But there was little Heineman could tell. The Vasakatari, the islands of the Mer, lay in the Sea of Ice, south of the Yontil Yantil. Few people ventured to those regions, for several reasons. For a start, the activity of the metapsychic faultline was alarmingly strong in those southern regions, disconcerting even to Chalakanesians who had a lifetime's familiarity with metapsychic effects. Furthermore, the Sea of Ice was stormy, beset by bad mechanical storms (as ordinary storms are termed in Chalakanesia, to distinguish them from metapsychic storms). Few mariners cared to hazard those southern regions.
'And,' said Heineman, 'you know how it is with the Mer.' [NoP Ch6]
Heineman Yakaskam Jubiladilia woke abruptly in his bed in the House Jubiladilia. He had been dreaming of the frigid eternities of the Sea of Ice, of cold drifts of phosphorescent squid, of steaming whales and drifting icebergs, of merdog and harp seal, and of the Mer themselves in their realms of fishfin privacy. He had been dreaming by night, till his dream had dissolved into a nightmare of rupturing ice and penguin's wings. That had woken him.
Now, free from the cold terror of his dream, Heineman lay warm in bed, lay warm against the humped heaping shadow-mound which was his wife. Charlotte lay in the darkness out of the moon's angle. The moon was high, an ice-bright moon shining, shining, and he remembered that moon from his dreams, remembered that moon and remembered his wife. [EoH Ch13]
'Yes,' said Heineman. 'Down there, the yandolini - '
But Grindle-Joyce was not really listening, and Heineman let his voice trail away, suspecting that a lecture on the ecology of the Sea of Ice would be quite wasted on the man. Grindle-Joyce was watching little boy Loki, who was busy thumping one of the adaptive skins, in imitation of the Ganfolk musclemen who were giving those skins a professional massage.
'Your sister's boy, isn't it?' said Grindle-Joyce, studying Loki's diligent massaging. [EoH Ch5]
'Oh, yes,' said Grindle-Joyce. 'The living diving suits. What are they, exactly?'
'They're a type of commensual organism,' said Heineman. 'In nature, they live in association with the yandolini. That's a creature from the Sea of Ice.'
'Yes?' said Grindle-Joyce. 'Down where the Mer live?' [EoH Ch5]