“You can't swim,” Lystra noted as if to herself.
“I can too!” he shouted. “I can swim all the way past Trollbone Point.”
Lystra's arm shot out and pulled him under, down toward the dim blueness. She's drowning me, his mind screamed. He pried at the claw
that crushed his wrist and stretched his arm till it would snap. Nothing could slow this relentless plunge, deeper with every kick of Lystra's powerful legs. A vise of water inexorably clamped Spinel's chest; any moment now, his life would spill out in a stream of froth.
Unaccountably, air burst around him. Spinel choked and splashed, and the sounds echoed hollowly. His arm struck something hardâthe roof of a clear, glassy bell that enclosed enough space for himself and Lystra to tread water underneath.
Lystra floated, her palms gliding in lazy circles. She waited for his breath to slow to normal. Then she turned to a rack of tools set in the bell. “Good,” she said, as she pulled a belt of tools around her waist. “Stay here till I'm done with the starworm.” She slipped out of the bell and spurted away, gliding in and out of the shadows cast by great branches above, until she reached â¦
A green swath stretched beyond, perhaps as long as a market square. Tiny Sharers hovered at its mouth, which sprouted a radial pattern of stalks with bulbous ends. The body was bound to the branches above it by a spidery mooring, except for the tail, which swung ponderously and spewed a white jet in a long, waving curve. Spinel watched the beast, awestruck. Could this be a “seaswallower?”
Â
The starworm was not a seaswallower, but a lesser cephaglobinid species. It fed on plankton and small fish filtered from the seawater pumping steadily through its gut. The stream from the gut of a score of starworms could propel a raft gradually, enough to keep the rafts together in a system of eight and to guide them into currents that did not veer too far poleward. To bind the starworms and steer their course, to clean their mouth filters and raise their hatchlingsâthese were jobs for Lystra and her sister wormrunners.
As Lystra approached, two wormrunners already circled above the swaying stalks of the starworm's mouth. Elonwy the Fearful was about Lystra's age, but Yinevra the Unforgiving was the senior wormrunner responsible for all twenty starworms. Yinevra grimaced and lifted an accusing hand to demand, “Why late today, Lystra?” That left a bitter taste in Lystra's mouth. The Valan creature had kept her back, for he could barely swim at all. Mercifully, Yinevra did not stop for a grilling. She was pale from need of oxygen, so she sped off to the airbell where Spinel had been left.
What Lystra was late for was the time for “farsharing,” the sending
of news by way of the starworm's song. The starworm produced its song in low-frequency sound waves from within its roiling gut. The form of the song could be directed to send news within hours all around the globe. Now, according to time-keeping clickflies, it was far-sharing hour for Raia-el.
Already Elonwy had prepared a special bait, a good-sized red squid at the end of a grappling pole. Lystra kept herself prudently outside the reach of its arms. Elonwy held out to her another pole, Lystra grasped it, and together they maneuvered the squid into the treacherous vortex of the starworm's maw. This sudden bulky mouthful slowed the pumping to a trickle, as the beast paused to ingest it.
Now Lystra could swim safely to the lip, for a few minutes at least. As she neared it, she averted her eyes from the throbbing tunnel inside, almost furtively, almost the same way she avoided certain mental tunnels of her past and future ⦠. She banished that thought and caught hold of one of the radial stalks of the “star” that rimmed the mouth. She sunk her feet into a valley between two of the stalks and steadied herself. Beyond, over the beast's hide, shafts of light flickered and danced through the crisscrossing cables that harnessed it fast to the raft. Those cables, made of coldstone, were gotten from the trader nowadays, Lystra reminded herself sourly. Were it up to her, thoughâ
Enough of that: she had to be ready for the mindguide, the instrument that would tell the starworm what pattern of groans to make. Did Elonwy have the mindguide? No, Elonwy was whitening as her breathmicrobes used up their oxygen, so she swam over to the airbell. Elonwy's pregnancy was showing now, in the soft round of her belly; a couple of months more, and the Gathering would see that she sat out awhile.
Yinevra came to the starworm. From her hand dangled the black, curling fingers of the mindguide. Yinevra's chin jutted critically, but Lystra would do this right. She took the mindguide and set its tendrils behind a radial stalk, just over the proper neural node. The mindguide would release a timed sequence of hormones, in a simple code. Simple messages would result:
Merwen the Impatient Home Safe with Valan Child. Strain
Ler
Is on Way to Aial-el.
This was a fungal strain to cure an outbreak of lethal fever; Usha had made the cure and sent a sample by clickfly to the lifeshaper of Aial-el. And lastly, to be repeated twice,
Motorboats Drown Starworm Song; Stop Use.
Yinevra had long suspected that Valan motors caused the troubling upsurge in ocean noise,
which at times shortened transmission range to only a few hundred kilometers. Now she was certain, and even Merwen had no answer to this.
