Maelstrom (17 page)

CHAPTER 20

Y
ANA
, P
ET
C
HAN,
Raj Norman, Ke-ola, Keoki, and Sinead huddled on the volcano’s shuddering hem, hoping rescue would reach them before Petaybee’s labor pains resulted in a further eruption of lava. Sea turtles bobbed just offshore.

Yana watched Ke-ola and Keoki squatting at the edge of the water, apparently consorting telepathically with Honus, until Ke-ola turned back to the others.

“The Honus say they would keep us afloat if Dr. Shongili and Murel don’t find the whales,” he said. “They are very strong and fast in the water. Two of them supported Keoki and me out here.”

“Yes, but you’d have frozen to death in the water without Murel’s and Ronan’s dry suits,” Yana said. “The water near the volcano may be warm enough to swim in, but closer to the land it’s starting to freeze already. I’ll survive by wearing my wet suit. Sinead is a native Petaybean and would probably survive as well, but those of you from offworld certainly wouldn’t. And the turtles would have to carry us out of the warmer waters to escape the eruption.”

“She’s got a point, Ke-ola,” Keoki said. “And also, the Manos might be a little careless about keeping their pledge to take us off their prey list if they thought they could pick us off with no survivors, no witnesses, no one of their relatives to tell the tale. And they will be back as soon as they’ve delivered Puna’s people to the rescuers. That water back landward is too cold for Manos too.”

Keoki still wore Ronan’s dry suit. “I have this on. I could go with the Honu to try to get help too.”

“Missus is the one who should go.” Ke-ola nodded toward Yana.

“I could do that,” Yana agreed, “but I think our best chance is staying together and waiting for Sean or Murel to find the whales. I have complete confidence in them.” Her chin jutted as she looked each of the others full in the face, as if trying to inject them with her own faith and resolve.

“I’m sure you’re right, Yana,” Sinead said, “but I’m still thinking we should be ordering more wet suits from Corps surplus once we get home. With all these new sea creatures to keep track of, we’ll be after needin’ an update to our planetary fashion statement of mukluks, snow pants, and parkas.”

Pet Chan, her youthful almond-eyed face scrunched up between balled fists, said, “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why didn’t we prepare for this? We should have had them on board before we left Space Base. I’m getting rusty is what. Versailles Station is usually so secure I’ve relaxed, forgotten how to be alert and prepare properly for things. I’m resigning as soon as we get back.”

“Marmie won’t accept that, Pet,” Yana said. “I was prepared to dive because I know my family. Whenever they get into trouble, water is almost always involved. You were prepared for a copter rescue—”

“No, no, she’s right,” Raj Norman said. “It was inexcusably careless. I didn’t think about getting in the water myself. It’s been a while. I brought all those armaments and forgot basic survival measures.”

Beneath their feet, Petaybee rumbled and bellowed, and this time the smoke carried a spray of fire.

“Boy,” Raj said to Keoki, “I suggest you give your suit up to Miss Sinead or Miss Chan. We men can take our chances with the cold.”

“He’s a kid, Raj,” Pet said.

“I think Yana’s right,” Sinead said, ignoring the implication that she was helpless merely because of her gender. “I’m thinkin’ I could make it with the Honu as far as the fishing boats. They’ll surely be entering the warmer waters by now. But the young newcomers aren’t used to Petaybee’s extremes at all.”

“So what you’re saying is you think it’s time I hop the nearest turtle?” Yana asked.

But the Honus were no longer there. Instead, like an attack fleet of black-sailed boats, the dorsal fins of the orca pod knifed through the waves, heading toward the beach.

Murel and Sky swam around the volcano to the spot where they’d left her mum and the others. By the time they reached their destination, the air was filled with smoke and fiery sparks. The sea was very rough. Swimming underwater was easiest.

The whales swam offshore, back and forth, while the people looked on.

