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SELKIES

Mary Rosenblum



A recurring sf theme, pioneered by Olaf Stapledon’s monumental Last and First Men, is the concept of altering humans so that they can live, and even thrive, in hostile environments, whether on other planets, or in Earth’s oceans. But how would an amphibious human feel about the scientist who had made her that way?


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“Lights!” Jessamin covered her throat patch to block out the windnoise. Yellow light flooded the deck, and she clung to the satellite antenna as a wave crashed across the twin-hulled boat. A welter of foam surged across the deck, dirty white in the floodlights’ glare. She should have checked the sat-link for storms, this afternoon. She had been careless. The wind screamed, plastering her wet bangs to her face, flapping loose folds of her storm suit. Another wave slammed into the boat, skidding the VTOL closer to the edge of the deck. Jessamin grabbed for the loose guy line as the wind whipped it past her. The little jet should have been tied down properly in the first place. Her mistake. She let go of the antenna mount. You were responsible for your mistakes, even if you were Jessamin Chen, head of Tanaka-Pacific’s Aquaculture Division.

Got it! The cable stung her palms as she clutched it, and she bared her teeth to the stinging blast of wind-driven spray. You can’t sink me, you can’t drown me. Go ahead and try—a lot of people have tried to sink me over the last three decades, and they couldn’t do it.

Of course, she was cheating. Jessamin touched her storm harness and laughed. The line tethering her wasn’t going to break, and you couldn’t sink this boat if you tried. No unnecessary risks—not if you want to get to the top and stay there.

The bow rode up a towering swell, foam streaming down its cambered sides. With a crash, it dropped into the deep trough beyond. Water boiled across the deck, and the VTOL slid again. Damn. She stretched for the tie-down ring, couldn’t reach it. Carla would find out, if Jessamin ordered a new VTOL. She’d spend the time and money to discover why. It would be another point scored, a small private victory—that Jessamin had been careless.

You think I don’t know how closely you watch me? Jessamin searched for a handy cleat. That’s all right. I watch you, too. It’s not time yet, daughter. Jessamin threw her head back, letting the wind rake the wet hair from her face. “You get the Aquaculture Division when I decide you’re ready,” she yelled into the storm. “If I decide you’re ready.” She whipped the VTOL’s cable around a deck cleat, and hauled it tight. No, Carla was good, but not good enough. Not yet. Time to study patience, daughter. Jessamin headed forward to secure the rest of the VTOL’s tie-downs, bent against the slashing rain. And don’t sic your lover on me in public.

Paul had been so transparent in Zurich, trying to undercut her during their negotiations with the World Resource Council. Trying to make her look incompetent. Her. That bumbling puppy. Did he really think that Carla could save him if he seriously challenged her? Jessamin could swat him like a fly.

Well, maybe. Jessamin grimaced and hung onto the craft’s forward tiedown as the next wave surged across the deck. She’d had her hands full with the Council, never mind Paul. They weren’t going to rubber-stamp the renewal of Tanaka’s monopoly contract on the Pacific Fishery this time around. The East European Coalition had thrown a serious challenge in their way, and the East block had a lot of votes on the Council. If Tanaka lost the Pacific Fishery, the Coalition would rape it. She yanked the cable tight, secured it.

Light turned the oncoming swells to mountains of green glass, capped with wind-shredded foam. Gray curtains of rain swept across the bow as the boat ploughed through the next swell. There was so much life down there. Food for humanity forever. If humanity didn’t get too greedy.

The Coalition was greedy.

Jessamin licked her lips, tasting salt from the windblown spume, cold inside her storm suit. A few years ago, she could have brought the Council to heel in one session. Maybe you are getting old. Carla’s voice in the wind?

No, daughter. Not yet. Jessamin squinted aft, checking the deck for anything else that might be coming loose in the storm. All secure. Go below, make yourself a toddy, and go to bed. As she started to head back to the companionway, a dark shape caught her eye out in the floodlit chaos. Driftwood? She leaned on the rail, metal cold beneath her bare palms. A dead seal? The dark shape slid down the side of a swell, and pale skin gleamed through ragged curtains of rain. Jessamin’s stomach contracted. A body? Out here, so far from shore? Some fool of a sports fisherman who hadn’t checked the sat-link for weather before he went out? Too late for him. He’d paid for his stupidity. He belonged to the sea, now.

Her hands were freezing and water had leaked in around her suit’s hood, cold on her neck. Jessamin started to turn away. For an instant, the rain thinned. Light snagged a flicker of motion, dragged it into her peripheral vision; shoulders bunching, an arm lifting from white foam. Jessamin grabbed the rail, squinting down as the rain closed in once again. Yes, movement.

He was alive.

The boat slid up the next swell, and the weakly struggling swimmer slid aft, bumping against the hull now, sucked along toward the big intake port. “Engines, stop!” she yelled. “Bow thrusters only. Maintain stern into the wind.” She ran aft, wind shoving her as the boat slowed and maneuvered. Her safety line snagged. She yanked at it, nearly fell over backward as it came suddenly loose. Where was he? Gone under? She grabbed the mounted buoy-launcher, swiveled it around, scanning the rainswept swells. There! He floundered to the surface, arms moving weakly. He wasn’t trying for the boat, didn’t even seem to be aware that it was there. If he was that far gone, he might not come back up next time. Bitter irony, to fight so hard and die so close to rescue. She respected a fighter.

Jessamin sighted just short of him, fired. The life-buoy launched, trailing its line, splashed down less than a meter from him. Bright orange nets popped out from the basketball-sized buoy, forming a floating skirt. The swimmer grabbed, hooked a pale arm through the mesh. Jessamin staggered as a wave slammed into the boat. Swearing, she braced herself against the rail. Come on, man. Her arms ached with strain. Help me!

He tried. A wave lifted him as he got closer, and he grabbed for the diving deck, beaching like a stranded orca as the wave broke across the waterline platform. Dark hair in a strange cut came to a point down between his shoulder blades. Like fur, one corner of her mind noticed. “Can you climb the ladder?” she yelled down. Not likely, and she couldn’t open the deck-level hatch in this storm. Shit. The boat groaned as the next swell slammed it. The diving deck dipped into the green wall of water and the exhausted swimmer vanished.

Jessamin swung out onto the ladder, shaking her safety line loose from snags. Tie him to the ladder and worry about getting him up here later. Her foot slipped, and she gasped, hands coming loose from the rung. She fell a breathless meter, landed whump on the slippery deck as the next wave surged over it. Eyes squeezed shut, she grabbed for the ladder. Her feet lifted and she felt Patrick’s touch in the water, like cold fingers stroking her skin. He was down there. Somewhere. I’ll see you, he’d said on that last morning, kissing her so gently before he went down to the beach for his morning swim. I’ll see you. As if he’d meant to come back.

He hadn’t. It had been suicide, and it was water she felt, not ghostly fingers. The surge receded, and she got her feet under her. Sucking in a quick breath, Jessamin grabbed for the swimmer. Her hand closed on his shoulder, fingers digging into his armpit. Cold flesh, cold as Patrick’s. Major hypothermia? “Can you hold onto the ladder?”

Amazingly, he struggled to his feet. Yes, this guy was a fighter. Another wave coming . . . Jessamin shoved him against the ladder. “Hang on!” Jessamin leaned against his corpse-cold body, struggling to loop her safety line around him. To her surprise, he started climbing, pulling himself upward one rung at a time. She shoved him higher, her hands sliding on naked flesh, snagging in a pair of swim trunks. What had this idiot been doing? Taking a quick dip in the storm? He faltered at the top, and she shoved him roughly onboard, scrambling after him, safe. “Main engines on.” She clamped a hand over her throat patch. “Storm speed, hull down.”

