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then she took a deep breath and stretched, causing him to temporarily forget everything related to his admirable work ethic.
    Ten minutes on found them weaving between the larger, heavily vegetated islands. The southernmost reaches of the Parramat archipelago, Fawn informed him. Thereafter they were never out of sight of high peaks and their cosseting clouds. The sheer sides of many of the islands and the heavy waves breaking on their fringing reefs showed why she had traveled to the sandy cay in the lagoon to pick him up. There was no protected touchdown site here for the aerial transport.
    One especially striking crag was several hundred meters high, a jungled spire rising sheer from the ocean floor. Flocks of unidentifiable flying things roosted in its hollows and ledges. Showing no inclination to reduce their speed, Seaforth guided the skimmer skillfully past.
    As they entered an area of open water between two smaller islands, he found out why the spectacular beauty through which they were traveling needed to be taken with a grain of sea salt.
    Something beeped on the instrument panel. Moving faster than he’d yet seen, Seaforth sat up straight and began checking her readouts.
    “What …?”
    Before he could finish the query, she slammed thesteering guide hard aport and yelled out, “Hang on!” Water rooster-tailed to starboard, an artificial geyser.
    Following which she shouted something so unexpectedly obscene that he found himself rocked from two quarters. If nothing else, it permanently killed the goddess image he’d assigned to her.
    “Damn! There’s a whole school of the slimy bastards. They’ve come in from the deep ocean. Passing between islands.” The skimmer lurched heavily to starboard as she threw it in the opposite direction.
    “A whole school of what?” Making sure of his grip on the hang bar, he turned and leaned over the side to have a look at the sea.
    “Hey, are you crazy? Don’t do that!” A hand reached out and grabbed the waistband of his shorts, yanking him backward.
    As he stumbled awkwardly in her grasp, a narrow stream of water shot skyward, passing through the space where he’d been leaning over the side. The fountain glittered in the bright sunshine, intense enough to suggest the presence of something more than just water.
    Trying to maintain his dignity, he stumbled as he spun out of her grip. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
    “Saving your ignorant life, Tomochelor.” She flung the steering guide hard over and he nearly fell down. Her gaze was focused on the instrument panel as well as the water ahead. “When passing over something dangerous, you don’t lean over for a closer look at it.”
    He steadied himself as the skimmer twisted beneath him. He was more upset at the ease with which she’d pulled him away from the side than the manner in which she’d addressed him.
    “An explanation might help. I didn’t see anything dangerous.”Without approaching the edge, he glanced cautiously over the side. As far as he could see, the water was undisturbed by anything out of the ordinary. “For that matter, I still don’t see anything dangerous.”
    “If you’re a predator, that’s the idea.” She glanced back over a shoulder. “We’re clear of them now. I counted more than a dozen of the squishy monstrosities when they were on the screen.”
    Leaning against the front console, he crossed his arms and eyed her tensely. “I’m still waiting for an explanation. And I don’t recognize ‘squishy monstrosities’ as an applicable taxonomic classification.”
    “They were
apapanus
.”
    He frowned. “I don’t recall that name from any of the lists of local fauna.”
    “They’re not in the catalog yet. Remember, Bioscan is accepting a dozen new species a week here. An apapanu is a big, fat, ugly pseudocephalopod. It likes to sit just under the surface in shallow water. In ambush.”
    “Ambush?”
    “It ejects a stream of water under pressure. Many