Running from the Deity Read Online Free PDF Page A

only a conical kilt and a light vest. Both were cut and shredded appropriately to allow him to raise and lower the epidermal flaps that covered his body. More close-fitting attire would have held these flat against his musculature. Unable to ventilate his body by raising and lowering the hundreds of small skin flaps, he would rapidly have developed all manner of unpleasant diseases.
    As he stood there, the small bits of his epidermis rising and falling reflexively and in unison to catch every slight breeze wafting in off the bay, he reflected on his life. It could be worse, he knew. Owning a piece of patrilineal land on the bay brought with it the right to harvest its bounty. While his mate of ten years might use her flexible palate to occasionally mouth-lash him, that same orifice was skilled at obtaining the highest possible price in the town market for his catches as well as for the fine, sturdy cloth she wove from the seashan he gathered during the day. As a mated couple, then, they had access to both food and clothing without having to pay money for it. The ancestral stone home that as a sole offspring he had inherited upon the untimely passing of his parents was both solid and spacious.
Sfaa,
he decided contentedly. While they were not of the nobility, or even the upwardly mobile business class, their lives were certainly better than those of many commoners.
    Leaning forward slightly but not moving his legs, he contracted his eyes in their muscular sockets to focus on sudden movement within the semi-circle of light he had made. A pair of marrarra in the catch-cup already, feeding on the rich faunal soup that had been drawn to the thoralls’ lights. And wasn’t that a ferraff next to them? One big enough for broiling, no less, and not just for the stewpot. He felt relieved. As long as the wind didn’t pick up, it was going to be a good night.
    One double-jointed, double-limbed arm bent backward to reach around behind him and remove the neatly rolled net from the bag slung across his back. Skin flaps rising and falling with anticipation, he methodically unscrolled the fishing gear. Fashioned from the toughest fibers of the same seashan Storra loomed into cloth, he shook it out preparatory to casting. Properly thrown, it would seal the mouth of the thorallian cup. Forcefully nudging a thorall or two would cause the legless creatures to blink their lights with furious intensity. Designed to startle and frighten off possible predators, the reaction should scare the feeding marrarra and complacent ferraff straight into the waiting depths of his net.
    He held the braids of the latter in the four grasping flaps of his left hands and readied himself to cast it with those of his right. A poor throw and his quarry would panic and might slip away. It could happen, even to one as experienced as himself. Antennae stiff and protruding forward from his forehead, he kicked at the thorall nearest him, moved quickly to the next and repeating the action. Taking their cue from these first two, the other thoralls in the semi-circle responded by pulsing violently to scare off the perceived threat. Quickly, he drew back all four forearms simultaneously and heaved. Flying into the darkness and expanding as it caught the night air, the weighted seashan latticework struck the water with a gentle slap, sinking quickly downward to trap and entangle everything trapped beneath its inescapable mesh.
    Sucking air through the vent in his face, Ebbanai moved fast to check on his catch. There was one marrarra, there the other, and—not one sizable ferraff, but two! Two ferraff broilers, and on his first throw of the night. Rightly and for once, Storra would be full of praise for his efforts. Perhaps even enough to alter her body chemistry and render it suitable to generate the necessary hormonal flash that would permit copulation. He tugged eagerly at the net, pulling it in, closing the trap on the fine catch. Glancing gratefully upward, he gave thanks