Jessamin staggered as the nav system kicked in the big props. The boat shied like a startled horse, and she fell hard to her knees beside the sprawled swimmer, shivering now, teeth chattering with cold and the aftermath of adrenaline. The man had curled fetal-wise on the wet deck, not shivering, which was a bad sign. Jessamin grabbed his shoulder and recoiled as he flinched away. She, not he, and young. She stared as the girl struggled to sit up. Light from the deck floods gleamed on small breasts set way too far apart, and highlighted the obscene bulge of flesh between them. That bulge ran like a wide flaccid tube from collarbone to hips, each end puckered into a purplish slash, like a badly healed surgical scar.

A gill tunnel. In the water, those puckered mouths would open, letting water flow through the delicate folded membranes that allowed this girl to breathe beneath the sea. Jessamin swallowed. Patrick had called them selkies, after some sea-dwellers of his childhood fairytales. She had refused to make it Tanaka’s official name for them, had told him that Aquatic Specialist was better, more scientific, more acceptable. They’d fought about it one night, and he had stomped out in a rage. Later, he had brought her a dirt-grown white rose as a peace offering, and they had made love in front of the fireplace. The heat from the fire had washed his fair skin with ruddy light . . . 

Jessamin shook her head, dizzy in this wave-rush of unexpected memory. In the end, names had made no difference at all. Ah, Patrick. You cared too much, and in the end it killed you.

“Are you . . . finished staring?” The girl gave Jessamin a glazed scowl and tried to get to her feet.

“Just take it easy.” Teeth chattering, wet beneath her storm suit, Jessamin reached for the girl’s arm, staggered with her weight. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” The girl leaned on Jessamin, heavier than she looked. “Just hungry, I think. We get like this . . .”

Yes, they did. Because it took energy to keep a mammal warm in the cold sea, never mind how much body fat you coat them with. And it took energy to make the uric acid that balanced salt and water in their body fluids so that they could live in their saline environment. The details came back to her, each one like the stab of a small knife. Patrick had worked them all out with her, cross-legged on their rumpled bed, awake until the early morning hours as he grappled with the traits he needed to create Homo aquaticus. It wasn’t his voice that had kept her from sleep. It had been his face that had held her—transformed with vision, eyes glowing in the soft light of her bedside lamp.

A faulty vision. Patrick was long dead, and she was cold. “Come on.” Jessamin started for the main companionway, staggering with the wave motion and the added burden of the girl’s weight. Vaguely, she noticed that the storm was finally easing. The girl was unsteady, but at least she was walking. The wind snatched the door from her hands and slammed it back on its hinges. With a grunt, Jessamin wrestled it closed. The sudden quiet made her ears ring. The girl broke away from her with a wrench and collapsed into the nearest chair.

It was always a shock to go from the raw reality of sea and sky to the warmth of wood, woven fabrics, and soft light. An intentional contrast. Jessamin grimaced at the water spotting the wooden floor and a corner of the carpet. The girl’s presence made the room seem crowded, in spite of its spacious dimensions. She rarely invited anyone out to the boat. This was her refuge. Her space. “So, what are you doing out here?” Jessamin stepped back into the tiled entry, stripped out of her storm suit, and hung it on its hook. “You came from Briard?”

Jessamin glanced at her terminal desk. She hadn’t programmed a course to Briard, had simply set a random-select autopilot to keep her moving and secure from anyone who might want to know where one of the most powerful women on the planet hid her vulnerable flesh.

They were close to Briard Research Station. Not very close, but within a possible swimming distance. Jessamin shivered. Coincidence. Of course she passed near Briard occasionally as she roved up and down the Pacific coast. Once upon a time, she had spent a lot of time there. When it had been Patrick’s home and lab. Enough ghosts already. “We’re a long swim from the station.”

“Are we?” The girl’s eyes flashed at Jessamin’s sharp tone. “I don’t know.” She hunched in the chair, arms crossed protectively over her chest.

“You should know. You swam it.” Jessamin walked past her, pissed at her ungrateful attitude. “What’s your name? And how did you get permission to leave the station, anyway?” It had been closed to any access for years now, walled off by court injunctions against trespass. She stopped in front of her kitchen-wall, touched up the inventory on the little flatscreen. This kid was AWOL, and it was Carla’s responsibility. She ran Research. If she really planned to inherit all of Aquaculture, she’d damn well better know that one of Tanaka’s expensive and dangerous genens was missing. Scowling, she touched in her choice.

“Who are you anyway?” The girl twisted around to face her, feet tucked up onto the chair. Pale folds of webbing stuck up between her long toes. “How do you know about Briard, anyway? You’ve got to work for Tanaka.”

That surly tone wasn’t anger. Jessamin gave her a quick sideways glance, and scooped up the drink packets that had dropped into the receiver tray. The kid was scared. “I’m Jess. I’ve worked for Tanaka.” The past-tense came so automatically. Why? Automatic caution? Jessamin stabbed a straw into one of the plastic packets. “Drink all of these.”

“What is it?” She took the packets warily, fingers spreading to reveal the translucent folds of webbing that joined them.

“A juice-protein drink. High fat, lots of calories.” She kept it for after dives, hated it. “Strawberry. And you haven’t told me your name.”

“Shira.” The girl took a swallow, grimaced. “Yuck. I’m Shira Doyle.” She lifted her chin, her eyes dark and defiant.

Doyle.

Jessamin leaned against the kitchen-wall, needing all her skill to hide her expression. I want a child, Jess, Patrick had said so many years ago. And she had laughed, because she had just been named head of Aquaculture, and the world was hers, waiting for her to carve her name on it. And later, when there had been time and reason, it had been too late.

Patrick had begun with undifferentiated human gametes, had added and subtracted DNA segments as he sculpted them into his selkies. The original DNA had come from anonymous donors, selected for specific traits and filed by number. No names. No parentage issues. Transplanted into volunteer wombs, the engineered ova had grown, divided, had ultimately been born, the cutting edge of human genentech. Tanaka’s new wonders. Children of genius Patrick, who had wanted to play God, even though Tanaka didn’t really need a God. Costly mistakes. Jessamin closed her eyes briefly.

Patrick Doyle.

He’d used his own DNA to create this girl—oh yeah, you could see it in her face. That frown was his. I want a child, Jess. “I’m cold.” Jessamin straightened, joints aching, feeling old suddenly. “Drink those. I’m going to put on some dry clothes.” She took the small circular stairway down to her bedroom without waiting for an answer.

The twin hulls were transparent, molded from prestressed polyglass. She’d had her main-deck living area painted to keep out the space of sea and sky. For that, you had to go outside, take weather with your view. Down here, there was only sea. She stepped off the stairway without turning on the lights. It was never completely dark. A school of squid jetted by, ghostly streaks of green light. Constellations of living stars twirled in the dark water, and something large veered away from the hull, its sides spotted with bright yellow light. The storm must be easing off if her nav system had slowed them down to slow cruise speed again. A pale oval appeared briefly on the far side of the thick glass, like a ghostly face pressed longingly against a window. She imagined Patrick peering in at her, face set into hard lines of reproach. “You’re angry at me, aren’t you?” Jessamin walked over to the hull, stopped just short of the smooth polyglass. “You wouldn’t let me explain, you wouldn’t listen.” The luminescent shimmer of light seemed to coalesce into the girl’s face, young and wary, looking at her with Patrick’s eyes.

