Saffron

the long version

Jamie Edmondson is friends with nearly everybody, as long as they don't disagree with his strident views on the environment. When he leads an expedition up the California coast to the discovery of a new race of humans who live under the sea, things change. That's when he meets some really bad people who don't like humans that aren't human. We call them Neptunes, and this race of telepaths threatens everything we humans stand for. When Jamie falls for a beautiful young Neptune, he discovers that when you're underwater, no one can count your tears.