Free A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski Page A

raft.”
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    By the exit, Spinel slumped on the deck with his travel bags. His stomach had been violently emptied but still felt queasy; the deck remained unsteady, though the ship supposedly had landed on something.
    A crack of light appeared. A breeze invaded the ship, carrying ocean salt and an indefinable sweetish scent, mingled rose and orange.
    On Merwen’s head, the clickfly was perched again, emitting loud sputters and chirps. Usha chirped back at it, more lively than Spinel had ever seen her.
    Weakly Spinel asked, “Where is all your luggage?”
    â€œTo be delivered.” Lady Berenice brushed past him, her manicured hands empty. Clearly she meant to keep her place above him. Yet Merwen ingenuously treated her little different from himself: with respect but not obeisance. Did Merwen not know the difference? Did Shora lack nobles, as well as men?
    Outside, Merwen and Usha were down the ramp already. The clickfly circled overhead in a frenzy, emitting swooping cries. From nowhere a swarm of clickflies descended to buzz excitedly about the Sharers like bees at a honeycomb, but the insects seemed to do no harm.
    As Spinel stepped down the exit ramp, he surveyed the surface below. It looked like hard crusted soil, with a sort of evergreen matting,
yet it could not be “land” underneath. His feet lost weight for an instant, and he gripped the railing until the swell subsided. The land-that-was-not-land stretched outward, about a fifteen-minute walk, he guessed, to where it branched into a herringbone pattern of channels all around. Beyond that, the gray girdle of ocean faded into sky.
    Merwen came back to the ramp, with a lightness in her step and a glow in her eyes that she had never shown on Valedon. Dozens of clickflies perched on her arms or hovered above. “Share-the-day, Spinel, it’s a glorious day!” she called, mixing the two tongues. “Do you hear the clickflies? All our sisters, from rafts and clusters across Shora, share welcome with us. Come on, our daughters await us.”
    â€œDoes the raft always … move like this?”
    â€œOh, it’s a good strong raft, it flexes well. It is many person-lengths thick. It is shared by traders; see?” She gestured toward the concrete buildings that lay behind the ferryship. “And our home raft is stronger yet, twice as thick at the center. The sea names ours Raia-el. Come home to Raia-el.” She clasped his hand, and the umbrella folds of webbing hung loosely across his fingers. At the foot of the ramp, his soles met the tough, matted crust of plant growth.
    â€œHear me, starling!” Captain Dak’s voice sang out from the ferryship. “You won’t catch this old bird on Shora when the seaswallowers come. Two months you’ve got, to turn back,” he warned.
    â€œThanks, I’ll—”
    â€œWith all the rest of the Valan cowards,” Lady Berenice called back. Scornfully she tossed her head and turned her high shoulders.
    The unladylike outburst startled Spinel. Blood rushed to his face, and he clenched his travel bag. “Thanks anyhow, Dak.”
    â€œStop by and see me then. If you survive.” A whistled arpeggio was the Captain’s sign-off.
    Before he could change his mind, Spinel hurried off with Merwen, who seemed anxious to reach the channeled raft-edge. The soil became moist, and long weeds straggled across it. Then the soil gave out altogether where branches immense as fallen sequoias extended out to sea, covered with barnacles and other scaly things. At Merwen’s footfall, half the scaly things slithered down the side. Spinel recoiled, but Merwen unconcernedly went out onto the branch, so he followed, more slowly. The rose-orange scent intensified, and its source soon appeared: blossoms, brilliant yellow tricorners sprouting from bushes on side branchlets that grew ever denser as he went on.

    A narrow boat appeared, carving its way up the flowery