What are you waiting for?
Murel demanded.
Can’t you see that the volcano is about to erupt?

We can see that fine,
Bitfin said.
Can’t you see that if we swim any closer we’ll beach ourselves and be even more stranded than your people are? You didn’t mention suicide mission when you asked for your little favor.

Which you tricked us into, don’t forget,
one of the females added.

Don’t be such big babies!
Murel said.
This is important. Of course, I don’t want you to commit suicide.
She felt extremely cross, but not so much with them as with herself. It hadn’t occurred to her that the people on land might not realize the whales could not swim close enough for them to simply hop on and ride without endangering themselves.

She swam closer to the shore. The smallest Honu poked its head out from under a lava ledge.
We can help, Murel,
he said.
Ke-ola and the others may hang on to our shells and we will swim them out to the whales if you will make sure the whales know Honus are not for eating.

Murel swam back to the whales and explained the plan.

Can’t eat sharks, can’t eat seals, can’t eat otters, can’t eat turtles, can’t eat humans. You got a lot of rules for a minnow morsel,
the leader said.
We orcas are big people. We need our nourishment.

Get on with ye,
Murel said in a prodding tone she’d heard her aunt Sinead use.
Two of the species you mentioned are new to the planet and you never had them to eat before, nor have you seen that many humans. You have tons and tons of fish to eat like everyone else.
Then she added, pleading,
Come on, please. My whole family will spend the winter catching fish for you if you’ll just help.

Oh, very well, but don’t worry about fishing for us. You’re so slow we’d starve before you’d caught enough to keep one of us alive for a day.

Once the Honus were reassured, they conveyed the plan to Ke-ola and Keoki.

Keoki set the example, under the Honus’ direction. One of the turtles swam close enough for him to grab on to the sides of the shell. The Honu then ferried him out beyond the lava shelf. Murel felt its trepidation as it faced the pod of whales, but the leader dived and came up under Keoki’s lower torso and legs. Keoki released the Honu’s shell and instead held on to the whale’s dorsal fin.

Ke-ola beckoned Murel’s mother toward the next waiting Honu.

The entire volcano cone quaked, and Mum dived into the water.

Change of plans,
Ke-ola told the Honus and enough turtles to carry each of the stranded people surfaced close enough to the shore to be boarded.

Ke-ola came last, after a brief argument with Raj Norman. Pet Chan backed Ke-ola, however. “The youngster communicates with the turtles, Raj. Both boys do. They’re the logical ones to ride point and to cover our rear.”

“One Honu is gonna come with us so we can keep in touch with Murel and the whales,” Ke-ola told him.

“Geez, haven’t you people ever heard of com units?” Raj grumbled, but belly-flopped into the surf and grabbed on to a Honu. Pet did the same right beside him.

Murel and Sky were joined by the smallest Honu, their original turtle friend who had come with Ke-ola when he first came to Petaybee, the one she and Ronan had helped rescue from the “experiments” of the unscrupulous Dr. Marie Mabo.

Mum and the others had only been whaleback for a klick or so when the rumbling behind them overwhelmed the roar of the sea. Looking back, Murel saw the volcano cone crowned with fire. It spewed from the top and then coursed down the sides of the mountain, a broad red swath bleeding into the sea at the spot they’d just left.

S
EAN LOCATED THE
fishing boats well before he spotted the orcas. When his sonar picked up large swimming objects, he thought he had found his reluctant allies, but the approaching creatures turned out to be the sharks bearing Puna and her family. They passed him, encountering the boats before he did.

So where were the orcas? Perhaps they were more disturbed by his threats than he’d supposed. Maybe they didn’t want to risk his wrath again, so after the peace gesture of rescuing Murel and Sinead, they’d deliberately made themselves scarce for a while? Considering the circumstances, he didn’t think he’d been overly harsh in the thoughts he’d communicated with them. However, mental communication could be tricky, and orcas were a very intelligent lot, more so than humans, according to some studies.

