46
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,
4 8 vonda N. Mdntyre
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
