Timothy Zahn - Manta's Gift

Pranlo.

He shivered. Pranlo. The former friend whose bond-mate he'd attacked. Possibly even killed.

The former friend whose child he definitely had killed.

Which wasn't at all how it had been, of course. But it was how everyone else saw it. He doubted Pranlo would see it any differently than the rest of the world.

He looked over at Gryntaro. The Protector was eating stolidly away, rhythmically munching his ranshay calmly and only occasionally glancing around to watch for predators. If he had noticed their shadow, he wasn't showing any sign of it.

Should he tell him? Put him on his guard that there was trouble lurking in the eddies behind them?

He grimaced. No. If Pranlo was looking for revenge, let him go ahead and take it. It wouldn't bring back his dead child, but if it would make him feel better Manta was willing to pay the cost.

"You finished?" Wirkani asked.

Manta looked over at her. A tendril of ranshay was hanging out of the corner of her mouth, and as he watched the wind plucked it away. "Why?" he asked. "I thought we were staying here for the sundark."

"What, with this much light left?" Gryntaro said, flipping his tail at the near-perfect darkness around them. "Don't be silly. We can get a little farther before we stop."

"If you're finished eating, that is," Wirkani added.

Manta looked back toward where he'd seen Pranlo. But it was way too dark to see anything there now. Maybe Gryntaro and Wirkani had seen him, and this was their way of trying to lose him without worrying Manta.

But it didn't matter. He was ready to die anyway. If not this sundark, then whenever.

And one way or another, he had certainly lost his appetite. "Sure," he said. "Let's go."

The distant sunlight was in the eastern sky, and Wirkani was already awake when Manta dragged himself out of the swirl of unpleasant dreams he'd wrestled with all sundark. "Good sunlight, Manta," she greeted him cheerfully, her fin tips undulating as she held herself beside him. "Did you sleep well?"

"It wasn't too bad," Manta said, looking around. "Where's Gryntaro?"

"He thought he heard some predators moving around before light," she said, rolling over and doing some flip-stretches. "He went to take a quick look around."

Manta grimaced. Predators? Or Pranlo? "So where exactly are we going?"

"What do you mean?" Wirkani asked, rolling back over to face him.

"You told me the Counselors wanted me to see more of our world," Manta reminded her. "But we seem to be heading pretty much straight south."

"Where else should we be going?" she asked. "You already know what life is like along Centerline."

"North and south are where things are different," Gryntaro said gruffly from behind him.

Manta twitched violently; he hadn't heard the Protector's approach. "You sure are the jumpy one,"

Gryntaro commented, swimming around Manta to Wirkani's side. "We ready to go?"

"Sure," Manta said, looking around. There was no sign of anyone else nearby, either Pranlo or predators.

What there was, though, was a whole new group of colors floating along in the winds. "What's that?" he asked, flipping his tails toward them.

"Which one?" Wirkani asked. "The green-speckled-brown, or the purple-and-yellow?"

"Both," Manta said. "I've never seen either of them before."

"The green-and-brown one is fomprur," Wirkani told him. "The other is preester."

"The preester's better eating," Gryntaro added, flipping his fins and starting toward the flow of colors. "Let's do it and get out of here. We've still got a long way to go."

"Okay," Manta murmured, falling into the flow behind him. So there it was: the first appearance of Brolka yesterday coinciding with the equally sudden appearance of new varieties of foodstuffs. He'd gotten the feeling during his northern journey that that was how it worked, but back then he hadn't been paying close enough attention to be sure. This time, he was.

So what did that mean? He remembered speculating that it would only make sense for Breeders to have combined litters of Qanska and Brolka if there was enough food to go around. Did this mean that guess had been correct?

He snorted under his breath. Probably not. This was an ecology problem, after all, not a business one. He could try to think of it in terms of supply and demand if he wanted to, but that couldn't possibly be the entire story.

But then, why should he care about any deeper meanings anyway? As long as he had the system figured out well enough to survive, esoteric questions like this could go to the Deep.

They reached the floating food and dug in. The preester was indeed the better tasting of the two, he quickly decided, though the fomprur wasn't all that far behind. Not that it would have mattered how the stuff tasted. The previous sundark's abbreviated meal had caught up with his stomach, and he sloshed into the two runs with a will and an appetite.

Gryntaro and Wirkani were both waiting with varying degrees of patience by the time he'd finally eaten his fill. "About time," Gryntaro grumbled. "I thought you were going to be at it all day."

"What's the hurry?" Manta asked as he scooped up one last mouthful.

"The hurry is that we don't get to go back to civilization until—"

"Which one did you like best?" Wirkani interrupted smoothly. "The preester or the fomprur?"

"Oh, the preester, definitely," Manta said, frowning at her. "You can't go back to civilization until what?"

"Until we finish your tour, of course," she said cheerfully. "I trust you're paying attention to everything we've been showing you?"

"Of course," Manta said.

"Good," Wirkani said. "It's important that you learn everything about our world."

"So can we go?" Gryntaro said. Flipping his tails, he turned to the south and swam off.

"Sure," Manta murmured. Only they hadn't really been showing him anything, he thought with a frown as he and Wirkani headed off in the Protector's wake. They'd been willing to answer his questions, but neither of them had taken any kind of initiative as far as instruction was concerned.

So what had Gryntaro really been about to say?

He had no idea. But it was something Wirkani clearly hadn't wanted said.

He sighed. Something else to worry about. Like he didn't have enough of that already.

Gryntaro was really beating the air up there, starting to pull slowly away from the others. With a grimace, Manta hurried to catch up, keeping an eye out for predators, new foodstuffs, and anything else that might be new and unfamiliar.

And, of course, for Pranlo.

They continued on without serious incident for another six ninedays. Always they headed straight south, veering only occasionally for food or to avoid predators, keeping the prevailing westerly winds steady on their right.

At first Manta had found the restless roar in his right ear to be annoying. After that he'd wondered whether the wind pressure might permanently damage his hearing, leaving him more vulnerable to predators sneaking up from that side. Now, this far into the trip, he'd gotten to where he hardly even noticed it.

They stayed mostly on Level Four, far beneath the Qanskan herds Manta could sometimes hear floating above them in the upper levels. Once in a while they spotted some Protectors and Nurturers, or a pair or group of Counselors. As with food runs, those were occasions where Gryntaro would veer off their southward course, shifting direction to avoid all contact or communication with the other Qanska. Manta never did figure out whether Gryntaro was afraid of delaying his tour with idle chatter, or whether he simply didn't want to deal with the "uncivilized" beings who lived this far off Centerline.

The Brolka became more numerous as they continued south, too. And while their presence lowered the incidence of predator attacks, it didn't eliminate them entirely. At least four Vuuka took a close look at the three travelers along the way, though only one of them was rash enough to actually give it a try. And one day, right at sundark, they were jumped by a small herd of Sivra-sized predators of a type Manta had never seen before. On both occasions the presence of an experienced Protector made the difference between serious trouble and relatively minor nuisance, though in the latter case Manta did end up with two new lumps on his fins and body as souvenirs of the battle.