrap cloth into a fine white slurry. That pounding noise used to drive him away into the wilderness, on long journeys seeking living things to study.

“Welcome to a starship, sooner,” Rann mumbled, nursing both a headache and a grudge after their fight in the lake. “How do you like it?”

All three human prisoners still wore their damp underwear, having been stripped of their tools and wet suits. For some reason, the Jophur let them keep their rewq symbionts, though Rann had torn his off, leaving red welts at his temples where the crumpled creature had had no time to withdraw its feeding suckers.

At least no one had been injured during the swift capture, when a swarm of tapered cone beings swept down from the mammoth ship, each Jophur riding its own platform of shimmering metal. Suspensor fields pressed the lake, surrounding the human swimmers between disklike watery depressions. Hovering robots crackled with restrained energy — one even dived beneath the surface to cut off escape — crowding the captives toward one of the antigravity sleds, and then to prison.

To Lark’s surprise, they were put in the same cell. By accounts from Earth’s dark ages, it used to be standard practice to separate prisoners, to break their spirits. Then he realized.

If Jophur are like traeki, they can’t quite grasp the notion of being alone. A solitary traeki would be happy arguing among its rings till the Progenitors came home.

“They are probably at a loss, trawling through their database for information about Earthlings,” Ling explained.