The boat had moved away from the dock and he made no effort to bring it closer.
"I merely follow directions, Misha. I will inform the Council of your objection when I next land there. In the meantime, I would suggest that you fulfill your part, which is to guard the fish." There was distain and hatred in his voice as he spat out the last word. Hanisch had lost two brothers to the Sea People.
"But..."
His attention turned from me to his four-man crew.
"Make sail, Henno."
The first sail opened with a rippling sound and a dull thud and that was that.
+
Bewildered, I looked around. The island was perhaps a kilometer across. On what I could see of it, the green of the palms and other vegetation stood out against the brightness of the fine-grained, white sand beach. The only sound was that of wind and water.
I looked at the departing boat, heard Hanisch shout something to his crew. The schooner came about, turned its stern to me as it caught the wind and gathered speed.
I had no idea what was happening, but first things first. I had promised to bring food to my charge.
+
It was bound to have happened, sooner or later. With the Senate's Emigration Agency launching colony ships across the galaxy as fast as they could be built, it was inevitable that humanity would encounter what learned scholars had formerly snorted at as 'mythological' or 'cryptids'. Unlikely, one might say, most unlikely, but with a hundred billion stars in our galaxy, 'unlikely' was becoming less of a rule and more of a guideline.
The Agency's survey drones had noted the planet two generations before, lying in a stable orbit around a G2 sun, much like Earth's Sol. Cordelia, named some say for the sometimes-mistress of a senior Agency director, was mainly ocean with endless small islands scattered in constellations of archipelagoes; drone footage even showed sandy beaches with gentle surf. Automated drop rovers from the drones confirmed the planet was liveable, with gravity at 1.06G and an atmosphere of 76% nitrogen, 22% oxygen and 2% inert gasses. Temperatures met high-comfortable sub-tropical Earth norms and UV levels were acceptable. Weather pattern analysis showed nothing beyond acceptable limits and automated analysis of native protein samples showed compatibility within tolerances.
All in all, it was a Goldilocks planet and the Agency moved immediately, with three waves of colonists dispatched over the next 14 years. Some of them were even volunteers.
That the drones didn't notice the sentient population is regrettable and perhaps even understandable. Maybe the drones did report the Sea People and the Agency 'crats simply ignored the facts. At this point, it makes little difference; it wouldn't in any case have stopped the Senate's outshipment of surplus population.
The first wave reported going into orbit, announced plans for landing and that was the last anyone heard of them. Almost two generations later, nobody has found the slightest trace of them — no shelters, no implements, no bones — nothing. It was as if they'd landed on the sun itself.
The second wave had better luck, of a sort. They landed successfully. The first reports after landing were routine - offloading, exploration, initial construction. Soon enough, a report to the Agency described meeting the Sea People. Transmissions continued, but attention shifted suddenly from the People to a fast-spreading, very lethal local plague. Cordelia soon after went silent and remained so until the arrival of the third wave, which incidentally contained my parents and my two sisters.
Better prepared for disease this time, the third wave sent down new probes, took samples from the few survivors and developed a vaccine in orbit. The rest is history. History of a grizzly sort, to be sure, for the Sea People were not pleased with having to share their planet.
Thinking about it now, I'm not sure I can blame them, for the colonists' interpretation of 'sharing' was a bit rough.
Modern weapons had not been thought necessary -- or desirable -- for colonial starter packs and, once landed, the humans were in any case entirely on their own. As incidents became frequent, then regular, then constant, humans armed themselves with common tools like axes and knives and whatever weapons they could fashion. As the Sea People were no better armed, it became a long, drawn-out war of endless small skirmishes.
What? Well, of course they couldn't fight us on land, not without legs. On the other hand, our diet was heavily dependent on seafood and our fare became pretty thin when most boats sank almost as soon as they left port. About the only thing we had going for us was the fact that their females needed solid land to birth.
It sorted itself out; things usually do. There was now an uneasy truce, something which might be charitably described as a verbal treaty of sorts, with humanity being limited to some of the islands and their immediate waters and the People to the rest, the majority of the planet. Most of mankind -- the term now taken to include both species -- was wary of the Others, but generally inclined to get along. Sadly but unsurprisingly, there were vocally belligerent factions on both sides, never forgetting, never forgiving.
I was born in Year Two, at the height of the conflict. Growing up, this all seemed normal to me. How else?
I suppose my boyhood was typical of that of any colonial child. The small, basic school on our island was open mainly in the mornings, when the teacher was still sober; my parents parted with hard coin to give us some education. I don't suppose most children like school very much, so I won't pretend to be ashamed of having cut classes more than once or six times.
The rest of the time, when I wasn't at least theoretically in class? Well, I suppose I did what any little boy does -- played, climbed trees, ran, teased little girls of my own age. And, oh yes, I swam. Somebody had driven a row of posts across the channel into our lagoon and, especially after the truce, it was safe from the People. Mostly. Swimming was indeed a life skill on Cordelia and I was a good swimmer by human standards.
As I grew more than waist high, there were the docks. After all, what else was there for a boy my age to do?
I learned, first and most important, to stay out from underfoot and to watch out for swinging booms and falling loads. I learned about the different types of sailing rigs. I learned to caulk, to sweep and wash in return for tidbits of fresh-caught fish, straight from the cauldron of boiling oil, so hot I had to toss them from hand to hand to keep from burning, much to the laughter of the horny-handed men around me.
