Even then he could make out no real details, except that the weed seemed to be growing on something clear suspended a meter or so under the surface.

At that point both adult crew members expressed approval of ’Ao’s judgment. She had descended from the mast without orders and was waiting with just a faint expression of anxiety visible around her mask. The passenger, who had a youngster of his own on Earth, could interpret this; the child had been afraid of being wrong. She relaxed visibly at the captain’s words.

Mike Hoani couldn’t quite decide whether he should be surprised or not. None of the crew had seemed to be, and it was reasonable that the youngster would be the first to spot the i’a’uri, whatever that was, since she spent much of her waking time at the masthead; but like Mike she was on her first sortie. Unlike him, she was barely forty years old and still carried her doll even on duty.

Her ability not only to identify the i’a’uri but to give details seemed to say more about Kainuian education than Mike had guessed so far. Apparently her instructors had more or less outgrown the notion that experience is the best teacher even though she had been sent to sea while still a child.

That was a point to be noted; it might possibly fit in with the convergent-evolution language thesis he was hoping to complete while on the planet. Different floating cities had been built by colonists from different Polynesian islands, but generations of trade among them had gradually caused a blending of tongues that was still far from complete.

Nothing much else had seemed surprising, either, during the time they had now been sailing.