"Green shatas!" he said suddenly. "Only a tadpole. I must be getting jumpy enough to splash."
Then he shoved the blaster away in a holster made of the same scaly leather, crossed his arms on his chest and began to study me. I grunted to my feet, feeling a lot better. The coldness had gone out of his eyes.
I held out my hand the way Sis had taught me. "My name is Ferdinand Sparling. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.—Mr.—"
"Hope for your sake," he said to me, "that you aren't what you seem—tadpole brother to one of them husbandless anura."
"What?"
"A 'nuran is a female looking to nest. Anura is a herd of same. Come from Flatfolk ways."
"Flatfolk are the Venusian natives, aren't they? Are you a Venusian? What part of Venus do you come from? Why did you say you hope—"
He chuckled and swung me up into one of the bunks that lined the lifeboat. "Questions you ask," he said in his soft voice. "Venus is a sharp enough place for a dryhorn, let alone a tadpole dryhorn with a boss-minded sister."
"I'm not a dryleg," I told him proudly. "We're from Undersea."
"Dryhorn, I said, not dryleg. And what's Undersea?"