When I turned to her, Marsilia had the strangest expression on her face. I’m fair skinned, so I always display my embarrassment for everyone to see. I decided I’d better tell her why I was red to the tips of my ears, because the truth was better than what she might be guessing. “Hilfa thinks that because we’re a good team we ought to form a pod,” I said quietly, as we lowered the next tub. “You and me and Thetis and oh, and him, of course.”

“Oh poor Hilfa,” Marsilia said at once. “I wonder how long he’s been imagining that?”

“I think he thinks we’re like family, and we are in a way, a crew.”

“But a pod—I suppose that made sense to him. The Saeli way. They do tend to work together. Poor Hilfa.” She sighed.

“He had it all worked out, said we could go to the City of Amazons where it’s allowed, except that you need to be here for work.”

“We wouldn’t have to, the law allows pods here. While it says for the benefit of the Saeli, it doesn’t say everyone involved has to be Saeli. Marriage is any two people who choose it, and a pod is any five.” She grinned at me, then joined Porphyry bringing the last tub across, while I brought up a bucket of water to rinse off the deck. My face had stopped feeling so hot by the time I’d finished that.

Dion and Hilfa rolled the cart off to take the catch over to Supply, where the fish would be gutted and sorted and salted or frozen or, if we were lucky, shared out to be served up straight away.

“Was that an especially good haul, or is the fishing always better here than around Amazonia?” Porphyry asked.

“This is the best time of year,” I said. “In a month or so all the big fish will have gone north and we’ll be lucky if we’re filling two tubs all day.”

“Well, that was fun. Thank you for letting me work with you, Jason. Do you need help getting her across to the slips?”

“Marsilia and I can manage if you want to go back, but if you’d like to bail a bit more it would be handy,” I said.

“When I go back, everyone will want to argue with me or interrogate me,” he said, picking up the bailer again. “I’d much rather spend an hour bailing in the dusk.”

“Well it’s more my idea of fun too,” I said.

Porphyry, the most powerful god on Plato, settled down to bail. Marsilia took the tiller this time, and we sailed neatly across the harbor, the wind with us now and no difficulty except avoiding the boats as they came in and cut across our bows. Once there, a Worker called Barnacle came and helped haul her out.