Deluge (19 page)

Kushtaka told her,
We will swim out and return to the ship now. Will you come, too?

We can’t just leave them, can we?
she asked Ronan.

I don’t see what more we can do to help,
he replied.
And there’s Marmie to think of. If we can manage saving her, she can help everyone else.

They could see the flooded prison yard through the doors when they heard the shots ring out and shouting. They dived under and swam out into the moat, twisting to look up.

The guards are firing from the roof!
Ronan exclaimed.
The prisoners will be shot like ducks in a barrel.

Murel had reached the door by then. The prisoners were under the water, swimming for the entrance. Suddenly, the prison shook as vigorously as the twins when drying off to become human. People fell off the roof into the water.

The light was strange. Beyond the crowded roof and tumbling figures, beyond the firing guns, the sky blistered and boiled with brilliant hot color.

The twins knew what that meant. They had seen it on Petaybee a lot recently.

The volcano in the middle of the island…
Murel said.

Maybe the alien Petaybeans upset the seismic balance or the core magma levels or something…
Ronan said, making a wild guess.

Or maybe this planet is waking up too,
Murel suggested. As they swam out to sea, she filled him in on what she had learned about the squid and about this being the original homeworld of the alien Petaybeans.

But if that’s so, they invaded and overran existing sentient life-forms to make this prison colony,
Ronan said.
That’s impossible! It’s goes against the foundations of Federation law.

So does quite a bit of what we’ve seen here,
Murel said.
It doesn’t seem to bother anyone much.
They swam farther out, over the squid trough. The lifeless bodies of several more squid bobbed on the water’s surface, their tentacles limp as seaweed.

When they were almost across the trough, the sea in front of them opened like the mouth of a giant whale. Kushtaka, Tikka, and the other three aliens swam into it and were sucked in so quickly that they seemed to vanish. Sky cut through the water past the twins and with a gleeful and slightly startled “Hah!” also disappeared.

The twins followed and, after several breathless moments, whooshed once more into the control room of the underwater city-vessel.

Mraka and Puk looked as alarmed as giant deep sea otters could look.
We have the power we need now. But it has made danger for the land-dwellers.

Whoops,
Ronan said.

CHAPTER 21

W
E’RE TRAPPED BETWEEN
a lava rock and a wet place,” Captain Terry told the twins when they had gone ashore and found him with the group of survivors from the waterspout’s wake. It was a large group. The only people still lying down were a female sergeant whose leg had been broken by a boulder, carried inside one of the powerful waves, and a boy of about five whose collarbone was broken by some other piece of debris. Otherwise, the survivors huddled or milled aimlessly about on the beach. Most of the children had survived, since they were the lightest and easiest for the aliens to rescue. Only a few of the soldiers remained, but apparently many of them had recently returned to the mainland to be deployed offplanet, so only a core group had been on the island when the tsunami struck.

Among the survivors, Ronan and Murel thankfully counted most of the people they knew. All of Ke-ola’s family, including a sullen-looking Kai, the matron, doctor, captain, Lloyd, Marmie, Adrienne, and Zuzu the cat, who had appointed herself guardian of Dr. Mabo and sat on top of the woman’s head, kneading her scalp vigorously with both front paws. Mabo was bound and gagged and, for good measure, was wearing the collar she had put on Ronan. Rory handed Ronan the control, but Ronan pitched it out into the water as far as it would go.

“Not even a little zap?” Rory asked, disappointed. “I mean,
I
can’t. She
is
my grandmother.”

“I don’t want to disturb the cat, and if I zapped Mabo, the shock would probably kill Zuzu. She looks like she’s having fun.”

“Besides,” Murel added, “your gran is seriously twisted.
She
uses that kind of stuff. We’re better than that.”

“I guess so. I don’t want to do anything like she does. It might make her think there was a family resemblance.”

The ground trembled beneath their damp feet as the mountain beyond sent up plumes of smoke, ash, and sparks. The trees whipped fitfully in a strong hot wind. At least everyone had dried out quickly, Murel thought, and there was no danger of hypothermia here, as there would have been on Petaybee, though sunburn was always a hazard.

“We’ve been here too long,” Ronan said aloud. “This place is starting to look like home. Or bits of it.”

“The warm bits,” Murel agreed, with a nod to the volcano. “So now what? The boat’s wrecked, the alien craft can’t help as long as we’re on land instead of in the water, the mainland is full of armed soldiers, and these people can’t survive at sea very long.”

