“Good. Now, we’re going to have a very special day today. We’re going to do the very first dissection of a creature out of the ocean here. We call it a tube, because, well, that’s what it most reminds us of. It appears to be the most common organism to live in the water around us. Kel caught this one, and I have put it in a jar with preservative to keep it just like it was when it was alive.”

Sheena put up her hand. “That’s to keep it like it was fresh forever.”

“That’s right. Now, are we ready to begin?”

At their eagerly nodding heads, she said, “Follow me” and walked over to one of the counters that folded down. This she lowered until even Breez could see.

A large glass jar rested on the lowered countertop, and inside it held a blue, red, yellow, and silver creature that looked like a piece of hose with lines of fins on three sides. Felix could see the gaping, three-jawed mouth with teeth and lifeless gray eyes equally spaced around the head.

“Let’s take it out,” Vik told them, removing the jar lid.

With tongs she lifted the dripping specimen from the jar, let it drain, and laid it on an absorptive sheet on the counter. With long skewers she pinned it in place.

“Zambo!” Felix whispered, amazed to see the thing up close.

“Zambo twice!” Sheena agreed.

Felicity just stared, but Felicity was never much fun.

“What is it?” Breez wondered, lifting a finger to suck on it, her eyes big.

“This,” Vik told her, “is the tube I told you about, but maybe today we’ll give it another name. One that you all think up. So, as you grow up, you’ll always think back to this day.”

“What’s wrong with tube?” Felix asked.

Vik shot him a glance. “Felix, if what we’re seeing in the films is correct, most of the life in Donovan’s oceans is tubular. We have to have a way to name them that allows us to keep all the kinds of tubes separate in a classificatory system.”

He nodded, not sure what a classificatory system was, but if Vik said so, it had to be.

“Like calling all boys Felix,” Sheena told him crossly. “You’d never know you from Toni or Kayle, if you were all called Felix.”

He waited until Vik couldn’t see and stuck his tongue out at Sheena. She just giggled and lifted her chin to show him she didn’t care.

Vik was pulling on gloves. “All right, let’s take a look. We have the cameras on to record everything we do. Why is that important, Felicity?”

“So everyone can see how it’s done?”