the orcas hovered at the edge of the shallows. They, too, watched and listened.
"We are also honorable beings, I think," Lykos said. "I must not permit you to accept without telling you everything that is involved."
"What do you mean?"
"Before I speak, I must ask you to promise not to repeat what I say. To anyone."
Her voice and her expression were serious. The other divers waited, listening, intent on J.D.'s reply. Even the orcas stopped spouting and ruining the water with their nippers and flukes.
J.D. hesitated. She was not in the habit of breaking confidences- But Lykos was so serious-
"I promise," she said. She sounded more confident than she felt. She had thought the decision was hers alone, but the divers could refuse to accept her if they thought she did not trust them, if she made it impossible for them to trust her.
' 'You are aware of... increasing tensions between human countries."
"The permafrost," J.D. said.
"I do not understand—?"
"They used to call it the cold war—hostility, aggression, but no direct physical attack of armies. Now, there still isn't any shooting war, but the hostility is so cold and so hard it never thaws. Permafrost."
Lykos nodded. "I see. It is a good metaphor. But not, perhaps, eternal."
"It's better than the alternative,"
"There are two alternatives. The other is peace. You are correct, though, in that the most preferred alternative is the least likely. I think it is possible that the worst possibility may be provoked."
A psychic chill replaced the comfortable warmth that had dispersed the physical chill of J.D.'s body. She waited in silence for Lykos to continue.
"We are in an unusual position with regard to your government," Lykos said. "They do not approve of us, yet they permit us to cross freely over the boundary of their country;
they have set aside a portion of wilderness within which no ordinary human may travel without our invitation and per-
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mission. They are willing to expend resources to maintain this prohibition. They have expended other resources on us.
"Now," she said, "they claim us as their debtors, and demand repayment."
"Repayment! What do they want?"
"They want us to spy."
"But . . . what about the treaty?" "They speak of setting it aside."
"Can they do that?"
"Can they be prevented from doing it?"
"I ... I don't know." J.D. thought: I guess I can't blame the military for wanting help against the Mideast Sweep.
"We are much less detectable than mechanical devices,"
Lykos said. "We are also more vulnerable. And ... I think the demands would soon include other tasks than spying."
"What are you going to do?"
"We do not wish to spy."
"I don't blame you. It's terrifying! I wouldn't . . ." She stopped. "But I would have to, wouldn't I? That's why you're telling me this, isn't it? So I'll know what I'll have to do if I accept your invitation." She shivered. J.D. thought of herself as having less than the average amount of bravery, and doubted she would make much success of spying.
"We do not intend to comply with the demands. We will not comply. We do not believe in boundaries, or hostilities between intelligent beings- However, we must take the demands seriously. Your government may rescind our right to live here, they may interfere with our research." Lykos gestured around her, at the beautiful island and the sky and the water. "We have accepted the boundary of the wilderness, though we never learned to like it. We do think of this territory as our home. In order to resolve our problems, we must give it up. We will travel north to Canada. We will not be able to come back. That is what you must know." She paused.
"Soon the government will demand that we act—"
Oh, no, J.D. thought. This is all my fault. It's my publications that brought this on the divers! I described their abilities, their incredible stamina and speed, their knowledge of coastal geography . . .
"Lykos, stop it, please! Don't tell me any more. I'm sorry,
I didn't realize—I shouldn't have let you tell me this much."
5 0 vonda N. Mdntyre
Lykos stopped. Zev splashed to J.D.'s side, distressed by her fear. He stroked her arm.
"J.D., what is wrong? It will be exciting!"
"Zev, I'm sorry . . . Lykos, I said I wouldn't tell, and I'll do my best not to—not to tell anything more about youl But it may be too late. If you resist, there's no telling how our government will react, much less the Sweep. You'll be fugitives, unprotected—you must have some idea of the power you'll be opposing."
"I think we have no choice, J.D. It is true that I cannot see all the implications of our plan. Your knowledge of the land world is one of the reasons—though not the only 'one—
we asked you to join us."
"I can't," J.D. said, her voice fiat with pain and disappointment and guilt. "I thought I could, but I can't- I'd be more of a danger to you than a help.''
"Yet you know the government will react unfavorably, perhaps even behave badly, if we act."
"But that's obvious," J.D. said. "They wouldn't have any choice."
"It is not obvious to me. Nor is it obvious why the Mideast Sweep would have any interest in us at all."
The chill that centered in J.D.'s spine, just behind her heart, had nothing to do with wind or water or waves. She had to stop talking with Lykos before she found out more things that could injure the divers if she were compelled to say what she knew. But they accepted her, and she admired them, and she wanted to warn them.
"If you said publicly your reasons for rebelling, the Mideast Sweep would see that you might be a threat against them.
I don't think it would matter that you'd chosen not to be.
Maybe you'd change your mind, or maybe you'd be forced to act against them. You wouldn't be safe in the open sea."
Lykos placed her hand flat on the water, swimming webs spread, and thoughtfully watched her hand rise and fall, tilt and rock with the motion of the wavelets. J.D. blinked back sudden tears.
"We understood that we would not be safe if we agreed.
No one suggested we would not be safe if we refused."
"I wish I were wrong," J-D. said. "But I don't think I am." She had watched the rising level of paranoia in her own
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country. She feared it. And she knew that in the Sweep, the third of the world that was closed and suspicious, the paranoia was even stronger.
One of the orcas spouted suddenly behind her. It articulated a train of clicks that she could both hear as sound and feel as vibration. The other divers nodded and murmured.
"You are correct," one of the other divers said. "You have made an observation that is obvious only after it is made."
"It is true," Lykos said. "J.D., please join us. We have the facilities to support your change. You would be welcome with us, and you would be valuable. You might make our survival possible."
J.D. shook her head. "I can't." Water splashed as she rose. "You don't understand, this is all my fault."
Lykos and Zev and the other divers gazed at her, bemused, not yet comprehending.
J.D. was afraid to remain, to see, inevitably, the change in the divers' feelings about her. She was afraid to see the look of pain and betrayal in Zev's face when he understood what she had done. And she was perversely angry at the divers for waiting until a crisis to offer their invitation.
She turned and plunged between two orcas, dragged her mask down over her eyes and nose, and hit the boundary between warm spring and frigid sea. She swam into the tide.
Soon she had left the small harbor behind. Every shadow of a ripple through the water startled her, though she knew that the divers would not force her to return against her will.
As she swam she tried to clear her faceplate. Only after she failed did she realize she was crying. She stopped swimming, let herself rise to the surface, and pulled off the mask. It was hard to tread water while she was crying. She struggled to get herself under control. Blinking away the tears, she ducked her face into the water and shook her head.