The black tendrils of the mindguide had settled, and their hormones would take effect within half an hour. Everyone would have to surface before then, because the song of the starworm, though below the frequency range of human hearing, was so loud underwater that its power could kill. So Lystra went to the airbell for a quick gulp of air, took Spinel, and rushed him up to a raft branch before his miserable breath gave out.
In an instant Yinevra swung up beside her. Her inner eyelids retracted, releasing the pent-up fury in her eyes. Her foot scooped up water and showered Lystra. “Why late today? You're never late. You know it's not fair to the other rafts if we overrun our time. You know I have to get to the Gathering. And whatever did you bring that idle Valan creature for, to drain off an airbell all morning?” Yinevra pointedly kept her back to Spinel. Fine wrinkles spanned her scalp, though she still had the chest and arms of a veteran wormrunner. Yinevra the Unforgiving was even surer about Valans than Lystra was, and she was older than Merwen.
“I'm sorry about the airbell.” The pneumatophores that grew from it conducted air only so fast. “But I had to keep him from mischief,” Lystra added. “We're going to the trader. I thought you might like a look at him, after all the fuss.”
“A skinny runt, isn't he? Merwen thinks I'll take pity on him and forget how the traders drove my daughter mad.”
Lystra grew numb. She did not want to think about Yinevra's daughter.
“Yes,” said Yinevra, “I know your mother well. When will you take a selfname and join the Gathering? You of all sisters will add weight to the Doorclosersâ”
“No. I'm not ready.”
Don't ask me why,
she pleaded in silence.
Yinevra watched, her mouth twisting slowly. “Well, then. When you visit the trader, let him share ten lengths of cable. Several starworm moorings need repair.”
Lystra was dismayed. “So soon? He asked for a whole boatload of seasilk, the last time.”
“Bring medicines, then. Usha makes the best.”
Lystra flushed at this praise of her mothersister. “Usha came home thin as silkweed. She works herself to the bone, in any case.”
“If the starworms break loose now, we'll drift untilâ”
“Shora,
no!” In two months, before winter set in, seaswallowers would migrate southward. A ring of ravenous whirlpools would sweep from pole to pole. In the tropics, the ring would stretch thinnest, and that was where Raia-el must stay.
“Then hunt a shockwraith. Shockwraith sinews held starworms fast for millennia, before traders came.”
“Shockwraiths shared a harsher toll.” The scar across her mother's scalp had been left by a shockwraith, although Merwen had never shared the details with Lystra. An event over which Merwen could not weave words must be unspeakable indeed.
Yinevra gripped Lystra's chin, and her own jutted close. “My girl, you've said no five times in as many minutes and as many directions. Is that all the young are good for nowadays? When the time comes for Shora to choose, only two streams will flow: to close the Door, or die.”
SPINEL SHIVERED AND rubbed his palms, which were puckered from long immersion. The sun soon dried him except for his trunks, and those began to itch. One thought held him now: when he got back to the traders' raft, he would stay there, no matter what, until the next moonferry. He would do anything to get off this planet and back to Chrysoport, even if he had to spend the rest of his days chipping tesserae in his father's basement.
But first Lystra had to take him to the traderâif she ever meant to in the first place, which he doubted more than ever. He could take the boat himself, perhaps, though how would he navigate? These questions ran through his mind as he skipped down the raft branch after
Lystra. At the far end, just where the branches thinned out and dipped under, there was a boat similar at first glance to Merwen's. Spinel ran ahead and hopped into the stern. “Hey, where's the motor?” The sternpost was bare.
Lystra turned on him.
“I've
never used those noisy stone objects, and you can tell every trader in sight I said so.” She grasped a paddle and raised it so high he thought she would strike him. But the next instant, it plunged down at a raft branch. The boat shoved off gradually, loaded as it was with tied bundles of spun seasilk.
“I just asked,” Spinel said sullenly. “What'll you do, then? Row this thing out on the open sea?”
She tossed her head and laughed. “No, I'll fly away to the Stone Moon. I'll do that, one of these days,” she mused, half to herself. “And when I get there, Valan, you watch out.”
“Look, if you really hate the moontraders, why do you bother with them at all?”
“A good question.” Vengefully she shoved at the branch again. “I wish more of us were asking it. Ask Merwen: she was alive when the first traders came. But you must know for yourself, trader's brat.”
Blood rushed to his face. Spinel clenched his fists, leaned across the seasilk, and shouted, “I'm nobody's brat, I'm a stonecutter's son. I've got a decent father with a regular trade, which is more than
you
can say. None of you have any stonesigns; you're worse than beggars!”
