His
nostrils expanded to their widest, his long neck outstretched, he was
swinging his head back and forth across the limpid shallows.
"What is it--?"
"This is no water such as we know," the scaled one answered flatly. "It
has life within it."
Varta laughed. "Fish, water snakes, your own distant kin, Lur. It is the
scent of them which you catch--"
"No. It is the water itself which lives--and yet does not live--" His
thought trailed away from her as he struggled with some problem. No
human brain could follow his unless he willed it so.
Varta squatted back on her heels and began to look at the water and then
at the banks with more care. For the first time she noted the odd
patches of brilliant color which floated just below the surface of the
liquid. Blue, green, yellow, crimson, they drifted slowly with the tiny
waves which lapped the shore. But they were not alive, she was almost
sure of that, they appeared more a part of the water itself.
Watching the voyage of one patch of green she caught sight of the
branch. It was a drooping shoot of the turbi, the same tree vine which
produced the fruit she had relished less than an hour before. Above the
water dangled a cluster of the fruit, dead ripe with the sweet pulp
stretching its skin. But below the surface of the water--
Varta's breath hissed between her teeth and Lur's head snapped around as
he caught her thought.
The branch below the water bore a perfect circle of green flowers close
to its tip, the flowers which the turbi had borne naturally seven months
before and which should long ago have turned into just such sweetness as
hung above.
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