Infinity's Shore

In fact, Kaa knew just one thing he was good at. And at this rate, he’d never get another chance to ply his trade.

A strange, thrashing sound came from just ahead, toward the bottom of the bay. He nearly swung around again, dodging it to seek some other place, dreading the time when bursting lungs would force him back to the surface.…

But there was something peculiar about the sound. A softness. A resigned, melodious sadness that seemed to fill the water. Curiosity overcame Kaa as he zigzagged, casting sonar clicks through the murk to perceive—

A hoon!

But what was one of them doing down here?

Kaa nosed forward, ignoring the growing staleness of his air supply, until he made out a tall biped amid clouds of churned-up mud. Diffracted echoes confirmed his unbelieving eyes. The creature was undressing, carefully removing articles of clothing, tying them together in a string.

Kaa guessed it was a female, from the fact that it was a bit smaller and had only a modest throat sac.

Is it the one I pulled overboard? But why doesn’t she swim back to the boat? I assumed…

Kaa was struck by a wave of image-rupture alienation — a sensation all too familiar to Earthlings since contact — when some concept that had seemed familiar abruptly made no sense anymore.

Hoons can’t swim!

The journal of Alvin Hph-wayuo never mentioned this. In fact, Alvin implied that his people passionately loved boats and the sea. Nor were they cavalier about their lives, but mourned the loss of loved ones even more deeply than a human or dolphin would. Kaa suddenly knew he’d been fooled by Alvin’s writings, sounding so much like an Earth kid, never mentioning things that he simply assumed.

Aliens. Who can figure?

He stared as the hoon tied the string of clothes around her left wrist and held the other end to her mouth, calmly exhaling her last air, inflating a balloonlike fold of cloth. It floated upward, no more than two meters, stopping far short of the surface.

She’s not signaling for help, he fathomed as the hoon sat down in the mud, humming a dirge. She’s making sure they can drag the bottom and retrieve her body. Kaa had read Alvin’s account of death rituals the locals took quite seriously.

By now his own lungs burned fiercely. Kaa deeply regretted that the breather unit on his harness had burned out after Zhaki shot him.

He heard the qheuens approaching from behind, clacking their claws, but Kaa sensed a hole in their line, confident he could streak past, just out of reach. He tried to turn … to seize the brief opportunity.

Oh, hell, he sighed, and kicked the other way, aiming for the dying hoon.

It took some time to get her to the surface. When they broke through, her entire body shook with harsh, quivering gasps. Water jetted from nostril orifices at the same time as air poured in through her mouth, a neat trick that Kaa kind of envied.

He pushed her close enough to throw one arm over a drifting oar, then he whirled around to peer across the bay, ready to duck onrushing spears.

None came. In fact, there seemed a curious absence of boats nearby. Kaa dropped his head down to cast suspicious sonar beams through his arched brow — and confirmed that all the coracles had backed off some distance.

A moon had risen. One of the big ones. He could make out silhouettes now … hoons standing in their rowboats, all of them turned to face north … or maybe northwest. The males had their sacs distended, and a steady thrumming filled the air. They seemed oblivious to the sudden reappearance of one of their kind from a brush with drowning.

I’d have thought they’d be all over this area, dropping weighted ropes, trying to rescue her. It was another example of alien thinking, despite all the Terran books these hoons had read. Kaa was left with the task of shoving her with the tip of his rostrum, a creepy feeling coursing his spine as he pushed the bedraggled survivor toward one of the docks.

More villagers stood along the wharf, their torches flickering under gusts of stiffening wind. They seemed to be watching … or listening … to something.

A dolphin can both see and hear things happening above the water’s surface, but not as well as those who live exclusively in that dry realm. With his senses still in an uproar, Kaa could discern little in the direction they faced. Just the hulking outline of a mountain.

The computerized insert in his right eye flexed and turned until Kaa finally made out a flickering star near the mountain’s highest point. A star that throbbed, flashing on and off to a staccato rhythm. He could not make anything of it at first … though the cadence seemed reminiscent of Galactic Two.

“Ex-x-xcuse me …”he began, trying to take advantage of the inactivity. Whatever else was happening, this seemed a good chance to get a word in edgewise. “I’m a dolphin … cousin to humansss … I’ve been sssent with-th a message for Uriel the—”

The crowd suddenly erupted in a moan of emotion that made Kaa’s sound-sensitive jaw throb. He made out snatches of individual speech.