Free An Island Called Moreau by Brian W. Aldiss

eyes had an epicanthic fold which made them resemble Japanese. Their bodies were shaped like human bodies, except that they had four flipper-like appendages instead of arms and legs.
    â€œGet a close look, hero! What do you think they are?” Hans shouted.
    â€œI am looking …” I could see that the appendages differed on the three creatures; one of them had a vestigial leg. They playfully splashed water at Bernie, then dived and began clumsily to swim across to the village, evidently more hopeful of finding food there.
    Maastricht took a large swig on his bottle, choked, and said, not precisely looking at me, “Those are humans, hero. They are humans, and no scalpel has been near them. And that’s what happened to the Master, just the same thing. That’s what the Master really looks like.”
    He drank again, letting liquid run down his chin into his beard. He shook his head.
    I sat down in the dusty shade of the crane. Bernie came and sat comfortingly close to me on one side. Maastricht jumped clumsily down from the footplate and squatted on my other side.
    â€œThe Master’s got reason for cutting up nasty now and again, hasn’t he? That’s what your bloody God did to him, see?”
    There were many replies to that. Instead, I pointed to the three creatures still wallowing their way across the lagoon and said, “And what did your bloody Master do to them?”
    â€œWhatever he did, hero, he had a license from Above, didn’t he?” He laughed stupidly and pointed up where fulmars wheeled above us. He seemed to pull himself back from the edge of drunkenness and said, with cold sense, “You make me drink more than usual, hero, you savvy that? I guess it means I feel guilty. I’m not such a bastard.… Look, let me tell you. See, the Master’s interested in the plasticity of flesh—human and animal, and shapes unthought of …” His voice tailed off. After a while, he said, “There’s two hours’ siesta. Let’s take a swim, then a sit in the shade, and talk. Okay?”
    We stripped naked and dived into the lagoon. The water felt as beautiful as it looked. I had gone in to humor him, and now rejoiced in the element I had so recently hated. Maastricht never ventured far from the rocks, on which he had left his riot gun close to the water’s edge for easy access, but I was impelled to swim out to the middle and thence to the mouth of the lagoon. There I floated, treading water, staring across the ocean which had so recently attempted to swallow me up. A sort of anguish rose in me; I thought that ever afterward I would have a fear of wide expanses of water, as I had never had a fear of limitless space.
    While I floated there, the three Seal Men came splashing up to me. They seemed playful, but were unsmiling and wary, and I disliked being surrounded by them so much at first that I caught myself looking round for Hans and his gun.
    I saw that one of the three Seal People was a woman. She was the most sportive, leaping up so that I could see her delicate breasts, diving to reveal the cleft and scut of hair between her flipper-feet.
    â€œWhere do you live?” I asked her.
    â€œOh, live, yes—you Four Limbs Long, good, good man.” She said something laughingly to her companions, who swam about rather soberly. She had strong white teeth. She counted up to ten. “Many times, what you like. Green, yellow—speak always with speech. You live with Master.”
    â€œYes, I live with Master. Where do you live? Where do you three live?”
    â€œOne, two, three, live, yes, where I live. It’s not a funfair. They two men, me girl. Pretty girl.”
    I was amused that she had picked up Dart’s English expression about life not being a fun-fair.
    The two men began to beat about in the water. Although the amplifiers were still booming a jingle across the water to us, one of the Seal Men began to sing, clearly