James Tiptree Jr by Tales of the Quintana Roo (epub)

Author:Tales of the Quintana Roo (epub)
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Then I began to explore, letting the gentle swells carry me over perfect lace-coral fields, dazzled by neon-blue angels, admiring the impossible pink of the ill-named and delectable hogfish–another proof, if one were needed, that no one had yet shot over this reef. Clouds of blue-headed wrasse were feeding in my shadow: I paused for a long inspection, hoping to catch sight of one of the juvenile females, who mate in schools, in the process of growing into a much larger, red-and-yellow, monogamous male. Until recently these two forms had been considered separate species, and I never see them without wondering what our own social system would be like had humans evolved with this trait.

Imagine our world, if all the senior males, the O. J. Simpsons, the Walter Cronkites and Leonid Brezhnevs, had started out as little girls and young mothers? Just in time, I remembered not to chuckle and choke myself.

Never had the underwater world been more ravishing; I flippered lazily through turquoise and liquid air, noting that the light was now tinged with faint gold. Even the evil head of a moray eel protruding from its hole in the reef was a green-gold heraldic emblem of villainy, and the enormous grouper stupidly eyeing me from a half-spear shot away was crusted with jewels.

The sea was so calm that I decided to cross the inner reef and have a look at the coral heads where the so-called sleeping sharks occasionally hide. I had acquired companions; three young barracudas were circling me, disappearing for moments only to rejoin me from a new angle, their mouths as usual open in toothy gapes. I had taken the normal precaution of removing all shiny gear, even to my medical-plaque chain, but one larger fellow was showing so much interest in my diving watch that I debated hiding it in my suit. The local barracudas are said to be harmless; I had been instructed, when meeting one nose-to-nose under water, to shout “Boo!” But I had found this difficult, especially in a snorkel mask. My sound came out as a pallid “Urk!”

I found a pass in the inner reef and flippered through, momentarily losing my carnivorous friends. The in-shore bay was an uninteresting grass-plain relieved here and there by a giant orange starfish, a flotilla of yellowtails, or a huge live conch. It was the isolated brain-coral heads which interested me. I cruised along up-current; the old learn quickly to start their journeys upwind or uphill, so that nature will help them home. What I was looking for was a large pile with a cave at its base in which a sleeper shark might lie.

Most were too small, so I swam out farther, toward the second reef. From here I could just glimpse the shining white dot above the hazy southern coastline which was the white tower of Tuluum, high on its cliff. Tuluum is our chief local ruina, a mediocre remnant of greatness whose claims to fame are its glorious site and one strange carving, unique in all Yucatán, which may–or may not–concern this tale.

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