Jessamin clenched a fist, slammed it against the hull. The glowing blob of light skittered away, a fish or ray, nothing more. “Lights,” she snapped, and blinked in the soft glow.

With the lights on, it became a bedroom with mirrored walls. No ghosts in here. Jessamin stripped quickly, tossing her damp clothes into a heap on the floor. Skinny, youthful body, dark hair, Chinese phenotype. She could pass for forty instead of sixty. A thick shirt and dry pants finally ended the shivering, and she sat down on the side of the big bed facing the entertainment-sized holo stage in the center of the room. “House, access Carla Chen.” Carla would accept the access. She’d know all about Zurich by now. Jessamin stared at the empty stage, wondering which would come first; gloating over Jessamin’s setback, or anger?

“Mother.” Carla began to speak even before her image had fully focused onstage. “Paul just accessed me from Zurich. He said you didn’t present your resignation at the meeting.”

Anger. “Don’t whine.” Jessamin swallowed a surge of bitterness. She had chosen Carla’s father from their stock of nameless donors, picked out a fine-boned, dark-haired Caucasian with the intelligence and creative quotients to complement her own genotype. Had this tendency to whine been embedded in there, too, between the genes for hazel eyes and the genes for a high IQ?

“I’m not whining.” Carla flushed, the projector shading too heavily for red again, turning her face lobster-colored. “You said this was your last year. You were going to retire.”

“I changed my mind.” Jessamin shrugged. “If the Coalition gets the fishery, it’ll take us a decade to get it back and a century to undo the damage. East Euro doesn’t care if they strip the whole ocean bare, just so long as they pull out their maximum tonnage.” She closed her eyes briefly, remembering the huge nets winched dripping from the sea, spewing flopping silvery life into the holds of the factory ships. So much wastage. Cleaning fish on the line, she had held the sea’s raped guts in her numb, bloody hands, had listened to the old-timers bitch about the reduced catch, and, deep inside, in a hidden place . . . she had wept. I was so young. Jessamin opened her eyes, gave her daughter a thin smile. So idealistic and immature. “I am going to see this crisis through,” she said.

This crisis?” Carla’s face went carefully smooth. “There’s always a crisis! Someone is always after something. Don’t give me crisis, Mother. Tanaka won’t fail if we lose the monopoly. This is just another excuse to leave me stuck with Research. You’re never going to retire,” she said softly. “The damn doctors will keep you alive forever, and you’ll never believe that anyone but Jessamin Chen could do an adequate job of running Aquaculture.”

“When I’m no longer the best choice for the job, I’ll resign.”

“Who’s going to decide, Mother?” Carla’s voice was cold. “You?

“Yes.” Jessamin met her daughter’s eyes. “And what was your reason for putting Paul up against me? Do you really think he has the finesse to do anything? He might be good in bed, dear, but he’s a klutz in negotiations. Keep him where he belongs.” She waited for her daughter to flush and react, but Carla’s smile never faltered.

“I’m sorry you don’t get along,” Carla said in a carefully regretful tone. “I’m sorry you feel that he’s a threat to you.”

“He’s not good enough to be a threat.” But Jessamin felt a twinge of unease. This was not the reaction she’d expected from her volatile daughter. Was Carla finally learning self-control? This entire conversation was being recorded by both herself and her daughter. What was going on here? “Are you missing any aquatics?” she asked sourly. “Or do you know?”

This time Carla did flush. “You never quit, do you?” Her voice quivered just a hair. “You’ll never stop looking over my shoulder!”

Aha. “I want your side of it,” Jessamin snapped. “Right now.”

“Don’t use that tone on me.” But Carla looked away. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m thirty-five. The aquatic involved claimed it was an accident, as your informant undoubtedly told you.” Her mouth twitched. “My God, we’ve had the pickets and the protesters out there forever! By now, they’re practically part of the landscape. The staff and the aquatics have all had extensive counseling on dealing with that kind of thing. I don’t know what happened. It’s her word against a half dozen witnesses, but considering that the witnesses are all anti-genen fanatics, what does that mean?”

Good question. Jessamin pressed her lips together. “So where is she?”

“If I knew, I’m sure you would, too.” Carla didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in her tone. “If the man hadn’t died, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I’m going to find out who’s reporting to you, you know.”

If the man hadn’t died. A lifetime of control kept Jessamin’s expression neutral. “Why didn’t you tell me? My God child . . .”

I am not a child.” Carla’s shoulders hunched, as if she had clenched her fists out of sight beneath her desk. “Why should I have told you? You stuck me with Research—the most marginal operation in Tanaka. You told me not to bother you with details, that you wanted me to do it on my own. So that you could judge my performance, right? So, then, judge.” Her lips twisted. “I kept a lid on this, and it took work and money, let me tell you. I know what it could do to the Council vote on our Pacific contract if the media plays hacky sack with that story. Rogue Tanaka Genen Kills Peaceful Protester. It won’t happen,” she said bitterly. “So you can skip the lecture. No cops. Tanaka Security finds her, and we turn her over to the DA. They’ve got a court order to hold her until the World Court decides on the genens’ legal status. The media’s out of it. It’s a done deal.”

The girl upstairs, Shira, had killed a man. A prickle of ice touched Jessamin’s neck, and she opened her mouth to tell Carla to get Briard security out here and fast.

She didn’t say it. “All right. You’ve been handling it.” She gave Carla a curt nod. “Keep me informed about this.”

She snapped her fingers to break the connection, but not before Carla’s look of wary surprise had registered. What? Jessamin made a face. Had Carla thought she was going to step in and take over? She probably should. Jessamin pressed her lips together. Kazi Itano had bowed to her, when she had taken Aquaculture from him so many, many years ago. She wasn’t ready to bow to Carla yet.

“You didn’t tell her.”

Jessamin turned slowly. Shira sat on the bottom step, raised knees hiding her gill tunnel, folded webbing sticking out from her clenched fists. “She was talking about me and you knew it. Why didn’t you tell her I was here?”

She had Patrick’s transparent face, and she was scared beneath that surly anger. Terrified. “I want to hear your side,” Jessamin said slowly. Why hadn’t she told Carla? Just because this kid wore Patrick’s face? “I want to hear your side of it before they lock you up in some jail cell for the umpteen years that the Court will manage to evade this damn issue.”

“Prison.” Shira spread her long fingers, staring at the pale stretch of skin between them. “What would I do in prison?” She shuddered, and balled her hand into a fist again.

What indeed. Aquatic, Carla had said. They were Aquatic Specialists on Tanaka’s inventory, listed like alvins or factory seiners. They had been Homo aquaticus to Patrick, a new race.

Selkies.

The girl stood up suddenly, crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed. She moved awkwardly. Her too-long toes snagged on the carpet, and the webbing between them stuck up in thick folds. Her thick, heavily muscled legs were too long for her short, broad torso. She looked wrong in this lighted, ordinary space. Jessamin felt a twinge of revulsion. It was the kind of revulsion you might feel for someone with a terrible deformity. You overlaid and disguised it with civilized compassion, but underneath, you were revolted—a primitive, gut-level xenophobia. Alien. Different. Not-tribe.

