Free A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski Page B

channel. Three tiny purple figures arose in it; they jumped and waved, dancing wildly as molten glass in a flame, and the boat heaved precariously. Abruptly all three dove over the side, and in an instant they were clambering up onto the branch, waddling ducklike, for their feet were even more outsized for their height than were the adults’. They surrounded Usha first, hugging and jabbering until Usha tugged the biggest girl back down to secure the boat.
    Of the other two, one was waist-high and the other a toddler. They exchanged high-pitched chatter with Merwen and pulled insistently at her shift, until she loosened the garment and it collapsed around her feet. Now they all were unclothed.
    Spinel burned with embarrassment. He had not believed that Sharers went unclothed, any more than he believed they were witches. He glanced back at Lady Berenice, wondering how she would take this. To his amazement, even she had slipped off her Iridian talar, stonesign and all, and had rolled it into a neat bundle under her arm. Coolly she returned his stare, as if daring him to run back to the moonferry.
    Before he could think, the Sharer girls converged on him. Their arms flashed up over his shirt and reached for his hair, which must have been a novelty for children who were bald as sapphires. At length Merwen pulled them away, saying in Valan, “Come now, Weia, Wellen; Spinel is still shy, and you know what Valan plumage looks like, anyway. Here comes Flossa; is the boat ready now?”
    â€œ Spi -nel, Spi- nel ,” echoed Wellen, the middle child. The eldest, Flossa, started a spitting contest, and the three of them squealed with laughter. Merwen nudged them into the boat, where Usha was bailing out water with her efficient hands. “See the daughters of my womb?” Usha proudly asked him. “Grown so big and strong, with Mama and Mamasister gone.”
    â€œAnd inconsiderate,” added Merwen.
    At her selfname, Usha drew back and spoke again, in Sharer. The girls subsided. They crouched demurely on the floor of the boat, only stealing glances at the Valan creature, who huddled miserably next to the rail and wished more than anything that he had never left home.
    Usha and Flossa paddled out to the open sea, where crests capped the waves and the boat heaved and smacked the water. Then, from the back of the boat, started the most unlikely sound Spinel would have expected to hear: an electric outboard motor.

    Spinel turned, shook the wind-tossed locks out of his eyes, and stared in disbelief. The motor was a standard make from Iridis, used by those Chrysolite fishermen who could afford it. What in Torr’s name was one doing here, on a boat made of some shiny substance completely foreign to him, with Flossa’s webbed hand at the tiller? Nevertheless, this echo from home was a gift from the heavens, and as the boat leaped forward his spirits rose hopefully.
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    A shadow fell. Overhead passed an enormous bird with a fish snout and four spined wings. Wellen stood up and cried out to it, snapping her fingers. The bird descended and soared just past her head, its wingspan dwarfing the boat. Spinel ducked, and the wind from its wings brushed his back before it loftily soared away.
    In the distance, a thumb-shaped projectile shot out from the sea, and a stream of water arched behind. The object glided majestically for a minute or so, until it returned to the sea with a thunderous crash. Another one rocketed from the sea, then another; there must have been a school of them. Waves soon reached the boat and rocked it steeply.
    â€œThey are glider squid,” Merwen told him. “You’ll see, they are good friends to share.”
    Spinel shook his head. How would he ever tell about any of this, back in Chrysoport? Even his own mother would never believe him, much less Ahn or Melas.
    Something nagged at him; something was missing, he did not know what. As he watched the sea, it came to him. There were