I am that which you call hylighter. I save you from the sea.

The beautiful . . .

Yes! The beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent hylighter!

There was pride in this announcement, but still that sense of amusement.

You called me . . . humankerro.

Yes—humankerro-poet.

What does being a poet have to do with my knowing this is real?

Because you trust your senses.

As though these words opened a door to his body, he felt the enclosing tendrils, the sharp bite of wind between them, and his inner ears registered the roll of a sweeping turn as the hylighter tacked. His eyes reported a shadowy golden area millimeters from his nose and he knew he lay on his back in a cradle of tendrils, the body of the hylighter close above him.

What did you do to me?

I touched your being.

How . . .

Again, he experienced the savage assault on his senses, but this time there was pattern in it. He detected bursts of modulation too fast for him to separate into coherent bits. His sense of sight registered pictures and he knew he was looking down with hylighter vision upon the sea . . . and the gondola from which he had been snatched. He felt that he must cling to these sensations as he clung to his sanity. Madness lurked at the edges of his awareness . . .

And once more, the assault stopped with shocking abruptness.

Panille lay gasping. It was like being immersed in all the most beautiful poetry that humankind had ever produced—everything simultaneous.

You are my first poet, and all poets are known through you.

Panille sensed an elemental truth in this.

What are you doing with me? he asked. It was very much like talking to Ship in his head.

I strive to prevent the death of human and of Self.

That was reasonable.

Panille could make no response to this. All the thoughts which occurred to him felt inadequate. Poison from the gondola had killed kelp. The hylighters, known to originate in the sea, obviously resented this. Yet, this hylighter would save a human. It occurred to him then that he was talking to a source which could explain the relationship between kelp and hylighter. Before he could think through his question, the voice filled his head, a single thoughtburst: Hylighterself-kelpself-all-one.

It was like Ship asking him about God. He sensed another elemental truth.

Poet knows . . . This thought twined around in his mind until he could not tell if it originated with the hylighter or with himself. Poet knows . . . poet knows . . .

Panille felt himself washed in this thought. It was still with him when he realized that he was conversing with the hylighter in no language he could recall. The thoughts occurred . . . he understood them . . . but of all the languages he knew, none coincided with the structure of this exchange.

Humankerro, you speak the forgotten language of your animal past As I speak rock, you speak this language.