A bright line of fire struck across the sky, then died away. A new tharm perhaps. Not Kerrick’s, he hoped that it was not Kerrick’s.

Here, just beyond the breaking waves, was a very satisfying place to be. Vaintè floated with her body submerged, her head above the water. The waves rose and fell under her with an easy rolling motion, marching in from the ocean in steady rows. Lifting her, passing on, curling and crashing onto the sand in a surge of white foam. When the waves rose the highest she looked towards the shore and could see beyond the green wall of the jungle to a row of gray mountains far inland. Had she seen them before? She could not remember; it did not matter. She opened her nose flaps and blew them clear of water, inhaled again and again. The transparent membranes slid over her eyes as she slipped under the water, dived deep.

Deeper and deeper until the water darkened and the surface was a distant glitter high above her. She was a strong swimmer now, almost a part of the underwater world. The seaweed beds were just below her, bowing and swaying in the undercurrents from the shore. Small fish sheltered here, darting for safety as she moved towards them. They were not worth pursuing. Ahead she saw something better, a large school of flat, multicolored fish moving like an underwater rainbow. Vaintè rolled over and kicked in their direction, arms extended, her tail and legs moving together to drive her forward.

Dark forms arrowed down before her, she twisted aside; she was not the only one to see the fish. More than once she had been pursued by large predators and had to escape by swimming ashore. Were these the same? No, they were smaller and more numerous and somehow familiar. For too long now she had existed in a timeless state, seeing but not thinking, making no effort to rationally analyze what was before her eyes, so that at first she did not recognize them. Hanging motionless in the water, a thin stream of bubbles rising from her nostrils, she watched as they approached. Only when they were very close did she realize that she was looking at other Yilanè.

The pain in her chest and a growing darkness before her eyes forced her to realize that she had been down too long, drove her to the surface to gasp in air. The shock of seeing Yilanè in this empty place tore at the fog that had clouded her mind, idle so long. An efenburu of young in the sea, come here from some distant city, that is what they must be. But the young elininyil never ventured far from their birth beaches. And there was something else, something different. These creatures were too large, far too large to be an unemerged efenburu. They were fully grown. If so — what were they doing here?

A head surfaced nearby, then another and another. As she had seen them, so had they seen her. Unthinkingly Vaintè turned in the water, swam towards shore, away from their presence. Into the breaking surf, riding it up onto the sand, then struggling through the surge to the familiar beach beyond. When her feet left the sand and slapped through the mud she halted, looking at the trees and swamp ahead of her. What was she doing? What did she want to do? Was she fleeing from them?

Unaccustomed questions, unaccustomed thought. She felt restive, disturbed at the idea of trying to escape. She had never before retreated, had never sought to flee from difficulties. Then why was she doing it now? Although she had been standing with arms hanging limply, head lowered, when she turned about to face the ocean her head was high, her back straight. Dark figures were emerging from the surf and she walked slowly towards them and stopped at the edge of the sand.

Those closest to her halted, knee-deep in the surf, staring with expressions of doubt on their partly opened mouths. She stared back assessing them. Fully grown fargi. But they stood with a blankness of movement that communicated very little.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” she said.

The one she addressed, the nearest, moved back a few steps in the water. As she did this she raised the palms of her hands. The colors moved in the simplest of patterns, unaccompanied by sounds of any kind.

Together, she said. Together.

Vaintè signed back the same, scarcely realizing she was doing it. Had not done this since she had first emerged from the sea a timeless time ago. It took an effort to recall exactly what it meant. Yes, of course, it was the simple recognition between efensele in the sea. Together.

The speaker was shouldered roughly aside, staggered and fell. A larger fargi strode forward onto the sand but stopped at the water’s edge.

“Do… what I say… you do that.”

Her expressions were clumsy, her vocalizations crude and hard to understand. Who was this creature? What were they all doing here?

These considerations were driven away by a spurt of anger, an emotion unfelt since she had come to this beach, to this place. Her nostrils flared wide and her crest flowed with color.

“Who is this fargi, an upright worm that stands before me and issues orders?”

It came out imperiously, automatically. The fargi gaped with incomprehension, understanding nothing of her quick communication. She saw this and began to understand a little. She spoke again, slowly and simply.

“Silence. You are inferiority before superiority. I command you. Speak name.” She had to repeat this, in simpler form, mostly arm movements and color changes before it was understood.

“Velikrei,” she said. Vaintè noted with approval that the fargi shoulders had slumped and her body was now bent in a curve of inferiority. As it should be.

“On sand. Sit. Talk,” Vaintè commanded, sitting uprightly on her tail as she did so. The fargi stumbled up onto the beach and sat, arms shaped in gratitude. This creature who had tried to bully her was now thanking her for issuing orders. Seeing this the others emerged slowly from the sea, huddled before her in a half-circle of staring eyes and gaping mouths. It was a familiar grouping and she was beginning to understand who they were and just what they were doing here.

It was a good thing that she did for Velikrei could explain very little. Vaintè had to speak with her for she was the only one who was even slightly Yilanè. The others were little more than large elininyil, immature young. None of them appeared to even have names. They communicated only with the simplest movements and colors that they had learned in the sea, with an occasional harsh sound for emphasis.

They fished during the day, she discovered that much. Slept on the shore at night. Where had they come from? A place, a city, she knew that without asking. Where was it? When Velikrei finally understood the questions she gaped out at the empty ocean and finally pointed north. She could add little more. Further questioning accomplished nothing. Vaintè realized that this was the limit of the intelligence she could abstract from Velikrei. It was enough. She knew now who they were.

They were the rejected ones. From the birth beaches they had gone into the ocean. Lived there, grew there, until they had emerged from the sea at maturity, physically able at last to dwell on land, free to walk across the beaches for the first time to the city beyond. To be accepted by the city, fed by the city, absorbed by the city.

Perhaps. In every Yilanè city existence was always the same. She had observed it for herself in all the cities that she had ever visited. There would be the Yilanè busy about the manifold tasks, the fargi hurrying to their assistance. The eistaa above and the countless fargi below. These were everpresent, indistinguishable one from the other. Shuffling in crowds through the streets, stopping to look at anything of interest, faceless, nameless, identical.