Part 30 (1/2)
”That cold? How cold is 'that' cold?” Her gaze was fixed on the stars that weren't.
”That all depends, doesn't it?” he murmured. He nodded toward the large cylinder. It lay on a flat area several meters wide that was just above the waterlme.
A smooth gla.s.s beach.
Cora had never before made love under the stars.
The fact that the stars were alive and that she and Sam were thirty meters beneath the surface of an alien sea did not matter. Nor did the fact that they were watched by a thousand dispa.s.sionate green eyes.
”Find anything?” Rachael extended a hand, helped her mother back onto the deck.
”Not really.” The bright sunlight burned Cora's face.
Mataroreva was right behind her, slid up his mask.
”We did a lot of looking. Found many beautiful things, but nothing that would help the investigation, I'm afraid.”
”You looked long enough.” Rachael studied Cora's back for a moment more, then added, ”Pucara thinks he's found something significant.”
”That's more than any of the rest of us have been able to do. Where is he?” Cora was grateful, no mat- ter what the little researcher might have discovered.
128.
CACHALOT.
CACHALOT.
129.
”He's still down below, using the s.h.i.+p's duplicator to make a copy of what he's found. Just in case.”
”It must be significant.” They all moved below.
Merced was working in the one large, below-decks room, surrounded by familiar apparatus. He glanced up briefly as they entered. ”Any luck?”
”Not a thing.” Cora shook her head. ”You've had
some?”
”Maybe. I think it could be.” He moved aside,
switched on the duplicator's viewer. They crowded around the tiny screen. Cora felt Sam pressing close behind her, s.h.i.+fted her stance ever so slightly. Appar- ently he understood, because he moved back a step.
”Figures,” Mataroreva muttered as he examined the screen. ”Another list. So what?”
”The figures line up economically with some mani- fests I found. Here.” Merced adjusted the instrument.
Words and quant.i.ties were superimposed alongside the lists of numbers. ”I found out what the town was working, here on this reef.” He looked up at their guide. ”Do you know something called Teallin?”
”Sure,” Mataroreva said. ”It's a mollusk, looks like a perverted abalone. That's what the town was har- vesting?” He nodded thoughtfully. ”It would explain why we've come across so few of them in our search.
The mature ones were all harvested, then?”
”That's what the records indicate.”