Lystra eyed him coolly. “Only Valans consider begging a calling. What have
you
done, since you got here? Who's been at work all morning, and who will âpay' for your food?”
“I said, I want
nothing from you!
I'm going home.” He dove out and swam, with no idea where. Blindly he thrashed among the branches, heedless of the squid darting away or the jagged coral fans that loomed ahead without warning.
Within half a minute, something grabbed him from behind, digging into his shoulder. He choked and twisted around to fight it off. It was Lystra, who hoisted him roughly up a dry branch. Barnacles gouged his chest and arms, and blood trickled down; salt burned into the wounds.
“Sit still, for Shora's sake,” Lystra gasped, and her breasts rose and fell. “Why do you think I walked the branch, instead of swimming? Fleshborers nest here.”
Spinel looked down, and his scalp froze. The water churned with fleshborers, maddened by the blood scent, their jaws clicking shut just
above the surface before they coiled under again. Finding no prey, the creatures snapped at each other, and soon chopped lengths of fleshborer littered the surface like boiled sausage.
Spinel's stomach heaved, empty though it was. When Lystra got up again, he followed her very closely, back to the boat. He watched the shadows weave among her ribs, and he thought, She went in, to get me.
Â
Lystra was signaling with her fingers across the water. A glider squid rose from the depths and rolled over, exposing an owlish eye. From the boat, Lystra tossed something toward the squid, a mere sprinkling of powder, but the squid must have liked it. It came right up to the prow and let Lystra slip a harness on. The squid spurted ahead, and soon the boat sailed at a good clip, bouncing on the choppy waves.
They entered the traders' raft at a bay cut into the branched mesh, apparently for larger ships that docked on solid raft. Whitewashed concrete buildings clustered on the bay. The nearest one displayed the opal Hyalite sign above its door. “Hyaliteâthat's Lady Nisi's House,” said Spinel.
“Yes,” said Lystra. “The best of a bad lot. Nisi does reason with them, at times.” She unstrapped the squid and tossed it some more powder. “There, that's good, isn't it,” she crooned at the beast. “Just leave me my arm, thank you, old girl.” She tied the boat at the dock, jumped out, and headed for the Hyalite shop.
Inside, the linoleum cooled Spinel's feet, and a welcome blessing it was. Odors of hardware and amberscent mingled curiously. The shelves offered desultory stock: flashlights, kitchen gadgets, a whole row of cameras, plastic basins in a pyramid of sizes. But there, right next to the gadgets, gemstones spilled out in bins: garnets, topaz, onyx ⦠. The gems were unset and crudely polished, but he fingered them happily, savoring each taste of home. It was odd, though, for who would buy stones on Shora? Chrysolite, amberlite, emerald, sapphire â¦
Star sapphires. Spinel blinked and pulled back his hand. Starstones for sale, just like ordinary stone? No law forbade it, but even the most unbelieving Iridian would pause before wearing for mere decoration the sacred sign of a Spirit Caller.
“Help you, sir?” The proprietor leaned cheerfully on his elbows across the counter. He winked, and creases rippled from his lips.
“Those gems sell like a shot around here. Natives snap them up. You're a new face, son; trade or trawler?” He glanced at Spinel's chest, which was blood-streaked and, as ever, bare of a stonesign.
“Neither.” Spinel sighed. If he stayed on Shora, he'd never get a stonesign at all. But there was little chance of that. “You got any farm produce?”
“All you can eat, and not a week old.”
A week old, and he was used to the freshly plucked harvest in Chrysoport. Still, he was so hungry his mouth watered even at yellow tomatoes and wilted cabbage. At last he would get something to eat.
Â
Lystra was well acquainted with Kyril, the Hyalite trader, a thickset, phlegmatic fellow with the serenity of an anglerfish. Whatever else he was, he looked her in the eye every time, and for that she gave him credit.
Kyril turned from Spinel and smiled broadly at her. “Share the day, Lystra,” he said in her tongue. “That squid out thereâshe's a handsome beast.”
From the window, the glider squid could still be seen as it rocketed above the waves with its trailing jet, then dove once more. It was on the hunt, its appetite whetted by the taxing haul and by the special treats Lystra gave. “She's a strong one,” Lystra admitted. “And reliable; she never dives when in harness.”
“Handsome, for sure. You know, I could share something handsome for her. A collector I know would give anything; she's worth more than a dozen boatloads of seasilk.”
Lystra wrinkled her nose. “I doubt she would like to live on Valedon.”
Kyril chuckled. “How would you know, Lystra? Must everyone share your taste?”
“Of course not.” She switched to Valan and raised her voice. “This creature, for instance, can't wait to quit Shora.”
Spinel looked up. “Why shouldn't I? There's nothing for me here.”
“We'll sign you on,” Kyril offered. “Everyone's looking for help. You'll make your fortune.”
