less hostile view when sheâs bonded with you.â
Ade winced. There was crude, and then there was cold. Aras was still wessâhar at heart, and they were now in the odd world of wessâhar genetic transfer, where females and males passed DNA across membranes and changed each other at the cellular level. Cânaatat was almost made for wessâhar. But Ade didnât see sex like that at all. He just wanted Shan, and the idea that she would be bonded to him simply because they swapped genes felt grim and soulless. He wanted her to choose him. He wanted her to love him.
âIâll let you know if I come back with my nuts intact,â said Ade. âThatâs probably the best I can hope for.â
âI expect cânaatat could grow them again,â Aras said, and Ade wasâas everâunsure if he was joking or being scrupulously wessâhar-literal.
Ade didnât have Eddieâs gift of the gab, and Shan was immune to flattery anyway. He had to deal with her like a bloke. No crap. Just the facts. Sheâd eat him alive if he tried to cajole her.
The bedroom door opened. Shan stood with her fists on her hips and for a moment Ade braced for a broadside. Sheâd heard them. Coppers had some uncanny natural radar. Her lips parted.
âThereâs one thing I want to say to you two,â she said. Her face was drained of blood, made even whiter by the contrast with her black hair, and sheâd obviously been chewing over the earlier conversations. â Loyalty. You can do what the fuck you like, but thereâs one thing I demand from you two and thatâs loyalty. You do not go behind my back. You do not decide whatâs best for me. Is that clear?â
Ade nodded, silent. âYes, isan, â said Aras.
She didnât have to say she was the Guvânor. Ade was gladshe was, and he knew Aras liked it that way too. Wessâhar matriarchs ran the show. A female who could punch her own weight and then some was normal here; but it was still both sobering and arousing to stand within striking distance of that kind of dominance.
Shan stared at them for a few moments as if she was going to say something else, then turned and went back into the bedroom, where she packed audibly. Given how little she carried with her, she took a long time doing it.
ââRas, show me how to do that soybean thing,â said Ade, looking for diversion. A Royal Marine could do anything. Heâd make soy milk and tofu and even bloody cakes if he had to. âMight as well be useful.â
It was a silent and awkward day, and an uncommunicative evening.
That night, Shan slept on the sofa.
Bezerâej: continental shelf, Ouzhari
Lindsay Neville fumbled with the signal lamp, kneeling in the cold mud, now able to detect everything around her for some distance.
She couldnât call it seeing. She could detect light and she could see a lot better than she should have been able to in these black depths, but she could also visualize contours and densities and movement. She had no idea how; she had an urge to open her mouth wide, and somehow images were forming in her mind. At first they had reminded her of grainy reproductions of carved reliefs, but now they were much sharper. She could detect fine detail.
She could see Mohan Rayat, sitting on the seabed and groping around him as if he wasnât sure where he was.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god Iâve changed into something else and Iâm not me anymore andâ
Rayat put his hand to his neck.
He had gills.
Lindsay had to know. She knew before she touched herthroat but it was still a shock when her fingertipsâcold, but not numbâfelt soft unfamiliar spaces under her jaw.
She felt her lips part in a reflex that would have been a yelp of shock but it never emerged. She let her arm drop to her side and found she was still clutching the signal lamp. Would she always need it to talk to the bezeri? Might