Darkness gave way to formless light, and Estlin woke with his eyes already open. He was cold. The rain blot on the ceiling looked different. He wondered if his patch job on the roof had failed. He wondered why he was lying on the hardwood floor, then stopped wondering because the Waes were asleep on the closet shelf and Yidge was sitting at the end of his bed.
“Hallucinations are bad,” he said, and tried to ignore her nod of agreement. He pressed an elbow to floor and levered himself up, his bones aching. He ignored Yidge and looked into the closet where the Waes were curled together. “Make yourselves at home,” he suggested.
“They like your place,” Yidge answered. “It’s tasty.” She seemed far more solid than when he’d last seen her.
“You’re not you.”
“I know.”
He rubbed grit from his eyelashes and looked at the dark dust on his fingertips. “My eyes were bleeding.”
“Do they hurt now?”
“No.”
“Good.” Yidge stood and stretched. She was wearing a sundress. The light through the window was dancing on the wall in a very unusual manner. There were water drops on the glass and the sky was a deep cloudless blue.
“How’d they fix your voice?”
“A bit of technology.” She held out an object the size and shape of a marble. It was the color of her skin. “They use these to manage memories like me.”
He walked to the window because something was wrong with the sky. Two meters out from his window, the air ended in a vertical wall of rippling blue. He knew he wasn’t dreaming. “Yidge? Did you hijack my house?”
“You wanted your home.” She appeared confused by the question.
Estlin’s throat constricted. He pressed his fingers to his eyes, preventing tears, finding his tolerance for upheaval ripped from its foundation. “Where am I?”
“Home.”
He did not want to clarify the question. “My house was attached to a particular patch of Earth.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want it moved.”
“Oh,” Yidge said. “Your home is home. Not hijacked.”
Estlin recovered his breath and pointed mutely at the view.
“The cuttlefish accepted your offer to host the first conversation,” Yidge answered. “A significant amount of water was required to accommodate their collective.”
“The cuttlefish are here?”
“Yes.”
“In a giant puddle of ocean.” He peered into the blue and saw shadows moving through the light. “Oh, shit! You didn’t drown the neighbors?”
“The water is on your land,” Yidge assured him. “Above it, actually. The support field follows the terrain, leaving room for life below. The waetapu have assisted with this.”
Estlin pressed himself to the window to peer out. The water didn’t touch the grass and, to his left, a narrow column of air extended off the corner of the porch. This key hole offered a view of the closest tree. “How many cuttlefish are here?”
“One thousand three hundred and sixty one.”
“And they want to kill us?”
“No,” she answered. “They are predators, but you are not prey.”
“Good.”
“You misunderstand.” Yidge joined him at the window. “Their collective does not want to consume you, but the idea of having your species exterminated by a third party has just entered their consciousness.”
“The Waes refused,” Estlin said, seeking confirmation.
“The cuttlefish have accepted the refusal and regret the wastefulness of their proposal, particularly as the Waes have clarified their interest in the observation of conflict, not the direct practice,” Yidge answered. “But the cuttles know that there is life amongst the distant points of light and, if they ask, they will find creatures that would appreciate our meat, perhaps even basic life forms that would not suffer from regret.”
“How considerate.” Estlin backed away from the window. He paced the room and knocked on the frame of the closet door. The Waes didn’t even twitch. “How can they sleep?”
“They rest in memory,” Yidge answered. “They are preparing in their own way. The cuttlefish are enjoying the view. They asked that conversation be delayed until dark.”
“I’m translating?”
“The Waes are not here to negotiate or mediate,” Yidge answered. “You will speak to the cuttles. They will watch.”
“This is a bad plan. I can’t do this.”
“Should I help you prepare?”
“Prepare!” Estlin squeaked. “What do I do? Apologize? Promise a new future?”
“It is the new future that they fear,” Yidge answered. “They’ve been here since the depth of memory. Millions of years compared to our thousands.”
“We’ve made some mistakes.”
