Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 4, July 2014 by Alex Hernandez George S. Walker Eleanor R. Wood Robert Quinlivan Peter Medeiros Hannah Goodwin R. Leigh Hennig
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Mokoani spawning ground to the marginally warmer waters of the southern hemisphere. After that, their suits’ life-support system and paid time-off would expire and they would have to be airlifted back to their island.
She expelled a blanket of tiny bubbles from beneath her scales, which meant she was laughing. “Full Mokoani young change a lot in their first few months, but then it all evens out. Don’t worry. You’re here for the formative period. How are you doing in that marvelous and hideous suit of yours?”
“It’s jacked to my nervous system, so physically it’s not too bad, like a dull second skin, but I’m tired of eating paste and smelling myself.” He didn’t mention that he was even sicker of relieving himself into tubes.
Yemaya zoomed into view and slammed into him, sending him rolling in the deep. Error alerts and safety alarms flashing in his vision. “Whoa, careful small fry, you’re almost bigger than I am in this getup.”
“I don’t want you to go!” Her voice was entirely human, a three-year-old girl, by his inexpert estimate.
His heart sank to the bottom of the trench and instantly popped with the pressure. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a definite pout on her face. “We have to, Love, but we’re not leaving for a long time.” This is what Wahgohi had tried to warn them about on their first meeting. Biology and circumstance forced them to be part-time parents.
“I’m going to miss you, Papi.” She tried to wrap her arms around him, but of course she couldn’t, not with her pectoral fins.
“I’m going to miss you too, my little mermaid.” He gave her an inept hug.
His daughter expanded her iridescent spines and sped away to lovingly crash into Ojore. Apparently she drew endless joy from the mayday signal of a failing environmental suit. Ignacio regained his barring and caught up to Wahgohi, trying to cruise within her slipstream.
From a distance, Yemaya looked almost entirely Mokoani, but up close her face was more like a beluga whales’—he winced internally at the slur—but with definite traces of humanity. Compared to the flat alien features of her mother, her face beamed with expression and, if he squinted, he could see hints of Ojore’s large eyes and broad nose in it and the curve of his own mother’s lips.
“You were right, Wahgohi. It’s going to be very hard not to be a part of your lives.”
“It’s going to be hard for me as well. We Mokoani, like humans, are intensely social. I was…not very happy before our arrangement.”
A memory bubbled up of other Mokoani carefully avoiding them at the spawning ground, giving them the kind of space you gave a nuclear reactor. “Why were you alone? Where is your school?” He was afraid she would say that humans had slaughtered them in their initial conflict, but the question was already eddying between them.
A long time passed and, when their daughter was quite a distance away, she finally said, “They abandoned me.”
“Why?” The last three months had made him comfortable enough with her to ask such a personal question.
“I negotiated the treaty that allowed humans to stay on this world.” She rotated her fins in an exasperated shrug. “I understood you were here to stay. That you couldn’t leave, and, given your miraculous technology, that if we kept goading you, you would have annihilated us. I brokered a peace to save my school and they called me a traitor and chose to shun me.”
Her scales puffed up as she sucked in a great volume of water. “For a long time I drifted about in despair, slowly descending toward the abyss until my only companions were the dirty, boiling hydrothermal vents on the oppressive sea floor. When hunger became unbearable, I forced myself to eat a few of the hard, unsatisfying crawlers that taste of bitter brimstone. After almost a year, my respiratory scales were aflame from the thick, sizzling sulfides, but I refused to leave the
She expelled a blanket of tiny bubbles from beneath her scales, which meant she was laughing. “Full Mokoani young change a lot in their first few months, but then it all evens out. Don’t worry. You’re here for the formative period. How are you doing in that marvelous and hideous suit of yours?”
“It’s jacked to my nervous system, so physically it’s not too bad, like a dull second skin, but I’m tired of eating paste and smelling myself.” He didn’t mention that he was even sicker of relieving himself into tubes.
Yemaya zoomed into view and slammed into him, sending him rolling in the deep. Error alerts and safety alarms flashing in his vision. “Whoa, careful small fry, you’re almost bigger than I am in this getup.”
“I don’t want you to go!” Her voice was entirely human, a three-year-old girl, by his inexpert estimate.
His heart sank to the bottom of the trench and instantly popped with the pressure. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a definite pout on her face. “We have to, Love, but we’re not leaving for a long time.” This is what Wahgohi had tried to warn them about on their first meeting. Biology and circumstance forced them to be part-time parents.
“I’m going to miss you, Papi.” She tried to wrap her arms around him, but of course she couldn’t, not with her pectoral fins.
“I’m going to miss you too, my little mermaid.” He gave her an inept hug.
His daughter expanded her iridescent spines and sped away to lovingly crash into Ojore. Apparently she drew endless joy from the mayday signal of a failing environmental suit. Ignacio regained his barring and caught up to Wahgohi, trying to cruise within her slipstream.
From a distance, Yemaya looked almost entirely Mokoani, but up close her face was more like a beluga whales’—he winced internally at the slur—but with definite traces of humanity. Compared to the flat alien features of her mother, her face beamed with expression and, if he squinted, he could see hints of Ojore’s large eyes and broad nose in it and the curve of his own mother’s lips.
“You were right, Wahgohi. It’s going to be very hard not to be a part of your lives.”
“It’s going to be hard for me as well. We Mokoani, like humans, are intensely social. I was…not very happy before our arrangement.”
A memory bubbled up of other Mokoani carefully avoiding them at the spawning ground, giving them the kind of space you gave a nuclear reactor. “Why were you alone? Where is your school?” He was afraid she would say that humans had slaughtered them in their initial conflict, but the question was already eddying between them.
A long time passed and, when their daughter was quite a distance away, she finally said, “They abandoned me.”
“Why?” The last three months had made him comfortable enough with her to ask such a personal question.
“I negotiated the treaty that allowed humans to stay on this world.” She rotated her fins in an exasperated shrug. “I understood you were here to stay. That you couldn’t leave, and, given your miraculous technology, that if we kept goading you, you would have annihilated us. I brokered a peace to save my school and they called me a traitor and chose to shun me.”
Her scales puffed up as she sucked in a great volume of water. “For a long time I drifted about in despair, slowly descending toward the abyss until my only companions were the dirty, boiling hydrothermal vents on the oppressive sea floor. When hunger became unbearable, I forced myself to eat a few of the hard, unsatisfying crawlers that taste of bitter brimstone. After almost a year, my respiratory scales were aflame from the thick, sizzling sulfides, but I refused to leave the
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