“You didn’t mention the volcano about to blow,” Pele reminded her helpfully.

“That too.” Murel regarded the waving tree fronds and the swaying trunks, then said, “There is one thing you might do that could help. Though this planet isn’t as receptive as Petaybee, it might listen. Ke-ola had us do a birthing hula for the new volcano at home. Do the rest of you know it?”

“Not really. Ke-ola paid more attention to that stuff than the rest of us.”

“I know it,” someone muttered. It was Kai, looking defensive. When the others turned to her, the big girl shrugged. “I helped Mama with you younger ones.”

“You know the birthing oli?” Pele asked in surprise.

“I ought to. She was in labor with you almost three days.”

“Ke-ola showed us the dance, but we don’t know the words,” Murel said. “And it was a while ago. Do you still remember the steps?” she asked her brother.

“I think so,” he said. “When I see it again it should come back to me.”

There was another great tremble and another plume of smoke, ash—and flame. Glowing hot veins of red bled down the side of the mountain.

“Has anyone called for help?” the injured sergeant asked. She was a small, wiry woman who reminded Murel a bit of Pet Chan. “We need to be evacuated. If that lava reaches this beach, there’ll be no safe place for any of us. I’ve seen it before.”

“Most of our equipment was destroyed, Sarge,” another soldier told her. “The mobiles aren’t working.”

“That’s because the same thing happened on the mainland,” Ronan told them. “You can’t expect any help from that quarter. We’re on our own. I know this may look daft to you, but it’s worked before, back where we come from.”

Murel had grave doubts about whether the hula would speak to the core of this planet. They’d had no indication that this thoroughly tamed world with its moribund sea and prison-populated landmasses was at all self-aware. And even if it was, it might not be reasonable. But trying to soothe it with the birthing hula would keep people busy, at least.

Let’s leave them to it and go back to the city,
she suggested.
Kushtaka’s people know more about how this world functions than anyone around here. Maybe they have some more ideas.

We can’t abandon Marmie and Adrienne, or the others for that matter.

We’re not abandoning them. But we need to come up with some other alternatives. I get the feeling that a sentient planet that’s been used as a prison for so long might not be enough of an art and culture lover to appreciate the dance.

They dived in and changed, and when they surfaced, began swimming toward the city. The volcano’s rumble was as fierce as the growl of some wild beast—the kind that ate seals. The water was still turbulent and full of chop from the city-ship’s agitation of it. It made for slow and rough going.

They kept surfacing and turning to look at the volcano. During one such break, they saw ships descending from the sky.

Looks like someone will get evacuated anyway,
Ronan said.

Probably the brass. The rest of us can become lava statues, for all they care.

As they drew closer to the underwater volcanic vent where the city had settled, they met teams of their alien friends, some of them in squid form, some still appearing to be giant otters, swimming away from the city.

Where are you going?
Ronan asked.

Setting up the sursurvu—strictly routine,
one of the pair, in squid form, replied. The sursurvu was a network of surveillance devices the aliens deployed in the vicinity of their city to keep an eye on the neighborhood.

You may have to move again quickly,
Murel said.
It looks like the volcano is about to blow.

Yes, it is providing the most magnificent power surges,
the squid replied cheerfully as the pair swam away.

At least somebody is pleased about it,
Murel said grumpily.

They entered the city through the transparent dome. The entire metropolis was brightly lit from its own lights and from the glow of the vent throbbing up through the floor. It was a wonder the place wasn’t too hot for any life-form, but this race had somehow overcome that problem. Other creatures lived outside the dome and thrived on the heat and the acidic gases that Ronan and Murel had to avoid. As at the city’s preferred docking vent on Petaybee, the scent of sulfur was almost overpowering to the seals’ sensitive noses.

Kushtaka seemed to be busy elsewhere, but the twins located Mraka and Puk, who were tinkering with the fishing ray mechanisms. All around them lay dead fish, which were less than fresh.

What happened here?
Ronan asked.

The fish are arriving dead. Something’s wrong with the calibration,
Mraka said.

It has calibration?
Murel asked, trying to peer over his front leg to see the bit he held in his otter paw.

Yes, but it is incorrect now. Too powerful, I think. As you can see, the fish do not survive being caught.

Could it be that they were killed by the force of the waterspout and you’re catching dead ones because that’s all there are?
Ronan asked.

Oh, do you think that could be it?

Yes. You really do have to find a mode of travel that’s easier on the things around you. Speaking of which, the people who didn’t drown on the island are about to be incinerated by the volcano. I know you can’t take them in here, but your people were native to this planet. Do you have any suggestions for something they can do to protect themselves? Anything at all?

