Case Study: Swimming

They both had their preferred form of exercise. Vasiht’h liked walking, one of the few activities his poorly-designed body was suited for. There was a park near their office that pleased them both, and when Vasiht’h wanted company Jahir paced him beneath the marble oaks, taking a single step for two of Vasiht’h’s paws. When he didn’t want company, his partner left him to wander, and that was good too: even parted, the mindline ensured they were never alone, not really.

The park also had a community pool linked to the water environment maintained for the city’s aquatic residents, and while it was large it was also inevitably busy: not only did it attract families who came for recreation and training athletes, but also people who wanted a chance to talk in sign with their Naysha friends, or researchers studying the mysterious Platies.

Jahir preferred swimming despite the constant bustle. He wore a full-length bodysuit to prevent any accidental contact with other swimmers and their unguarded minds, and against the cold which he felt more strongly than both Pelted and humans. Usually when they arrived there was a free lane for his laps, but if they were all busy he would wait cliently for one to open and never begrudge the time. Vasiht’h would observe him from a distance while the Eldritch sat at the pool’s edge, and his mind when he looked at the water was filled with the reflection of light off waves, with the Now of being immersed.

Strangely, given the utter uselessness of his body in water, Vasiht’h also liked swimming. He usually brought an inflatable for buoyancy and clung to it while his poorly balanced body paddled along under the surface. When Jahir was done with his laps he sometimes glided beneath the lane marker and reappeared nearby, sleek as a white otter, and together they’d float, sharing their enjoyment of the water through the mindline. Vasiht’h loved those times: his partner’s mind, clear and clean and near, tickled through with air bubbles that felt like champagne and peace and pleasure. But they rarely had the opportunity to swim together, for Jahir avoided it unless he was sure they would have enough space.

One day when they’d had left the pool and were changing in the room provided for it, Vasiht’h asked him, “Is it so bad? You take more precautions not to touch people when you’re swimming than you do otherwise.”

“People don’t have as much control over their movements in water as they do on land,” Jahir said, stripping the bodysuit off. “They’re more likely to pitch into you, and it’s an environment where people come to play so telling them not to is unkind. The suit helps, so I wear it.”

Remembering the taste of his partner’s mind while contemplating the pool, Vasiht’h said, “But it’s worse in the water somehow, being touched.”

Jahir glanced at him over his shoulder, towel sagging in his hands. Then he resumed drying off. “Yes. Swimming clears my mind.”

“And the clearer your mind, the louder the contact is when you’re touched,” Vasiht’h guessed.

Jahir said, quiet, “I value the calm.” He wrung out his braided hair and dressed, and as he did Vasiht’h sampled the ripples that ran the length of the mindline. The acceptance of what was had a flavor, like the salt in ocean water... but he could feel a hint of wistfulness hidden behind it: the sunset seen from under constant waves.

 

They’d had a client from one of the other spheres studding the surface of the starbase, in this case one of the agriculture/aquaculture bubbles. Her need had been brief, a response to a trauma they’d helped her weather, but she remembered Vasiht’h and had been delighted to help him with his request. Two months later, then, when they had a weekend off, Vasiht’h led his partner onto one of the bullet trains that ran the girth of the starbase through its dense external wall and they whiled away a pleasant few hours eating in the highly-regarded dining car and then star-gazing through the clear tunnel the track ran through. They disembarked at the agriculture sphere’s station, where Vasiht’h took a mystified Jahir over a Pad and to the facility recommended by their former client.

As was typical of Pelted engineering, the fish, seaweed and other aquacultural products used by the rest of the starbase were supplied by an artificially created, carefully maintained but otherwise entirely real ocean. Where the land used for crops met that ocean there were miles of beaches, and as was inevitable, someone had sectioned off part of the coastline and created a resort, including carefully sculpted grottos with ocean inlets.

These personal pools could be rented. It had bitten deeply into Vasiht’h’s personal account, but he had booked what he could afford without any regret. He’d done so based on viseos of the prospective site... but he was not prepared for the reality of it, the brine and foliage smell, the distant roar of the surf, the utter calm of the water, so clear and bright a blue he could see straight through the surface to the sandy bottom.

Jahir stood at the edge of the water, staring. His absolute silence hissed through the mindline, wiping it clean.

“For me?” he said at last.

“No one else can use it for the next three hours,” Vasiht’h said, deeply satisfied. “Unless you count the fish.” He nodded toward the small building artfully hidden by climbing vines and lush tropical plants. “There are towels in there, shoes, that sort of thing, if you need them. I even brought your bodysuit, if you want it.”

“I don’t,” Jahir said, still staring.

The mindline shivered with the vastness of the Eldritch’s internal quiet. To Vasiht’h it tasted like incredulity and joy, and it washed down his back like sun-warmed water. The feeling was so powerful his back arched in response to it, wings mantling. A perfect gift, he thought. He smiled and turned to go.

“Vasiht’h?”

He paused, looked over his shoulder.

“If there’s an inflatable in that shack you might come back in a couple of hours.”

Vasiht’h hesitated. “I bought it so you could be alone, arii, because you can’t be otherwise.”

“I know,” Jahir said, his smile like a sunrise on waves. “But come anyway, if you’ll enjoy it.”

“If you’re sure—”

“I am. Two hours is long enough.”

“All right,” Vasiht’h said. “I’ll be back then.”

And he was. He spent a happy hour sunning himself on the rock in the middle of the pool, or paddling around his floating partner, and the mindline relaxed, expanded outward, lapping like the ocean at the strand. There was in fact an inflatable... but no bodysuit made an appearance, and if they brushed against one another, it mattered not at all.