The sea is most of our world, Patrick had said in bed one night. But we’re aliens there, so we don’t love it. We can’t love it, and we need to love it, or we’ll kill it. His eyes had shone in the dark room like a wild animal’s, or a prophet’s. He had believed in what he was doing, and she had funded him because of that faith, and not because he was her lover. It had still been a mistake.

That was why she hadn’t told Carla. Because this was Patrick’s daughter. It would have hurt Patrick, that his daughter was a killer.

Bad reason—as bad a reason as faith. Or love. It reeked of nostalgia, and, once, she had known nostalgia for the dangerous thing it was. Maybe she was getting old. Maybe she should step aside for Carla.

Who decides, Mother?

Me, and I’m not losing it yet. Jessamin sat down on the bed across from Shira, noticed the girl’s small flinch. “Tell me about this man you killed.”

“Why?” Shira looked past her at her reflection in the glass wall. “The media’s got to be full of it, by now. Check it out there.” Her voice trembled the tiniest bit. “Will you . . . turn out the light again, please?”

“Lights off.” Sea-darkness filled the room, lighted by the bioluminescent galaxies orbiting slowly past. Shira fit in this scene. “The media’s out of it. For now.” Jessamin stared out into that dark, life-filled water. “The why is because Patrick Doyle was my friend.”

Shira looked up. “Doyle? The guy who . . . made us? They say he was a genius. You knew him, huh?” She looked away. “He was a bastard! I hate his guts!”

“No!” The word came out too loud, too fast.

Shira’s face tightened, but she didn’t look at Jessamin.

She didn’t know, Jessamin realized suddenly. The gene stocks were numbered, but not cross-referenced to donor names. Last names had been a whimsical thing. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.” Shira watched a school of small fish hover beyond the hull, then arrow away in precise unison.

Her face had relaxed in the sea-lit darkness. Jessamin had to turn away. Patrick had looked like that some nights. “I want some tea. You?”

“Thanks.”

Jessamin got up suddenly, went over to the dispenser on the wall. No, Shira didn’t know. Patrick had died the year before she had been born. “Patrick loved you.” You, personally, child, you as a new race. “He . . . sacrificed everything to create you.” And now I’m defending him, I, who have every reason to accuse him. Jessamin picked up a porcelain mug from the dresser, held it under the spout. Amber tea swirled into her cup, and she filled a second one for Shira. “Why do you hate him?” She turned around to find Shira staring at her, her eyes dark as the nighttime sea in the dim light.

“So he loved us, huh?” Shira took the cup carefully, folding her webbing between her long fingers. “I have gills like a fish. That’s what the people on shore call us, isn’t it? Fish? That’s all right.” Her laugh was as harsh and dry as the sound of tearing paper. “We call you ‘grubs.’ My hair comes from fur-seal genes.” She brushed one webbed hand over her head. “My metabolism comes from sharks and kangaroo rats and Weddell seals. I don’t like your room upstairs. My gill gets squashed when I try to sleep in a bed, and it hurts. My toes catch on things, and you grubs don’t make shoes to fit us.” She raised her head slowly. “What am I, lady? Animal or human? You want to tell me? I guess the World Court is going to make up its mind one of these days. I can’t wait.” She stared down at the silk bedspread. “I spilled tea on your bed. I can’t even hold a bloody cup.”

“You can hold it just fine. Patrick made you as dexterous as any primate.” Jessamin looked over the girl’s bowed head, bitterness clogging her throat. Tanaka’s marketing specialists had warned about a potential backlash against the proliferating genetic manipulation of the human genome. She hadn’t listened. Because it had mattered so much to Patrick . . . and she had loved him.

Her mistake. You are responsible for your mistakes, even if you’re Jessamin Chen.

But who had paid for this one? Patrick? This child and her siblings?

“We got sold out, you know.” Shira stared into her cup. “Everybody knows it—that Tanaka nudged the media under the table. Tanaka really got the anti-fish riots going, just so they could shut down the program. Why?” Her voice quivered. “Because we cost too much? Why didn’t they just do it—end the program? Why did they turn those crazies loose on us? They’re out there all the time with their signs and their crosses and their slogans. Some of ’em have been around so long, they’re almost . . . familiar.” Her laugh had jagged edges, sharp as glass. “Like old friends.”

“Tanaka didn’t start the riots.” The bitter, ugly truth of what Shira had just said dragged at her words, slowing them down. Tanaka hadn’t started the riots, but neither had they tried very hard to defend their genen program. “The riots were directed against all human modification, not just you.”

“But we were the only ones who weren’t people anymore. We’re fish. Because of Doyle.” Shira flung her cup at the wall. It shattered, tea splashing everywhere, running down the glass wall like dirty tears. She faced Jessamin, her eyes wide and dark in her pale face, breathing hard. “Let me tell you about Aaron. We were the last two . . . to be born. So we were always close. We were the youngest, you know? I . . . loved him.” Her voice trembled. “And it really bugged him that we didn’t matter. We should have. We can take care of the fish schools, do the exploring and the mining, work on undersea construction so much better than divers, or alvins, or remotes. But no one’ll let us. And every day, the protesters hang around just outside the markers that the court’s injunction set up. Close enough so we can see them. Close enough to hear them. It’s like the judge wanted us to hear what they yell.” She closed her eyes briefly. “You get used to it,” she said in a flat, dead tone. “You tell yourself that you don’t really hear it anymore when they call us Satan’s children, or fish, or Frankensteins. Only you do, you know. You hear every fucking word. And one day this guy in this little grungy boat started calling us names. So what else is new, but this time Aaron . . . lost it.”

She drew a shuddering breath. “He just took off—past the markers that’re supposed to keep those creeps away from us. I was yelling at him, but he didn’t hear me. It was like he was deaf. He came up out of the water like an orca and knocked the guy back into his boat. The grub gets up bleeding, screaming at Aaron, really out of control. And he revs up his boat.” She looked away, face working, fighting tears. “He . . . ran Aaron down. The propeller blades . . .” She swallowed, struggling. “There were three other boats out there. Some of the people . . . cheered. Aaron was alive but . . . it’s a long way back, and he was bleeding so bad. He . . . died on the way in.”

Selkies could cry. Patrick hadn’t taken that human trait away from them. Jessamin put a hand on Shira’s shoulder, withdrew it as she tensed. “I’m sorry.” Inadequate words, overused and meaningless. Words had so little power to touch human pain. Jessamin sighed, anger smoldering inside her, as useless as the words. “What happened to the protester?”

“He . . . said that it was an accident. An accident.” She straightened, brushing the heels of her hands across her eyes like a blow. “He got fined and he didn’t even lose the damned boat. Because . . . everybody else out there said it was an accident, too.” Bitterness razored her voice. “Except me, and I don’t count. Because the courts haven’t decided if I’m human or a fish.”

Jessamin looked beyond her, out into the depths of the sea. Black was softening to royal blue. Morning already? “So you went back and killed him?” she asked softly. “The one who ran Aaron down?”

“No.” Shira looked away. “That’s the really stupid part.” Her voice cracked. “There were these guys—an old man and his kid—who ran tourists out in their boat. To look, you know? I think they gawked at the assholes with their silly signs more than at us.” Her shoulders drooped. “I kind of knew them . . . I mean, they were always around. It was like . . . a job to them. They didn’t hate us or anything. They’d come in real close to the markers, but the people on their boat never yelled anything at us, like they wouldn’t let them.” Her voice had faded to a whisper. “We were out working the fish pens, moving some young snapper into a new space. It’s just a game.” Her voice grew bitter again. “Not a real fishery. Tanaka doesn’t want us to do anything real, but I guess they’ve got to give us something to do. Aaron used to say that it was so they could write us off on their taxes. Anyway, the tourist boat was in real close, and this woman on their boat started yelling at me.” She picked at the folded webbing between her thumb and forefinger.

