The Melting Sea (14 page)

“Me too!” Kassuq added.

With a sigh, Akna sat and drew the two cubs into the curve of her belly. “I haven't enough milk for them,” she confessed to Kallik. “And I'm hungry, too. I have to find food.”

“Why did you leave the ice?” Kallik asked, surprise in her voice. “There's plenty of food out there.”

Akna shook her head. “The ice started melting very early this year,” she explained. “Almost as soon as my cubs were old enough to leave their den. I had to take them straight to land.”

“That must have been so hard!” Kallik said sympathetically.

“It was. I had to swim with them on my back. And when we reached land, there were so many other white bears, forced off the ice, just like us. It was a real struggle to find food.”

Kallik's eyes stretched wide with dismay. “That's terrible!” She paused for a moment, then added, “Akna, did you ever meet a bear called Taqqiq? He's my brother; I'm looking for him.”

“No.” Akna's response was definite, and Toklo could sense Kallik's disappointment. “I stayed away from the other bears, to keep my cubs safe. You know that male bears will sometimes eat cubs, if there's no other food.” She shuddered.

“We can hunt together,” Toklo said, stepping forward.

Akna swung her head around to gaze at him, her expression terrified.
Does she think I'm one of these cub-eaters?
Toklo wondered.

“What kind of bear is he?” Akna asked Kallik, her voice nervous. “Are there any more of him?”

“Er … it's a long story …” Toklo began, before Kallik could reply.

“We've been on a journey!” Lusa announced eagerly, bouncing forward. “We've been all the way to Star Island on the Endless Ice, and now we're going home.”

Akna gave her a shocked look. “The Endless Ice doesn't exist! It's just a tale for cubs.”

“It does exist,” Kallik assured her. “We've seen it. But it's too far for you to walk to with your cubs. You need to learn how to survive here. Let Toklo and Lusa teach you how to find food on land.”

A faint growl came from Akna's throat. “What do a brown bear and a black bear know about white bear hunting? That little black bear is only the size of a seal!”

“That's not the point,” Toklo began, struggling hard to keep his temper. “We—”

“You should listen to them.” To Toklo's surprise, Yakone stepped forward and spoke to Akna. “Kallik and I wouldn't have survived without them.”

Akna still looked unconvinced. “My cubs belong on the ice!”

Toklo didn't know what he could say to the she-bear to make her understand that he and Lusa could help. “Come here a moment,” he said to his friends, jerking his head to signal them to follow him a few bearlengths away.

“I hope you're not going to tell us we have to leave Akna and her cubs to take care of themselves!” Kallik began before Toklo could speak. “I won't do it!”

“That's
not
what I was going to say,” Toklo growled.
Kallik has bees in her brain because she keeps thinking about her mother and Taqqiq
. “I've got a different idea. You and Yakone should swim out to the nearest ice and see if it's worth helping Akna and the cubs to get out there. Maybe you could hunt for her while you're there. Meanwhile Lusa and I will find some food for all of us onshore.”

Kallik blinked in surprise. “That's a great idea! Thank you, Toklo!”

Toklo cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Strangers have helped us often enough,” he said brusquely. “I'm not going to leave Akna and her cubs to starve, and she's in no state to hunt on her own.”

“Oh, Toklo, thank you!” Kallik repeated, stepping forward as if she was going to give him a grateful nudge, but Toklo backed off. He didn't want a fuss. “Come on, Yakone,” Kallik continued, her eyes shining with excitement. “Let's tell Akna what we're going to do.”

Toklo and Lusa followed more slowly as the two white bears hurried back to Akna. They came up in time to hear the end of Kallik's explanation.

“We'll be back in no time. You'll see!”

She and Yakone ran down to the shore and swam out into the water. Toklo watched them go, fascinated to see how their bodies changed as they launched themselves into the sea. On land they lumbered, their pelts rolling awkwardly when they ran, but in the water they were as sleek and graceful as seals, hardly leaving a ripple as they struck out toward the distant sheet of ice.

Akna, too, had turned her head to watch them, a mournful look in her eyes.

“I know you want to go with them,” Lusa said sympathetically, “but you have to get your strength back first.”

Akna's two cubs had given up trying to feed. Instead, they were scrabbling around near their mother's paws, nibbling at sticks and bits of debris scattered along the shore. They looked more awake now, half forgetting their hunger to tumble over each other with playful squeaks.

“Why don't I keep an eye on the cubs while you hunt?” Lusa suggested to Toklo. Turning to Akna, she added, “You can trust me to look after them. And you need to rest.”

The white she-bear grunted agreement, though Toklo noticed she never took her eyes off the cubs.

“Come on, Iluq, Kassuq,” Lusa said, determinedly cheerful. Seizing a stick, she added, “Which of you can pull this out of my jaws?”

“I can!” Iluq squealed, throwing herself at the stick.

Lusa has her paws full there
, Toklo thought, as he headed up the slope, back into the belt of pine trees.

Plunging into the shelter of the trees, Toklo spotted tracks in the snow almost at once, and picked up the scent of muskrat. Following the trail, he leaped through the woods, feeling strong and confident now that he was in more familiar territory. Weak sunlight sliced through the branches, and for a moment he felt as though he'd come home.

This must be how Kallik feels when she gets back to the ice
, he thought.

