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Mustapha Ali sat on the end of Rorqual Towne

and was not seasick. There was nothing any save an

outsider would have found remarkable in this. Mus-

tapha had lived all his long life on Cachalot, and those

who are bom to that world know less of seasickness

than a worm does of Andromeda. All born on Cacha-

lot rest in two cradles: their nursery, and the greater

nursery of the all-encompassing Mother Ocean. Those

who arrived on Cachalot from other worlds did not

long remain if they proved susceptible to motion sick-

ness.

 

It was a great change, wrought by history and ac-

cident, Mustapha thought as he let his burl-dark legs

dangle over the side of the dock. They moved a meter

or so above the deep green-black water. His ancestors

had come from a high, dry section of Earth, where the

sea was only a tale told to wide-eyed children. And

here he lived, where most of the land was imported.

 

His ancestors had been great players of the game.

That was his only regret, not being able to carry on the

tradition of the game. For where on Cachalot could

one find fifty fine horsemen and a dead goat? Mus-

tapha had settled for being a champion water polo

player, having mastered that game and its many local

variants in his youth. Compared with the game of his

forebears, all had been gentle and undemanding.

 

 

 

 

2           CACHALOT

 

Now he was reduced to experiencing less strenuous

pleasures, but he was not unhappy. The old-fashioned

fishing pole he extended over the water had been hand-

wrought in his spare time from a single piece of broad-

cast antenna. A line played out through the notch cut

in the far end, vanished beneath the surface below the

dock. The antenna had once served to seek out invis-

ible words from across the sky and water. Now it

helped him find small, tasty fish at far shorter distances.

 

Mustapha glanced at the clouds writhing overhead,

winced when a drop of rain caught him in the eye. The

possible storm did not appear heavy. As always, the

sky looked more threatening than it would eventually

prove to be. Thunder blustered and echoed, but did

not dislodge the elderly fisherman from his place.

 

Behind him the town of Rorqual rested stolidly on

the surface. The nearest actual land, the Swinburne

Shoals, lay thirty meters beneath. For all that, the town

sat motionless on the sea. A vast array of centerboards

and crossboards and complex counterjets held it steady

against the rising chop. Held it steady so as to provide

its inhabitants with a semblance of stability, to provide

old Mustapha with a safe place to fish.

 

The dock was empty now, the catcherboats and

gatherers out working. The long stretch of unsinkable

gray polymer disappeared beneath a warehouse, the

dock being only one of dozens of such supports for the

town.

 

But there was no counterjet or centerboard to hold

the dock completely motionless. Four meters wide and

equally thick, it bobbed gently to the natural rhythm

of the sea. That was why Mustapha chose to fish from

the dock's end instead of from one of the more stable

outer streets of the town. When he was playing with

the ocean and its occupants, he preferred the feel of

their environment. It was a cadence, a viscous march

that was as much a part of his life as his own heart-

beat.

 

CACHALOT           3

 

The rain began to pelt him, running down his long

white hair. He ignored it. The inhabitants of Cachalot's

floating towns had water next to their skin as often as

air. Here near the equator the fat drops were warm,

almost hot on his bare upper chest. They rolled down

from his bald forehead and itched in his drooping mus-

tache.

 

The pole communicated with his fingers. He lifted it.

A small yellow fish wriggled attractively on the hook,

its four blue eyes staring dully into the unfamiliar me-

dium in which it now found itself.

 

Mustapha debated whether to unhook it, decided

the fish would serve him better as bait for larger game.

He let the fresh catch drop back into the water. An

electronic caller would have drawn more food fish than

he could have carried, but such a device would have

seemed incongruous functioning in tandem with the

hook and line. Mustapha enjoyed fishing in the tradi-

tional way. He did not fish for food, but for life.

 

An occasional flash of awkward lightning illuminated

the dark underbelly of the storm, forming drainage sys-

tems in the sky. The flare made candle flames of the

wave crests. He knew there was more heat than fury in

the discharges. Then" frequency told him the storm

would not last long. Nor was it the season of the heavy

rains.

 

Occasional drops continued to wet him. He was

alone on the dock. Thirty minutes, he thought, and the

sun will be out again. No more than that. Perhaps then

I will have more luck.

 

So he stayed there in his shorts and mustache and

waited patiently for a bite. Some thought the pose and

activity undignified for the town's computer-planner

emeritus, but that did not bother Mustapha. He was

wise enough to know that madness and old age excuse

a multitude of eccentricities, and he had something of

both.