“Understatement.” She offered him a ghost of a smile, but there was sorrow in her dark eyes. “The poison spilling from our nests does not concern them. They trust their resilience far more than ours. It is the new danger that drives their consideration, the danger presented by the Waes. If we accept technology that could, by incompetence, be the end of all living water, they must consider the threat and respond to it.”
“I can’t do this, Yidge. It can’t be my job.”
“You agreed to meet them here.”
“No, no, no! I will get us kicked off the planet,” Estlin answered. “In my life, attempts to negotiate have always ended in eviction. I’m a hopeless liar. I can’t promise that we won’t pursue the stars. And, as a species, I doubt that our days of doing stupid things are behind us.”
“Your pessimism is troubling.”
“I’m outnumbered!” he retorted.
“This was not meant to levee advantage to the cuttles. You stood alone in your invitation. They recognize this difference in your species. We can delay if you wish to stand with a thousand of your own when you speak.”
“No,” he answered, horrified by the thought.
“The Waes did not think numbers would enhance your clarity,” Yidge answered. “This is a first conversation. It is best for you to speak for yourself unburdened by greater responsibility.”
“Right.” Estlin answered flatly. His eyes were watering. Unable to identify which emotion was driving the tears, he chose to blame the grit and dragged his fingers across his eyelashes. “Besides, there’s only one bathroom.”
He looked around. The blue sheets on the bed were untucked and the light blanket had fallen partly to the floor, thrown back by his rising in the night. “Okay. One conversation,” he said and got into bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Lying down,” he said. “I have time.”
“You slept on the journey,” she said.
“Sedation doesn’t count.” He pulled up the covers and let his head settle on the pillow. “I’ll sleep, I’ll shower, and then maybe I’ll have beans on toast.” Estlin imagined himself in the kitchen with the can opener and the flaming stovetop. Yidge was watching him, though he wondered if she had eyes at all now or just the illusion of them. “Please take yourself and your marble somewhere else while I sleep.”
“I’ll go,” she said. “But I’ll stay here.” She held up the marble and set it on his bedside table. It flattened into a coin and changed color, matching the dark wood. “Sleep well.”
He closed his eyes and felt the tension that had coiled each of his muscles. It felt as though the bed was moving. The house sounded wrong. It smelled wrong. It was too cool for August. He wondered where the birds had gone, whether any were trapped beneath the water or if they were flying through it in bubbles of air.
He rolled to his side drawing the blanket close around him. He thought about having a nervous breakdown, but knew that breaks from reality were far from restful. Besides which, Yidge was right. He didn’t need to sleep.
He flopped over again to stare at the ceiling. There was no rustling in the attic. It was profoundly wrong. “Damn it.”
The phone hummed to life, vibrating against the bedside table. He startled, clutched the bedding, and tried to ignore it. A tap on the window compelled him to sit up. A black squirrel was on the windowsill, balanced on its hind legs with its hands against the glass.
His life had always been absurd, occasionally to the point of cruelty.
“Don’t even think about it,” he told the squirrel and gave in to the phone’s persistent thrumming. “Hello?”
“Oh, good! You’re home. He’s home!” Harry declared enthusiastically. “Lyndie, are they with you?”
“Harry?”
“Are the Waes with you?”
“They’re asleep in my closet,” Estlin answered. “Could you ask everyone not to blow up my house?”
“No one is even thinking about it.”
“Right. Tell them that blowing up my house would be an extremely bad idea.”
“What’s happening?”
“The cuttlefish are here, a lot of them, in a giant puddle floating above my yard,” Estlin answered.
“That’s water?” Harry exclaimed. “I’ve got a satellite picture — thought it was a huge shiny space ship.”
“I think the status quo is about to have its ass handed to it.”
There was a pause. “Everyone would like us to stop talking on this unsecured line,” Harry said finally.
“It’s the only phone I have.”
“Sounds like there’s a way to locally catch your signal and keep it off the public network,” Harry said. “It’ll take a bit of time. I’m coming to you.”
“Where are you?”
“Still in Samoa, but I know someone with a Harrier,” Harry answered. “She says nine hours.”
“Bring beer,” Estlin suggested.
Harry laughed. “See you soon.”