No,
Puk said, looking at her blankly.
Now about these dead fish—

Just no?
Murel demanded indignantly.
They’re going to die—

We wouldn’t,
Mraka told her.
So it has never been considered a problem for us. Perhaps, given enough time, we could find a way to build a bubble like this one over them, but it is held in place and sustained by our atmosphere, and humans unadapted for the sea cannot live in that either. So I don’t think we can help you with this one.

The fish, however
—Puk continued, picking one up with a worried frown.

Throw them out,
Ronan said sharply.
Isn’t there any sort of lifeboat or anything we could use to help our friends?

What is a lifeboat?
the alien engineers asked in unison.

W
ITHIN A FEW
hours, shortly after the alien city-ship whirled into the waters of Gwinnet’s dead sea, several ships apparently friendly to one another and belonging to the Intergal Company and the Federation entered Gwinnet’s outer atmosphere. Some of them prepared to orbit. One, the
George Armstrong Custer,
landed and docked, only to be swept from its moorings by the waves generated by the alien ship’s waterspout-borne departure to shallower waters.

The hijacked troop ship from Petaybee was the third vessel to approach the planet to land. Initially, the crew was anxious to arrive before the
Custer,
but had orders from its official escort to wait.

“The port authorities aren’t responding, Johnny,” Pet Chan told the captain.

“You think they’ve made us?” Raj Norman asked.

“Do you mean do they realize we are not the authorized crew?” Rick O’Shay asked. “The
Custer
can’t know that we’re anybody but who our registration number says we are. As we’ve had no unsolicited contact since
Versailles Station,
unless there’s been a leak in very high places, I don’t see how anybody could know we are other than what we appear to be. As of our last com from Petaybee, the original crew is still enjoying its arctic holiday, dogsledding, snocling, possibly even skiing and ice skating, admiring the aurora, and no doubt holding marathon poker tournaments.”

Pet ignored his attempt at humor. She could be very single-minded when she was concerned about something. “We’re not even getting an autoresponse,” she said. Her mouth had a grim set to it. “We’re about to enter atmo, however. Your call, Captain.”

Johnny shrugged. “I’d say silence confers consent. Can you get a visual? It would be good to know if they were launching missiles or gunships our way.”

At first all they saw was a partially obscured pattern of swirling staticky snow filling the screen, but then that receded and revealed a sea and landscape quite different from the one their charts had led them to expect. Huge waves broke over the octopus-shaped, flat-roofed prison building. Loops and curls of water tangled the remains of the docking bay gantries. The
Custer
listed half out of its bay while the crew trickled out from a hatch near the nose. Shuttle craft bobbed upside down on the swells. As Pet watched, one was dashed to pieces against the prison wall. The wall appeared to be holding, but the water breaking over it had made a moat of the prison yard. People were pouring onto the roof. Pet saw a lot of uniforms and no prison fatigues among those taking the high ground.

“That does not look promising,” Johnny agreed. “No missiles, but also no place to land. Back into orbit, then, and any rescuing that gets done will have to be done by shuttle.”

Ascending, they caught sight of the island in the distance, along with the waterspout and the waves.

They were in orbit, and in conference, when the volcano began to grumble.

T
HIS HULA WAS
not going well. Pele and Kai did their best, but there were simply too many factions represented among the survivors to be unified in their purpose. As geysers of lava sprayed upward from the cone and rivers of lava flowed down its sides and burned through the jungle, many fled to the sea. The Kanaka kids stood—or rather, danced—their ground, and Rory, Marmie, and Adrienne joined in, but Zuzu sat at the edge of the water and kept glancing back and forth between it and the shore, while Sky chittered at her in what was meant to be a reassuring tone.

Ronan and Murel did not join in the dance but swam offshore, watching, waiting. Those who had already entered the water were still fresh, but soon they would begin to tire. They had made rafts of debris left behind by the waves, and the water was warm, but when the lava boiled into the water, it would heat up even more.

This could be it, you know,
Murel said.
The end. We could all die.

Well, you and I could take refuge in the city, of course.

I’m not doing that! I’m going to stay out here and help the swimmers as long as I can.

Me too, of course,
Ronan replied.
And Kushtaka’s people promised to help as long as they could. But the water may get too hot for us, Mur. And there’s still maybe sixty people left—we can’t keep juggling them indefinitely. The volcano could blow and keep blowing for weeks, even months.