Old men took the time to teach me the arcane lore of knots and splicing. I learned to tell good line from bad, to separate strands to tell if a line is still strong, to smell rot starting even before that. I learned how to mend nets, to sharpen knives, to gut and filet fish, to judge the weight of a catch by how much a craft heeled to one side as she was unloaded. I learned how to dry and bundle kelp and other seaweed so it wouldn't rot before delivery. I learned cloud patterns and their meanings, how to row, how to set and furl sails.
I also learned to whistle.
Whistle properly, I mean. I'd always whistled, as long as I could remember. Just old tunes, I guess, songs my parents had sung, things I had heard. It came naturally to me and I began to twist other tunes, bend them to my own pleasure. No, I never had any lessons — such a thing, on Cordelia! — but I enjoyed it and it filled the hours. I eventually started, I don't know, composing? Songs would appear in my head and, lacking instruments, I'd whistle them, polish and improve them.
It was through that that I met my first merman.
I'd been mending nets out at the end of the docks, a peaceful task, but not one requiring a lot of attention. As usual, I was whistling. There were the usual sounds around me -- birds, waves, the creaking of rigging; then there was something else.
"Who is it that charms the swells with their speech?"
The voice seemed to come out from under my feet, a clear, if uneven, tenor.
My head spun around, but I was indeed the only one there. Puzzled, I looked under the dock. Lying on a brace between two piles was the first of the Sea People I had ever seen. Oh, to be sure, I had seen pictures of them, had had them described to me, but this was the first in the flesh.
I pulled my head back, peeked over. The People had always been described as alien, dangerous, something to be feared, something one hoped would always be over the far horizon. Yet here was one, smiling up at me.
Mermaids had also been said to be attractive, but I could see nothing attractive about the creature below. Shaggy grey hair topped a wrinkled and sagging face with a battered blob of a nose. Potbellied, his scales were uneven, a few missing here and there and his fin edges looked ragged.
His hands clutched a pottery jug of the sort I knew island cane farms used to sell their rum. As I watched, he raised it to his mouth and took a deep swallow. Lowering it, he smiled artlessly.
"Somet'ing about good singin' always makes me t'irsty," he said, then giggled. His words were easy enough to understand, but he carried a thick accent. Looking at me, he gave a loud belch and I fled in sudden terror.
The man running the fish cauldron laughed and gave me a comforting smile.
"Don't you worry about old Phenos," he said. "He's no danger to you, provided you stay up here."
"But who is he?" I asked. "Why? I thought they were our enemies."
He thought for a moment. "I guess you'd say Phenos is nobody's enemy." He blinked, added, "but nobody's friend, neither."
"But what's he here for?"
"Don't know the whole of it, Misha, but he ain't welcome back home for some reason. He's a bit of a layabout, sleeps under the docks most of the time. Oh, if somebody's lost an anchor or dropped something overboard, he'll look for it - for a price. He does the odd bit o' fish scouting, scraped the barnacles off Jude Mastov's boat without need of drydock or careening."
He thought for a moment, shook his head.
"Phenos is no harm, really, but he ain't what you call a hard worker. Spends most of his time wrapped around a rum jug."
Reassured, I went back to my task. From below me came his voice.
"Ye whistle well, small human. Who taught ye?"
"Nobody," I said, net needle poking through torn mesh, fingers pinching and knotting. "I always have."
"Ye can talk that way," he said. "Did ye know that, lad?"
"I'd heard that."
"♫ "  Tha's me name. Ye say it."
I tried. He laughed gently. "Not bad for a landman. But try this." He corrected my pronunciation and I tried again.
"Better," he burped. "D'ye know how to say 'water'?"
"No," I said. "Not yet."
.
I suppose Phenos was pleased to find a human willing to listen to him, even if only a child. He was a patient creature, generous in his own way and never seemed to resent his ill luck and low status.
I began to spend more time on the docks, less time in school or on chores. My mother chided me, but my father took my side. Booklearning was good, he said, but nets put food on the table.
The People's song speech came easily to lips used to whistling tunes. Phenos was a lazy teacher, but not a bad one and he was willing to teach me more than just language. Looking back, much of what he said was idle boasting to impress a small child and some was drunken nonsense, but by the time my voice changed, I had gained a reputation on the island for knowledge beyond my years. Phenos had told me of things not visible from any boat, regaled me with undersea legends and myths, taught me about the People's manners and customs and shared ten thousand years of Seafolk lore.
He was a rough, boastful, self-centred old drunk and I miss him very, very much.
+
I carried an armload of parcels from the wharf, set them down by the open boathouse door. Rummaging through a hamper of food, I found cooking and eating implements, bread, fruit, smoked fish, a brick of dried kelp, a jar of tea and a few other items besides.
I re-entered the fusty boathouse, found her waiting. I looked around, grimaced.
"The man has food for the lady, but where would she care to dine?"
She looked around, glanced briefly at the boards across the slip-ends, sunlit ocean beyond.
"The lady may choose to eat in this sad place," I said softly, "or she may move outside for this meal. Sadly, the man lacks any means of helping the lady depart this distressing place save..."
I paused and saw the implications of that cross her face, wrestle with her modesty and distaste. Crawling over the wood-and-rock cribwork would not be easy.
" ♫♪ "
If the man is prepared to carry the lady, the lady will not object.
In my arms, she was a solid, healthy weight, much the same as the human girls I knew, but the feel of soft skin on one bare arm and scales on the other was decidedly strange. I tried not to look at her silhouetted profile next to my eyes and I am quite sure she kept her eyes pointed away from me.