“Really?”
That took her aback. “Never mind. Merwen has adopted him, for much more important work. He's hungry. What he eats, I will pay for.”
At that, Spinel grabbed a loaf of bread and started to wolf it down.
Lystra plunked three coils of cable onto the counter.
Kyril nodded. “Payment in what? Redleaf? Medicine?”
“No, seasilk.”
“Hm, that makes ⦔ His eyes took on a guarded look.
“Price up again?”
“It's just a lot, for seasilk. Might run to three boatloads.”
She could not have heard correctly. “A boatload for each coil?”
“Steel's in short supply on Valedon. What can I tell you?”
The two of them stared, face to face. Lystra's anger swelled until it burst. “What's the use, if you can't even manage your own planet properly? Everything is plentiful the first time you share it, but once we come to need it, it vanishes.”
“Now that's unfair. Those roof panels stacked there in the corner have been dirt cheap for two years.”
“That's because all the rafts of Per-elion decided not to buy them. In system Wan-elion, the panels cost five times as much.”
“Supply and demand,” Kyril patiently explained. “If I gave away everything for nothing, I'd lose my shirt before sundown.”
“So what?”
Kyril appealed to Spinel. “See what I have to put up with? Don't I have needs too? You tell her.”
Spinel turned away and took another loaf of bread. For his part, he wanted nothing to do with Lystra's behavior. It was bad enough that she had crossed a Valan threshold unclothed, more shameless than a streetwalker, but her rudeness to the proprietor was simply uncalled for.
Lystra herself neither knew or cared what Spinel thought. “Kyril,” she said, “whatever
you need to live
, we will share until death. You have only to ask.”
“The House of Hyalite needs seasilk, to pay me good
solidi
, so my children can eat. Valedon needs steel; if I were to sell it all, here, the economy would collapse.”
“Then why did you bring it here in the first place? And why does it suddenly cost three times as much as before?”
Kyril shrugged. “What can I tell you? Demand fluctuates.”
Pity overcame her, pity for his cravenness and his childlike perceptions. If Merwen were here, she would have given the trader anything, Lystra thought, just out of pity. That was why Lystra insisted on going
herself, instead of Merwen. Yinevra would go, too, except for her daughter's condition.
Lystra leaned on the counter and faced him close. “I don't believe you, Kyril.” Her pulse raced. Had she told a Sharer,
“You share an untruth,”
months of unspeaking would result between them.
“He's right,” Spinel mumbled, his mouth full. “It's the Pyrrholite siegeâ”
“No, no, that's over now,” Kyril said quickly.
“Siege? What siege?” Lystra demanded.
“Pyrrhopolis,” said Spinel, “where they built the forbidden power station, to make their own firecrystals. The High Protector besieged it for months. Guns and planes and satellites that rain fireâa lot of steel goes into that stuff.”
Puzzled, Lystra said, “To besiege with witnessers is one thing, but to ârain fire'?” Whatever that was, it sounded irresponsible to her.
“It's to teach them a lesson.”
Then she remembered, and her flesh crawled. “So all our trading goes to help one set of Valan creatures share distress with others.” It revolted her, much as if a fleshborer had poked its head up and said, “Share the fun, Lystra.”
“Now; Lystra,” said Kyril, “you've got it all wrong. In fact, if the moontrade were more profitable there wouldn't even be a Pyrrholite campaign.”
Spinel's mouth hung open. “What do you mean?”
“Listen, son. The moontrade's been in a slump ever since the purple plague here six years ago; it just hasn't expanded fast enough. The great Houses had to make up their losses somehow. So they unloaded their steel and concrete in Pyrrhopolis, for the fusion plant, and the High Protector looked the other way. Once the war's on, they sell firewhips and airstormers, and pay tax to Iridis, and everyone's happy.”
“It can't be like that. The Patriarch wouldn't allow it.”
“That's how the world is. I tell you, straight; I'm not one to pretty it up for you. If you can't beat it, join it, I say. Lystraâif you need cash, why not sign on to one of the trawlers? They could use a strong hand like you. The pay's even better than mine.”
“And help you rake our rafts clean of fish?” She pushed the coiled cables aside. “Enough. NisiâLady Bereniceâis back, and she will deal with you.”
Kyril hesitated. “I'm sorry, sister, but the new policy is that we're not to listen to Lady Berenice.”
“What do you mean? What has she done to you?”
“Nothing, but she's not my supervisor. My apologies for being unable to serve you ⦔ His eyes shifted toward another customer who approached the counter.
It was Rilwen, Yinevra's daughter.
Lystra whitened at the fingertips. She leaned again on the counter to steady herself. Rilwen, whose love Lystra had shared since her sixteenth year, suffered from “stonesickness,” the inexplicable craving for those objects shaped by death.