“There is no word for that which you are speaking. It is a betrayal of everything we live by and I feel only a great repulsion. Yilanè live as Yilanè, since the egg of time. Then into this order, like a parasite boring into living flesh, your despicable Farneksei appeared preaching this rebellious nonsense. Great patience was shown to her, yet she persisted and was warned, and persisted still—until there was no recourse but to expel her from her city. And she did not die, the first of the living-dead. Were it not for Olpèsaag the salvationer, she might be living and preaching dissension still.”

“Ugunenapsa was her name because through her this great truth was revealed. Olpèsaag was the destroyer who destroyed her flesh but not her revelation.”

“A name is what you are given, and she was Farneksei, inquirer-past-prudence, and she died for that crime. That is where it will end, this childish belief of yours, dirty thoughts that belong down among the corals and the kelp.” She took a deep and shuddering breath, fighting hard to get her temper under control. “Don’t you understand what I am offering you? One last chance. Life instead of death. Join with me and you will climb high. If this unsavory belief is important to you keep it, but speak to me not of it, or to any other Yilanè, keep it beneath your cloak where none can see. You will do it.”

“I cannot. The truth is there and must be spoken aloud . . .”

Roaring with rage, Vaintè seized Enge by the neck, her thumbs twisting cruelly at her crest, pushing her down and grinding her face into the unyielding surface of the fin.

“There is the truth!” she shouted, pulling Enge’s face about so she would understand every word clearly. “The birdshit that I grind your stupid moon-face into, that is reality and the truth. Out there is the truth of the new city at the edge of the wild jungle, hard work and filth and none of the comforts you have known. That is your fate, and certain death, I promise you if you do not abandon your superior attitude, your mewling . . .”

Vaintè spun about when she heard the tiny choking sound, to see the commander climbing up to join them, now trying to draw back out of sight.

“Get up here,” Vaintè shouted, hurling Enge down onto the ledge. “What does this interference, this spying mean?”

“I did not mean . . . there was no intent, Highest, I will leave.” Erafnaiś spoke simply, without subtlety or embellishment, so great was her embarrassment.

“What brought you here then?”

“The beaches. I just wanted to point out the white beaches, the birth beaches. Just around the point of land you see ahead.”