Cennil drifted, unanswering, but with satisfaction coiling in his limbs. Dathas petted him again. Her limb encountered a bump, swollen beneath his moistened skin. She paused, and rubbed the spot again. Like a tiny pebble. And, as she moved more limbs over him to investigate, another one.
Dathas constricted around him. “Cennil! You didn’t—”
Cennil ducked under the surface, then came up spouting, his limbs throbbing. “I’ve inseminated,” he said. Joy, satisfaction, nerve.
“Now?”
Cennil spouted again. “Why not now?”
“Just when we’ve been invited to the surface!”
“You’ve been invited. I doubt my presence matters much to them. Or to you.”
Dathas rushed to the edge of the pool, pushing a graceless wave ahead of her. “On the cusp of being accepted by the aliens, of learning—”
Cennil burble
