Free Seas of Ernathe by Jeffrey A. Carver Page B

satinlike sheen. And behind her the two male Nale'nid. It occurred to him for a moment, as a ludicrous thought, that he was supposed to capture these people, to team with his search party and shoot them with stunners. He chuckled.
    He approached to within a few meters of the Nale'nid and stopped. They were small figures, as small as adolescent Ernathenes; but they stood with poise, and with dignity, and appeared to be lost in contemplation.
    "Hello," he said again, tentatively. A curious sensation of warmth arose in him; he was beginning to feel that something enchanted was going on here—and he suspected that he was blushing.
    You are Seth? The woman scarcely stirred.
    "Yes. How did you know? Do you read all my thoughts?" A moment of apprehension, panic.
    It was at the front of your thoughts. Yes. Yes, so it had been, he realized. A part of him had been sternly self-conscious, and she wouldn't have had to probe deeply into his thoughts to learn his identity. That was a relief.
    "I am Seth. Who are you? Do you have a name?"
    The sea-woman tilted her head, her large-irised eyes shining, pleasantly setting off her hair with their greenish brown glow. I am Lo'ela. My . . . "brothers" . . . are Al'ym and Ga'yl. We are of Pal'onar, which you would call, I think, South City of the Nale'nid. You are surprised to see us?
    Seth was flustered, forgetting and then remembering that he had in fact come here with the expressed purpose of finding Nale'nid. "I . . . I don't know," he stammered. His original purpose paled, faded to insignificance in the back of his thoughts, giving way to others. It was strange, speaking aloud and then hearing the answers in his mind. He was no telepath; it was an experience he had never known. It was curious and delightful, as this mind-speaking woman was curious and delightful in her own right. "Can your brothers speak to me in this way, also?" he said.
    No. At this time I alone can reach you. Lo'ela spoke aloud suddenly, in the melodious voice he had heard previously; it did not, he realized with surprise, sound to his inner ear much like her mind voice. Still, it was quite pleasing. She spoke quickly, incomprehensibly, and it took Seth a minute to realize that she was speaking, not to him, but to Al'ym and Ga'yl. Several times, he heard a word that sounded in a transmogrified way like his own name.
    The two sea-men answered her in rapid tones, and she turned her attention back to Seth. My brothers find you of interest, but they cannot reach you. Al'ym . . . focuses . . . upon the circulation, the deep fluids of the trees and the waters and the air, and of you and me. Ga'yl focuses upon color, colors, all the colors of the world. Her eyes widened, and fixed liquidly upon Seth's.
    Fluids, colors? he thought wonderingly. What was that supposed to mean? He said, "And you, Lo'ela—what do you focus upon?"
    I, Lo'ela —(was that a teasing tone in her voice?)— focus upon a stranger from beyond the sky, Seth Perland, a stranger whose thoughts meet mine. The eyes flickered—changing color?—and closed. Lo'ela stood peacefully before him, eyelids shut, as if purposely allowing him to study her, to carefully satisfy his curiosity without the distraction of her captivating eyes. Her expression was disconcertingly innocent; she was a delicate-framed girl, with slender hips, smooth and pale legs and arms, and breasts hardly more than round bumps beneath the top of her curious garment. Seth glanced at Al'ym and Ga'yl; they were watching him intently, but betrayed nothing in their faces. He looked back at Lo'ela, her half-smiling features, which among his own people might have been those of a girl fourteen—but the thoughts of Lo'ela struck him as those of a mature young woman. (But what is a mature Nale'nid? he wondered.)
    Was he supposed to reach with his own thoughts to touch hers?
    Lo'ela opened her eyes. She looked, it seemed, faintly hurt. The stranger does not focus upon me. A statement, not