He glances down at his strange companion, frowning. That's something hardly anyone seems to know anything about. "Ask any of the locals and they'll say the turtle's sick, and they're blaming us for it."

Helpful, right? He takes another long draw off his cigarette, then breathes a slow stream of smoke into the sea breeze. At least here you can barely tell the affects its had on everything. At the shell's edge it's nothing but bare scutes where the ocean waves have worn everything smooth as polished stone. The air is clear and salty, free of the awful stink of dead fish and rotting kelp that hangs over the Water Sector. And not an ornery kedan in sight.

"I'm guessing it gets sick enough, the whole place is pretty damn screwed."