"I can remember standing on the beach and watching the water roll onto the shoreline in its own paced rhythm. A nervous, antiseptic, feeling out of its boundaries, unseemly for a body of water that big. Its conscious rhythms were much slower. But these were the actions too quick for the ocean to remember. What I had to be on guard for was the even higher energy spots that emerged from the pattern onto the beach. That made the water feel more treacherous in itself, harboring these parasites.
     "One doesn't live near the coast on Miniva. The sea life there lives and grows in the water, and takes its nourishment there. But many of them rose to breed on dry land. There were about ninety species that bred on the land, as far as the studies went. They came in sixteen annual phases.
     "The studies have shown that there is a cyclic rotation of the use of the shoreline in complementary groups. Thus there are sixteen seasons of the life upon the shores. Two groups are the worst, and those groups on each side are the weakest. One comes in the height of summer, and the other is in the cold of winter. The equator offsets the rotation a hundred and eighty degrees. These are divided by the equitorial band, where there are no seasons and constant chaos on the beach. Man does not visit the tropic shores of Miniva. Total mayhem that no human could or has survived.
     "Nothing's worse than getting a date by radio on a warm summer night, and then seeing the beautiful blue waters in the IR goggles show a dark brownish mass moving toward the beach. These babys don't travel alone. There goes your date. If you're one to spot the priocs, you spend so much time filling out reports that your date has probably found someone else to fill her time, among other things.
     "The priocs are the worst. They are the summer horrors. When they emerge, life vanishes from the area. That which doesn't flee is eaten. Simple as that. Those that occupy the area before the priocs have adapted to carrying their young or eggs. Any strays left behind are eaten. It was percentage that counted. Not that they were sweet tempered. But they weren't priocs to any stretch of the imagination.
     "Priocs lived alone on the beach. Nothing could be complementary to the priocs, except as a food source. If it moved under its own power, they ate it. They weren't picky. Only from the air have we been able to monitor them. When you were on watch at that season, you were there to blow the whistle for evacuation. Most everybody was ready and already packed. But they did show up early at times.
     "The water there was so beautiful. Such a rich vibrant soft blue. Watching the waves was mesmerizing. That made it easy to fall off your guard. It was a dangerous assignment slot. Only those of us that had been through it four times with a sponsor were allowed to solo watch.
     "We had food processors set up in the area. Many of the creatures were good to eat, matching our metabolisms. Most of the creatures are more vulnerable on land, having their primary skills for survival in the water. We took full precautions in our set ups. Energy fields, a very complex arrangements of physical defenses that let those species that we wanted to trap through, but kept the others out. Everything was fully computerized to accommodate the current phase of the cycle. We had traps set out all over the place, each set for that season.
     "We ate well, and the variety was magnificent. You never got tired of the choices. Sweet, tender, delicious, ultimately satisfying food. But it didn't come risk free. Lives were lost in gathering. Strictly volunteer duty. Everyone was there on their own initiative, or that of a judge, offering a way out of confinement. The pay was good, if you lived to spend it. Most guys died while they were set down to attach the lift cables to the cages. You see, they couldn't drop a drop snatch because of the winds. Not even a Drenton stabilizer would make an accurate grab. The winds were just too erratic.
     "I was smart. I got sent to tower watch. I avoided the whole ground contact routine. Let me tell you, the few extra dollars weren't worth the risk. I'd sit safely up in a steel perch where my scent would never be picked up. Nothing could climb the spires that held us aloft. The metal was just too slick. The only access was by floater.
     "It wasn't real exciting. Same old thing until it was time to go. Sit up in the tower, watch the water for signs of the priocs. It did have some short term interest in watching the habits of the creatures that had the phase preceding them. The other shifts were more interesting, though. There was more variation in the changing of the shifts on the beach.
"There was the changing of the fauna, the conflicts, the battles, the consumption of one kind by another. There was also the changing of the traps and defenses. You got to see none of that on the prioc watch. It was very routine action until they showed, then everything else split. No drama, just a mass exodus, then you were picked up. You see, the priocs could sense you up on the tower. They couldn't reach you, but they'd sit at the base and pound away at it, vibrating your brains out until you got picked up. So once the priocs were spotted and the alarm sounded, you sat very still. They couldn't smell you from below, but they could and would see or hear you if you moved.
