Woke up early. Worried.

I spent the night in my fake-sand bed dreaming about burning planets while big, black, mournful eyes stared at me. Didn’t have a lot of appetite, despite the rather tasty spicy waffles the invisible chef cooked up for me.

I gave serious thought to just staying in my room until not going out for my appointment with the sealin, until I remembered that they knew a lot more about the island than I did. I dematerialised the window and stared out to sea, letting the wind play on my face, looking for little leaping shapes in the waves. Nothing. I imagined the room’s décor suddenly fading around me, leaving the room as empty and grey as I had found it, and then the door suddenly flicking open and a dozen large, angry aquatic shapes bursting in…

Eventually, of course, I left the Hotel and slowly trudged over to the rocky outcrop I had been sitting on the day before. I wondered whether I would see my apartment again, and looked up at the seaward face of the Hotel to try and spot my window; last night it had been low down in the middle of the block. Nothing. I was getting rather fond of it.

Green was waiting for me.

At least, I was pretty sure it was Green. It was lying on its back on a rock, just out of sight of the Hotel, basking in the sunshine. Its eyes were closed and it was apparently asleep.

I stopped a little distance off and studied it. With its back arched like that, head thrown back, flippers in the air, it looked vaguely comical; I noticed that there were short whiskers around the nostrils. That flat mouth looked rather less threatening than I remembered.

I waited for a few minutes and, as Green was showing no signs of stirring, coughed quietly. Its eyes snapped open and it abruptly rolled over and peered up at me.

It blinked blearily a few times, sneezed, shook its head violently, and then made that follow me gesture before diving into the sea. I stood there in bewilderment until I noticed that it was swimming around the coastline; when it stopped a few hundred metres away, rearing out of the water to look at me, I started walking along the shore after it.

I’d done this walk a few times. The sandy shores, when they were still there, didn’t merge seamlessly into the manicured lawn of the lowlands; there was usually a short stretch of a different type of grass, coarse and tufty, which formed a ring around the entire island. I’d never gone all the way around, as it was a long way, but the tough grass made a good path, and had survived the megastorm pretty well.

I quickly realised why Green had taken to the sea, rather than humping along beside me. The island was five kilometres or so long, and we were walking the entire length of it.

During the walk, I had plenty of time to think. Where was Green taking me? Why? What were they planning? This didn’t look like a prisoner being escorted away, but perhaps they realised that I had nowhere to run to? It did seem odd that they would entrust me to only one guard.

The Generator slowly passed behind the hills. I was right; it was unusually subdued. Power systems running down? Damage from the storm? Who knew?

I wondered briefly if they might be planning to ship me off-world, perhaps to some remote prison camp. Or, they might just ‘repatriate’ me to some planet of the builders. That might well be my best option; I could probably cadge a lift back to Earth from them. But no; the landing field was behind me, at the other tip of the island. Unless… the sealin, as sea creatures, might have ships that could land at sea. There was a big, sheltered bay at this end of the island. Perhaps the ship was moored there.

When we finally arrived at the bay, there was a large delegation of sealin waiting on the shore, surrounding some object. No ship.

I’d taken a short cut over a narrow headland, and had to wait for Green to swim round the long way. I took the opportunity to study them. There were a couple of dozen, about evenly distributed between the larger mostly-black ones and the smaller mostly-green ones, with some mottled and piebald creatures. There was one particularly large sealin with white patches, like a killer whale. I couldn’t hear at this distance, but from the way they were moving, they appeared to be talking to each other.

When Green approached, they all looked round at it, and then in unison stared up at me. I hesitantly picked my way over the rocks towards them. I recognised what was probably Black sitting at the front, mostly from the impatient twitches.

I arrived just as Green was heaving itself up the shore. Black humped over, to greet Green or to argue with it, I don’t know; they rattled at each other energetically, and some of the rest of the delegation joined in, although most sat there silently. I stood a little way off feeling extraneous.

The object they were all sitting around was a large orange bubble on a raft. The bubble was slightly translucent, and embedded inside it was one of the characteristically melted-looking machines I’d seen in the buildings. There were no controls, but the builders’ machines didn’t need controls; and when Green humped over to the machine, concentrated on it, and glowing sigils appeared around its head, I realised that the sealin’s machines didn’t need them either.

