Vubben—the g’Kek High Sage.
Worley, Jenin—part of Danel Ozawa’s expedition to the Gray Hills.
yee—an urrish male ejected from his pouch home by his former mate. Later “married” to the sooner girl Rety.
Zhaki—a male dolphin, spacer third class on Streaker.
Those who hunger after wisdom often seek it
in the highest heights, or profound depths.
Yet, marvels are found in shallow sites
where life starts, burgeons, and dies.
What pinnacle, or lofty mount,
offers lessons as poignant
as the flowing river—
a crashing reef—
or the grave?
— from a Buyur wall inscription,
found half-buried in a marsh
near Far Wet Sanctuary
INFINITY’S SHORE
Kaa
What strange fate brought me,
Fleeing maelstroms of winter,
Past five galaxies?
Only to find refuge,
On a forlorn planet (nude!)
In laminar luxury!
SO HE THOUGHT WHILE PERFORMING SWOOPING rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh.
Dappled sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flat-jawed fish, moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the instinctive urge to give chase.
Maybe later.
For now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on Oakka. There wasn’t enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter.
This sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the ship would give you a toxic dose of hard metals.
In contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on far-off Earth.
He tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne, safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe failed. One paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world.
Sound.
— a beating of tides rising up the continental shelf — a complex rhythm tugged by three moons, not one.
— an echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp texture.
— an occasional distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself.
— the return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways.
— above all, the engine hum just behind him … a cadence of machinery that had filled Kaa’s days and nights for five long years.
And now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty.
The voice chased Kaa like a fluttering, sonic conscience. Reluctantly, he swerved around to face the submarine Hikahi, improvised from ancient parts found strewn across this planet’s deep seafloor — a makeshift contraption that suited a crew of misfit fugitives. Clamshell doors closed ponderously, like the jaws of a huge carnivore, cycling to let others emerge in his wake … if he gave the all clear.
Kaa sent his Trinary reply, amplified by a saser unit plugged into his skull, behind his left eye.
His lungs were already making demands, so he obeyed instinct, flicking an upward spiral toward the glistening surface. Ready or not, Jijo, here I come!
He loved piercing the tense boundary of sky and sea, flying weightless for an instant, then broaching with a splash and spume of exhalation. Still, he hesitated before inhaling. Instruments predicted an Earthlike atmosphere, yet he felt a nervous tremor drawing breath.
If anything, the air tasted better than the water! Kaa whirled, thrashing his tail in exuberance, glad Lieutenant Tsh’t had let him volunteer for this — to be the first dolphin, the first Earthling, ever to swim this sweet, foreign sea.
Then his eye stroked a jagged, gray-brown line, spanning one horizon, very close.
The shore.
Mountains.
He stopped his gyre to stare at the nearby continent — inhabited, they now knew. But by whom?
There was not supposed to be any sapient life on Jijo.
Maybe they’re just hiding here, the way we are, from a hostile cosmos.
That was one theory.
At least they chose a pleasant world, he added, relishing the air, the water, and gorgeous ranks of cumulus hovering over a giant mountain. I wonder if the fish are good to eat.
Kaa winced at the lieutenant’s sarcasm. Hurriedly, he sent back pulsed waves.
It might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of chance and destiny, capricious Ifni, who always
