The whales encircled her, each great ebony body a shadow in the wavery light, the white patches glowing like Zev. The young diver accompanied her like a puppy, dashing ahead, spiraling around her, falling behind and speeding past.
The change in the current, the drop in water temperature, told her they had left the inlet.
They traveled for a long way. Except for Zev, the other divers formed an outer circle beyond her range of vision.
J.D. swam much more slowly than Zev, never mind the orcas. They moved at quarter speed to accommodate her.
Squeaks and clicks flowed through the water and through her body. She recognized the phrases of encouragement to very young whales. She managed to smile. But if she really were a young orca, an adult would be swimming close beside her, drawing her along within the pressure wave formed by its body in the water.
She struggled onward, resolute. Her legs began to ache.
She breaslstroked for a moment. That slowed her even farther. She kicked in the metabolic enhancer again, knowing she would pay for it tomorrow.
She wondered how far they had come, and where they were. Drifting upward, she broke the surface. The offshore fog-bank, a pretty white curtain, had moved in with a vengeance.
It flowed over the water like a second sea. J.D. could see nothing of the island, nothing but a few meters of ocean, no
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longer choppy but glassy calm. Even the dorsal fins were dim, imagined shadows in a distance impossible to estimate. A smooth wake of tiny parallel ripples angled across her. One of the orcas swam past, and out of sight.
She trod water. Uneasily, she circled. The view was the same in all directions: flat water, dense fog.
Surfacing had not restored her link with the information web. The contact, which diving always interfered with, re-ftised to re-form. Reflexively she looked up, as if she could see the electromagnetic radiation pouring out of the sky, somehow misdirected, and could call it to her. But the web remained silent.
One of the orcas surfaced beside her and blew, exhaling explosively and drawing in a deep breath. Its dorsal fin cut the fog in swirls. The whale raised its head above water and looked at her. Unlike ordinary humans, the orcas—and the divers—could see equally well in water and in air. It spoke to her in phrases beyond her vocabulary. She could recognize the tone. If she had been a young orca, or a diver child, the tone would have been patient. But she was an outsider, she was an adult, and she was tediously slow.
Orcas were easily bored.
J.D. let herself sink, wishing she had never surfaced. She tried to shake off fright. Nothing could hurt her, for she was with powerful predators who had no enemies. They themselves had no malice; she trusted the orcas. They could injure her or kill her without effort or consequence. For that reason she found herself able to place herself in their power equally without effort or fear.
The divers, however, were more mysterious. Essentially human, they retained human motives, human rationalization.
What if this is a test? she thought. What if they plan to bring me out here and leave me, to see if I can make my way back to shore by myself? Lots of cultures won't accept a new member without proof of the person's competence.
The loss of the link gained a stronger and more sinister significance. With it, she could start from the center of the Pacific, if she liked, and navigate to any shore within a meter's error. Without it, she was helpless and disoriented. Left alone in the fog, she might swim in circles as if she were walking in the desert.
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She struck out swimming.
Zev appeared before her and guided her in a slightly different direction. This drained the last of her confidence, because she thought she had resumed swimming in her original
direction.
J.D. spoke to Zev, awkwardly, with her arms and her body and vibrations from her throat, a sort of two-toned hum, telling him she was frightened and confused and tired. He encouraged her, and again she found herself surrounded by whale baby-talk. No explanations accompanied the encouragement, which quivered at the edge of impolite urgency.
J.D. swam on. She shivered, oblivious to another jolt from the metabolic enhancer.
The texture of the water changed. Abruptly the opaque depths turned translucent, transparent, as the sea bottom shelved toward land. Wavelets lapped softly at the precipitous rock sides of a tiny island.
The divers and the whales gathered in a sheltered cove.
The shore rose gently to tide pools. J.D. stroked gratefully into shallow, warm water. She stood, waist-deep, and pushed her mask to the lop of her head. Her legs trembled with fatigue. The lung stopped breathing for her and clung to her
back.
Beyond the tide pools, fresh water bubbled from a hot spring. It spilled into the salt water, billowing steam. The hot spring raised the temperature of the shallowest part of the cove. Within the steam, the ghostly shapes of divers lounged and played. The whales remained in the deeper, colder water.
J.D. knew Zev well, and she had spent time with the younger divers, the adventurous adolescents of the family.
She had met a few of the standoffish older divers, the adults. The youngest divers, children and babies, stayed close to a parent or to an auntie, whether diver or orca. Now here they all were, two dozen of them, newboms to mature adults, waiting for her.
Zev beckoned. J.D. followed.
"Mother," Zev said, "this is my friend J.D."
J.D. accepted the diver's gesture to join her, and sank onto the rough rock in the warm water.
"My name is Lykos," Zev's mother said.
"I'm honored to meet you," J.D. said.
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Zev resembled his mother closely, beyond the genetically engineered changes, common to all divers, of body type, dark
skin, and dark, large eyes. Lykos had a square, strong face and deepset eyes of a coppery brown. Her close-cropped curly hair was red-gold, her skin a deep mahogany. The other divers arrayed themselves around and behind her, watching J.D., content for the moment to let Lykos speak for them all.
A few drifted with only their heads out of water: intense faces haloed by bright hair of any shade from white through gold and auburn.
"Zev told you of our discussion."
J.D. glanced at Zev, wondering if he knew his mother knew he had spoken to J. D., and if she should admit it. He glanced at her sidelong, embarrassed, yet smiling.
"I could not keep it secret," he said.
"This is a flaw in Zev's character," Lykos said. "However, he is working to improve himself.'' She eased her criticism with a fond look.
"I didn't tell her—"
"I will tell her the rest," Lykos said, interrupting. "J.D., what Zev told you is true. This family of divers and orcas invites you to join us. Have you considered?"
"Yes," J.D. said. "And decided. But it frightens me. It would be . . ." She searched for words. Unable to think of anything strong enough, she ended up with a comment of complete inconsequentiality. "It will be a big change."
"And it is illegal."
"It is."
"Does this trouble you?" Lykos asked.
"It does," J.D. admitted. She had tried to persuade herself that no one would even notice, unless she went out of her way to make it public. Whether she could publish without declaring what she had done was another matter entirely. J.D. had never deliberately broken a law in her life, even an unnecessarily paternalistic one. She kept reminding herself that her action would affect no one but herself.
Lykos nodded, more to herself than to J.D. "Zev thought it might. He describes you as an honorable being."
"That's kind of him."
"He is perceptive."
J.D. felt the diver's gaze like a physical touch. Behind her,
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