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The image showed she was climbing out of the hoversled by my home, proper mobility aids clasped in her firm digits and wrapped around her forearms. She manoeuvred them as if they were new. I couldn’t make out the detail of her expression, but she lifted one hand in a strange motion, then touched her chest in farewell to whoever had driven the hoversled.

She was back. On my beach. In my domain.

The tags I’d been checking teetered in my digits, my suckers forgetting to hold them, as the holoalarm switched off. The quiet reverberation of the sea suddenly felt agonisingly crushing without her. Tags forgotten, I turned and made my way to the water’s entrance.

I’d never been a speed swimmer, better built for endurance than moving swiftly. But today…

I’d felt the Call. I hadn’t known it, but I’d felt it anyway, the kick of my pulse, the agitation, the urge todo,the peace once the path was begun. It had been so many years since I’d felt that gnawing uncertainty I hadn’t even recognised it.

The beach felt like such a long way away, but when I broke the surface of the sea she was there. She’d shed the dark, heavy clothes she’d landed in for the pale, form-fitting, robust garb preferred by soft-skinned beings. Her brown hair was piled atop her head and clasped in an unusual fashion. There was colour in her cheeks, and happiness in her eyes.

“I perceive you have a net to restoration,” she said.

I slowed, though my heart kept racing toward her. She’d heard part of the Call. That was enough, for now. “I do.” Some bags sat by my home and I forced myself to settle. “I’ll find you somewhere for your things.”

She glanced back where I indicated. “Oh, that’s to haul down to the science room with us. It’s for the nets. Some is entire, if you want to start hanging it where you’ve gaps.”

My mouth went dry. I’d been set to have it more or less complete by the twomoon rise, but it wouldn’t have been done as effectively as I would’ve liked.

“I cannot swim well as yet,” she said, and waved a hand at where a standardised dark purple wrap encased her leg in a thin layer of what was essentially Volett. It made folks feel good, to think medicine had advanced so far. I missed the big leaves against the dramatic curve of her legs, but now I could see the ripples in her thighs, like the marks the tide left on the sand. My suckers latched onto my own thighs for lack of anything else to hold.

“Irosabsuul?” And her lips moved in perfect time with the sounds that fell from her lips.

My name—myrealname—on her tongue made my fins flare and the water tangled around my feet like I was an overexcited fingerling. She’d learned my name. She’d disconnected the translator, and learned how to make the sounds in my language. She’d gone to all that effortto learn my name.“Yes?” I managed, somehow.

“I enquired if you can take me and the equipment submerged at the same period, or if I should delay.”

The sun tossed its reflection back at me and the waves tugged at our feet, trying to draw us in.

She’d learned how to say my name.

“I can take you and the bags,” I said, hoarsely. I could’ve taken the entire city, in that moment. “I’m happy you came back.”

Maybe the translator did something strange to my words, or maybe she felt as lightheaded as I did, because she laughed. The sound was like the rushing of Heartfins through the great Volett underwater forests and my heart sat brightly within me.

Questions poured through my mind, and they made no sense. I knew what she’d seen and experienced. I knew she’d come back to answer the Call. What I didn’t know was how she felt about it, how it had looked from behind her eyes. She collapsed the mobility aids and hooked their clasps to the standard issue belt she wore around her hips. I hurried to get the bags.

“How drives the preparation?” she asked me.

“Well.” Joy shimmered in me as she continued to look at me expectantly. “Most of the injured Heartfins are ready to be released come migration,” I said, because she was genuinely interested. “The weather has been perfect. I was low on tags for the new fish this twomoon, but the drop came earlier today.”

“Why do we label them?” she asked, as I secured both bags over one shoulder and reached for her. “You identify where they travel, don’t you? You trail their bioresonance?”

My suckers were flexing before she was even within reach and I drew a slow breath. She was here for the nets.We.The word leapt out at me. She slipped into my hold as if she’d never left. “I’m tagging family groups to ensure a healthy diversity. We don’t trace individuals’ paths. That wouldn’t be efficient.”

She softened, letting me take her weight and breathing air deeply into her surface-loving lungs, the picture of comfort in my hold.

chapterseven

eve

The chancesof the council who ran this belt of planets being truly benevolent had seemed pretty slim to me, but they’d looked after me. I had my own apartment, free food and medical care, basic clothing, and training in anything I could want to learn. I couldn’t see the cost to anyone or anything…and I’d looked.

The weight of Irosabsuul’s eyes on me made me smile. I wasn’t buying the whole fate schtick, but if I was in a fish cult, at least it seemed to be based on helping people find their joy.

“How did you locate the Refugee Service?” he asked me, under the soft glow of the mosses that covered the roof of the underwater cavern.

Locate? Find.“They didn’t have much sense of humour, but they were okay.” The whole universal translator killed wordplay. And then sometimes raised it from the dead. I gave the rope an absent flick to unspool some more, feeding it into the net I was weaving with the new, softer, silvery rope. It was a gazillion times better than whatever trashy shit he’d had on hand. Watching all their informational projection video things had been a lot less annoying once I realised they wouldn’t be upset if I wove while I watched.