Felix appeared mesmerized by the water. And well he should, he’d been born on Ashanti. Had known nothing but Crew Deck until they’d set foot on the landing field at Port Authority. Since that day, Felix’s life had been one magical moment after another. Now he was taking his first boat ride, out in the open, across sparkling water. The look on her son’s face was pure rapture, and that filled her heart with a kind of joy she’d rarely known.

Behind them, the Pod, looked like an elongated white egg where it perched on its pilings. Shoal waters swirled beneath and along the length of the reef where it stretched to the south.

Capella’s light burned down from a partly cloudy sky, the golden rays reflecting on the low swells with their glassy surfaces. The horizon made a sharp line in the distance. There the sea looked like the finest of lapis lazuli where it met the lighter turquoise of the sky. A trio of aqua-blue-speckled-with-white flying creatures glided along to her right, effortlessly matching her twenty-knot speed. To Kevina’s amazement, they had four wings—two per side—with what looked like a third set consisting of two stubs that protruded from the keel-shaped belly. The beasts had three eyes and a triangular mouth consisting of three jaws that narrowed to a spear-shaped snout. The tooth-studded jaws were open as they flew, apparently to act like a funnel. She wondered if—like so many of the land creatures—the gaping mouth functioned as an air intake. And, yes, as the closest swooped past, she could see the vents at the root of the thing’s trailing tail.

“Felix! Look!” she called to her son as she raised her recorder to get video.

Felix spun from where he now was hanging over the gunwale. He had been watching the white foam splashing out from the launch’s hull. Felix fixed his soft brown eyes on the fliers, his mouth forming an O of amazement. Bracing his arms, rapt, he watched the closest of the fliers soar over their heads, then veer off with a flap of the wings. The other two followed, cutting behind the boat. One dove, snatching something from the wake that twitched and flipped in its needle mouth. With a gulp, the beautiful blue flier swallowed its prey and sailed off after its comrades.

“What was that, Mama?”

“Felix, I don’t have a clue. You and me? We’re the first human beings to ever lay eyes on one. You want to name it?”

He stepped up beside her, barely kept his balance as the launch planed over a larger set of swells. “I don’t know. Polka dots?”

“Polka dots? What kind of name is that?”

“It had those white spots on the blue.”