Perhaps they picked up on his buried desire to harpoon the lot of them for endangering his children? That would be unfortunate, since he would never stoop to such destructive behavior. Still, that was the sort of thought that his reptilian brain—the most primitive section of any human brain, albeit one with some necessary seal modifications—conjured up, whether one liked it or not. The so-called reptilian brain was the section most responsible for violence, predation, war, and the cruder and more hostile forms of mating behavior. Whales had their own equivalent. Reptilian was a misnomer, actually, assuming a relationship between all creatures and early saurians on Terra. He wondered if alien races would also have it. What if they were highly evolved races of reptilian origin? Would they have developed more sophisticated mental or emotional organs, processes, or responses to overcome it? Most animals had. Even the most seemingly benign creatures, as many viewed the orcas, could behave in a fairly savage fashion, as they had with Murel. Rabbits could behave savagely, using their claws and teeth to shred each other.

The scientist in him could only hope the orcas would understand that his display of justifiable anger did not mean he would act upon it. He hoped they hadn’t left the area over an unintentional and unexpressed impulse. Of course, it could be that among whales, acting on the impulse happened immediately after having it, but he couldn’t recall reading any studies on the subject.

The sharks, having delivered their cargo to the fishing boats, escorted the other boats for the remainder of their journey. Their motivation and attitude was less ambivalent than the whales’. They doubtlessly were hoping someone unrelated to them would fall overboard. Sharks, at least this particular variety, were probably the best example he could conceive of of a species that seemed to contain nothing
but
reptilian brain. And yet, they maintained a mutually protective relationship with Puna’s people. The wonderful thing about science for Sean was how much you could discover and how much still remained a great mystery to be explored. He hoped he could collect his strayed or lost family members, return to land and human form, and get back to his lab soon. The relationships between the Kanakas—as Ke-ola’s people preferred to be called—and their totem animals fascinated him.

Perhaps he could infuse the sharks, orcas, and other predators with some sort of inhibitor to prevent them from attacking humans or selkies or even other species that needed time to develop populations, as the sharks themselves did. It would need to be easy to manipulate in future generations, however. The creatures, like all creatures, did need to prey on something, after all.

He dived deep to avoid the sharks and continue his search for the orcas. He hoped that the sharks might attract the larger predators. New underwater chimneys had formed on the outskirts of the volcanic field, closer to the mainland. Were other volcanic chains developing as well? He and Clodagh would need to consult with Petaybee when they returned. Perhaps the planet could also give them a clue if the alien city or vessel was now hidden elsewhere in the sea.

If so, surely the inhabitants would realize that keeping Ronan would only attract attention they did not want. They would realize that the least troublesome course for them was to simply wipe his memory, as they had Sean’s, and release him.

Sean surfaced for air and first heard the rotors, then saw the shape of the helicopter. Rick had spontaneously dubbed it the Flying Otter in Sky’s honor. It was heading back to the volcano. To his dismay he also saw that the sky into which the copter flew was crimson and orange underlying billows of black, gray, and white smoke.

He dived again to escape the surface turbulence and swam faster. Yana! Would the copter make it in time to lift her off the volcano?

Then his sonar picked up a number of bobbing shapes and others moving rapidly toward them, while still others, the sharks, swam equally rapidly away.

The bobbing shapes were the fishing vessels. By the time Sean reached them, they were engaged in the tricky business of transferring passengers from whaleback to boat decks, apparently under the supervision of sea turtles.

Sean spotted Yana as she slid into one of the boats, and he swam alongside her.

She sat down, caught her breath, checked the others, and finally glanced at him. “Oh, Sean, it’s you, thank the cosmos. Now then, if Murel—where is she anyway?”

Sean dived again. Whales, turtles, humans, boats, lots of fish, and other life-forms, but no other seals and no otters of any sort at all. Where was Murel?

