"Why're you telling me your poems? You usually just lock them up on tapes or store them away in those old-fashioned glyph books of yours."
"I'm trying to please you in the only way I can."
"Then tell me your poem."
He brushed her cheek beside the ring, then:
She stared at him, puzzled. "I don't understand."
"An ancient Earthside practice. Farmers put rings in the noses of their pigs to keep the pigs from digging out of their pens. Pigs dig with their noses as well as their feet. People called that kind of digging 'rooting.'"
"So you're comparing me to a pig."
"Is that all you see in my poem?"
She sighed, then smiled as much at herself as at Kerro. "We're a fine pair to be selected for breeding - the poet and the pig!"
He stared at her, met her gaze and, without knowing why, they were suddenly giggling, then laughing.
Presently, he lay back on the duff. "Ahhh, Hali, you are good for me."
"I thought you might need some distraction. What've you been studying that keeps you so shut away?"
He scratched his head, recovered a brown twig of dead cedar. "I've been rooting into the 'lectrokelp."
"That seaweed the Colony's been having all the trouble with? Why would that interest you?"
"I'm always amazed at what interests me, but this may be right down my hatchway. The kelp, or some phase of it, appears to be sentient."
"You mean it thinks?"
"More than tha.... probably much more."
"Why hasn't this been announced?"
"I don't know for sure. I came across part of the information by accident and pieced together the rest. There's a record of other teams sent out to study the kelp."
"How did you find this report?"
"Wel.... I think it may be restricted for most people, but Ship seldom holds anything back from me."
"You and Ship!"
"Hal...."
"Oh, all right. What's in this report?"
"The kelp appears to have a language transmitted by light but we can't understand it yet. And there's something even more interesting. I can't find out if there's a current project to contact and study this kelp."
"Doesn't Shi...."
"Ship refers me to Colony HQ or to the Ceepee, but they don't acknowledge my inquiries."
"That's nothing new. They don't acknowledge most inquiries."
"You been having trouble with them, too?"
"Just that Medical can't get an explanation for all the gene sampling."
"Gene sampling? How very curious."
"Oakes is a very curious and very private person."
"How about someone on the staff?"
"Lewis?" Her tone was derisive.
Kerro scratched his cheek reflectively.
"The 'lectrokelp and gene sampling. Hali, I don't know about the gene samplin.... that has a peculiar stink to it. But the kel...."
She interrupted, excited: "This creature could have a sou.... and it could WorShip."
"A soul? Perhaps. But I thought when I saw that record: 'Yes! This is why Ship brought us to Pandora.'"
"What if Oakes knows that the 'lectrokelp is the reason we're here?"
Panille shook his head.
She gripped his arm. "Think of all the times Oakes has called us prisoners of Ship. He tells us often enough that Ship won't let us leave. Why won't he tell us why Ship brought us here?"
"Maybe he doesn't know."
"Ohhh, he knows."
"Well, what can we do about it?"
She spoke without thinking: "We can't do anything without going groundside."
He pulled his arm away from her and dug his fingers into the humus. "What do we know about living groundside?"
"What do we know about living here?"
"Would you go down to the Colony with me, Hali?"
"You know I would bu...."