 

A few deserted gathering ships, sleek vessels wide of

 

 

 

 

4           CACHALOT

 

beam, were secured two docks away from him. A cou-

ple of magnetically anchored skimmers bobbed off to

his right. Their crews would be on their week of off-

duty, he reflected, home with family or carousing con-

tentedly in the town's relaxation center.

 

An affectionate but uncompromising type, Mustapha

in his early years had tried life with two different

women. They had left more scars on him than all the

carnivores he had battled in the name of increasing

the town's catch.

 

His reverie was interrupted by a new, stronger tug

at the line. His attention focused on where it inter-

sected the surface. The tug came again, insistent, and

the antenna pole curved seaward in a wide arc, its far

end pointing like a hunting dog down into the water.

 

Mustapha held tight to the metal pole, began crank-

ing the homemade reel. There was a lot of line, and it

was behaving oddly. It was almost as if something were

entangled in the line itself, not fighting the grip of the

hook.

 

A shape was barely visible down in the dark water.

Whatever it was, it was moving very quickly. It came

nearer, growing until it was altogether too large. The

old man's eyes grew wide above the gray mustache.

He flung away the pole and the laboriously fashioned

reel. The rod bounced once on the end of the bobbing

pier before tumbling into the water.

 

Mustapha ignored it as he ran toward the town. His

raised voice was matched by the sudden cry of the

town's defense sirens. He did not make it beyond the

end of the pier. As it turned out, it would not have

made any difference if he had.

 

Two days later the first of Rorqual Towne's wander-

ing fisherfleet returned, a gatherer loaded several heads

high with the magical Coreen plant and many crates of

sleset-of-the-pennanent-spice. The wealth the cargo

represented was now rendered meaningless to the men

 

CACHALOT           5

 

and women of the ship's crew by what they did not

find.

 

Though they crossed and recrossed anxiously and

tearfully above Swinburne Shoals, they found no sign

of Mustapha Ali. Nor did they find their families or

sweethearts, not a single one of the eight hundred in-

habitants of Rorqual Towne.

 

Shattered bits of household goods, a few scraps of

clothing, fragments of homes, and pieces of families

mixed in with chunks of gray-white eggshell polymer,

were all that remained of the town. These, an engima,

and the memory of once happy lives.

 

And for some on the woe-laden boat, the worst of it

was the knowledge that this was not the first time . . .

 

Far, far above the scrap of green sea once occupied

by Rorqual Towne, a vast, quiet shape rested silently

in a much more diffuse ocean. The occupants of the

bulbous metal form were divorced by time and dis-

tance from that oceanic tragedy and its cousins.

 

A comparatively tiny, sharp shadow of the gleaming

hulk detached itself from the great stem and dropped

like a silver leaf toward the atmospheric sea immedi-

ately below. Though it displayed the motions normally

indicative of life, the shadow was but a dead thing

that served to convoy the living, a shuttlecraft falling

from the KK drive transport that dwarfed it like a

worker termite leaving its queen.

 

The argent arrowhead shape turned slightly. Its rear

exuded puffs of white, and the craft began to drop

more rapidly, more confidently, toward the world be-

low, a world of all adamantine blue-white, a great

azurite globe laced with a delicate matrix of cloud.

 

A full complement of twelve passengers stared out

the shuttle's ports as the vessel curved into its approach

pattern. Some stared at the nearing surface expectantly,

thoughts of incipient fortune percolating through their

minds. Others were more relaxed. These were the re-

 

 

 

 

6           CACHALOT

 

turning inhabitants, sick of space and land, anxious

once more to be on the waters. A few regarded the

growing sphere with neither anticipation nor greed.

They were full of the tales of the strange life and

beauty that slid tantalizingly through the planetary

ocean.

 

Only one stared fixedly at the surface with the gaze

of a first-time lover, youthful exhilaration mixing with

the calm detachment of the mature scientist. Cora

Xamantina kept her nose pressed against the port. An

air release below prevented her breath from fogging it.

 

Intense reflected light from Cachalot's star made her

obsidian skin appear polished behind the glassalloy. It

shone on the high cheekbones that hinted at Amerind

heritage, on the delicate features almost eclipsed by

those protruding structures. Only the vast black eyes,

coins of the night, stood out in that heart-shaped face.

They darted excitedly from one section of the globe to

another. Her hair, tied in a single thick braid that ran

to her waist, swung like a pendulum with her move-

ments.

 

Physically Cora Xamantina was in her midforties.

Mentally she was somewhat older. Emotionally she

was aged. She was no taller than an average adolescent

and slim to the point of boyishness. A surprisingly deep

voice, coupled with a vivacity that was anything but

matronly, was all that kept her from being mistaken

for a child.

