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“You look like someone who could use a zoe, broth-brother.”

The Meld who had spoken was leaning against the faltering walkway railing. What made his presence distinctive and immediately identified him as a local was the fact that he was standing not on the walkway but on the other side. The exceptional leg meld he had undergone had produced stiltlike lower limbs two meters long that terminated in widely splayed feet suitable for providing support on sand and mud as well as solid ground. Standing in the water below the walkway he was still eye level with Whispr. A convenient stance for challenging less attenuated strollers.

Slowing without immediately responding, Whispr took a moment to check out their immediate environs. A local multimeld couple was strolling arm in arm in arm. Off to his right and away from the pedestrian walkways a Natural whose skin had been burnt sienna supervised a quartet of automatics that were off-loading catfish into a chilled, self-powered transport hopper. Several of the catfish were giants—more descendants of Amazonian immigrants carried northward by changing currents and patterns of ocean life. In the distance music drifted from a local café, a rejuvenating rejiggered bubbling bouillabaisse of southern Americana, salsa, and electronics that Whispr identified as the latest technopone.

But of overt undercover agents out trolling for prey he could detect no evidence.

“Not zoe,” he told the man who had undergone the swamp strider meld. “Brain stuff more expensive, less stable. Mind trope—not trip, not tripe. Food for haute thought. Barf me a river, giver.”

The strider’s expression narrowed. “It would help if you named a tributary. Tickle me one.”

Resting his arms on the shaky railing, Whispr evinced a false interest in the murky water below. “Might have a something that’s worth something cubed. Need an appraisal.”

Tottering slightly atop his impossible legs, the swamp strider regarded the supplicant suspiciously. “Plenty of dealers in Miavana. Easy access from there to the rest of Namerica and all points south and east. Why come here to the hot zone?”

“Plenty of watchers dealing watch on the dealers in Miavana, too.” Whispr offered a conspiratorial smile. “I prefer the words of the choir invisible.”

“Yopers, you do look like the type who don’t want to be seen. Turn sideways and a dance step makes you so. Brisk wind blow you away; all crow and no scare.”

From the other side of the walkway railing, Whispr met his gaze evenly. “Less wind in the waterlands. And I’m still here.”

The strider sighed and shuddered impertinently. “You selling and not buying. Why should I drop on you anything heavier than loose vowels?”

Whispr deliberately wiped long, bony fingers across a shirt pocket. “Maybe I could use a zoe.”

Now the strider returned the visitor’s smile. “That better. Business always better two ways from yesterday. Tell me what you trying to price. Weevil wax? Gotagod extract?”

“Hard goods.” Whispr kept his voice down.

“Jewelry? Instruments? Piece of equipment? Art? Sanitaried shellfish?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t need the appraisal,” Whispr replied sagely.

The strider gave a favorable nod. “Broth-brother has spent time studying spiff from scum. Cannot he tell poor Molpi anything about the nature of his goods?”

Whispr took another sweeping gander at their immediate surrounds. No one was so much as glancing in their direction. “Two bits both metal, but we don’t know for sure they are. Don’t know for sure what they do. Can’t tell by looking what they signify.”

“In muck there is mystery, as my Meld-father used to say. What you looking for is a muck diver. See Tomuk Ginnyy. Tell her Molpi sent you.”

“Directions?” Whispr asked.

The strider laughed softly. “Trouble with directions is they work both ways. I perceive you, broth-brother, but I don’t know you. And not knowing you, I don’t outloud homes of my friends. Herewith …”

Reaching into a pocket he withdrew a sleek, classy,