The Flesh Tinker and the Loneliest Man

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City Nereus drove slowly to the east, over the planetary sea of Cholder.

Diam Gavagol sat at the top of the windward wave wall. Far below his dangling feet, the swell rose and fell, bursting into glowing foam. Countless creatures swam the deep, and a streak of cold fire marked each passage.

He thought again about slipping off into the midnight waters.

Gavagol dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at his eyes.

Later, a pod of mariform humans passed in close formation, sleek bodies touching. He watched, envious, as they capered and leaped, those descendants of the City. A thread of wet laughter drifted up to him.

«A joke!» he shouted down, in his rusty voice. «Tell me the joke.»

They paid him no heed, and soon the glimmer of their passage was lost around the curve of the City’s vast flank.

He sighed, then reeled in the stickyshock lines he had set, hoping to snare a mermaid. The glittering jelly bangles were the wrong bait, it seemed. The trouble was he didn’t have any idea of what the ocean people liked.

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