“Why does it keep doing that?” someone asked.
“Because it wants to,” said Xulai angrily. “Leave it alone.”
“Are we finished here?” someone asked.
“Just leave it alone where it is,” said Xulai, with what sounded like an enormous yawn. “I’ll let you know.” There was a considerable time of almost silence, broken by small sounds. Mop mop. Slosh. Splash. Mop.
A very tall woman in a white garment—in a very wet white garment—came from the inner room and sat down on the sofa Lok-i-xan had been occupying for some hours. She took a small bottle from a capacious and invisible pocket, removed the top, and drank from it. It did not look like water.
“Lok-i-xan?” she said wearily. “And her father? They didn’t stay?”
“No, they seemed somewhat . . . taken aback,” said Abasio politely. “May one ask what is going on?”
“What is going on is . . . you are a father,” the woman said. “My name is Tsu-tin. I am an obstetrician. I was privileged to be appointed by your . . . your wife’s grandfather. What would that be, in your language?”
“I’m not sure,” said Abasio. “I think it would depend upon the relationship. As of earlier this morning, I thought he was my friend. Under other conditions, he might be an old bastard.”
The woman’s mouth crooked very slightly. “Let us try to stay with the friend,” she suggested. “Though given the circumstances . . . Why don’t you sit down?”
“Why don’t you just let me go look?” he said.
“In a moment. We’re cleaning up.”
A very large splash came from the other room. Someone cursed, and someone else said, “Get the mop again.”
“My sons or daughters or both are causing some difficulty?” asked Abasio.
“You knew there was more than one?” she asked in surprise.
“I’m extrapolating from various comments you and your . . . assistants were making in there. Rather loudly.”
“Ah. Well, yes. Your son and daughter, or sons or daughters, whichever may prove to be the case, have caused some unforeseen difficulties.”
Thank heavens. Only two. “You don’t know if they’re male or female?”
He had said it before he thought. Well, how could one tell with an octopus? How in hell would a woman nurse an octopus? She couldn’t. Baby octopi would eat . . . fishes. No little cradle. Cradles. No little stuffed animals. What did one give a baby octopus for its birthday?
After a long silence she said thoughtfully, “I don’t suppose one would know male or female until puberty, no. At least, I wouldn’t know. Wasn’t trained to know. Someone might have been.” She took another little drink and stared at the wall.
Cephalopods didn’t have puberty. He sat down beside her. Things grew swimmy, insecure, and he felt himself teetering. The woman put her arm around him, saying, “Take a deep breath. Now another.”
The door opened. A large man stood there, carrying a sizeable bucket in each hand. The woman beside Abasio beckoned. The buckets approached. A baby head protruded from each, a human baby head, each with two little eyes that looked extremely alert. Abasio shook his own head, ordering his eyes to track, focus, behave. He leaned forward. Each baby head was attached to a baby neck, shoulders, chest, and . . . tail. Long, fishy tail. Kind of bluish. Perhaps the tail was actually split . . . leggishly. Hard to tell.
Tsu-tin said, “You have two lovely merbabies. Or mermaids, or mermen. Or one of each.”
He put his hands on the edges of the buckets, feeling he was about to faint. A tiny hand from one bucket grabbed a finger. Another hand from the other bucket did the same. The little heads went under the water. Gills quivered along the babies’ sides.
“Issums wussums cutest li’l fishies,” said the obstetrician, wiggling a forefinger under a little chin. “Isn’t ums li’l darlins.”
The little heads came out of the water. “Ga,” said one. “Ba,” said the other.
“Abasio,” cried Xulai’s voice in an annoyed tone. “Are you out there?”
“Would you mind babysitting for a moment?” said Abasio, lifting his hands and detaching his children with some difficulty. The little hands felt almost like tentacles, he didn’t say. “I need to go say . . . something to my wife.”
“Wuzzums uzzums,” said the obstetrician.
Abasio was already through the door. Xulai was lying in a clean bed, propped on a clean pillow, regarding him with an unreadable expression.
“Forgive me, please, if I misunderstood you,” said Xulai in a voice halfway between fury and relief. “Did you not say that the Sea People insisted we take a shape that was . . . I think you said ‘repugnant to us’ . . .”
“Repulsive,” he corrected.
“Because mankind had done them so much harm they would not accept us as sea creatures if we continued to look like people?”
“I was quoting the Sea King,” he said. “Very accurately.”
“I think you misunderstood him.”
“No, I think I understood him exactly. He told me the truth.”
“Tweetums, splishy, splashy. Wheee,” crowed the obstetrician from the next room.
“You’ve seen our . . . our children! That doctor out there! She’s cooing at them. They are not repugnant.”
“Repulsive.”
“That, either.”
“No. Darling, remember, the Sea King was talking to me. Well, to me and to you. He was talking about, ah . . . a proof of sincerity. Only humans who sincerely wanted to live as sea creatures should be allowed to have children who would be sea creatures. Actually, he never said what those children would look like.”
She lay back, yawned, tried to open her eyes all the way but did not succeed. “You mean, it only applies to the . . .”
“I’m guessing it was a kind of selection process. I think that’s the way he planned it. Or he and the Tingawans who were involved.”
“You mean it only applies to the first generation.” She lay there very quietly, her eyes shut, thinking it over.
It was time for him to kiss her, he felt sure. That would be appropriate. That and some comment about how . . . beautiful the children’s tails were. They really were handsome children. Of course, he couldn’t judge them from the waist down. He had no