     "Now the winter devils, the tabrels, were a whole other story. They could climb the towers if they weren't lubed well. They had suction cups on what could be mistaken for arms. That was miserable work, sitting way off the ground in the winter winds. I was told that the heaters in the towers never worked very well, since the tower that ran through the center of the nest brought in the cold by convention from the inside, while the glass sucked it out by convection. And it couldn't be too warm, with too much heat leaking into the outside, since that attracted the winged lambats. They would land on the glass in a swarm and cut off your view. And drapes were out of the question. The open view was everything on watch.
     "But I never saw the winter watch. I was always in the opposite hemisphere, looking for priocs. I guess the oddest thing about the cycle is the complementation of the phases, in the same manner as the symbol for the ying and the yang. The phases were almost mirrored. There were correlations between the phases that ran a hundred and eighty degrees. The only real difference was in the temperature. Whatever phase that ran in one hemisphere, its counterpoint was breeding in the opposite hemisphere. Not that they were the same species, but that they were of the same ferocity and cunning.
     "When the worst were emerging in the northern hemisphere, the worst were emerging in the southern. The tabrels and the priocs emerged at the same time on opposite sides of the equator. When the weakest claimed the beaches on one side, the weakest were on the other. Again, they weren't the same species, but the profiles of roles in the ecosystem matched that which was going on the other side of the tropics, and which would come to the same location in half a year. The species were different, but their function and strength was the same and served the same purpose.
     "The second strongest groups occurred at equinox. The four strongest groups were equally spaced in the cycle, taking the prime spots for their own special needs, and thus they seldom met in the procession to and from the shoreline. It was impossible in the studies to tell if such positioning in the cycle was by choice of the four dominate species, or if the four evolved into dominance because of the position in the cycle. There are arguments for both cases. We really haven't been on Miniva long enough to do enough fossil studies to see what species are extinct.
     "It is possible that there was a strong species that preceded the priocs, and the priocs go for the strongest species available when feeding. They could have made such a rival extinct. So you have the strongest followed by the second weakest followed by a moderately strong followed by a weak group followed by the second strongest followed by a weak followed by a moderate followed by the weakest.
     "Okay, on a gradation scale of strength, they ran in this order in the mirror fashion I explained. This scale ran twice a year. One, seven, three, six, two, five, four, eight, and then through it again to complete the year. You will notice that seven and eight border the strongest. The eighth came before one, since the worst invaded the eighth's breeding grounds. The seventh fared only slightly better, waiting in the water until first abandoned the beach. Then surrounding two were six before and five behind, showing the same prospect. Three sat between seven and six.
     "Probably the bloodiest time on the beach was when four took over from five. Four is not that much stronger than five, thus five is not that eager to surrender the beach. And some of the tastier foods come these two groups. There is a group that works this duty, trying to pick up fresh kills before the combatants finish their contests. To be assigned this duty, you only have to be crazy or a real pain in the rear to someone with assignment authority. The best watchers get assigned to standing in when eight occupies the beach, watching for the arrival of number one. That was our most productive harvest period, though not the choicest. The choicest was four and five, and that's where the misfits got assigned. That was the most dangerous assignment. That was the human way of culling its own species. You tried to stay out of the hospital when four was arriving. They were inevitably overcrowded and you got little individualized care from the too busy hospital staff.
     "I was lucky and did well on my arrival exams. If you don't, that's your first assignment. You were very careful socially on Miniva. One doesn't date the daughter of the assignment chief without getting to know him and getting on his good side first. They have very lonely daughters. Not many want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. You have a better chance being totally unknown to them and standing on a good record. About the only dates their daughters got were those already assigned to battle collection squad, and they weren't into long term relationships. No one on that duty thought about much beyond the present moment. The motto of the battle collection squad was 'Get what you can while you're still here.' Thus the daughters got dates in only two short bursts a year.
