Bubbler

This is my current working name for my new Nano effort.

The story in my head is still fairly loose and fluid (*chuckle*), but the nominal character is Hydran, an air-breather on a world of people usually able to switch between air and water. His genetic counterpart, a "wheezer", is someone who can't sustain themselves breathing air alone.

Hydra is a very rich world, and an old one by Dominion standards. It was one of the early colonizations recorded, but has practically no land bodies. Colony cities were built both floating and domed on the bottom, and the population thrived on the ocean bounty. It became quickly fashionable to have one's children genetically guided into the ability to hold their breath for longer and longer, and a separate segment began to work toward actually breathing water.

Over the centuries, the latter group has dominated, and the modifications have become so common as to have practically stabilized into both the culture and the genetics of the population, such that members who can't switch back and forth between breathing air and water are considered handicapped. "Bubblers", those limited to air only, are becoming rarer and rarer, though they still account for about 15% of new births. Wheezers are becoming more and more common, up to 10%. Even so, the 3 out of 4 people who can switch back and forth still have to go through considerable discomfort to do so, and more and more are opting for an all aquatic lifestyle, though it limits them to mostly silent forms of communication (you can't speak with your vocal chords full of water). Even those who can breathe air are finding that they are limited to several hours before they begin to experience discomfort from drying of the organs.

Kas, the title character, is the estranged teenage son of a high-ranking bureaucrat who has just been appointed to the Dominion Member Council. Because of his handicap he has been coddled and spoiled, but somewhat isolated from his family, and he feels his father is ashamed of him. His mother died during a bitter divorce when he was very small, and he's spent most of his life avoiding the company of other "bubblers". His oldest friends are synthient mecha and biopuppets, and the few Hydran friends he interacts with are overprivileged miscreants.

He is now heading with his father to the Council Station at the L3 Lagrange point of Calloway Prime, the Dominion's cultural capital. He doesn't want to go, mostly because he'll be very isolated on the ship there. Hydran ships are filled with water, so he'll be confined to special quarters, isolated again and ashamed of his handicap.

The bright side is that once there he'll be on an air-breather station; his father will be the one with special quarters, using a wet suit to keep from drying out as he interacts for long hours with other delegates.