“All of a sudden it was . . . too much. I guess that’s what happened to Aaron.” Her voice faltered. “Anyway, I started for the boat. I don’t know what I meant to do, but the old man picked up a boat hook when I got close. He hit me with it. It hurt, and I grabbed it. He was so weak.” Her gill tunnel rippled and the puckered mouths opened, revealing a brief flash of blood-red membrane. “I pulled him overboard.” She pressed both hands against her shuddering gill. “His head hit the side of the boat. It was such a wooden sound. And then he went down. I dove and grabbed him, but when I came up, everyone was screaming at me, and the kid was getting this rifle out from under the seat.” She took her hands away from her gill, stared down at the faintly pulsing bulge. “I . . . I let go of him and took off.”

Silence filled the room, thick as feathers.

“He drowned?”

Shira nodded, her eyes as bleak as a winter sky. “I didn’t want to kill him.”

Patrick’s face, Patrick’s eyes. Jessamin looked away from her, glaring into the blue depths of the dawn sea. You are a cold goddess, she thought bleakly. You demand blood, and we keep on providing blood for you. Patrick had looked at her with those same bleak eyes on that long-ago morning when she had told him that they were cutting the genen program, that they weren’t going to fight the World Court’s injunction. He hadn’t gotten angry, hadn’t said anything.

Instead, he had walked out; down to the beach for his morning swim. You walked out on her, Patrick. Bitterness filled Jessamin’s throat, stinging her eyes. You walked out on your daughter, on all your children. You walked out on me, and you wouldn’t even try to understand. You wouldn’t hear me, damn it! You let this happen.

Beyond the hull, the water was fading from royal blue to turquoise. Morning, yes. Jessamin sighed, hearing the creak of years in her bones. You could buy the appearance of youth, but you aged behind that mask of youthful flesh.

“Who are you?” Shira’s voice was dull as a wave-worn stone. “You got to be somebody big in Tanaka, to know all about this stuff, right? What’s it to you, grub? You worried about bad PR?”

“Of course. Bad PR matters.” Jessamin stared at the smooth, muscular curve of Shira’s shoulders, at the fat-layered skin that kept out the cold. Patrick had spent so many years pregnant with this child. He had given her all his energy. There had been so little left for Jessamin, or anyone else. Jessamin leaned her forehead against the cool slick polyglass.

And once again, the fishery was up for grabs. Something moved in the turquoise distance beyond the hull—a small shark, perhaps, out cruising for breakfast. “Let me tell you a story,” Jessamin said softly. “Once upon a time there was a man who loved the sea. He loved her so much that he got pregnant by her, and had a child who could live in the sea. And he was very proud of her, but one day, some fishermen threatened to kill the sea. The only thing that could save the sea was to sacrifice their daughter. The man who loved the sea couldn’t do it.”

The shark had vanished. Silvery bubbles trailed past the hull, and a jellyfish caught in the turbulence, as the boat moved slowly through the calming sea. What color had his towel been that morning? She’d found it with his shoes and his shorts, folded neatly above the high-tide line. They had never recovered his body. His lover had kept it. “I’m Jessamin Chen.” She turned away from the window, feeling old, no matter how young science kept her flesh, feeling ancient.

“Jessamin Chen?” Shira’s face went blank with surprise. “The Jessamin Chen? The one who runs the whole show?” She looked down at the silk comforter beneath her, lifted her head to stare around at the glass-walled room. “You really are, aren’t you?” Webbing bulged whitely between her long fingers as she slowly clenched her fists. “You did it,” she whispered. “You’re the one who shut down our program. You stuck us in that cage and forgot about us! You abandoned us!”

Jessamin stepped back, suddenly aware of the strength in this child’s body, aware of her own fragility. “I didn’t forget you.” Anger flooded her and she straightened, throwing her shoulders back. “I didn’t finish my story. The man who loved the sea wouldn’t sacrifice their daughter to save her. He loved her too much. So I did it,” she said softly. “Hunger is very immediate. It blinds you to the future, and the world is very hungry. I threw you to them—to the hungry people—and while they squabbled over whether you were fish or human, I fenced the sea with bars that they couldn’t get through. Not Tanaka. Me. I did it.” Jessamin caught her breath, held out her hands, palm up, empty. “Patrick Doyle abandoned you when he committed suicide.” And you abandoned me, too, Patrick. She closed her hands slowly, lowered them. Didn’t you know how much you meant to me? “I didn’t abandon you. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“Sacrificing us?” Shira lunged to her feet. “For your own damn good? You, Tanaka, the grubs. You won’t let us do anything.” She was shaking. “Aaron died because he didn’t have any reason to live. Because you won’t let us matter. You killed him!” She flung herself at Jessamin.

Jessamin slapped her. The backhand blow caught Shira full on the cheek, sent her reeling onto the bed. She caught herself with a cry, and crouched, eyes wide and wild, gill tunnel fluttering.

“Yes,” Jessamin said harshly. “Sometimes you have to choose. Sometimes the right answer feels like shit, but it’s right, so you choose it anyway. No matter who gets hurt. I had to choose between you and the sea. I chose the sea, because none of us can live without her.” She rubbed her knuckles, eyeing the darkening bruise on Shira’s face. “If you have to blame someone, blame Patrick for sticking me with the choice,” she said bitterly. “Blame your father.”

“No.” Shira’s body jerked as if Jessamin had slapped her again. “Not my father.” Her eyes blazed. “I was grown, remember? I don’t have any parents, I came from a petri dish.”

“Oh, you’re his, all right.” Jessamin flung the words, hard as stones, wanting to hurt, because this was Patrick’s daughter and the child of his lover, the sea. “Do you think your last name’s an accident? Call up his picture from the files and then go look in the damn mirror!”

From beyond the hull, an engine muttered, growing louder. Not possible. Security would have warned her, identified the plane. Jessamin looked up the stair, suddenly uneasy. It sounded like a VTOL. Why would it be out here? Only one or two people in Tanaka knew how to find her. In the no-privacy world of the Net, safety came from invisibility in the physical world. This hard-to-find boat was her safety. “Security?” she said sharply. “Status report.”

All secure.

Yeah, sure. The clunk of a landing shivered through the hull.

Security hadn’t reported it—which wasn’t possible, but Jessamin didn’t waste any time on that one. Turning her back on Shira, she darted over to the terminal and touched it to life. Shifting curtains of light and color danced above the terminal stage. “System!” She snapped her fingers in a twisting skein of opalescent blue. “Security report.”

Nothing happened.

No one could subvert her System. “Access Carla Chen, private, emergency interrupt.”

Crimson spiraled through the shimmering light, spiked by bursts of lemon yellow. No face appeared. Someone had subverted her entire system. That couldn’t happen. Someone had landed on her boat, when her Security system should have known instantly if any plane, boat, or sub for a hundred miles in any direction was even headed in her direction. Cold fear was gathering in her chest like a coastal fog. Jessamin walked over to the nightstand beside the bed and yanked open the drawer.

The licensed gun she kept there was gone.

Another impossibility. Add it to the list. Jessamin touched the smooth wood of the empty drawer. No one had been on this boat while she was in Zurich. Security would have logged it, right? Yeah, right. She laughed a single, dry note.

