Chapter Excerpt: Merlee
Trembling with excitement, she opened her eyes. At first, they were only shadows under the surface, dark blurs that glimmered silver and green around the edges as they rippled closer. Then about fifty of them broke the water at once in a fountain of spray and flashing rainbow tails. Rialle caught her breath. They were even more beautiful than she'd imagined. Their hair trailed behind them like liquid moonlight as they beckoned her in. Eliya had omitted to tell her their skin would be green, but it was luminous as sunlight trapped in the shallows, as if they were lit up from inside. And their songs — oh, their wild, haunting songs!

Before she knew she'd even moved, she had stripped down to her undergarments. The dive over the side drove the breath from her lungs, and only as she broke the water with her fingertips did she remember she didn't know how to swim. But after a few floundering strokes, it felt natural to be surrounded by water, and she relaxed. She breathed normally and let her legs and arms do what they wanted. This was easy. And the merlee were right. There was a pocket of warm sea here. Her hair floated lightly around her like a blue version of the merlee's, and the water, silklike, caressed her skin as she swam out to join the shoal.

So glad you came.

Close up, the adults were bigger than she'd thought, yet she felt no fear. Strong fingers plucked at her hair, and muscular tails curled around her legs. There was some merriment over her strange coloring. But their songs were of gladness and welcome overlaid by faint playful melodies. It took her a moment to realize these were coming from the almost transparent merlee children, whose tiny tadpolelike bodies emerged in clouds from the chest pouches of some of the females.

The children tickled as they swarmed closer to see this strange land creature with four limbs and no tail, and Rialle cupped some in her hand and looked at them in amazement. They were mostly tail and head, but she could see miniature lungs and hearts developing inside some of their bodies, and a few of the biggers ones had the stubby beginnings of arms.

The mothers floated closer, watchful. Rialle smiled and let the tiny, unformed merlee trickle through her fingers. "I won't hurt them," she said.

She rolled on her back and gazed at the sky, paddling with her fingers to keep herself afloat. So peaceful out here, safe from humans who walked on two legs and were afraid of the sea .... As the merlee splashed around her, and their children played games in her hair, the Wavesong, Singer Toharo, even Frenn, leaked out of her head, to be replaced by the pleasures of plankton on the tongue, of surfing a deserted beach under a full moon.

Then a large male with a curly silver beard swam up beside her and stared at her with his turquoise eyes, the gills beneath his ears opening and closing as the waves lapped his neck. He swept away the children who were playing in her hair, and stared at her again.

"What is it, shoal-father?" Rialle asked. She wasn't sure why she used that form of address, only that it sounded right. "They weren't hurting me."

The male made a low sound in his throat, almost Aushan, and drove the other adults away with his powerful tail. Rialle twisted in the waves, a little disturbed.

"It's all right ...." she said again. But the words died in her throat when the male seized her hands in a strong grip.

Stone-singer remember! Nets took friends. Many cut! Some taken alive to cold prison, can't breathe .... Need help!

How could she have forgotten?

"I know you do, shoal-father," she said, full of remorse, stroking his agitated tail as it churned around her. "I'm sorry I forgot. We'll help you now, I promise. That's what we've come for."

Reluctantly, she looked around for the Wavesong, rather disconcerted to see how far away it was. Her limbs felt heavy and tired now, after so much unaccustomed exercise. She caught hold of the shoal-father's slippery tail. "But you'll have to help me back to my ship," she added with a little smile. "I'm afraid my swimming is not as strong as yours."

He didn't seem to be listening — or, at least, he was listening, but to something else.

Then Rialle heard it, too. Terror, rippling across the ocean like a huge wave, growing as it came.

Stone-singer betrays us!

The water boiled with rainbows as the mothers scooped their children into their chest pouches and dived. Rialle lost her grip on the shoal-father's tail, but found herself being pushed and pulled through the water by hundreds of green hands. The waves were growing by the moment, the sky darkening, yet she still wasn't really worried. They think I'm one of their own children, she thought with a giggle. Only I'm too big to fit in a pouch.

With the larger waves, she quickly lost sight of the Wavesong. Surrounded by agitated merlee, it was difficult to tell where she was, though at some point she realized the school had lef the warm pocket and carried her into water so cold, it stopped the breath in her throat. Then there came an alien echo, of water slapping wood. Ship.

Rialle smiled. She couldn't wait to tell Frenn all about her swim. She was just imagining his face when she told him about the tiny children in their pouches when the large male came bck, took a firm grip on her hair, and without warning dived straight for the bottom.

At first she was too surprised to do anything, and let him pull her into the murky depths, blinking at the strange feel of water against her eyeballs. Then the pressure on her chest brought her to her senses, and panic set in.

No!

Lungs bursting, she ripped her hair free, leaving what felt like a good chunk of it behind. She fought her way out of all the clutching hands and kicked desperately toward the light. If she could just hold her breath a few moments longer, just a few more beats of the rhythm drum ...

She was almost clear when a tail struck her on the side of the head — slap! The last of the air was knocked from her lungs, and they refilled with seawater. Bubbles surrounded her, a silver storm of bubbles. She had time to feel afraid.

Then everything went black.