CHAPTER 21

M
UREL AND
S
KY
swam with the whales until they intercepted the boats. She and Sky hung back as the whales slowed their swimming so as not to swamp the boats, and the people on the boats were able to help Mum and the others board their tiny crafts. Though Murel no longer felt afraid of the whales, Sky was smaller and his survival instincts were stronger since he used them every day, not just when his relatives weren’t around.

Murel’s mother is safe, Father River Seal is safe,
Sky said, spotting Da before she did.
Other human people are safe. Only Ronan is not safe. Murel will find him now so he will be safe also?

She considered this for a moment. Mum and Da would want to go look for Ronan too but they had all of these other people to tend. It was their job as governors to look after more than their own family. She could just hear Mum saying, “In a bit, Murel. First we must . . . ” and see Da having to change again to take care of some other aspect of the crisis that was bound to take too long.

While she was thinking all of this over, Sorka, her new seal friend, called to her,
We were right! At the underwater fire mountain in Perfect Fjord there is a different thing with living creatures in it.

How did you get there so fast?
Murel asked.

We did not go there. Our relatives called to us, frightened by a great whirlpool. They wanted to know if we knew what it was, if our fire mountain made a whirlpool too. We said yes and told them it was made by a giant bubble that was home to a herd of otter creatures and that you had lost it with your brother inside. They looked, and though they did not see your brother, they saw the bubble.

Thanks, cousins!
she replied.
I’ll go right now.

Even knowing they would be too busy to go with her, she was about to tell her parents where she was going so they wouldn’t worry, and then the copter returned. Hovering overhead, it lowered a rope ladder. Responding to Mum’s gestures, Aunty Sinead carefully stood and prepared to climb up. The noise and waves generated by the wind of the copter’s rotors made it hard for Murel to hear herself think, much less contact Da. She couldn’t see him for all of the boats and whales. The echolocation used by the whales also interfered with her own sonar.

She thought the copter would load and take off again but Johnny climbed down the ladder and shouted something at Mum, though Murel could make out none of the conversation.

She didn’t know which way Perfect Fjord was, and if she waited to ask Mum and Da, she was nervous that they might insist she return to Kilcoole with the copter while they waited for it to finish evacuating people before they got around to fetching Ronan. Meanwhile, the aliens might decide to take off and take Ronan with them for good. Adults could be so poky, and time was of the essence! She decided on a compromise. First she asked the closest whale how to get to the fjord.

You’ve got a lot of tail asking anything else after you tricked us into fetching and carrying for you all day,
the whale replied, blowing a fountain of water through his blowhole in a decidedly derisive manner. But he added,
Swim north along the coast. You can’t miss it.

Then she found the smallest Honu, the little one she and Ro thought of as their personal friend, and told him where she was going and why. She asked him to tell Ke-ola so he could tell Mum and Da when they asked.
Tell them to come too, maybe with the copter, though it should land on the fjord’s shore and wait a reasonable amount of time for us to surface before trying to find us,
she said.
I don’t think the aliens will let Ro go because I say so, but they might if they think the adults will find them if they don’t. They want to avoid contact as much as possible.

Then, with the copter still hovering and her Mum and Johnny still shouting at each other, she and Sky struck out, veering north and paralleling the shoreline as the orca had directed. They rapidly left behind the rescue boats. She hoped that with both her and Ro gone again, Mum and Da would decide their children needed rounding up before anything else happened.

F
INALLY THE WORLD
stopped spinning and whooshing as the city settled over a new vent. Outside the city’s shield the deep sea waters teemed with fish. Beneath the pathways winding among the buildings, the deep geothermal rift glowed a bright cherry red. Ronan guessed it was closer to the surface than the last vent had been. So they’d moved, but they seemed to still be on Petaybee, maybe not too far from where they’d been before.

Ronan supposed he should probably be afraid, but he was sure his family would find and fetch him before long, even if he didn’t exactly know how they’d go about it.

