They trod cold fires. Buildings and trees became mere cutouts from a child"s games, toy silhouettes against the night. Merced and Rachael had fallen well behind.
"How did you happen to get into peaceforcer work?" Cora asked Sam curiously. "You don"t strike me as the type."
"Meaning I fit the mold physically but not men- tally?" He grinned at her discomfort.
"I didn"t mean ..."
"Forget it. I"m used to it. I just drifted into it, I guess. Why do people become what they become?
Life twists and turns on picayune events."
"Well, I always wanted to be a marine biologist."
"And I always wanted to have it easy and be happy," he countered. "Not very elevated career goals, but satisfying ones. I was born and raised here on Cachalot. Didn"t have the apt.i.tude for science, and fishing, gathering, and mining were too much work. That left some kind of administrative post.
"I wasn"t much good with tapework, so when the
68 CACHALOT CACHALOT 69.
request was made for local peaceforcers, I joined up.
Hwoshien believes strongly in compromise. Well, if I have any talent, it seems to be the ability to get others to do just that. Which is another way of saying I"m very good at stopping fights before they get started.
"I guess I"ve reached my present position because I did my job, didn"t offend anyone or make too many mistakes. I also happen to be good at what"s necessary after compromise has failed."
"I know," Cora said. "I could tell that from the way you reacted to that toglut by the pier."
"Oh, a toglut is nothing." He spoke in an off-handed way that indicated he wasn"t boasting. "As I explained, they"re slow and generally inoffensive. Wait till we"re out on the open ocean. Away from Mou"anui. Cacha- lot"s predators have evolved in the most extensive oceanic environment in the Commonwealth. A mallost would have togluts for breakfast."
"I can"t wait," she told him honestly.
They had almost reached the looming shadow of the administrative dormitory. A few lights were visible within the structure, moth-eyes in the night. Some- where the somnolent hum of storage batteries taking over from the now useless photovoltaics sounded a counterpoint to the steady slapping of small waves against the distant beach.
"Wait^ second," Sam said.
Oh, oh ... Cora readied herself. What sort of line would he try? She doubted it would be very original.
Bless his gentle boyish soul, Sam didn"t seem the type.
But it would be a line nonetheless. Years had enabled her to a.s.semble a formidable a.r.s.enal of disarming responses. Because she liked him, she would opt for one of the milder disclaimers.
Instead of reaching for her with words or hands he knelt. One hand held a palmful of sand, the other worked at his utility belt. "Have a look." A small light winked on, ultraviolet. He thumbed a switch on the
side of the generator. The beam broadened slightly.
He turned it on the sand he held.
It was as if he had dipped his hand into the treasure chest of some ancient mogul or pirate. Under the ultra- violet beam the hexalate grains fluoresced brilliantly in a hundred shades, sawdust shaved from a rainbow.
The glow did not have the blinding prismatic harsh- ness created by sunlight. Instead, the colors were soft and rich, gentle on the eyes.
The light winked out, but to her delight the colors remained. The phosph.o.r.escence faded slowly, reluc- tantly. As it did so, he turned his hand and let the ribbon of tiny suns dribble from his palm.
"Oh, how beautiful, Sam! I expected a fairyland world, but not in such variety."
"Remember the predators." He chuckled. "Some of those "fairies" will gobble you down quick."
They moved on, stopped outside the dormitory.
She turned, looked up at him. "I enjoyed walking back with you."
"Thanks for letting me. You really couldn"t have gotten lost. You can"t do that on land on Cachalot."
She was waiting for the kiss, wondering if she would object, wondering if she would let him and like it, when he startled her by touching her on the nose with one finger.
"Good night, Cora Xamantina. See you ananahi "ia po"ipo"i. Tomorrow morning."
More puzzled than disappointed, she watched him lumber off into the night. Unlike the sands, he did not glow in the dark, though she felt that with the right kind of stimulus, he might.
Thoughts drifting, she made two wrong turns in the building before finding her room.
Her chamber was Spartan but impeccably clean, although bits of hexalate sand glittered in spots. She suspected one could be completely free of that sub- stance only on the open sea. The room contained a
70 CACHALOT.
bed, a small clothes closet, a couple of chairs woven from some local sea plant, and a matching mat of emerald-green growth and intricate handwork: off to one side was a small sanitary annex with amenities for cleaning and washing.
In one corner were three neatly placed cases, two large and one small. The seamless plastic responded to her electronically encoded key when she pressed it to the exterior of the seal-lock. From the second case she carefully removed her diving suit. Her second skin, really, considering the amount of time she had spent inside it. It consisted of a double layer of vir- tually untearable plastic alloy colored a watery blue- green. Between the two incredibly thin layers was a special thermosensitive gel that would keep the body warm to a depth of a hundred meters at one gravity.
She laid the suit neatly across one of the chairs.
It was unharmed, as always, but that never prevented her from going through the ritual check.
Next she withdrew the special face mask that covered her entire head and sealed itself to the body of the suit. In addition to examining the curved gla.s.s- alloy faceplate that permitted excellent peripheral vision, she checked the regulator on the gillsystem.
The backpack unit took oxygen directly from the water arid mixed it in proper proportion with nitro- helium from a second small tank.
The tiny container of concentrated liquid rations that would rest behind her left ear was full. She hooked it to the head mask, made sure the spigot feed inside the faceplate was clear. A spigot entering from the other side provided desalinated seawater for drinking.
Weighing very little, the complete ensemble per- mitted a human to exist underwater for several weeks without having to surface for food, water, or air. She set the mask alongside the suit, brought out the last item, which was not vital for survival but which made working underwater considerably more enjoyable.
71.
The belt contained packets that held a pressure- sensitive, liquid metal alloy. It was at its heaviest now, out of water, at one atmosphere. But as the diver wearing it descended, the weight of the metal decreased until, at a depth of ninety meters, well be- low normal diving limits, it achieved negative buoy- ancy. The diver could not descend farther without dropping the belt.
The check completed, Cora walked into the san- itary chamber and took a rapid shower. Then she retired, fell almost instantly into a dreamless sleep as soon as she decided what had been troubling her.
There were no wave sounds.
VI.
Cora had neutralized the window gla.s.s so that when the sun rose, it would not automatically be com- pensated for.^The light woke her.
Joints aching, she crawled from the bed. Her neck hurt from having slept in a single position too long.
She wondered why she hadn"t slept more easily.
Rachael was in the hallway, greeted her with a cheery "Good morning, Mother."