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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Strun's success as a trapper brings him wealth and respect--even outside his little undersea town. He has an instinct for setting his traps in the shallow water at high tide, and the creatures that live on the land above the water, up in the Blue, would become caught in them at low tide and drown as the water rose once more. When Strun's son Wyll observes his father catching a Twos, one of the creatures with only two arms and legs that communicate with sound up in the Blue, he questions his father's ethics and decides to learn more about what lies beyond the edge of their world.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: MS&SF, 1993
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2001

33 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [39 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [33 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [25 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [212 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [26 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [44 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [95 KB] , hiebook (KML) [88 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [52 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [22 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [27 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [55 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [39 KB]
Words: 7899
Reading time: 22-31 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Strun would take his prizes to a little city below the village. He'd cure the meat himself, leaving it on the bone to prove its authenticity. The buyers knew him as honest and reliable. Strun never disguised fishmeat as something rare. He didn't dye a void-soarer's feathers to enhance its worth. And he was a shrewd judge of what each piece was worth, knowing his market and usually receiving the best deal possible.

His family wanted for nothing. Wyll was well-fed and rich with toys, and Strun brought gifts every time he came back from the city. He even brought fancy children's books--flat machines that glowed like a person's carapace, telling stories with colors and shapes. Wyll was envied by his peers, yet he didn't boast about his good fortune or even seem aware of it. He shared what he owned, almost without thought, and because of that he had an assortment of friends, mostly younger and liking him for the gifts.

One day Strun caught something very rare. The creature must have been wading in the ocean after the tide turned. The trap pinned its leg, and the waves covered it soon afterward. Its body was upright and hairless, save for a little furry tuft on the ugly head. It tasted odd--that night they ate one of its smaller limbs--and Strun cured the rest with seaweed extracts and weakfish blood. Sometimes rarities brought nothing from the buyers. This beast resembled nothing else, and Strun had little hope. Yet when he pulled the carcass from its sack there was a tangible excitement throughout the market. Not even the sharpest buyers could hide their mood. Strun decided to hold an auction, and in the end he was paid ten times what he would have accepted. Silver cylinders rattled in his money sack. He made glad yellow colors, asking the highest bidder, "What makes this worth so much?"

"Its rarity, and the strange look about it." The man laughed, then admitted, "Some people think its meat is particularly clean, no filthy hair and all that..."

"If I catch more of them," asked Strum "will you pay me the same rate?"

"I doubt if you can. They're extremely hard to trap."

"But if I do, will you pay me?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll bring more of them," Strun promised.

"Sure! Be my guest!"

Their deal was struck, then Strun asked what else the buyer knew. "This is a young one, for instance." The buyer grasped the upper limb with several of his arms. "This thing can grasp. Here, at the end. Not a strong grasp like ours, but enough to pry itself free of most traps. You're lucky it was young and small and that the tide came over it. I've done this work for years, but this is only my third Twos. The third one that I've seen, mind you. The first that I've been able to buy."

"Twos?"

"What people call them. You see? Two of everything, sort of. An odd shape all around." The buyer's words faded into the cold dark water around them. "There's no stranger creature anywhere, Strun. Unless you're talking about people."

Yellow laughter filled the little market.