Vaintè was happy for the excuse to turn away from this distasteful scene. Distasteful to her because she had lost her temper. Something she rarely did because she knew that it placed weapons in others’ hands. This commander now, she would bear tales, nothing good could come of it. It was Enge’s fault, ungrateful and stupid Enge. She would be her own destiny now, get exactly the fate she deserved. Vaintè clutched hard to the edge as her anger faded, her breathing slowed, looking at the green shore so close to hand. Aware of Enge climbing to her feet, eager as they all were to see the beach.

“We will get as close as we can,” Erafnaiś said, “close inshore.”

Our future, Vaintè thought, the first glorious topping of the males, the first eggs laid, the first births, the first efenburu growing in the sea. Her anger was gone now and she almost smiled at the thought of the fat and torpid males lolling stupidly in the sun, the young happily secure in their tail pouches. The first births, a memorable moment for this new city.

Under the guidance of the crew the uruketo was being urged even closer inshore, almost among the breaking waves. The shore moved by, the beaches came into view. The beautiful beaches.

Enge and the commander were struck dumb by what they saw. It was Vaintè who cried aloud, a sound of terrible tortured pain.

It was drawn from deep inside her by the sight of the torn and dismembered corpses that littered the smooth sand.

CHAPTER THREE

Vaintè’s cry of pain ended abruptly. When she spoke next all complexity was gone from her words, all subtlety and form. Just the bare bones of meaning were left, a graceless and harsh urgency.

“Commander. You will lead ten of your strongest crewmembers ashore at once. Armed with hèsotsan. You will have the uruketo stand by here.” She pulled herself up and over the edge of the fin then stopped, pointing to Enge. “You will come with me.”

Vaintè kicked her toeclaws into the uruketo’s hide, her fingers found creases in the skin as she climbed down to its back and dived into the transparent sea. Enge was just behind her.

They surged up out of the surf beside the slaughtered corpse of a male. Flies were thick about the gaping wounds, covering the flesh and congealed blood. Enge swayed at the sight, as though moved by an invisible wind, winding her thumbs and fingers together, all unknowing, in infantile patterns of pain.

Not so Vaintè. Rock-hard and firm she stood, expressionless, with only her eyes moving over the scene of slaughter before her.