"-but I don't know all those answers," Zev said. "Your . . . your skin is peeling? That doesn't sound right. Did you get sunburned?"
Zev's distress scared Stephen Thomas.
"You don't know?"
"If J.D. had accepted our invitation and come to live with the divers, Lykos would have been with her. My mother knows all about how the changes happen. But I don't. I was born this way."
"Great," Stephen Thomas said, disgusted.
"I'm . . . never mind."
"Victoria and Satoshi and I went swimming this morning. We tried to make love in the water. But we couldn't because it hurt her. It didn't with you. Why not?"
Zev thought for a moment. "Maybe ordinary human men are bigger than diver men?" he asked.
"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours," Stephen Thomas muttered. "What?"
Stephen Thomas shrugged. "Nothing. Forget it."
He strode angrily along the path beside the river. A ghost of pain grew behind his pelvic bone, as if a knife
were tickling him, teasing him with the threat of the fatal stab. He slowed down and tried to stay calm, hoping to stave off the pain with caution. Zev caught up to him.
"Can I look at you, Zev? I don't even know what I'm going to look like when this is over."
"You'll look like Stephen Thomas, you won't look like me."
"I mean naked."
"You can look at me if you want. Can I look at you? I never saw-"
The pain hit Stephen Thomas. For no reason, and with too much warning, the pain flamed through his pelvis, along his backbone.
He gave up. He sank to the path, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping himself in his arms. The hair stood out straight all over his body. He shivered, and groaned.
"Dammit, Zev, what's happening to me?"
Zev sat on his heels beside him, upset and helpless.
"I don't know."
"I wish you'd quit saying that!"
"I better call Victoria."
"No!" He grabbed Zev's arm. Moving made the pain shoot through him again; his fingers clenched harder than he meant them to.
The young diver flinched but stayed where he was, balancing on his toes, scared for Stephen Thomas but not scared of him. Stephen Thomas had the feeling that Zev could break his hold in a second if he chose. He let 90. " Please don't call Victoria, or Satoshi, or anybody. Just give me a minute."
"You'll feel better in the water. Can you stand up?"
"Yeah." The stabbing pain diminished to a throbbing ache. He stayed where he was. "But I can't walk all the way to the other end of campus. Not right now."
"You don't have to. Come swim in the river."
"Is that all you ever-" Stephen Thomas heard himself complaining to Zev about Zev's obsession with water the way Victoria complained to him about his being able to see auras. It did not matter that he no longer saw them. Now he knew how Victoria felt,
Except that it would feel good to be in the water. A warm bath, a cold swim-anything to ease the throbbing ache in the center of his pelvic girdle, and the itch that was turning sore and hot.
He lurched to his feet. "Okay."
They tramped through a meadow of wildflowers, a carpet of color like the pastel reflection of a rainbow. Stephen Thomas followed Zev down the riverbank to a beach ol'small rounded rocks, designed to look waterworn, ancient. They were of course no such thing. They were moon rock, reshaped and carefully placed during Starfarer's construction.
The river curved, cutting into the stratified bank, exposing one of Crimson's fossil beds. The water rippled and softly splashed. Downstream, the channel narrowed; the river roughened and raced with a hollow roar. Stephen Thomas took off his shirt, hesitated, and slipped out of his shorts. He moved gingerly.
Zev watched him, worried that he might collapse again.
"Is it swollen?" he said, when he saw Stephen Thomas naked. "Does it hurt?"
"It isn't swollen. It's sore."
"Then I don't blame you for leaving it out." The river rocks rattled hollowly as Zev crossed them. He tossed off' his clothes and picked his way over the treacherous footing to the river. Stephen Thomas followed slowly.
Zev threw himself into the midstream current, let himself be carried fifty meters through the rapids, then vanished beneath roiling white water.
"Zev!"
Upstream from the rapids, halfway back to Stephen Thomas, Zev reappeared. He waved and beckoned.
It looked like fun, but Stephen Thomas lowered
himself into the cold eddy near shore. Today, a sitz-bath was about his speed.
The water did feel good, easing the soreness, massaging away bits of dead skin.
Zev splashed toward him.
Stephen Thomas got a close look at an adult male diver for the first time. Struggling to stay calm, he patted the water. He slapped harder than he meant to, sending an angry splash toward Zev.
"Sit down."
"Does your penis hang out like that all the time?" Zev asked suddenly. Stephen Thomas shifted on the uncomfortable rocks. He was trembling.
Instead of replying, instead of asking all his own questions, Stephen Thomas started to laugh. Hysteria tinged his laughter, but this really was funny. He thought Zev looked strange, and Zev thought Stephen Thomas looked just as alien.
Zev smiled uncertainly.
"Yeah," Stephen Thomas said. "It hangs out like that all the time. But I guess . . . it won't for long. Does it . . . T' He took a deep breath. "I guess you don't know if it falls off, or withers away, or He stopped, confused. "But Victoria said-"
"It won't do either," Zev said. "I don't think it will. It will just go inside."
Though Zev had no idea what stages Stephen Thomas would have to go through to become a diver, he knew-he was an example of-the result. He explained to Stephen Thomas about internal genitals, and then he showed him.
"It's more streamlined," he said. "All aquatic mammals are like this."
"So are a lot of terrestrial mammals," Stephen Thomas said. "But not ordinary humans. It never occurred to me. . . ."
Now, at least, some of the pain made sense. If his body was creating a place for internal genitals . . .
"You're a lot different than I thought," Zev said. "I knew you kept your scrotum outside-that's so silly, you have to work so hard not to be fertile-but I didn't know you kept everything outside." He shrugged cheerfully. "I didn't know men humans looked so different from women humans. Divers don't."
Stephen Thomas let himself slide into the water until it covered him completely. He wondered how long he could stay submerged. He wondered if he could breathe underwater yet. He tried to take a breath.
He jerked upright, choking and coughing and gasping for air, just like last time.
Zev watched him, bemused.
"What are you doing?"
Stephen Thomas flung his wet hair out of his face. "Trying to breathe underwater."
"Why?"
"To see if I could. Maybe I don't want to come up."
"You shouldn't breathe underwater unless you have to," Zev said.
"Why not?"
"Your lungs get full of water. It's hard work, and it isn't very good for you. It's just to save your life if you get stuck. You get enough oxygen to keep your brain from dying till somebody finds you. You can get pneumonia if you're not careful."
"Great." He coughed and snorted and got rid of the rest of the water. "Anyway," Zev said, "you should stick your penis out when you want to pee. Especially if you're living on land, otherwise you'll get all itchy."
"What about sex?"
"Then it sticks out by itself," Zev said solemnly. "Of course."
"Right. Of course." God, Stephen Thomas thought, I'm blushing. "Why did it hurt Victoria when we tried to make love in the water?"
"I don't-" Zev cut off what he was going to say, and thought for a minute instead. "Did you try too soon? Were you ready?" "Of course she was ready," Stephen Thomas said, irritated. "What kind of a jerk do you think I am?" It annoyed him to have to ask for advice in the first place, but to have Zev act like a teenage sex therapist-"Were you ready?"