     "Watchers worked twelve hour shifts. Noon to midnight or midnight to noon. You got the same schedule to keep you at your sharpest. Four days on, four off. The watchers knew each other by radio better than in person. Personality invention was big. Thus intelligence and wit was a premium in one's social standing. Your voice was everything. You didn't have to be good looking to get dates. You had to have good voice control and know what to say. If you wanted lots of good dates, you needed a good repertoire of sensuous love songs. Not that you didn't have to back it up. 'All song and no substance' was a common assessment for the song birds that got shot down. But it wasn't the death knoll that no voice carried.
     "I was fortunate and had both a voice and substance. Substance was a many meaning word there. It meant class, looks, sympathy, and how well your pants bulged. That put me with a lot of dates and a lot of status. 'True singers' we were called. Anybody that gave a true singer grief heard about it from the girls. No dates for them. There were more true singers on prioc and tabrel watch than on any other shift. The assignment chiefs were no fools. They wanted as little grief as possible. The only trouble for a true singer came from those with nothing to lose, namely those on battle collection squad. And that was only in the camps away from the beach, since the two didn't share the same shifts.
     "Now a typical date on Miniva lasted four days, being the four days off shift. The rules proscribed sleeping with someone on your off time during your four days on. A squabble or a night without sleep really shot a watcher's ability to stay alert, and the company proscribed it. When you'd get off shift, you'd go pick a girl up and head for the Midway. Even if you didn't have a date, that's where you went, but it was more fun with a date. You could get into the better clubs with a lady on your arm. The singles bars were not all that much fun, since the entertainment there was secondary to landing a mate for the off shift.
     "The Midway offered everything one could want. Drugs, whores, kinky stress relief of all sorts, you name it. If it was salable, it was sold there, and bought. Being a watcher sets on the nerves. Especially those on the bad shifts. You have a one in four chance of being on watch for the arrival of the next phase, since there were four watchers that shared each nest's rotation. Nest mate was the one that took the shift you didn't pull on your days on. Sitters were the pair that held your nest when you were off shift. You knew each other by notes that you left behind and the moments that you changed shifts. You met your nest mate six times a shift and one sitter at beginning or end of your on time. The other sitter, your nest mate met. You were nice to them, since they helped you with their notes. There were clues to the arrival time of the priocs.
     "Prioc watch was the most dangerous watch for a watcher. It was also the shortest watch, since the watchers didn't stay into their period. You cut into the eight spot watchers' time, but not that much, and they went on with their chores of spotting for ground crews, while you looked for priocs and nothing else. If you were lucky, you missed watch altogether if your sitters drew first round and the arrival happened before you went on. If you did pull second slot, odds were that you or your nest mate would be on the shift that sounded the alarm.
     "Now sounding the alarm doesn't mean that you ever see them. Odds are that a watcher in a different tower down the beach would be the first to spot them, and you'd just relay the alarm down the line by radio and to your local area workers by siren. In the twelve years that I stood prioc watch in both hemispheres, I only saw them three times out of twenty four. Once was enough. The priocs are very efficient hunters. They would emerge in connected wedges, channeling the beach inhabitants into groups trying to flank them back into the water. The wedges would separate at the points and sweep toward the flanks, encircling their prey for a massive feast. You see, the species trying escape would run along the beach away from the points, and the priocs would emerge in the slants, arriving in time to keep the refugees from ever reaching free water. They would collide into a mass of prey when the last priocs emerged, and the feast would begin, with nowhere for the prey to run.
     "The main survivors of the assault were those that were positioned where the priocs came in on points. They would retreat from the water, waiting for the priocs to swing for the enclosure. Then they'd make a mad dash to the water. Some of the wedges had a second group of priocs waiting for such an escape attempt, but enough escaped to perpetuate the species. The phases are quite stable in terms of population. This method of assault by the priocs allows for feasting for all of them, but allows enough escapees to allow for next year. Most eight spot inhabitants have very short youths. Nature dictates that in the stable cycle.
