Fish Tails Read Free

dyspeptic pig! They desperately needed a few days’ rest, if this man would only cooperate by giving them an excuse to take such a rest before Xulai committed all three of them and the babies to enmity everlasting.
    Swallowing the exhausted sigh that was threatening to swallow him, Abasio said clearly, uttering each word separately, peering into Bertram’s eyes to make sure the man understood him: “As I had begun to say, many of the children born during the next century or two will resemble these children you see here. They will live in the seas. The temperature of the seas is fairly constant, changing only gradually. However, our young ones are not yet full-­time sea-­children, and they are traveling across area where there has as yet been no significant inundation.”
    â€œI . . . ah . . .” gargled Bertram, his eyes fixed on the children in question. The two infants, about yearlings, he judged, were loosely wrapped in knitted shawls and were reclining in their mother’s arms, regarding him, Bertram, with great interest. Down to their waists they were appropriately human-­looking, their skin, where it showed beneath the knitted caps, was more or less the color of an aged ivory button. Not as light as their father’s, though he was somewhat darkened by the sun. One little head of dark hair had reddish lights, the other blue. Their little faces were pretty, their eyes dark and very observant, and their smiles were delightful. Their nether appendages, however, whatever such limbs were called, were unquestionably fishy! But not scaled, no. The olive skin above the waist simply became darker—­blue? Or green? More leathery, thicker, and it ended in feet that were . . . webbed. Quite webbed. Extravagantly webbed! The insignificant heels were companioned by very long, almost froggy toes!
    Abasio’s voice hardened. “So, since we must travel where as yet there are no seas, the children are sometimes cold. They require jackets! Coats! Something to keep them warm!”
    The tailor mumbled something.
    â€œYes?” asked Abasio with a lethal smile.
    â€œWhy would aquatic creatures be here? You are so far from—­”
    Xulai interrupted, her voice like a well-­honed knife. “They must be both, Bertram. If you’ll let me explain. May I sit down?”
    Her words were a question, her tone was not. The tailor’s conscious mind finally received the information his subconscious had been trying to get through to him for some time. “Forget your oath! Forget the books. Forget defending your life’s primary purpose of being a Volumetarian. Shut your mouth and listen. Shut your mouth and smile and listen! Shut up and smile and listen sympathetically, as any decent tailor would!
    He scurried, fetching a chair while stretching his mouth into what he hoped was an understanding smile. She did sit down, with a weary sigh.
    â€œWe are in the age of the waters rising,” she said slowly, ­carefully, hoping to sound merely didactic rather than lethally threatening. “About two centuries from now, all our world will be under the waters . . .”
    She paused for emphasis, but did not begin again, for Bertram had stumbled back, not merely astonished as many were who heard this information for the first time, but shocked as though mortally wounded. His dark face was turning gray, all at once!
    He gasped. “Surely . . . you must be joking, ma’am. I don’t . . .” He put his hand to his head, suddenly dizzy. He gasped for breath.
    Abasio stepped around the corner of the counter and helped the man sit down. He and Xulai realized almost at the same instant that evidently the flooding of the world meant something more to this man than it meant to most ­people.
    Bertram was babbling. “Travelers have said . . . Coastal flooding, of course, yes, but . . . a few lowlands perhaps, but