“This is very different,” I mutter to myself. “This feels like I’malive.”
“What was that?” Crat'ax says from behind me.
I half turn. “I said, I feel alive.”
“You do? Meaning you’ve been dead until now? Very strange. You’ve seemed so active. Only last night I swear I saw you eat and drink. And after that… are you sure you were dead?” He has a crooked smile on his lips.
“Funny man. Of course I was alive. But… oh, never mind. Why are you talking, anyway? Keep paddling, paddle-master.”
He chuckles. “You’re feeling the freedom of the ocean. Some of us love that part. The Deep is below us, and nothing bad can happen.”
“Except a krai attacking,” I counter, peering down into the depths. “Or is it too deep for him?”
“Krais will only attack in shallow water,” Crat'ax says. “They need to stand on something. They’re not good swimmers.”
“So we’re safe here?” I ask, just to check. “I mean, mostly?”
“Mostly safe,” Crat'ax confirms. “To the Deep, we look like a piece of driftwood. And speaking of that, is this a good place?”
I gaze back at the shore. It must be a mile away. “Oh. I didn’t think we were that far out.”
“The current helps,” Crat'ax says as he stows his oar and gets out the net we made. “Now, net-master, what do we do with this?”
I take one end of the net and examine it. “Let’s see. The mesh is mostly small, for catching small splix. But I know that some in the tribe prefer their splix big, so some of the holes should be big, too. Right?”
“It’s fine if we only catch small ones in the net,” he grumbles. “I can catch big ones on my own.”
I grin and decide to torture him more, because it’s so rare to see him defensive, and it’s so charming. I know he doesn’t like big splix, because nobody does. “Oh, but maybe we should catchonlybig ones. Look, I’ll make the holes bigger.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” he says with clenched teeth. “I only sometimes like big splix.”
“Mm,” I relent. “Some day I’d like to watch you eat one.”
“Perhaps one day you will. Should we attach the wood?”
We fasten pieces of light driftwood to two of the corners of the net, then small rocks to the other side. Then we toss the whole net over the side and watch as the whole thing quickly sinks beneath the waves.
“Oh. It’s sinking,” I observe sheepishly. “Maybe we should attach a rope to it. I mean, to the next one we make.”
Crat'ax dives in and is gone for an alarmingly long time before he comes back up, dragging the net. “Or to this one.”
“Oh, you got it! Well done!” I applaud in relief.
“I think we used too many rocks,” Crat'ax says as he climbs aboard. “Or too little driftwood to keep it up.”
“We must keep it up,” I state as I try to untangle the dripping net. “Nothing is more important thankeeping it up.” I glance at his loincloth, then at his face, checking if he gets my innuendo. But he’s busy with the net, and anyway he never has any issue with keeping things up. Almost the contrary, in fact.
We spend a half hour untangling it, and then adding pieces of driftwood to keep one side of the net floating, letting the other side sink. We take off a couple of rocks, and then tie a string to one side.
When we throw it over the side again, the driftwood edge of the net floats while the other slowly sinks. It looks about right to me.
“The splix come swimming,” I predict. “Then they see the net and think, what a silly thing. But they don’t realize how fat they are, so they get stuck with their fins. Then we pull the net in, and they will say, not silly after all.”
Crat'ax scratches his chin. “It sounds very right. Thatishow splix talk.”
I frown. “Dothey talk?”
He pulls the net in and folds it up. “Yes. Just like that. They’re very mocking, the splix. They always…teaseus.” His jaw is clenched as if in anger.