     "Anyway, back to the dates, as I was explaining. On prioc watch, we arrived eight days ahead of first assigned watch for briefing. Then we'd have to report in once a day to pick up the daily update for the occurrence of prearrival clues. The rest of the time was our own. We usually spent our waking hours at the Midway. Wasn't much else happening in the area except serious business. Then we'd spend our off shift there. Then, after arrival, we'd stay there until our full shift expired, according to union contract laws. If you never went on shift because your sitters sounded the alert before you went on shift, then you spent the full forty days in the Midway, living it up. There were four full shifts to a watch, plus the extra full shift when you reported in early.
     "That was done twice a year, once in the north and once in the south. So a prioc watcher had eighty of the five hundred and ten calendar days of Miniva on active duty, and seldom were more than eight of those days spent in a nest. If you were lucky, you spent the whole eighty days in the Midway. There were a lot of Midways, north and south. Thus, everybody wanted on prioc watch, and it was considered the cush job, with the one in four odds of being on duty during arrival. I mean, we sat up in high places, watching the beauty of the oceans, then spent the rest partying, and drawing one of the best salaries in the company. But you had to be really good to land the spot, and you had to have a willing sponsor for two years to get the solo that drew the salary. You didn't make that much as an apprentice. But I held on for ten years solo and retired. I really didn't need to stay there the full ten years. I could have comfortably retired after the minimum five. But I went on for the maximum ten years. After ten years on watch, people start acting a little too funny for the company shrinks. I stayed on to watch the beauty of the ocean. I also enjoyed the prestige and the lifestyle of a true singer.
     "I had my pick of dates, just about. There were a few that stuck to a steady relationship that turned down my offer, but I soon found out which were attached and avoided asking. The female watchers were smart ladies. You never needed to worry about getting a dull date among the watchers. Some looked better than others, but they were all class mentally, and they faced the same pressure that you did. They were good company and as eager as you were to relieve the stress inside them. They made the Midway a place to truly remember with fondness.
     "There was one girl that I dated for forty straight days during a shift where I didn't stand watch. We really hit it off that well. I probably would have married her if the company hadn't forbid it. We could have gotten married, but we both wanted to keep drawing our salaries. She was so beautiful, so warm and endearing, so intelligent, and she really knew her stuff with a man. And she felt the same about me. It was forty days of magic.
     "Unfortunately, she suffered an injury shortly thereafter, while we were on separate vacations inland. And there were others that followed. None quite as nice, but I didn't run them off. Stress creates needs. Priocs, and even the thought of possibly seeing them, creates stress. She got shipped back home, and we never saw each other again, though we did write via sub-mail. She's married now. She didn't want to wait for me to finish my term on Miniva. She was the type to get lonely quickly. But that watch was so magical with her.
     "We still get in touch, and feelings between us are still gentle and welcoming. She isn't all that happy in her marriage, but I'm not the type to wreck her marriage. She has kids now, and that would cause her considerable pain to divorce. But we still talk via comm. We both went through the same experiences, and that makes a bond between us that no one else satisfies. We can talk about our watch experiences when they come back to haunt us and get understanding that we can't get elsewhere.
     "Watchers are like that when they retire. They all have a few other watchers with which they keep in touch for when the memories get too heavy. The rest of the watchers we forget. You don't want too much of a reminder. Seems to be a universal trend. And prioc watchers tend to remember only other prioc watchers. Same holds true for the tabrel watchers. It's not snobbery, as some accuse. But seeing a prioc is a truly nerve wracking experience. The shark has been described as a perfect eating machine. But I laugh at the description, having seen the priocs feed. Sharks are wimps in comparison.
     "You never saw anybody evacuating an area because of sharks. Oh, maybe the swimmers would get out of the water, but not the boats. You didn't dare run a boat in prioc infested waters. They'd tear your boat to shreds. They were very heavily armored and very quick. Saltwater boats on Miniva were considered a form of suicide. And you stayed fifty feet above the water in a floater. There was a specie that could leap forty feet into the air and nail the flying creatures in flight. We called them bulleta, since the their leap looked like bullets being fired. But they never came on land. Not adaptable.
