“They feel there is one good way to catch lunk when it’s in oil. By net. That way you don’t bruise the flesh so much and the lunk doesn’t struggle the way he does on a hook and sour the oil. The captains, they’ve a sense of location that doesn’t need sonic gear. I’ve sailed with five or six of the best and they always know when and where the lunk are running. And how many they can bring from that deep.”
And, thought Killashandra, bemused by Shad’s soft accent, you’d give your arm to develop that sense.
“You’ve fished on other worlds?” she asked out loud.
“Aye.”
“What, for instance?” He was as elusive with information as a fish. Or herself.
“Oh, spiderfish, crackerjaw, bluefin, skaters, and Welladay whales.”
The young man said it casually, as if encounters with such aquatic monsters were of no account. Shamus’ eyes were alight, as if he had accurately gauged the effect of that catalog on Killashandra.
“A crackerjaw opened his back for him on Spindrift,” Shamus said, proudly. “And he flew five miles with a skater and brought him down, the largest one ever recorded on Mandalay.”
Killashandra wasn’t sure why Shamus Thursday wished to extol his friend. But it made him more acceptable in her eyes. Shad was too young, anyhow. Killashandra made no further attempt to draw Shad out but turned to Tir Donnell and Shamus.
Despite a continued concern for her consumption of harmat, Shamus kept ordering until full dark closed abruptly down on the planet and the artificial lights came on in the room.
“Mealtime,” Biyanco announced in a loud, penetrating voice and activated a barrier that dropped over the bar. He appeared through a side door and briskly gestured them to a table for four on the other side of the room. Killashandra made no resistance to Shamus’ suggestion that they all dine together and she spent the rest of the evening in their company. And her night alone. By choice. She’d not made up her mind.
When the sun came up over the edge of the sea, she was down in the hotel’s private lagoon, floating on the buoyant waters, just as the lunk ships, sails fat with dawn winds, slid out to open sea with incredible speed.
To her surprise, Shamus appeared at midday and offered to show her Trefoil’s few diversions. Nothing loath, she went and found him most agreeable company, conversant on every phase of Trefoil’s domestic industry. He steered her from the usual tourist paths, for which she was grateful. She abhorred that label though that was, in essence, her status on any world but Ballybran. Nor did she give Shamus Thursday any hint of her profession despite all his attempts to wheedle the information from her.
It wasn’t exactly that she liked being secretive, but few worlds understood the function of crystal singers and some very odd habits and practices had been attributed to them. Killashandra had learned discretion and caution, and remembered them.
Late afternoon and a bleeper on Shamus’ belt alerted him to return to the dock, the fishing boats had been sighted.
“Sorry, m’dear,” he said as he executed a dipping turn of his fast flipper. “Duty calls.”
She elected to join him on the wharf, allowing him to think it was his company she preferred. Actually she wanted to watch the silent teamwork of docking, and see the mahogany figure of Shad Tucker in action. He was much too young for her, she told herself again, but a right graceful person to observe.
They’d had a quick plenteous catch that day, Killashandra was told as the fishermen drowned their thirsts in harmat at the Golden Dolphin. Tucker seemed unusually pleased and Killashandra could not resist asking why.
“He’s threatening to buy a ticket-off,’’ Shamus told her when Shad replied with an indolent shrug. “But he won’t go. He never does. He’s been here five years, longer than on any other planet.”
“Why?” Killashandra asked Shad, then had to hush Shamus. “Let Tucker reply. He knows his own mind, doesn’t he?”
Shad regarded her with mild surprise and the indolent look left his blue eyes, replaced by an intentness she found hard to ignore.
“This is a real sea world,’’ Shad said, picking his words in his soft-accented way, “not some half-evolved plankton puddle.”
He doesn’t open his lips wide enough to enunciate properly, she thought, and wondered why he guarded himself so.
“You’ve lunk for profit, territ and flatfish for fine eating, the crustaceans and bivalves for high livers, then the sea fruits for a constant harvest. Variety. I might buy myself a strip of land and stay.”
“You do ship on more than the lunk boats?”
Shad was surprised at her question. “All the boats fish lunk when it runs. Then you go after the others.”
“If you’ve a mind for drudgery,’’ said Tir Donnell gloomily.
Shad gave Tir a forebearing glance. “Lunk requires only muscle,” he said with a sly grin.
This appeared to be an old challenge, for Tir launched into a debate that Shad parried with the habit of long practice.
For the sake of being perverse, Killashandra took Tir Donnell to bed that night. She didn’t regret the experience although there was no harmony between them. His vehemence did take the edge off her hunger if it gave her no peace. She did not encourage him to ask for more. Somewhere, long ago, she’d learned the way to do that without aggravating a lover.
He was gone by dawn. Shamus dropped by a few hours later and took her to see a sea-fruit farm on the peninsula, ten kilometers from Trefoil to the south. When she assured Max Ennert, the farmer, of her depth-worthiness, they all fitted out with breather tanks and went submarine.
Enclosed by water, isolated by her trail of bubbles, though attached by guideline to Max and Shamus, Killashandra realized—probably for an uncountable time—why crystal singers sought water worlds. Below sea level, there was insulation against aural sound, relief from the play of noise against weary eardrums.
They drifted inches above the carefully tended sea gardens, Max and Shamus occasionally pruning off a ripe frond of grape or plum, shoving them in the net bags they towed. They bypassed reapers in a vast sea-valley where weed was being harvested. Occasionally loose strands would drift past them, the fuller longer ones deftly caught and netted by the men.
Killashandra was content to follow, slightly behind Max, slightly ahead of Shamus, craning her neck, angling her body to enjoy as much of the clear sea-view as possible. One or the other man checked her gauges from time to time. Euphoria could be a curse under sea and they didn’t know her capacity, nor the professional immunity she enjoyed.
Perhaps that was why Shamus argued with Max at one point, when they’d been below some two hours. They stayed down almost three more before they completed the circuit. As they walked out of the sea at Max’s landing, night was approaching with the usual tropical dispatch.
“Stay on, Shamus, Killashandra, if you’ve no other plans,” Max said but the words sounded rehearsed, strained.
She entered the room where she had changed to sea-dress and heard Shamus’ footsteps right behind her. She didn’t bother closing the door. He did, and had her in his arms the next instant. She made no resistance to his advance, nor did she respond. He held her from him, surprised, a question in his eyes.
“I’m not susceptible to euphorics, Shamus,” she told him.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, eyes wide with innocence.
“And I’ve submarined on more worlds than Shad has sailed.”
“Is it Tucker you’re after?” He didn’t seem jealous, merely curious.
“Shad’s ...” and she shrugged, unwilling to place the young man in any category.
“But you don’t fancy me?” Not aggrieved, again, merely curious.