 

Even when she was quiet, as she was now, her hands

and shoulders seemed always in motion, her body lan-

guage elegant and personal. She came from stock that

included both slaver and slave, both of whose destinies

had been molded and sacrificed to the recovery of the

sap of a certain tree. Slavers and slaves were part of

history long past now. For the most part, sadly, so

were the trees.

 

She commented frequently on the beauty of the

world they were steadily approaching. Her descriptions

 

 

 

 

CACHALOT           7

 

were intended for the younger woman seated next to

her. For the most part, they were accepted with an air

of helpless resignation by the taller, far more volup-

tuous shadow of herself. Where Cora's movements

were frequent and full of nervous energy, those of the

younger woman were all languorous stretchings and

physical sighs. She cradled a peculiar and very special

musical instrument in her arms and made no attempt to

appear anything other than bored.

 

"Isn't it beautiful, Rachael?" Cora leaned back in

her deceleration lounge. "Here—lean over and you

can see, too." The enervated siren made no move to

peer outward. "Don't you want to see? We're going to

be living down there, you know."

 

"Only temporarily." She sighed tiredly. "I know

what Cachalot looks like. Mother. God knows how

many tapes of it you've made me study since you found

out we were being assigned there. Maybe I have got a

year's work left to finish at the Institute, but I still

know how to do homework." Her eyes turned to

study the narrow aisle running down the center of

the shuttle. "The sooner we get this over with, the

sooner we can get back to Terra and the better I'll

like it!"

 

"Is that all you can think of to say, girl? We're not

even down yet and already you can't wait to leave?"

 

"Mother ... please!" It was a warning.

 

"All right." Cora made calming gestures with man-

nequin hands, the long fingers fluttering restrainingly.

"I'm not asking for commitment until we've been

down there for a while. You're only my special assist-

ant on this assignment, just as it says in the directive.

The fact that you're also my daughter is incidental."

 

"Fine. Suits me fine."

 

"Just try to keep an open mind, that's all."

 

"I'll try. Mother. I've said that for six years now.

Another few months seems fair."

 

"Good. That's all I ask." Cora turned her attention

 

8           CACHALOT

 

back to the port, the view drawing her insistently,

soothing her, massaging away the concern she felt for

 

her daughter's future. And the guilt.

 

She had been pushing, cajoling, Rachael for three

years of advanced work in extramarine biology. The

girl's reports were good, her work was good—dammit,

she was good! She has all the tools, Cora thought.

More than I do, and without bragging, that's saying

something. She lacks only one thing, a single ingredi-

ent that keeps her from embarking on a brilliant career

 

in the same field as mine: enthusiasm.

 

Cora had gotten that from Silvio. Ah, Silvio . . .

"Keep an open mind, Cora," he had always told her.

And she had kept an open mind. She had kept it so

open that she lost him to another woman. To a string

of other women. And then be had died, his enthusi-

asm for life and loving having proved incapable of fi-

nally saving him.

 

No, she told herself firmly. He lost me. Not the

 

other way around. She still missed him, from tune to

time. Brilliant he had not been. Nor had he been es-

pecially handsome, or rich, or a sexual magician. What

he had been, she thought, startled at the sudden knot

that had formed in her chest, was enthusiastic. About

everything. And comfortable. He had been oh so

comfortable. Like her battered old Nymph under-

water camera, the fraying Elatridez Encyclopedia of

Commonwealth Marine Life, the voodoo necklace her

great-grandmother had given her on her second birth-

day—which she still wore, incongruously, around her

 

neck—Silvio had been comfortable.

 

She missed having him around, just as she would

have missed the encyclopedia or the necklace. Lots of

other women probably missed him also. She had kept

an open mind, though. Each time. Until after Rachael

was bom. The funny thing was, Silvio never truly un-

derstood the reason behind her fury. He liked everyone

and everything—too much. But then he had died. The

 

CACHALOT            9

 

hurt had died with him. Now she was only occasionally

plagued by a hurt of a different kind.

 

As it kissed the outer fringe of atmosphere, the shut-

tle lurched slightly. Below was the culmination of a

dream, of twenty years' hard work. She had performed

well for the various companies that had employed

her, even better when the government services called

on her expertise. Twenty years of choosing exploitable

salt domes. A year on the anthology of poisonous

Riviera system marine life. Four years of arduous

work among the seallike natives of Largesse, then back

to still more dull, boring government research. Always

she had kept up with the latest techniques, the latest

...