     "Not every oceanic creature bred on land. Just the worst of them did. You didn't even want to face the weakest of them. Oceanic life is very nasty, even here on Earth. Competitive and brutal, totally without a sense of sympathy. It was quite hard for sensitive men or women to comprehend and maintain sanity and sensitivity. It wasn't as bad for prioc watchers, since we never stayed for their term. But for those in the two and three slots, the shrinks had to watch them closely. They had a tendency to follow the example of the native lifeforms and turn brutal.
     "Being a beach shrink on Miniva was the pits. Nobody liked them. They could pull you off line and there went your salary for missing your shift. They were less popular than assignment chiefs' daughters. They were another reason that everyone wanted prioc duty. A shrink never pulled a prioc watcher off line, since they were evacuated when the priocs arrived. I got treated for shock a couple of times while I was apprenticing. The sight of a prioc arrival is quite gruesome. Not something for those with weak stomachs. But we were never subjected to their brutality for long enough to cause any true psychosis.
     "Those in the two and three slots, and those on combat duty cracked often. One went fresh to prioc duty in apprenticeship. You never made it there from another shift. So I was lucky to land the position, since it has the lowest turnover rate in the service. A few dropped out to nerves after an arrival. But most retired or had accidents to end their term of duty. Not many one slot watchers cracked. They were picked from those least likely to crack.
     "But no one sane would mess with one slot watchers in the Midway. Not only did it draw trouble from the company, but it was risky as well. We were a bit like the priocs, top of the chain. We had status and we didn't mix with others. We didn't tolerate interference in our recreation. The company backed us up. We were too important to them. We were their best, along with the tabrel watchers. We were top dogs. No one said no to us except other one slot watchers and company authority. We had anything we wanted for the asking. But as I said earlier, we didn't mix socially.
     "Oh, there were a few, mostly early in their careers, that tested their new found power while in the Midway. But it didn't take long for them to shake the habit. It hurt one's status among watchers to step outside our circle. A true singer, once so named, protected his or her image. Messing with the lower slots or non-slots endangered your status in the area of sensitivity. It made getting dates harder and lowered you from being the best of the best.
     "But I saw some of the puffed shirts, which were those with a good radio presence but poor personal presence, and the dumb drums, which had neither, ordering others about the Midway. There were several instances where they organized nude parades down the Midway, ordering all they met to strip and join in. But the reaction they got from us true singers stopped them from being repeated by the same organizers. Oh, it wasn't as bad as you might think. A number of the paraders actually enjoyed it, but that was the Midway, where people were used to undressing for others. Proper people didn't venture there. Only those on shift and those wanting to make a buck resided permanently in the Midway.
     "Living quarters for those on shift bordered the Midway, and the entire compound was like a fort. The defenses kept everything out. Nothing outside the compound moved to draw the priocs to it. The others couldn't get through or over the thick, slick walls. The housing was efficient, with as much packed into a small a space as possible. Three or four tiny rooms, counting bath and kitchen. Only thing that was large were the beds. The watchers had the four room apartments, having a small living room for entertaining on our off shift time. Most of the time in the apartments, though, was spent in bed, and most of us ate out. They were too small in comparison to what the Midway offered in the way of bars and theaters. Most of the entertaining we did at the apartments was in the bedroom.
     "It was stressful on the job, and the nests were small. That kept us out in the open most of the time except to sleep or seek privacy. It was not a place for the faint-hearted, and the company saw to that. I saw a lot of deviant behavior during my phases on watch. Twelve hours of carefully watching the surf alone, two hundred feet above the ground, waiting for the most terrifying of beasts to arrive on the scene made people do strange things. Many of the things that I saw would have resulted in arrest elsewhere. But the company paid the victims well for the abuse that they took. Most of the victims were looking to be victims for the pay-off anyway. They were there to make a buck. Everyone there was there for the money, be it as watchers, harvesters, or entertainers and servants.
     "But there were rules. A lot was tolerated by the company, but that which impaired work efficiency on the beach was dealt with harshly. Mild drugs, illegal elsewhere were allowed. Harsh drugs were grounds for expulsion from the company. That was the kiss of death. Expulsion meant no ride off-planet, and no one would hire someone expelled. So you watched your step where the line was drawn or you lived on very meager welfare. Sadism was allowed those on beach duty, as long as it did no permanent damage to the receiver. There was money in receiving abuse.
