“What good are they to you? One of them's an atheist.”
“Hah! They all believe, right at the end.”
“That doesn't seem . . .” Om hesitated. “Fair?”
Now the Sea Queen paused.
“What's fair?”
“Like . . . underlying justice?” said Om. He wondered why he said it.
“Sounds a human idea to me.”
“They're inventive, I'll grant you. But what I meant was . . . I mean . . . they've done nothing to deserve it.”
“Deserve? They're human. What's deserve got to do with it?”
Om had to concede this. He wasn't thinking like a god. This bothered him.
“It's just . . .”
“You've been relying on one human for too long, little god.”
“I know. I know.” Om sighed. Minds leaked into one another. He was seeing too much from a human point of view. "Take the boat, then. If you must. I just wish it was-
“Fair?” said the Sea Queen. She moved forward. Om felt her all around him.
“There's no such thing,” she said. “Life's like a beach. And then you die.”
Then she was gone.
Om let himself retreat into the shell of his shell.
“Brutha?”
“Yes?”
“Can you swim?”
The globe started to spin.
Brutha heard Urn say, “There. Soon be on our way.”
“We'd better be.” This was Simony. “There's a ship out there.”
“This thing goes faster than anything with sails or oars.”
Brutha looked across the bay. A sleek Omnian ship was passing the lighthouse. It was still a long way off, but Brutha stared at it with a dread and expectation that magnified better than telescopes.
“It's moving fast,” said Simony. “I don't understand it?-there's no wind.”
Urn looked round at the flat calm.
“There can't be wind there and not here,” he said.
“I said, can you swim?” The voice of the tortoise was insistent in Brutha's head.
“I don't know,” said Brutha.