Abasio cried, “But, Precious Wind, the damned thing is intelligent! When it came back, it would have known your people had been there!”
She sighed wearily, wiping her face with her hand. “A dog is intelligent, Abasio. I can teach a dog or a wolf how to do things that involve running, leaping, biting, howling, hunting. I cannot teach a dog to strum the strings of an ondang or read a book. I can teach a dog with vocal cords to speak several words. Dogs have distinguished among spoken commands for millennia. Mimicry is not natural to them; once they have vocal cords, it comes to them. Each creature has to learn within its own limits.
“So does this creature. I’m sure it is able to choose intelligently among successful strategies for killing people, because killing is what it thinks about. It may even be able to use books to look up ways of finding and killing people. But our people don’t believe it can think about maintenance any more than a dog can decide to build a doghouse. Dig a den, yes. Build a doghouse, no. We left the place absolutely undisturbed, the dust untracked, no footprints, no smell of our being there. We wore special suits. The people who built the creature were as single-minded as the thing itself. They wanted to kill everyone who did not believe what they believed. The creature has no thoughts or memories that are unrelated to that purpose. Its program tells it to find things to kill; kill until it needs maintenance; go get maintenance; find something to kill again.”
“So when it gets hungry it goes home.”
“Yes. When it gets really hungry, it goes home. It inserts a new tube into the maintainer; it gets inside, closes the maintainer, and all is taken care of. While it is being fed, it is also clothed and repaired as necessary.”
Abasio shook his head, hating the entire subject. “So on the basis of assumptions that Alicia shed blood on it to begin with and that the thing still has blood on it, we’re ready to risk Xulai’s life.”
“We are taking every precaution, Abasio.”
“Which you won’t tell any of us about.”
“That’s right. You’ll have to trust me and those who advise me.”
“Where Xulai is concerned, I really don’t trust anyone.” He didn’t. Abasio confessed to himself that he was in a mood. He had lost one beloved. He felt that he had spent half his life grieving. He was in a mood not to lose another and was growing increasingly afraid that it was fated to happen just as it had been fated that dreadful time before.
Xulai, meantime, had been so preoccupied with all the preparations that they were several days into the voyage before she confessed to Precious Wind it had occurred to her she might be pregnant.
“You’re what?” Precious Wind snarled.
“Well, you don’t need to sound like that!”
Precious Wind ground her teeth together. “No. Quite right. I needn’t. It’s just that, I hadn’t, we hadn’t considered that.”
“Oh, for all that’s sanctified, Precious Wind, you had to have considered that! It’s the reason for the whole thing, isn’t it? Aren’t I supposed to have children? Aren’t all of us sea-egg people supposed to have children?”
“How long?” demanded Precious Wind. “Before Abasio was given the sea egg, or after?”
Xulai shut her mouth and became very quiet, finally replying, “I’m not sure.”
“When did he get the sea egg? How long ago?”
Again silence. “I’m not sure.”
“Which is why I was exploding. If you got pregnant before, your child will not be a changer. If you got pregnant after, your child will be a changer. I presumed . . . I thought . . .”
“Well, all of you people who brought me up presumed entirely too much. Not one of you ever said a word about it. Not you. Not Oldwife. Not Nettie.”
“We assumed you realized . . .”
“And how was I supposed to realize anything! It’s customary to tell people things you want them to realize. We don’t pick up tactical information through our skins!”
Precious Wind went into her cabin and shut the door. Xulai went into the one she shared with Abasio and broke into tears, from which he rescued her some time later by telling her it did not matter.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” she sobbed.
“I mean it doesn’t matter,” he said, patting her on the back. “Your first child, our first child, sea fertile or not, will live out his or her lifespan long before the waters’ rising covers the earth. Our subsequent child or children will definitely be changers. If our first child is not, when he or she grows up you can give him or her a sea egg and his or her lover a sea egg. Their children, our grandchildren, will be changers. At this juncture, now, today, it makes no difference, therefore it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” shouted Precious Wind when Abasio went to discuss the matter with her.
He explained. He concluded by saying, “Since you’re asking her to risk her life to help trap the monster, I think it would be very nice of you not to yell at her. It would also make my life much easier.”
Precious Wind scowled. “We’re taking every precaution. When we made the plan, we didn’t know she was—”
“Your knowing would not have made any difference,” said Abasio forbiddingly. “You would have had to risk her anyhow. So it doesn’t matter. You can’t Whifflepop it into something else so it won’t Gloop. No, don’t ask!”
The days at sea passed in a seemingly unending procession. Precious Wind spent most of the daylight hours