With Tikka mad at him, he had no one to talk to. He was wary of Kushtaka. Even though she might not be mean, she was grieving over losing her son and therefore not in a very good mood. But there were a lot of the other alien otters swimming around, and he decided to try to find someone else to talk to. There was still so much he was curious about. Even if they wiped his mind later, he’d be satisfied now, and it would pass the time until his family came to take him home.

But the first thing to do was find Sky. Tikka said the little otter was okay so he must be around somewhere. If she had showed him where to slide, being an otter, he might be sliding still. Lucky for him that these aliens enjoyed sliding too. Probably because they’d taken otter form, some of the otters’ other characteristics had rubbed off on them. Ronan hoped Sky hadn’t been sliding when the city started whirling or he could have had a wilder ride than even otters liked.

Since the walls of the room where Ronan was incarcerated did not reappear even after Tikka departed and the city settled, he simply swam out of it. Looking up and down the streets, he tried to get his bearings. He remembered Tikka gesturing toward a tall spiraling tower, but now that he had time to look around, there were more of them than he’d thought.

Who could he ask? There was that beam thing they used to gather food. His relationship with Kushtaka had been fairly friendly when they last visited, so maybe those aliens didn’t realize he’d been demoted in status from guest to prisoner.

He found the right hole again after poking his head in a few others first.

None of the places he investigated initially were residences. One of them seemed to be some sort of power plant, and its floor opened directly onto the cherry-colored vent below. Oddly, the room wasn’t hot, but Ronan guessed this was where the city’s lights came from. More tubes of spinning water drew fire from the vent, and at intervals big otters added some sort of rocks to it that caused it to turn colors.

There were valves over openings in the walls where the water tubes disappeared. Ronan tried to ask the big otters coloring the water about the slide, but the collective sound of the water tubes might have made it hard for them to hear. Or maybe they just didn’t want to talk to him.

In the next room shells were stacked and racked by kind and color, but there were no giant otters stacking or racking them.

He saw some odd-looking equipment in the next two rooms and alien otters very intent on images hovering in front of them, but none of them responded to him either. He thought they might be monitoring the surveillance cameras, possibly focusing them on different areas surrounding the city’s new location.

He didn’t recognize the room with the “hunting” beam until he happened upon it, and even then he wouldn’t have recognized it without the baskets of neatly sorted fish and shellfish that filled the room. Two of the aliens were tossing more fish and shells back and forth, catching them in baskets with a playfulness that reminded him of Sky.

I’m hungry,
he told them.
Where could I get a couple of fish?

Catch!
the nearest one said, and flung a fish back to him. Ronan ducked under it, caught it on his nose, and after it hung there for a moment, opened his mouth and ate it.

Good trick!
one of the aliens said.
Mraka, he balanced that fish on his olfactory organ! Do it again so she can see!

I’ll be needing another fish, then,
Ronan replied.
A nice fat one like the last.

Mraka was so impressed she threw him another so she could see the trick again. Then she asked,
Can you show us how to do that?

I think it’s a seal sort of thing,
he replied, but he coached them nevertheless on how to duck under the fish so it landed just so, and how to hold your head so that even if your whole body moved, your nose kept the fish aloft until it just smelled so overwhelmingly good you had to eat it.
I can hold a regular ball for a lot longer,
he told them.
But you have to eat the fish. It’s mean not to when they can’t breathe. Huh.
He paused as it occurred to him that there was something a bit—well, fishy—about the state of these fish.

Before he could ask about them, however, Mraka caught one on the end of her nose and balanced it for a couple of nanos before opening her mouth to swallow it. Ronan clapped his front flippers together appreciatively, startling both of the otterlike aliens.
Good, Mraka! I guess otters can do it too.

I can too, I can,
Mraka’s friend said, fumbling his tenth fish.

Calmly, Puk,
she said.
You get too excited and twitch too much.

