Deserted.

Cast out.

Left for dead.

An uruketo.

Now she could stand and look at it coldly for the brief spasm of anger was finished. It had really been the memory of an anger long gone. What was there to fear in an uruketo?

She studied it calmly, seeing the black height of its fin, noting the heads of Yilanè who were standing there on its summit. A splash in the sea close by, then another. The enteesenat of course. Lifetime companions of the great living craft. Accompanying it, feeding it, always there.

The uruketo was so close to the shore now that waves were breaking over it, rolling off in sheets of foam. A Yilanè was climbing down to the fin, standing on the creature’s back, water surging about her legs. Something, Vaintè could not tell what, was passed down to her. When the next wave washed about her she dipped the object into the water. That was all she did before climbing back up the fin.

What had she been doing? What was the uruketo itself doing here? The unaccustomed thoughts made Vaintè shake her head in anger. Why was she thinking about these things? Why was she angry?

The uruketo was standing out to sea now, getting smaller. No, it was not heading out to sea but was moving off along the coast. That was important.

But why important? This scratched at her thoughts, made her irritable, so much so that one of the returning fargi fled when it saw the angry movements of her body.

The uruketo had gone north, that was what it had done. That direction was north, the other was south. But it had gone north. The importance of this escaped her for a long while. It was almost dark when she saw Velikrei coming from the sea with a fish, striding with long steps through the surf.

Velikrei had walked like that when she had first arrived with the other fargi. And they had come from that direction too. From the north.

There was a city out there. A city with beaches, where these fargi had been born. A city that they had gone to when they had emerged from the sea. Later they had deserted the city that had deserted them, turned their backs and swum away from it and had come to this beach.

Vaintè stood staring north until it was too dark to see at all any more.

It was like awakening after a long sleep, the sleep of an endless night. Or perhaps was even more like cracking out of the egg, of leaving the long first night of life and being born into the world. These were the thoughts that Vaintè had. First she puzzled at these thoughts-then wondered why she was puzzled.

One day when she bent over to drink from the pool of fresh water she saw her reflection and blinked with uncertainty at it. Held up her hands and spread her thumbs wide, looked at the mud caked there. Then plunged them into the pool, shattering her image and wondered yet again why this bothered her.

Each morning she would look out to sea and search for the uruketo. But it never returned. This upset her because it was a change from the rhythm of the days that she had grown so used to. Sleeping, eating, sleeping. Nothing else. She was no longer at peace and regretted this greatly. Why was she upset? What was bothering her? She knew — and put the memory from her. It was very peaceful on the beach.

Then one day she awoke. She was standing on the beach and one of her companions was before her, waist deep in the sea. Fish, the fargi signed with a color change of her hand. Then fish yet again.

“What fish?” Vaintè asked. “Fish where? More than one fish? How big, how small, how many? Answer commanded.”

“Fish,” the stupid, gap-jawed, bulge-eyed creature signed yet again.

“Lump of worthlessness-rock of stupidity-mountain of incoherence…” Vaintè stopped because the fargi had dived in panic, swam away as fast as she could. Within a moment all of the other fargi who had heard her outburst were in the water. The beach emptied and her anger grew and she spoke loudly, vehemently, writhing with the passion of her feelings.

“Insensate, stupid and mute creatures. Knowing nothing of the beauty of speaking, the flexibility of language, the joys of coherence. You swim, you fish, you bask, you sleep. You could be dead and there would be no difference. I could be dead…”

She was awake now, fully awake and fully rested, for her sleep had been a long one. She did not know how long, knew only that days and nights, many of them, had passed. As the little waves broke and surged around her legs she thought about what had happened and began to understand a small amount of it. Deserted, deprived of the world she knew, stripped of her city, her rank, her power, she had been dumped on this beach to die. Lanefenuu had wanted her dead, hoped for her death — but that was not to be. She was not a witless fargi that could be ordered to die, who would instantly obey.

But it had been very close. Yet her desire for survival had been so great that she had retreated within herself, lived a life that was a shadow of life. No more. The dark days were behind her. But what lay ahead?

Vaintè was an eistaa, would always be one. Would lead and others would follow. But not on this beach.

Surrounded by swamp on three sides, the ocean on the other. It was nothing, no place to be, no place for her any more. When she had come here she had been ill. Now she was well. There was no reason to stay, nothing to remember, none to speak to in parting. Without a single backward glance she slipped into the sea, dived under and cleansed herself, surfaced and swam north. It was in this direction that the uruketo had gone, this was where the fargi had come from.

A rocky headland came into view ahead as she swam, and moved slowly behind her until it obscured sight of the beach where she had stayed so long. She did not turn to look for she had already forgotten it. There had to be a city somewhere up ahead. That was where she was going.

The great crescent of a bay appeared beyond the headland, golden sand rimming its shore. The swimming had tired her so she floated and let the waves carry her to the beach. The sand was smooth, unmarked by any footprint. She was alone now and greatly preferred that. Walking was easier than swimming: she covered a good deal of distance before dark.

In the morning she caught some fish, then went on. Each day was different and distinct now and she numbered them, thought about them while she was walking the beaches, swimming past cliffs or headlands.

On the first day she had reached the bay. It was so large that she had spent all of the second and most of the third day trudging along its shore. On the fourth the cliffs began, a mountain range that dropped directly into the sea. That night had been spent uncomfortably on a rocky ledge, spattered with spray from the breaking waves. On the sixth day she had passed the last of the cliffs and returned to the beach again.

On the thirty-fifth day she saw that her journey was coming to an end. At first the beach was like any other she had walked on — but suddenly became very different. In the calm water just offshore she saw the brief splashing of a school of fish — that were not fish. They surfaced and looked at her with tiny round eyes, dived instantly when she signed greeting. An immature efenburu, afraid of everything. They would eat — or be eaten — until one day the survivors would emerge from the ocean as fargi. Those with any intelligence would become yilanè and join in the life of the city.

If they were here in the ocean, then the birth beaches could not be too distant — nor were they. A natural bay had been deepened and reinforced. Dredged by eisekol, rimmed by soft sand. The guardians were in their appointed places, the males lolling in the ocean’s edge. There was a hill above the beaches, obviously a favorite viewing place for well-trod paths marked it, leading away from the beaches and towards the tall trees of a city.