"Everyone is getting consigned soon anyway."
Loma took a step toward him and looked hard into his face. "What?"
"Omi, I mean, one of the cithians, he said that all the rest of the humans were going to be consigned soon." Denny shrugged. "Maybe I should just wait till after. Maybe it will be easier to find a maton at the new place.”
The idea that they were going to be consigned had seemed half-frightening and half-hopeful to Denny. After all, they were bound to be taken somewhere with more people than the pitiful few left in Jukal. There would probably be reunions. He might not see his father, that was too much to hope for, but someone would find a lost parent, or child, or at least a friend.
Only Loma seemed to think the idea that the last humans in Jukal were about to be consigned was all bad. Denny could see it just looking at the tight expression on the old woman's face. At the deepening of the nest of lines around her eyes. Loma thought that this was a horrible idea.
"Don't," she said. Her hand went again to the fine tufts of her hair. "Don't wait for anything. If you’re–"
Before she could finish, there was a drumming sound from the door. Loma stepped quickly to loose the cord that held the curtain closed. She had barely moved the curtain itself when a skynx paddled its way into the room.
Denny had seen many skynx at the spaceport, and of course he'd seen the swimmers in the lake, but for all that he might as well have seen only one. He thought that some might be just a bit larger than others, but there no markings that he could see. No difference in the color, or in the large slit-pupiled eyes. There was not even any clothing or jewelry that might have helped in telling them apart. Skynx were just skynx.
But Loma seemed to have no trouble recognizing the skynx that came surging into her room on rapid steps of its paddles. "Good Tollsday, Seephaa," she said, bobbing her head.
The skynx raised the front half of its body, elevating its broad arrow-shaped head. "Good Tollsday," said Seephaa in the same piping sing-song voice of every other skynx. "To you and to your ..." it paused a long moment, tilting its head as the big eyes looked at Denny. "Friend."
"His name is Denning Carrelson," Loma said.
"Denning Carrelson." The skynx pronounced the name carefully. The big eyes studied Denny again. "I have seen you. You are the one who dances."
Denny nodded. "That's me," he said. He thought about doing a little dance step, but somehow, it felt wrong. Foolish. "You've seen me at the spaceport?"
"That is where I've see you," the skynx agreed. A thin, translucent pink tongue slid from the skynx's mouth and moved quickly across its scarlet lips before sliding back. "And now I see you are here."
"He is just visiting me," said Loma.
The skynx' head bobbed up and down. The eyes turned toward the old woman. "Yes, I see that. However, he has not visited you before."