"Meaning cheaper?"

"Exactly. Generating a fusion reaction isn't that ex- pensive. Containing and channeling it are."

They pa.s.sed the flagpole and encountered a small sign attached to a post made of coconut palm. Cora glanced expectantly at Mataroreva, who grinned at her.

"That marks the highest point of land yet measured on Cachalot. Thirty-two meters above sea level." His grin grew wider and he gestured at the atoll. "The name 'Mou'anui' is itself a joke. It's the name this atoll was given by the first workers who settled here. My ancestors were among them. It means 'big mountain'

in the ancient Tahitian tongue."

"Everything's relative," Merced said from behind him.

"Very true."

"I would think you'd be swamped here." Cora

33.

looked back at the calm water of the lagoon. "We pa.s.sed over a pretty good-sized storm on our way down."

"That's why most of the people on Cachalot would choose to live on the floating towns even if there was more land. It's safer, easier to ride with a storm rather than fight against it." Mataroreva shrugged. "But for an administrative center, for a central distribution and product collection and processing point, it was decided that a truly permanent installation was required. There are larger atolls, but none with this much stable land, so it was decided to place the fixed buildings on Mou'anui.

"The foundations of these buildings go many meters down into the solid rock of the sea mount on which the reef stands. The reef follows the contour of the crest of an ancient volcanic caldera. The mountain comes very close to the surface here. Even if the sand were to be completely washed away, most of the buildings would remain. We're safe. The majority of big storms strike the atoll on the far side anyway."

"Is there any place," Rachael asked, "where real land actually projects above the water?"

Mataroreva thought a moment. "Not that I've heard of. Sea mounts like the one below us come within a couple dozen meters of the surface. But wherever you see dry land projecting above the water, it's there be- cause the little hexalates have worked to make it so for millions of years."

They pa.s.sed through the tinted plastic doors of the Administration Building. "Most of the people I've seen so far have retained much of then: Polynesian ancestry in their faces and physiques," Cora said.

"Oh, you know how it is," Mataroreva replied cas- ually. "The Commonwealth's not so ancient that pock- ets of settlers on nonurbanized worlds haven't retained then- ethnicity. That's not to say you won't find ancient Northern Europeans or Central American farmstockers

34 .

or Mongols working here on Cachalot. Not to mention a very few thranx, despite their natural hatred of large bodies of water. But the permanent residents, the ones who aren't here simply to try to get rich quick in phar- maceuticals, say, derive mostly from Polynesian or Melanesian ocean-going ancestors. I'm sure there's no genetic reason for it. But tradition dies as hard in cer- tain ethnic groupings as it does in families."

Down a hall, than around a comer. "Here we are."

But the door before them refused admittance. "Com- missioner Hwoshien is not here," it politely informed them. "He is working elsewhere at the moment."

"Where is he, then?" Mataroreva did not try to con- ceal his exasperation at the delay.

The door hesitated briefly, then replied, "I believe

Commissioner Hwoshien is in Storage and Packing

Number Two."

"Oh, terrific," their guide mumbled. Then his frus- tration vanished, as all such upsets seemed to after an instant. "Nothing for it but to go find him, I suppose."

He turned, began retracing their steps.

A rich roaring greeted them when they exited the building. The shuttle, having completed its exchanges, was departing. It thundered down the lagoon on its pontoons. Then the nose tipped up. Engines boiled the sea behind as the craft arced sharply into a sky polka- dotted with white.

The noise and violence startled a flock of creatures

just below the surface. Flapping membranous wings, they soared aloft, circled several times, and glided over

the Administration Building.

"Ichthyomithsl" Cora shouted delightedly, clapping

her hands together like a little girl. "Those I was able to study prior to leaving Earth. How wonderfull"

"Mother, what are they-birds?" Rachael was

staring curiously at the distant flock.

"Didn't you read anything before you left home?"

35.

"Yeah, I did," her daughter snapped, and she rattled off a list of popular fiction.

Cora looked resigned. "They're flying fish. Real fly- ing fish." She stared upward, enraptured by yet another of the sea's miraculous examples of protective adapta- tion. Each ichthyomith had a transparent, gelatinous membrane surrounding the rear portion of its stream- lined body. Within those membranes they carried oxygen-rich water, enabling them to stay airborne and clear of the water for substantial periods of time.

There were no land animals native to Cachalot. So there were no reptiles or mammals for true birds to evolve from. In the absence of true birds or flying snakes or their relatives, the ichthyoraiths, with their water-carrying body sacs, had adapted to a partial aerial existence, spending as little time in the water as possible, breeding and living in a mostly predator-free niche left to them by a nonwasteful nature.

Their long silvery forms shone in the sun, light bouncing from wide wet wings and the full water sacs.

They returned to the lagoon and skimmed low, search- ing for a place to set down.

As Cora watched, one of the winged shapes suddenly fell from formation, splashed into the water.

"Koolyanif," Mataroreva explained. "It floats just below the surface, changing color to match the sand or deep water below it. It has an a.r.s.enal of stinging spines which it can blow outward, like arrows, through a kind of internal air compression system. That's what brought down the ichthyomith."

Even in the air, life is not safe on Cachalot, Cora told herself. This is not the friendly, familiar ocean of Earth. She found herself longing for the sight of some- thing as predictable as a shark.

Around her the plants waved lazily in the faint breeze. All seemed peaceful and quiet. But they had been on this world only a short time and had seen tog-

36 CACHALOT.

luts and koolyanifs. The sea and the peacefulness were deceptive.

She wondered how the original settlers of Cachalot had coped with the inhabitants native to the world- ocean. Not being human, they had possessed other ad- vantages. She was intensely curious to find out for herself if they had done as well as all the histories and infrequent reports indicated they had.

It seemed that would have to wait until she had con- fronted this Hwoshien person. She had dealt with bu- reaucratic demagogues before. She could handle this one, even if he could intimidate as impressive a speci- men as Sam Mataroreva.

She eyed the big Polynesian as he led them down the slope toward another pier. Maybe she was over- rating him. He was so relaxed, so easygoing. Perhaps it wasn't that he was intimidated so much as overly respectful of authority. He was certainly gentle enough with everyone, like an oversized teddy bear.

She resolutely turned her thoughts away from such trivialities. More important was the matter of their still unspecified a.s.signment and her anger at being bounced around like a servant ever since they had set foot on this globe. She would straighten out both as soon as they confronted Hwoshien.