“What’s wrong with you?” Shira was on her feet, back against the hull, as if she expected Jessamin to attack her.

“I have a visitor.” She had never hidden in her life; not from truth, not from choices. Jessamin grabbed the handrail and started up the stairway. Halfway up, she paused, looked back. “I have no answers for you,” she said softly. “I wish I did.” Then she turned and marched up the stairs to the main deck.

Her intruder was waiting for her, lounging casually in her recliner.

Paul. He leaned back, his posture relaxed, the thick, fashionable tail of blond hair falling carefully over one shoulder. A pose, but his familiar perfect smile hit her harder than the sound of the landing plane, the crash of her System, or her missing gun. “What . . . are you doing here?” She clung to the railing, groping for anger, finding only the echoes of age and mortality. “You’re still in Europe.”

“Did I scare you, Jessamin?” He smiled. “I’m sorry. A lot of people think I’m in Europe, but I’m not. I got back before you did. You hired me because I was good with the Net, remember? That’s why your security doorbell didn’t ring.”

That pleased smirk cut through Jessamin’s fear. Prick. Damned if she was scared of him. She stomped up the stairs and stood in front of him. “Spill it, Paul.” Brave words, riding on a fragile shell of precious anger. She had no control over this situation and she had always had control. Over Tanaka. Over Carla. Her control had begun to erode when she had dragged Patrick’s daughter on board. With an effort, Jessamin didn’t look back at the stair. He didn’t seem to realize that Shira was down there. Her unknown presence increased Jessamin’s confidence slightly. The situation wasn’t as stable as Paul thought, and she’d had a lot of practice turning unstable situations into successes. “So you’ve been playing your skillful little games with my Network Security. You’re better than I thought. I’m impressed.” She eyed him as if he was a regional manager who’d fucked up. “What’s your game, Paul?” Fearless words, but she heard the quiver in her voice, saw his eyes flicker as he heard it, too. “Tell me fast, because I’m busy, and you only have ten minutes before Tanaka Security shows up from Briard.”

“We both know better than that, Jess.” He held out his hand to her. “So let’s stop playing games. It’s time for you to retire. You were planning to do it in Zurich, remember? You promised Carla, and then you didn’t come through.”

“Carla.” Jessamin took a step backward, lightheaded with sudden comprehension. Carla could give Paul the access he needed to get into her System. Carla knew about the gun in the bedside drawer. . . . “She can’t wait?” The words caught like fishbones in her throat. “She was always too damned impatient.”

“No!” Paul’s eyes flashed. “This is my doing, not hers. She’s been too patient. You’re never going to give her a chance, never going to let anyone else run the show, because you’ll never believe that anyone is as good as you!”

“She’s not as good as me. Not yet.” Jessamin lifted her chin, met his cold eyes—and saw belief there. The same faith she’d seen once in Patrick’s eyes. It jarred her badly. Who did he have such faith in? Carla? “She’s my daughter, Paul.” Her voice shook, in spite of herself. “Do you think she’ll let you run the show when she takes over?” Anger seized her in its fist, and suddenly she didn’t care. “Do you think it matters to her that you’re her lover? Are you that stupid?”

With an inarticulate growl, he lunged at her, hands reaching, face twisted with sudden rage.

Jessamin spun away from him, but her foot slipped on the water she and Shira had dripped all over the floor. Paul’s hand closed on her arm, and he spun her against him, in a dark parody of a lover’s embrace. Death and love, were they so far apart? Jessamin struggled for breath as his arms tightened around her. You opened your legs and your soul, you gave up a part of yourself that you never regained. Patrick had walked into the sea with his arms open, into the arms of his lover. He had chosen the sea over her, and he’d taken a part of her with him. “Let go of me,” she gasped. “Will you stop and think, you fool?”

“Oh, I have. Accidental drowning,” Paul panted in her ear. “Easy when you insist on going out on deck during a storm. Your Security videos show you out there, just before the system goes down. The waves are very unpredictable, and you’re so sure you’re immortal. You must have released your safety line while you were tying down the VTOL. People will believe it.” His tone mocked her. “You’re so macho.” The door opened for them automatically, and Paul dragged her outside.

It shocked her, how strong he was. Because it showed her how weak she was? I am not weak, she wanted to scream. I have manipulated the world’s use of the sea for three decades. I have controlled it. I am not weak. Crushed in his embrace, his harsh breath hot on her neck, she couldn’t even struggle.

Carla knew about this, whether Paul admitted it or not. Carla wanted her dead. The wind had shredded the storm clouds, and bright sun shone in a blue sky, glittering up from a puddle on the wet deck. Paul dragged her closer to the railing, and, for a moment, her muscles went slack, accepting the verdict, accepting Death as a lover, as Patrick had done.

Yes, and they’d find Shira Doyle’s traces all over the boat. One killing, two—it would be easier to believe the second time around. Carla was competent. She would feed Shira to the media as extra insurance against discovery. She, Jessamin, would have done the same in her place. The rail banged her hip. Jessamin closed her teeth against a cry as Paul levered her over, damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of her fear. Shira hadn’t chosen to help her—Jessamin Chen, the enemy. Why should she? She didn’t know Carla—didn’t know that she would simply become another sacrifice, like Aaron. The rail banged her knee, and Jessamin felt one piercing moment of terror.

Falling . . . Rush of air . . . Crash of shock and spray, cold closing over her head, closing her throat. Cold arms . . . Patrick’s arms? You played God, Patrick, she cried silently. You created your children from DNA’s raw clay. But you weren’t enough of a God to stay and love them. To stay and fight to protect them. Her head broke the surface and she gasped blessed air, choking as a wavelet slapped her face. Cold. She ignored it, ducked under the surface again, half afraid that Paul might mean to shoot her from the deck. But no, that would spoil the accidental drowning scenario if they recovered her body. She yanked her sweats down around her ankles, dragged her feet free. Better. Now the shirt. She broke the surface again, stripping her arms out of the sleeves, releasing the heavy waterlogged fabric to sink slowly into the depths.

Struggling to get her breath, to relax, Jessamin slid up the glassy hillside of an oncoming swell, enclosed by blue sky and green sea, her breasts lifting in the water as she swam slowly over the wave’s crest.

The boat was so far away.

Paul had gauged the current accurately, had put her over where she would have to swim against it to catch up to the boat. That way, there would be no need to alter the nav system. Yes, it would look like an accident. Or murder by a distraught, angry child. Jessamin swam after the boat with slow, dogged strokes. She licked her lips. Salt. Patrick always tasted of salt when they made love, he always tasted of the sea. Once, she had been a strong swimmer. Once she had been young, and so sure of herself. Would Paul stay on the boat, waiting to make sure that she drowned? If he had crashed Security, he would have no way to see her except through binoculars. She slid down into another trough and the boat vanished, leaving her alone with endless sky and water. Fear squeezed her slowly, like a vise closing around her heart. She wasn’t so strong anymore. Already her leg muscles ached.

Nothing to do but swim. She had never been a quitter. Not like you, Patrick. You quit. You wouldn’t let yourself understand what I was doing. Instead you just walked away, into your damn lover’s arms. Jessamin paused briefly, treading water. The cold was sucking energy from her body. Soon, she’d lose the struggle to keep swimming, would go down, her flesh fighting desperately for life in those last agonizing seconds. Patrick had died like that. I didn’t betray you, she cried silently. Why wouldn’t you listen? The boat seemed so distant now—another universe, one that had no real meaning. This was a world of water, and, out here, she was the alien. Patrick was right.

