Free Genetopia by Keith Brooke

had died after its dipping in the changing vats in Trecosann. But many would be promising enough to be maintained, nurtured and perhaps propagated and grown for trade.
    Mastery of the changing arts was Clan Treco’s greatest achievement, something they did better than anyone else, with the skills passed down through the generations.
    “Yes, I do think Tarn would sell Amber,” said Flint in answer to Chendreth’s question. “If not into the mutt trade, then as a bondsman. He has always treated her as little better than a mutt–she always said that.”
    Chendreth worked at winding her cord, hauling the nets in behind the raft. She kept her head turned slightly away from Flint’s gaze. Barely a year or two older than him, but yet he was struck by a gulf between them: Flint awkward, unsure of himself; Chendreth a woman comfortable with herself and with her role in Greenwater life.
    “I have never met your father,” she said now. “Clarel talks of him sometimes... She won’t go to Trecosann any more.”
    Flint knew that Clarel had stopped visiting, but nothing had ever been said and so there had been no finality to it.
    Over in the settlement, there were voices and Flint spotted a small group passing through the stockade. There were at least six people, and they had a wagon being hauled by a team of four mutts. He wondered how they had manoeuvred it over that inflatable walkway.
    “Mesteb,” said Flint. The trading party was back from the market festival at Trecosann. There would be news! Clarel had been urging Flint to wait for Mesteb’s return, assuring him that he would bring news of Amber, news that she had shown up at home, after all.
    At a nod from Chendreth, Flint squeezed a valve on the bladderpump engine and the raft surged gently for shore.
    In his five days at Greenwater, he had spent long hours at the stockade, staring into the wilds for any sign that Amber was out there, always disappointed at the end of his long vigils.
    In that time the waters had receded a long way, but many of the riverside streets were still awash, the anchored podhuts still connected by walkways suspended across bladderplant pontoons.
    Now, he guided the raft past the normal landing jetty and through the centre of Greenwater. A short time later they bumped against the pontoon that abutted Clarel’s podhut.
     One of Clarel’s mutts reached down and secured the raft with a loop of cord and Flint and Chendreth clambered up onto the walkway. Instantly, the mutt jumped down onto the raft and started to gather up the skinning nets, deftly trapping the harvested scum in a floating cane basket.
    Flint trotted along the walkway, almost missing his footing at one point and plunging headlong into the thick, scummy water.
    Soon he was in a street slick with the green froth of the algae.
    Mesteb and his party were still by the gates, chatting with Peter and some of the other townsfolk.
    Clarel was there, too–so calm on the surface yet here she was, eager to find out what news Mesteb brought.
    Mesteb was a tall, broad-shouldered man, unhooded despite the sun’s glare, his long hair threaded with silver, tied back from his face. His eyes had the look of someone who had lost much, betraying his normally jovial nature.
    He spotted Flint and instantly gave a slight shake of his head. “Clarel tells me you’re looking for your sister,” he said. “The two of you are the talk of Trecosann: the runaways. Everyone knows what a bastard Tarn is.” He glanced briefly at Clarel, then, as if only just remembering that Tarn was her brother.
    “She didn’t run away,” said Flint. It was a conclusion he was finally starting to believe. “She took nothing with her. I checked her room and nothing was gone. Amber’s impulsive, but she’s not stupid: she wouldn’t just go off with nothing. And if she had fled she would have come here.”
    She might never have made it this far, of course.
    Or she might never have left Trecosann voluntarily in the