     "I saw other strange behavior where there were no victims. It didn't occur among the watchers as much as it did with the ground crew. I saw several instances of people trying seriously to fly. These were usually cable connectors that had a close call trying to connect a trap to their cable boom from the floater. As I said, that is where most deaths occurred. They'd try to fly by flapping their arms, looking for a better way out of imminent danger. They often repeated it when they went bonkers.
     "And if that weren't bad enough for them, they had the watchers to please. A grounder didn't dare cross a watcher, since they depended on us for reports on the conditions of an area before going in. A few watchers had sent in those ground crews that had crossed them into very dangerous situations. This kept the status respectful of the watchers quite high and kept the ground crews in line to a high degree. The mind games were horrendous between the classes. Those ground crew pressured by the watchers would turn around and relieve the stress on the servants in the Midway. The place looked like fun on the surface. Below the surface, it was the depths of the degradation of the human mind. There were many miserable people working in the Midway. But they made their money for it. No one left beach duty poor unless they were very bad gamblers.
     "The only truly beautiful thing on beach duty was the water. Such beautiful water you've never seen. And that was the danger of it, getting lost in its beauty and forgetting its danger. I still dream about the beauty of the water there. So blue, so inviting. You wanted to go swimming in it every time you saw it. It was a visual siren's song. That's why our nests were sound proof. You couldn't hear the waves from the towers. The sight and sound of the water was too much for many. Possession of a surfboard was grounds for expulsion from the company, either on medical or criminal grounds.
     "One guy did go surfing, according to the folklore of the watchers. There was nothing left of him to bury, according to the stories. And there was some beautiful surf on Miniva. Nothing quite as good can be found here on Earth. I saw waves that lasted for eight hundred yards without chopping out on some of the shallower beaches. Waves twenty, thirty feet high were not uncommon. There was one station I saw where the wave heights were recorded at a hundred and sixty feet on a regular basis, when the conditions were right.
     "But I don't recommend the duty to anyone that isn't suited for watch duty. You have to be very good in certain areas. If you are thinking about hiring on, take a pre-employment exam. The company offers them, then once you get back your score, if you measure up to prioc watch, get your written guarantee of job placement before you dare sign the contract. Otherwise, I'd avoid the company like the plague. Like I said, I was lucky to make prioc watch. You don't get into the position by transferring from another position, no matter what some recruiter may tell you. They'll tell you all kinds of lies to get you there, then use you as they please if you don't have the written guarantee. And you can't depend on them keeping the guarantee for you. That is something that you have to do for yourself if you don't want to become fodder.
     "Get the document and make lots of copies and hide the original where they can't find it. And mark my word, they are good at making them disappear during your flight there. They'd much rather have you where they want you, and not where you want to be. They don't care about you, only about what you can do for them.
     "So that is my advise and observations about the job offer. It's good money, but it's hell in the earning. Go in with your eyes open. Talk to the union before you contact the company. I'm sure that they will add to what I've told you. Just remember that it's a big chunk out of your life that you'll never get back.
     "If you do go, good luck to you. You'll need it, as well as a very strong constitution. It's brutality at its peak, and it takes a straight path to stay out of its way, not just from the creatures on the beach, but also from the people that deal with them. Stay honest and caring about others, no matter how stressed out you get, and you will come out of the experience at your best. Just remember that your past goes with you for the rest of your life."
     The young man nodded. "Thank you, sir, for your time and energy. I truly appreciate it. I will give what you have said much thought before signing on. Your story is not as it was explained to me by the recruiters."
     "Just one more thing. Don't tell them you talked to me, and don't spout off anything I told you to them. They'll see you as a troublemaker if you do, and then you have no chance of being assigned prioc watch. Good luck to you."
     The two stood, shook hands, and then the younger man left the house. The elder sighed as he watched him leave. "Thank goodness you did not ask for details. You just might survive the tour with that attitude."