Only the sea can save us, someone said softly. But only if we save the sea first . . . 

“Patrick?” Jessamin kicked, rising chest high out of the water. “Patrick, is that you?” Her strength failed and she sank, water stinging her nose, closing briefly over her head.

We’re aliens here. His voice sounded close in her ear, intimate and relaxed, as if he was lying beside her in bed. We don’t belong and we know it, and because we know it, we don’t really care . . . 

How could he sound so relaxed when she was dying? Jessamin broke the surface and gasped for breath. “I care! Damn it . . . I care . . . and I made sure Tanaka cares. Does it matter that we care for profit? Couldn’t you understand? You were such a . . . damned idealist.” He was there, down in the blue-green water, looking up at her. His dark hair drifted like weeds in the swell, and tiny, brilliant fish wove intricate patterns around him. He looked so sad.

“Patrick . . .” She swallowed, her throat tight with tears. I never cried, she thought dully. I never cried for you. “I saved the sea. I did, Patrick. I gave it to Tanaka and Tanaka takes care of it. Because I love it, too. I told you that, but you wouldn’t listen, you wouldn’t see beyond your own love, you couldn’t let me share. Patrick?” Longing seized her suddenly, a compilation of all those nights alone, those days of struggle, walled in with silence. “I miss you.”

He reached for her, his long fingers greenish white like the belly of a fish, trailing a strand of brown weed. Jessamin stretched to take his hand, tired suddenly, wanting so much to touch him again, to have him pull her close and hold her . . . 

And his daughter would be blamed for two murders. And Jessamin would never know if her own daughter had asked Paul to kill her or not.

“No,” she cried, and her mouth filled with water.

Patrick vanished. The sea clutched her, holding her with cold arms, lover Death. Jessamin kicked, summoning the last of her strength, struggling for the surface. Or was it the surface? And did it matter, if the boat was a mile away? Confused, blood roaring in her ears, Jessamin floundered. I don’t want to die, she thought, and the clarity of that desire made her want to cry.

It was darker, as if she was sinking deeper, down to where Patrick waited for her. Too late, she thought bitterly. Just a little bit too late.

Something was hurting her. She almost ignored it, but there was more pain. With an effort, she focused on it; fingers digging into her flesh, pulling on her. That touch cleared the darkness from her vision, as if life itself was soaking through her rescuer’s skin, seeping like oxygenated blood into her veins. Jessamin kicked, kicked again, lungs on fire suddenly, aching with the need to breathe now. Now!

Water exploded against her face and she gasped, choking as a wave slapped her, choking, coughing so hard that red agony squeezed her chest. How could it hurt so much to breathe? She was nothing but a pair of lungs. Everything else had dissolved into a distant gray mist beyond the immediacy of breathing. She panted, sucking air in tortured partial lungfuls, as if water had filled her up after all, as if she had drowned and been raised from the dead.

Almost.

“Lie still. You grubs can’t swim for shit, and you’re going to stick your elbow in my gill again. I’ll do it.”

“Shira?” The word came out as an incomprehensible croak. Jessamin twisted in the water, the kaleidoscope world refocusing slowly, solidifying into green sea, incredibly blue sky, and a view of Shira’s pale cheek not too far from her own.

“You’ll have to hang onto my shoulders,” Shira panted. “Think you can do that much?”

She was swimming on her side, one shoulder rammed between Jessamin’s shoulder blades, supporting her awkwardly, so that Jessamin didn’t squash her gill tunnel closed. Jessamin rolled slowly over, terrified suddenly that Shira would let go, that she’d sink and the sea would claim her after all. Her hands closed on Shira’s thick, cold shoulders.

“Ouch! Easy, okay?” Shira put her head down and began to swim.

Water would be flowing through that marvelous tunnel, loaded with oxygen. Fish-girl. Oh yes, I need you. Jessamin wanted to laugh, swallowed it because it was hysteria and once she started, she’d never stop. A swell lifted them, and Jessamin saw the distant hull of the boat, like a white swan, like salvation. “Paul,” she whispered.

Shira paused, lifting her head out of the water. “If you mean the grub, he took off in his little plane. He didn’t even look to see if anyone else was on board. Stupid grub!”

He wouldn’t look. Security had showed Jessamin to him alone, before he crashed it. He wouldn’t expect a selkie to show up, and he’d be afraid of leaving traces that a forensic team might pick up. You’re careless, Paul! Jessamin stifled another clutch of laughter as they slid up and over the next well. That’s why you’re second-rate.

Slowly, slowly, the white swan enlarged to boat size. When they finally reached the dive-deck, Shira had to boost Jessamin out onto the mesh platform. Exhausted, shivering, Jessamin sprawled on the decking, basking in air that felt warm as July. Shira scrambled up beside her, awkward as a seal on land. Water clear as tears ran from her deflating gill. A tiny orange crab slid out through the puckering lips of the tunnel and scrabbled down across the blue fabric of her swim trunks. Jessamin shuddered in spite of herself. Slowly, she reached out to stroke the cold flaccid skin. Shira flinched and looked at her with bitter eyes.

“Fish,” Jessamin said softly. “We’re right to call you that, we grubs. You don’t belong on land. Patrick Doyle didn’t want you to belong. He wanted you to be as alien on land as we are in the sea. He didn’t want you to give a damn about us.” She drew an aching wonderful breath. “Why did you come help me?”

Shira looked out at the endless horizon of sky and sea. “Because you didn’t . . . apologize.” She pressed her lips together. “And because . . . I wanted to ask if you were . . . telling me the truth. About Patrick Doyle being . . . my father.”

“Genetically, yes.” Jessamin sat up. “You were right, though. You were made—by a man who played God and loved you. But not enough.” Jessamin sighed, aware of the years graven in her flesh. Was the soul an endless quantity, or was it a finite thing? Could you run out of soul before your body died? We could have done it together, she thought and smothered a pang of sorrow. “I have to go talk to my daughter.” She staggered to her feet, still shivering. “Right now.”

“I’m out of here.” Shira stood, her eyes narrowing, wariness descending over her face like a mask.

She was seeing Jessamin Chen, again. Enemy. Jailor with the keys to a prison cell. “Not yet.” Jessamin held out a hand, unsteady on her feet. “Will you wait until I talk to Carla? I owe you, and I might be able to . . . do something.” She tried to meet Shira’s eyes, failed. “After that, I won’t try to stop you if you want to run.”

Shira hesitated, her face full of youth and suspicion, maybe regretting her impulsive rescue.

“For Aaron,” Jessamin said and caught the girl’s tiny twitch of reaction. “Please?”

“You can’t do anything for Aaron.” Shira’s lips thinned. “But I’ll stick around for a few minutes just to make sure you’re okay.”


Carla crossed her arms on her desktop, her expression impatient. “What is it now, Mother?”

Cold in spite of her dry clothes, Jessamin searched her daughter’s face. Guilt? Surprise? Or was her resigned resentment of another interruption genuine? She couldn’t tell. Carla was her mother’s daughter, Jessamin thought bitterly. She drew a slow, careful breath. “I created you, Carla. I engineered you as surely as Patrick engineered his selkies.” She swallowed, tears knotting her throat, because she had wanted Carla to be good, and she was. “I created you to run Tanaka as well as I do, and then I wouldn’t let you do it. Paul was right about that much.”

“What are you talking about?” Carla sat up straight.

