A number of craft were docked at the pier. Matar- oreva directed them to a small, waterstained skimmer.

They boarded and he activated controls. Immediately the little ship lifted a meter off the water. It could go considerably higher, but there was no need to expend the power. A touch on another switch and they found themselves racing across the broad lagoon toward its southernmost end.

Cora leaned back, marveled at the faceted hexalate formations speeding past beneath the rapidly moving craft. She could hardly wait to get into the water here, to see at first hand the marine marvels she had studied.

Reefs a thousand meters and more in depth were not

CACHALOT.

37.

unknown, for the hexalates had been building on Ca- chalot for millions of years, long before the land had all been worn away or had subsided.

Mataroreva looked back from the controls, watched her watching. "You love the sea, don't you, Cora?"

"All my life," she told him quietly. "Ever since I was old enough to realize the difference between ocean and bathtub."

"I know how you feel," he replied. "To me. Cacha- lot the planet is one vast, perfect ozmidine, cut and polished by the hand of G.o.d. If I could," he said in the same voice, "I would make a bracelet of it so you could wear it on your wrist."

"Thanks for the thought, Sam. But I've been given similar gifts and promises in the past. The bracelets were fake, and the promises broke, too."

"I understand." Mataroreva turned back to his con- trols but continued to speak. "Bracelets, gems, can be Mke that sometimes; bright and flashy instead of solid, well crafted, and made with care . . . like promises."

Cora felt ashamed. Why couldn't she be more open, like Rachael? Age had nothing to do with her way of looking at people. It was a question of experience.

Take Mataroreva, for example. Why a.s.sume his de- ference toward Hwoshien was owing to a lack of back- bone? He was only an employee here, without her off-world independence. And he was charming.

Ah, but Silvio had been charming. Oh, how charm- ing! As charming, as bright, as the crystal formations they were skimming over. But Mataroreva was not Silvio. Why condemn him for being pleasant? The two had nothing in common save gender. Wasn't it time she ceased condemning all because of one? She was so tired of acting tough.

Downright delightful, this Mataroreva-Sam. Men- tally he was still a mystery. But he shared her love of the sea, and the warmth of holiday and the sense of

38 CACHALOT.

eternal vacation that hung over this world were be- ginning to weaken her.

Mataroreva shattered the reverie. "You know, an- other town was destroyed last week. Rorqual."

This brought her brusquely back to reality. She was all business again. "Destroyed-an entire town? I know we were being brought in on this because people were being killed, but no one mentioned anything about the destruction of an entire town. And you said 'an- other.' "

"There have been several such incidents."

"How many?" Merced asked patiently.

"Four."

"Four deaths?" Rachael was staring at Mataroreva now.

He shook his head. His expression had become solemn. "Four towns. The entire populations, com- pletely wiped out. Not a trace of them left behind, and we've no idea what's causing it. Twenty-five hun- dred men, women, and children. All gone. 'Ati."

"Similarities?" Cora wanted to know. "What were the similarities, the links tying these incidents to- gether?"

Sam smiled patiently at her. "Hard at work al- ready? Take your time, Cora Xamantina. We have already eliminated the obvious." He glanced back at Rachael and Merced. "You all may as well take your time. We haven't just been swimming in circles here, so don't expect to find any quick answers. Twenty- five hundred people." He returned his full attention to the skimmer controls.

"We'll determine the cause," Cora said finally, after a long silence in the craft, "and put a stop to it."

He smiled affectionately at her, not boyish at all now. "Maybe you will, Cora Xamantina. Maybe you will. I hope so, because the thought of you becoming a new addendum to the obituary disturbs me. You've seen only a bare fraction of the hostile life-forms of

39.

Cachalot, and what they are capable of. Remember that most of the Cachalot world-ocean has not been explored, nor any of the great deeps. We don't know what's out there. Maybe something that can take a floating town apart piece by piece."

"Well said." Cora grinned back at him. "We're all suitably intimidated. Now-what are the similarities?"

Mataroreva chuckled. "If stubbornness were a cure, this world would be healthy in a day. Hwoshien will want to explain himself."

"I'd rather you tell me, Sam."

"Don't condemn Yu until you've met him. He's been through a lot this past month."

"Isn't it permissible?"

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "I haven't been in- structed not to tell you.

"I suppose the most obvious link is the impossi- bility of this happening to a single town, much less to four. The towns themselves are supposed to be im- possible to sink. h.e.l.l, they are impossible to sink!

They are not solid structures. Each town is a vast raft composed of thick slabs of buoyant polymer, like the piers we just left. The town slabs are as much as ten meters thick in places, beneath some of the larger buildings. They can be broken, but the individual fragments will continue to float.

"The varied shapes of the polymer slabs-triangles, trapezoids, and so forth-give the raft tremendous structural strength while still leaving sufficient flexi- bility for it to glide over the waves."

"Even so," Rachael pointed out from the rear of the thrumming skimmer, "couldn't a storm, a really big storm, take a town apart?"

"No. At least, it hasn't happened yet. Even the largest waves slip under the raft sections. Those that break atop the town sift down through the drain places between the sections, or slide off. The polymer actually rejects water, in addition being a hundred percent

40 CACHALOT CACHALOT 41.

non-porous. And the hinges that link the sections to- gether are magnetic or chemical, not affected by brute mechanical wave action.

"Also, each town has several means of further stabilizing itself-centerboards, special fluids which can inhibit wave action, and so on. No, storms are out of the question. Except for," and he glanced back at them helplessly, "one awkward contradiction."

"What's that?" Cora wondered.

"The fact that each town has disappeared during a storm."

"I'd call that more than an awkward contradiction."

Mataroreva adjusted the heading of the skimmer, angling it slightly to starboard. "But some of the storms have been too light to damage a sensitive flower, let;

alone an entire town. The storm that covered War-'

mouth when it was lost was measured by a weather satellite almost directly above it. Our weather system is even more advanced than our cross-planet com- munications system. It recorded the winds at the height of the storm at less than forty kilometers per hour.

There's no potential for destruction in that."

"Sounds like something is using the storms for cover," Merced murmured. Mataroreva nodded.

Cora wasn't ready to rule out natural causes. "What about seismic disturbances?"