The other sealin watched in silence while Green fiddled with the machine. It would move its head around a little from side to side, obviously focusing on the display, and the display would change. Letters and diagrams would appear and disappear in the air, in glowing green and blue lines. Eventually Green appeared to be happy, and it looked over toward the killer whale sealin, and said something.

This seemed to be the cue they were looking for. The black and white sealin moved a few steps towards me, appeared to address me, and spoke at length. In sealin.

Eventually it stopped, and gestured with its head towards Green, still enshrouded in icons. Green said something briefly in reply, and then made that gesture again to me: come here. I moved slowly.

Close up, I could see that the script used by Green’s head-up display was, while backwards, distinctly different from the one used by the builders. It was formed of discrete characters, vaguely runic.

Green said a single word to me, in a questioning tone of voice; not a sealin word, but something I could have said. I didn’t understand it, and shrugged. Green’s display changed slightly, and it said another word.

After a while of this I realised what was going on. Green was working through a list of—somethings—and seeing if I recognised any of them. The list was long, several hundred entries, all of which were unfamiliar. We worked through them, one by one, while the rest of the delegation waiting patiently. It took a while.

But then Green said something which, after automatically shrugging to Green, I realised I did recognise. From somewhere. I made obscure gestures and somehow got Green to repeat it, and tried to remember where I had head it…

Of course. Gurglecough. The burnt off planet.

I got quite excited until I realised that I had no way of telling Green that I wasn’t a native of that place, I was just passing through; but Green seemed to have guessed that already, made some adjustments to the list, and continued.

But there were no other names I recognised. Eventually the list ran out, and Green stared perplexedly at the empty display. I hazarded, ‘Earth?’ and was met with a theatrical shake of the head.

There followed a long and noisy argument among the delegation, in sealin. By this point I was standing more or less in their midst, and I was feeling too nervous to move; some of them really were very large. But I noticed that Green wasn’t participating. It had sat there for a while, apparently thinking, before dismissing the machine and crawling over to have a few quiet words with Black-and-White.

Shortly afterwards Black-and-White barked something, and in the instant silence that followed, Green spoke quietly. Black immediately spoke up, apparently angrily, and Green and Black argued for a little, before Black-and-White barked again. Green and Black both hung their heads in a surprisingly familiar gesture of embarrassment.

Black-and-White spoke again, nodded to me, and headed off down to the sea. The rest of the delegation followed, leaving only myself, Green and Black waiting on the beach. They took the machine with them; it floated.

Once everyone had gone, Green and Black talked quietly, and then took to the sea themselves. They indicated for me to follow them again, and I trailed after, all the long, tedious way up the island back to the Hotel. I got there late, tired and hungry, to find them waiting on the beach.

To my surprise, they then crawled round to the Hotel’s front entrance, and went in. To my further surprise, when I went after them, I discovered Green having an argument with the pedestal—in the builder’s language. The pedestal talked back. Eventually, Green seemed to win and another door lit up. They crawled towards it, Green made the see-you-tomorrow gesture, and when I repeated it, they went in. And I didn’t see them for the rest of the day.

Analysis:

They were trying to talk to me.

More, I think they were trying to find out where I came from. And I don’t think Earth is in their database. They know I’m associated with Gurglecough, somehow, but no more than that. And they were not expecting that to happen.

Black-and-White was obviously in charge. Interesting colour scheme; it was the only sealin I’d seen so far that had any white patches. Royalty? A priest? Makeup?

Equally obviously, Green is the technical expert. Green speaks the builder’s language. Green operates the machine. Green’s the patient one, the quiet one. I don’t know what position Black holds. Local chief? Sealin-in-charge-of-aliens? Just a friend? Green’s bodyguard? Green’s lover? Green’s owner? There are nuances here I don’t even know I’m missing.

But, more puzzlingly, why would a couple of sea creatures who live in an ocean not twenty metres from the base of the building check in to the Hotel rather than live in the sea?

I can only think of one answer, and it’s not reassuring: there’s another storm coming. The Hotel or the deep ocean is the safest place to be. And they can’t go to the deep ocean, because for some reason they need to be near me.

Perhaps they’re guarding me. From the storm? Or perhaps they daren’t leave me alone here?

I have no idea.

[transmit]

Previous page Next page