“So,” he said.
“So, the spirit of this world made one tiny change in one woman — Tenopia’s mother really was impregnated by a wave — and that woman passed on that one tiny change to all her lineage, and that lineage will turn us around and let us go back.”
The water dripped and rippled. The light on the ripples came and went.
“What will happen to Ares?” he asked at last.
“Terceth asked me that, before he left for home. The Aresians that are left will have to emigrate to other worlds. The planet will lie barren for an age, or an eon, until a spirit of life visits it again. Perhaps in time its own harbingers will return to it from their haven here. Life always goes back. It always tries again. Meantime, the spirits of several dead worlds have found a haven here, and their harbingers with them. The spirit said, The latigern and betivor graze the hills of Galul. The chamaris and thalliar roam the mountain ranges. Bruk and bralt lie in deep grass along the rivers, where the Thai-flower grows amid the reeds.’ So the spirit said, that they have come to their Haven, as we will come to ours.”
“And that’s the end?”
“There’s never any end,” she said. “The world souls sunder and they join. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but eventually, wisdom spreads and there will be more of those whose covenant is life, not mere living for one species at the expense of all, but life in such variety that there will be no place in the universe it does not exist, and all that exists will think as with one mind . . .” Her voice trailed into silence.
“And that’s all you know?”
“Every jot. I’m sure there were things being said that I was too stupid to understand, but you’ve heard everything I can remember.”
“Then your being half fish shouldn’t bother me,” he said, as though trying to convince himself.
She watched him narrowly, then pressed herself against him, unbuttoning his shirt and her own, to let their skins lie next to one another.
“Fish aren’t warm,” she whispered. “I’m warm, aren’t I?”
He gulped. “Oh, yes.”
She slid her hands lower and caressed him.
“If I am onlypart fish, it’s no part that’s important tous, is it?”
After a long moment, he laughed tremulously, putting his arms around her to hold her as he had not truly held her since she had sung to the sea.
In the pool, something small and golden surfaced only long enough to see the two of them locked together in the light of the candle. It flipped away as quickly as it had come. Nothing had ever happened on Earth that the Earth-soul had not seen and remembered. Nothing had ever happened on Ares, or Chapin, or Dowes world that their world-souls had not seen and remembered. Nothing happened anywhere on Haven that was not added to those memories.