“Solve them,” Ambalasi said firmly with modifiers end-of-participation, query-next. “Who is on steering duty?”

“Omal, a Yilanè of calm intelligence who learned quickly.”

“I said you could command. Now we will examine the charts.”

As they left the bottom of the fin they passed Omal who stood with her hands close to the nodules of the nerve endings that guided the uruketo, peering out through the transparent disc at the sea. On the ledge before her perched a gray and pink bird which was looking in the same direction. Ambalasi stopped and ran her thumbs along the creature’s feathers; it cooed in response.

“A new compass,” Elem explained, “far more useful than the old ones.”

“Of course—my design. Accurate, reliable—and provides companionship on long voyages. Once it has been aligned in the right direction it will point that way until it dies.”

“I have never understood . . .”

“I have. Magnetized particles in the forebrain. Where are the charts?”

“In here.”

Although the alcove was barely illuminated, when the first chart was unrolled it glowed brightly under the dim purple patch on the wall of flesh above it.

“This is designed to the largest scale,” Elem said. “As well as being the latest. Here is Entoban* and across the wide ocean is Gendasi*.”

“And these swirls of color?”

“These, of the cooler colors, are the winds of the sky that sweep like great rivers through the atmosphere. They rise here in the tropics where the sun heats the air, then move north and south affected by the rotation of this planet. These are of utmost importance to me in my studies, but for practical navigation these warm oranges and reds that mark the ocean currents, these are what guide us.”

“Explanation-in-detail.”

“Pleasure-in-expatiation. We are here now, in the ocean west of Yebèisk. At your instructions we continue to swim west until dark in case others follow. We will then be about here, in this red stream, a south-flowing current. We will drift with it during the night; then at dawn, after a position check, we will begin the voyage to our destination. Accuracy-of-swimming, desire-for-knowledge of our destination?”

“Uncertainty-now. Show me what you would do if our destination were Gendasi*.”

“Eagerness-in-enumerating. For Gendasi* we must follow this current as it sweeps south and west to midocean. This is a most interesting area, quite abundant with life. When we reach it we will choose the correct current for our destination. This is the one we seek, which sweeps here past Alakas-aksehent to the green land beyond.”

Ambalasi studied the chart closely, staring at Yebèisk, then allowing her left eye to move across the ocean to Gendasi*.