The catamaran’s deck was railed in many places and rigged with safety lines in most of the rest, but not continuously or everywhere; the need to dive overboard or climb back was random in both time and place. It was wet, since there was enough wind to break wave tops and provide spray. It was slippery. This time Mike slid.

He was not hurt, being encased in sound armor fifteen centimeters thick except near joints, but he was frightened. Surprising both himself and the witnesses, however, he did the right thing. He swung the helmet hinged between his shoulders forward over his head, latched it, and then grasped at a passing line. He managed to catch this and stop his slide before actually going overboard. The deck was still rocking, and without shame he crawled away from its edge before trying to regain his feet.

Even the child at the masthead was watching him, lookout duty ignored for the moment, and the three native faces showed expressions of approval around their breathing masks. Maybe all four, counting Mike himself, were thinking that this Hoani fellow mightn’t be too much of a burden after all, but nobody said anything. Especially Mike. He just stood up, carefully.

A mere day later, that particular wave had long gone to warm the surface water and the air above it. Mike’s reflexes had improved even in that time, and he had some attention to spare now when the lookout’s shrill voice sounded from above. It was hard to distinguish words over the endless thunder, but he followed them fairly well.

“I’a’uri! One hand, port bow, half a kilo, past ripe!” The captain’s response was a wave, and Keokolo at the tiller simply changed heading. The breathing leaf had not yet been deployed that morning, and steering was straightforward. Mike, guided by the child’s words, made out a dark-colored patch of what might have been seaweed in the indicated direction. It seemed more than a hundred meters across. He assumed it was a sample of the pseudolife they had come to harvest, but it meant nothing specific to him until after Malolo had been brought to at its edge.