“Did you try to kill me, Carla?”

She had wanted to see the mask drop for just an instant, to read hate perhaps on her daughter’s face. What is hate, but the reverse of love, with as much power and as much intimacy? But Carla merely stared from the holo stage, her eyes as hard and unreadable as polished stones, her face still. “No,” she said coolly. “Of course I didn’t. Although I have considered it.”

Jessamin bent her head, surprised by the strength of her disappointment. She had wanted to see . . . something on her daughter’s face. “I thought about killing Kazi,” she said softly. “It wasn’t necessary, because he was never as good as I am. I crafted you. I made you in my image. Sometimes you have to choose between love and truth,” she said softly. “It can be a hell of a choice. So I took the pain of that choice away from you. I made you better than me.” Not “as good.” Better. Not yet, but soon. Jessamin looked away from her daughter’s cold face. “Paul tried to drown me, to make it look like an accident. There was a witness. Do you understand me, Carla?”

“The stupid little boy.” Her tone gave nothing away. “I can believe he’d try something insane like that. The jerk.”

No, Carla would never have to choose between love and duty. Love would never tip the scale for her. Jessamin wondered if Paul had truly thought he was doing this on his own, without Carla’s knowledge. He would have been easy to manipulate. Perhaps it hadn’t taken much of a hint at all. Or perhaps Carla hadn’t even had to hint. Perhaps Paul had done this out of love. Poor fool. Jessamin straightened her shoulders, meeting her daughter’s cold eyes. “This . . . affair was handled clumsily. If I choose, I can use it to take Aquaculture away from you forever. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” Carla’s voice was steady, but twin spots of color glowed on her cheeks. “I made a mistake.”

I made a mistake. The words settled like stones around Jessamin’s neck; a necklace that she would wear forever. Jessamin straightened beneath its weight, and managed a cold smile. Next time, Carla wouldn’t trust someone else. Next time, she would handle the job herself. You’re responsible for your own mistakes, even if you’re a Chen. Always. “You’ll be good for Tanaka.” Jessamin nodded. “You’ll take care of the sea to keep Tanaka profitable. God help the Coalition, or anyone else who gets in your way.”

“What is the price, Mother?”

Jessamin looked through the hull of the boat, out into the blue murk of the sea. A small school of squid jetted by like a flight of missiles. Alien world. She turned back to the holo stage and bowed; deeply, formally, like Kazuyuki Itano had bowed to her on that long ago afternoon when she had broken his power. “I am resigning.” Jessamin suppressed a bitter smile at Carla’s carefully neutral expression. Oh yes, she was good. “There’s a price, of course. First, I want the selkies. I’m going to set up a private firm; a contract labor operation, most likely. I have enough to buy out their contracts without hurting Tanaka. They’re a red-ink drain, anyway. We’re both recording. I, Jessamin Chen, acknowledge that my resignation is effective as soon as the aforementioned transfer of the Aquatic Specialist contracts is complete.”

Carla had gone still. She hadn’t expected this. An upfront and open Jessamin Chen must be an unknown quantity to her. And to me, Jessamin thought and smiled. Carla was looking for the trap.

“It’s a PR risk to Tanaka,” she said at last.

“We’ll negotiate it. Our media whiz-kids can work out the details of diverting world attention.” It’s not a trap, she wanted to say. I can’t make up for you, or for Patrick, but maybe I can give his children a chance to grow up. She didn’t say it. Carla wouldn’t understand.

Carla was nodding, her expression wary, reassured perhaps by the recording. “What about . . . Paul?”

Will you ever put anyone ahead of Tanaka? Jessamin looked into her daughter’s cold eyes, looked away. No, she wouldn’t. “I’m not going to prosecute.” Not with contract negotiations coming up. “I’m going to destroy him personally.” Because word got around in the worldweb, and you were either strong or weak, predator or prey. She would never be prey. Jessamin let her breath out in a slow sigh, more tired than she had ever been. Perhaps she was running out of soul.

“Good-bye, Carla, and congratulations on your assumption of Aquaculture. You’re going to have one hell of a fight with the Coalition, but you’ll win. House? Endit.” She turned away as Carla’s wary face vanished.

Shira sat on the stairs, out of range of the video pickups, her face as wary and unbelieving as Carla’s.

“I just bought your contract.” She met Shira’s angry young eyes. “I’m going to form a new firm. Contract labor. Very specialized. We might even get some jobs from Tanaka.”

“She tried to kill you.” Shira’s eyes didn’t soften. “You’re going to let her go.”

“She’s good.” Jessamin met her stare. “The sea needs her.”

“The sea.” Shira’s voice was low and rough. “That’s what matters. Not us. The sea.”

“That’s right,” Jessamin said softly. “That’s what matters.” I wanted you to understand, Patrick. That it mattered to me, too. I thought you did. She closed her eyes briefly.

“What about me?” Shira looked away, her shoulders drooping. “What about the man I killed?”

Too late for him and for Aaron. Almost too late for her. Jessamin sighed for the scared kid behind the angry eyes. “Life isn’t fair, and it never will be. You can’t just go back to your siblings.”

“Another sacrifice?” Shira hunched her shoulders.

“Yes.”

“Why shouldn’t I just leave?” Shira’s mouth twisted. “I could live in the sea. I don’t need you, or your promises, or any of this shit.”

“Aaron needed it,” Jessamin said softly. “That’s why he died, remember?”

Shira’s head drooped. “What difference does it make?” she whispered. “We’re made. Even if Tanaka wanted to make more of us, there’s a moratorium on creating new genens, remember? We get to go extinct in a single generation.”

“What?” Jessamin realized her mouth was hanging open, closed it abruptly. “If nobody’s pregnant, then someone has used contraceptive implants on you. Don’t you know?” So. Even within Tanaka, you could find a conspiracy of silence and prejudice. She laughed softly. “Patrick was a perfectionist, and he shared everything with me.” Except his love for the sea. She wanted to laugh again, but it would have turned into a sob. “He was creating a new race, Shira, not some refined SCUBA system for Tanaka’s workforce. He was playing God. Oh yes, you can get pregnant. You can have a dozen kids, and they’ll be just like you. Patrick was good. He was the best.” Her voice cracked and she reached out, touched Shira’s too-cold cheek. “And I’m the best, too,” she said sadly. She touched her fingertips to her lips, tasting salt, like the sea, like the taste of Patrick’s skin when they made love. “Carla will take care of the sea,” she said softly. “The rest is up to us.”

“Us,” Shira said slowly. “All right, us, then.” She hunched her shoulders, then let them drop. “What about me?” she whispered. “The sacrifice.”

“It’s not hard to add a name and history to a personnel database. Not if you have the access and the talent, and I own better Net operators than Paul. So we’ll add a new member to Briard’s genen population. A female—assigned as personal caretaker of my so-private boat.” She smiled crookedly. “All fish look alike to us grubs, right?” Jessamin stared into the soft turquoise of her alien world. Maybe . . . it hadn’t been suicide after all. Maybe his lover had finally claimed him. “You’re not just altered humans,” she said softly. “You’re something new. Homo aquaticus. One day, you’ll take on Tanaka. And you’ll win, because I will have taught you how to win.” Sorry, Carla, but I’m better than you. For the moment. Jessamin held out her hand to Shira, palm cringing just a little at the soft alien feel of her folded webbing. Selkies. Homo aquaticus. “Your children will take the sea away from us,” she said sadly. “You won’t give them any choice.”



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Framed