I can’t be calm and concentrate with you staring at me,
Puk complained, but when Mraka threw the next fish, Puk balanced it, more or less, for a brief and tottering time before it dropped from his nose and began to fall into the whirlpool beam. Reflexively, he dived under it and this time caught it at exactly the right place on his nose and balanced it even after he stood on his hind paws again.

Very good, Puk,
Ronan told him, applauding with his front flippers again.
I bet even Sky couldn’t do that.

Your little friend the odd-looking otter?
Mraka asked.

Yes, I wanted to ask you if you’d seen him or knew where the big slide is Tikka took him to play on. I’m worried that when the city moved—

I’m sorry about your friend,
Mraka said.
I tried to catch him but he was after a fish, and when the beam went out, he fell into it and—well, he didn’t come back with it.

He esc—he left the city?
Ronan asked.

Yes, I’m sorry. He probably drowned. The turbulence created by our drives is very strong and he was very small.

Sky? Drowned? Ronan couldn’t see how that was possible, having watched the otter swim and knowing how quick-thinking Sky was.
No,
he thought sternly to himself.
I don’t believe he drowned. I think he escaped.

But meanwhile he decided to act as sad as if he thought Mraka was right.
Oh, no. He was a very good friend.

Yes, it has been very bad recently,
Puk said.
First Jeel is killed, and then your otter friend. Jeel was often difficult, not quite right, but Kushtaka and Tikka were fond of him. And I liked the otter. Sky?

Yes,
Ronan replied in a regretful way,
Sky, because he was the first sky otter—he flew with us in the helicopter and went into space too. He was proud of being the first Petaybean otter ever to do so.

Then it is good he did not find out that his assumption and yours are incorrect. All of the beings in this vessel have also flown and been into space.

Mraka added,
But we are not otters all of the time. Just as you, Ronan, are not a seal all of the time.

I know. You’re from outer space, right?

No, we were born on this world, in this sea.

I’m a little puzzled,
Ronan told them.
Our grandfather was the one who chose the animals to come to Petaybee after the terraforming. I’m pretty sure your people weren’t among them.

Nobody put us here,
Mraka told him. She set one of the fish baskets in a certain place and it disappeared through the wall. On the other side of the room, Puk was doing the same.
Our people have been here since this world’s first life, before it died and your science revived it. This vessel is a remnant of our original civilization.

But how can that be? The terraforming made new life on Petaybee, but before the process started, the company had to make sure there were no sentient life-forms on the planet. They lie sometimes but they wouldn’t lie about that.

Even if they didn’t recognize us for what we are?
Mraka asked.
Even if there did not seem to them to be enough of us to matter?

No,
Ronan said.
They’ve done some pretty questionable stuff but I don’t think they’d do that.

Perhaps it is not policy,
Puk said.
But there are always individuals and circumstances. Kushtaka would not normally keep a being from the outside world here longer than they wished. But with Jeel’s death, she is not behaving in her customary fashion. Perhaps the person who was supposed to make sure there were no life-forms on this world also had reasons for departing from the usual protocol.

Mraka paused as she lifted a basket.
Or perhaps they simply overlooked us. We are not many and the rest of our world was dead. Only those of us living in this enclave that is now our vessel clung to life.

But how? According to everything, including the planet itself, Petaybee was a dead world when the Intergal terraformed it. No water, no plants, no animals, nothing to sustain life.

Oh, well, if you count that time, it very well may have seemed unoccupied. We weren’t physically here during that period. When the great ice age came, the volcanoes died and the waters froze and most of our people froze as well. Our city was on the last vent of the last remaining volcano and we had enough power to send a final distress signal before resigning ourselves to extinction. Fortunately, offplanet observers more similar to ourselves than we would have thought possible detected our plight and sent engineers to convert our city to the life-sustaining vessel it is now. It seemed a prudent time to take a holiday and discover what lay beyond this world.