“We're all so different,” he murmured to himself. “It has to be a good thing that we're all going back to our homes.”

He tracked the muskrat to its den among the roots of a tree, killed it, and left it there while he searched for more prey. Soon he spotted a lemming skittering across the surface of the snow, and remembered how Tikaani, the white she-bear, had taught him to hunt lemmings on the Island of Shadows. Now he caught up to the tiny creature in a few bounds, and tossed it into the air before killing it with a hard blow of his paw.

Where there's one lemming, there might be more....

Toklo settled down to wait in the shadow of a pine, and soon another lemming scuttled straight at him, trying to veer aside only when it was too late. Gripping both lemmings and the muskrat firmly in his jaws, he headed back to the shore.

Lusa was lying on the ground with both cubs on top of her, battering at her with their soft paws. “Toklo, save me!” she gasped. “Save me from these fierce white bears!” Iluq and Kassuq burst out into squeaks of amusement.

Toklo padded past her and dropped his catch in front of Akna, who was sleepily watching the antics of her cubs.

“That's amazing!” she exclaimed when she saw the prey. “When I first came off the ice, I hardly caught anything to eat.”

“I can teach you what to do,” Toklo promised, glad that the mother bear seemed to have lost her hostility toward him and Lusa. “It's not hard to hunt on land—catching a seal is much more difficult!”

As Toklo spoke, he spotted Kallik and Yakone swimming strongly for shore. When they heaved themselves out of the water, he saw that they were carrying a seal between them.

“Great catch!” he called out.

Akna's eyes lit up when she saw the seal. “Then there is good hunting ice out there,” she said to Kallik as Kallik and Yakone came up and deposited their prey in front of her.

“Yes, but it's melting like the rest of the sea,” Kallik told her. “You and the cubs can reach the ice once you're strong enough to swim, but you wouldn't be able to stay there for long. You'll have to live on land until burn-sky is over.”

Akna looked worried, glancing from Kallik to Yakone and back again as if she hoped they would be able to tell her something more hopeful.

“You'll be okay,” Lusa assured her, coming up with the cubs, who were giving the prey an interested sniff. “We can show you how to hunt on land.”

The sun was starting to go down, casting red light over the shore as the bears gathered around their prey. Akna chewed up some of the seal meat and gave it to Kassuq and Iluq before taking any for herself.

Toklo spotted Lusa taking a few mouthfuls of the muskrat.

“This isn't bad,” she mumbled with her mouth full. “Much better than seal!”

But soon she abandoned the catch and climbed the slope; Toklo spotted her stripping leaves from a bush near the edge of the trees.

With food in their bellies the cubs looked sleepy and contented, and huddled into the curve of their mother's belly to suck milk from her.

“At least I should have some milk now,” Akna sighed, looking almost as drowsy as her cubs.

As darkness fell, Kallik coaxed the white bear family to get up and head for the shelter of the pines, in the lee of the slope to be out of the wind. Toklo and the others settled down beside them.

“It feels good to be helping other bears, for a change,” Kallik murmured quietly to Toklo.

“It's what Ujurak would have done,” Toklo responded.

As his friends fell asleep around him, Toklo stayed awake for a little while, sitting alone on the shore and looking up at the sky. Ujurak's stars shone brightly, even brighter than the others, it seemed to Toklo.

Are you watching us?
he asked silently.
Is this what you wanted us to do?
Looking at the sleeping shapes of Kallik and Yakone, he added to himself,
At least it keeps us together for a little longer
.

“
Dig your claws into the bark
and peel it away like this,” Lusa instructed.

Akna watched her carefully, while the two cubs attacked the base of the pine tree, scratching at the bark with soft claws.

“But what's it for?” Akna asked.

“You can eat this soft green layer just under the bark,” Lusa explained. “Try it. It's really tasty.”

Akna doubtfully sniffed the green layer and swiped her tongue over it. “Hmm … not bad, I suppose,” she commented. “But I'd need an awful lot of it to fill my belly. And only squirrels feed off trees!”

“Well, let's catch a squirrel, then!” Toklo suggested, striding up through the pine needles.

“Yes!” Iluq bounced up and down with excitement, while Kassuq blinked eagerly at Toklo.

“You're too young,” Lusa told them. “Don't worry, we'll find something fun to do while your mother hunts.”

As Lusa turned toward the shore, Kallik and Yakone appeared through the trees and padded up to the other bears.

“We're going onto the ice again to hunt for seals,” Kallik announced.

Lusa spotted Toklo giving the two white bears a worried look.
He must be afraid that they won't come back
. She wanted to reassure him, but she knew the gruff brown bear would never admit to his feelings. A wave of affection for him washed over her.

Kallik and Yakone headed down to the beach again, with Iluq and Kassuq scampering after them.

“We want to come, too!” Iluq squealed. “It's great out on the ice.”

“Yeah,” Kassuq added. “We'll catch the biggest seal!”

“Hey—stop right there!” Lusa told them, dashing after them and blocking them. “You're too small to swim so far.”

“We aren't,” Iluq insisted, dodging around Lusa while her brother tried to wriggle past on her other side.

“No.”
Lusa reached out with one paw to grab Iluq before she could go any farther. “You're coming with me, and …” She thought rapidly. “And I'll show you some stuff you can do to help you grow big and strong.”