The Homo eridanus were bitterly ugly, man-sized, having no human features at all. Whale-like skin covered layers of insulating fat so thick they could wholly retract their inhuman gray arms into their blubber. Instead of legs, they had thick tails that might have looked more suitable on walruses. And where humans had faces, the Homo eridanus had been engineered with wide fish mouths, large enough to gulp anoxic water and force it over starved gills. They had electroplaques beneath their skin, like the Homo quantus did, for navigation and speech. Two black eyes, as big as eight balls, placed to
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