Rhodoreef

1. The Sea Cow

Dea Rhodoreef envisioned many things she could do after school that day, but towing a sea cow wasn't one of them.

She swam backwards, kicking the water with her tail, and pulled hard at the makeshift leash. The animal didn't budge.

"Listen, cow," Dea burbled, poking the sirenian's smooth face. "You need to go home, understand? You can't keep following me."

He just looked at her with his little button eyes and drifted closer.

Dea let out a sigh, breath fizzing away in myriad bubbles. If the animal wasn't going home on his own, it was up to her to make sure he did. Her brain churned excuses she could tell the manager when she showed up late for the afternoon shift. Sighing again, she dug a hand into her backpack and pulled out a handful of seagrass—slender, green stalks against the turquoise of Calliathron's waters.

The button eyes that watched her shone like baubles, and a plump muzzle gave her a nudge.

"Manners, cow!" Dea held out the grass and watched it disappear in the blink of an eye. "You can't be that old, huh? You're small for a cow."

Indeed, the chonky mass before her was almost her size but nothing like an adult animal that could rival the bulk of a four-seater DSV. The muzzle gave her petite form another nudge, accompanied by a hopeful chirp.

"Well," she said, resisting the impulse to pinch his face, "you'd better come with me if you want more."

Dea gave the algal leash a firm tug, and this time her cow showed more enthusiasm about their excursion. She met the amused eyes of her neighbors, some of whom were swimming their otters. Her face heated up, but she bit her lip and pretended not to notice. Then she took off with a graceful thrust of her tail, towing her charge along.

In this plebeian corner of the city that Dea called home, the swimway wormed through mobile houses, stacked high against walls of coral. They were tiny smart domes in shells of eco concrete and titanium alloys—the state's response to affordable housing under a wave of modernization. Pinks and purples reflected off gleaming glass, as well as many darting fish, their scales shooting out sparks of light. As she passed by the coral outcrops, the biological noise hummed in her earpiece.

"Dea Rhodoreef! Where in the blazing geysers do you think you're going with a cow in tow?"

She winced and turned.

Her grandmother hovered out of a convenience store, a bioplastic tote bag trailing from the crook of her arm. Her starfish-printed dress puffed up when she joggled to a stop, hands on hips.

"Gramma." Dea offered a smile. "Hey!"

"Don't you hey me," her stern voice bubbled out. "Aren't you supposed to go to work?"

"But the cow..."

"If the cow found his way to you, then the cow can find his way back."

"But he hasn't, has he? This is the third day!"

Gramma made a series of clicks to express her exasperation.

"I'd like to keep him if he wants to stay," Dea mumbled.

"Sometimes I wonder if your head is stuck in a bubble. You give me more headaches than those darned humans—always in the news with their diabolical ways." Gramma shook her head. "Who's going to look after him?"

"I am! Stop treating me like a kid, Gramma. I'm eighteen this week for blubbering out loud!"

"Exactly. There's responsibility you need to shoulder." Her face shadowed under the deepening wrinkles, and she waved a hand at the languid animal. "And that doesn't mean...fostering a wild cow!"