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whales were good at remembering, but artificial intelligences were better. Anthony was suddenly glad that Philana was here, doing her work.
    As if on cue she appeared on deck, one hand pressed to her head, holding an earphone: she was listening intently to whalesong. She was bundled up against the chill, and gave a brief wave as she noticed him. Anthony waved back. She paused, beating time with one hand to the rhythm of whalespeech, then waved again and stepped back to her work.
    Anthony finished breakfast and cleaned the dishes. He decided to say good morning to the whales, then work on some of the Dweller speech he’d recorded the day before. He turned on his computer, sat down at the console, typed his greetings. He waited for a pause in the conversation, then transmitted. The answer came back sounding like a distant buzzsaw.
    We and Anthony wish one another a passage filled with splendid odors. We and Air Human have been scenting one another’s families this morning.
    We wish each other the joy of converse , Anthony typed.
    We have been wondering , Two Notches said, if we can scent whether we and Anthony and Air Human are in a condition of rut.
    Anthony gave a laugh. Humpbacks enjoyed trying to figure out human relationships: they were promiscuous themselves, and intrigued by ways different from their own.
    Anthony wondered, sitting in his cockpit, if Philana was looking at him.
    Air Human and I smell of aloneness, unpairness , he typed, and he transmitted the message at the same time that Philana entered the even more direct, We are not .
    The state is not rut, apartness is the smell . Two Notches agreed readily— it was all one to him— and the lyrics echoed each other for a long moment, aloneness, not, unpairness, not. Not . Anthony felt a chill.
    I and the Dwellers’ speech are going to try to scent one another’s natures , he typed hastily, and turned off the speakers. He opened his case and took out one of the cubes he’d recorded the day before.
    Work went slowly.
    *
    By noon the mist had burned off the water. His head buzzing with Dweller sounds, Anthony stepped below for a sandwich. The message light was blinking on his telephone. He turned to it, pressed the play button.
    “May I speak with you briefly?” Philana’s voice. “I’d like to get some data, at your convenience.” Her tone shifted to one of amusement. “The condition,” she added, “is not that of rut.”
    Anthony grinned. Philana had been considerate enough not to interrupt him, just to leave the message for whenever he wanted it. He picked up the telephone, connected directory assistance in Cabo Santa Pola, and asked it to route a call to the phone on Philana’s yacht. She answered.
    “Message received,” he said. “Would you join me for lunch?”
    “In an hour or so,” she said. Her voice was abstracted. “I’m in the middle of something.”
    “When you’re ready. Bye.” He rang off, decided to make a fish chowder instead of sandwiches, and drank a beer while preparing it. He began to feel buoyant, cheerful. Siren wailing sounded through the water.
    Philana’s yacht maneuvered over to his boat just as Anthony finished his second beer. Philana stood on the gunwale, wearing a pale sweater with brown zigzags on it. Her braid was undone, and her brown hair fell around her shoulders. She jumped easily from her gunwale to the flybridge, then came down the ladder. The yacht moved away as soon as it felt her weight leave. She smiled uncertainly as she stepped to the deck.
    “I’m sorry to have to bother you,” she said.
    He offered a grin. “That’s okay. I’m between projects right now.”
    She looked toward the cabin. “Lunch smells good.” Perhaps, he thought, food equaled apology.
    “Fish chowder. Would you like a beer? Coffee?”
    “Beer. Thanks.”
    They stepped below and Anthony served lunch on the small foldout table. He opened another beer and put it by her place.
    “Delicious. I never really learned to