Maelstrom (18 page)

So you were on vacation when the terraforming happened?
Ronan asked.
I get why you left but why did you come back if you thought Petaybee was dead?

Our rescuers took us back to their home world. It seems our race began on that world but as its population grew it decided to colonize another planet. Our ancient ancestors were those colonists, the original settlers of this world in its first life. There was commerce between the worlds originally but they are not near to each other. Though our people are technologically and scientifically skilled, we did not develop the terraforming process as your company did. The ancestors seeking a place to colonize had to hunt a long time and a great distance to find this world. So gradually the commerce between the two stopped and we developed our own culture and characteristics. Eventually our forebears were forgotten as surely as if our own memories had been wiped, which is, now that I think of it, not unlikely.

Puk said,
Originally, our rescuers thought they could bring us back to their world to live, but in their absence, the overpopulation had escalated until the planet was so crowded as to be almost uninhabitable. While we were allowed to stay there for a brief time, we were soon banished, along with our rescuers. We were very sad to have caused them trouble but decided, since we were banished and would die in space sooner or later, to return here to die. In spite of the impossibility of the living conditions when we left, we longed to be here. You see, there has always been something about this world . . .

Yes, there is,
Ronan said.
It’s alive. But Grandpa and the other scientists thought that was some kind of odd result of the terraforming.

The life force is more evident now,
Mraka conceded,
but there was always something, and rather than start out on a new place alone, we decided to return here and die on our world and join the rest of our people. We found the world changed. No cities or towns at that time, and only a little animal life, but many alien plants and this great sea covering the rest of the city where our people once lived.

I bet you were surprised!
Ronan said.

And pleased until we realized that another species was responsible for reviving our world, populating it with their chosen flora and later fauna including their dominant life-form.

Us.

Yes. But we saw quickly that your people did not live in the sea, only on the icy landmasses. So we resettled near our old city and found we were able to sustain ourselves on the animals and plants that now occupy the sea. Those near the volcanic vents may have begun differently when you introduced them, but they have become much like those we knew in our former home.

So you guys aren’t aliens any more than we are,
Ronan concluded.
That’s brilliant! My da will wish he’d been conscious when he was here and got to keep his memory. He would so like to meet you. Or remember meeting you anyway.

Your da?
Mraka asked.

My father, male parent. The first seal you rescued.

He went straight to the doctors. I never spoke to him. Did you, Puk?

Not I.

Ronan was trying to decide how to ask his next question when his head was filled with a summons.
Seal-boy, where are you? You must come to me in the observation tower at once.

Kushtaka wants you,
Puk told Ronan.

So I heard. But I’m not sure I can find my way back there. I’ve only been there once.

I’ll take you,
Mraka told him.
Our shift is nearly done anyway. Come.
She walked out of the room but then began swimming upward. Ronan, still puzzled by the way people moved inside the city, followed her. As if catching his question she replied,
Our air is so dense and moist here that it is as if it were water. We swim in it and it can sustain us, though not fish without the use of real water.

So what are you really?
Ronan asked, puzzling meanwhile that the air was evidently sufficient to keep him in seal form, although it was not actual water. That was a new experience.
Deep sea otters or the other form?

I might ask you the same question. Are you a seal or a boy?

Both.

We are both as well. The deep sea otter form was convenient for gaining the cooperation of the sea otters, but it is a true alternative form and one we take more often than our original one these days. Our other form was better suited for the planet’s first life.

When they reached the observation tower, Mraka waved a paw over the entrance, then deserted Ronan.
Hope it works out well for you, fish juggler. Visit us again.

He braced himself to face Kushtaka again, glad that all of her people weren’t against him too. Aunty Sinead would have called his conversation with Mraka and Puk “puttin’ on the blarney,” since he had set out to charm them into helping him and giving him information. But there was nothing wrong with making friends. He liked them, though he found it easier to like these people when they were otters than when they were in their jellyfish/octopus form.

He almost swam into Kushtaka’s embrace as he entered the observation room. Not that she was ready to hug him. She was in otter form, and swung her paw in an arc, indicating what lay just outside the city’s force field.
We seem to be under surveillance ourselves,
she told him.

Perhaps a hundred seals looked into the city as if it were one of those snow globes Aunty Aisling had made him and Murel when they were kids. The seals looked huge from here—probably just because the surveillance devices were so near to them the perspective was skewed.

Friends of yours?
Kushtaka asked.

CHAPTER 22

M
ARMION HAD EXPECTED
there might be repercussions from her encounter with Colonel Cally and the
Custer.
The man was too arrogant and too negligent to allow her challenge to his authority to go unavenged. She was rather surprised when she saw the reinforcements he had acquired.

She met them in the transit lounge just outside the docking bay. She did not want them in the main lounge frightening the children.

Besides Cally, there were a couple of junior officers, a squad of Corps personnel in combat gear, and a familiar but not friendly looking man in the robes of a Federation councilman. Beside him was a woman clad in similar robes. She was totally unfamiliar to Marmion. Troubling. She had been neglecting her duties on the council as well as her business lately. To her cost, it now seemed.

“Greetings, ladies and gentlemen,” Marmion said, arching her brow in an expression she knew gave her an air of skeptical superiority. “I understand you are under the impression that I have somehow been naughty?” She used the coquettish word deliberately, to indicate that she thought the incident in question, or at least her culpability in it, was as petty as the word implied.

“Madame de Revers Algemeine, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Intergal company personnel and the theft of Intergal company property. You and everyone aboard this vessel are taken into custody and this vessel confiscated as evidence.” Cally recited the charges with relish and nodded to the soldiers, pointing down the corridor. They marched away, their boots thudding a double-time tattoo on her faux Aubusson strip carpeting.

“What foolishness!” Marmie said, pointedly failing to show alarm at the armed nature of the invasion. She waved a hand dismissively. “In case poor Colonel Cally’s mind was unhinged by the trauma of seeing the meteor showers destroy the homes of the Intergal company personnel in question, he will recall that he gave up searching for survivors long before we located these people, homeless and soon to starve to death in that desolate, desolate place.” She gave a delicate shudder. “No, no, gentlemen, this will not suffice. We kidnapped no one. We simply provided relief from a disaster that overtook them while we were there. We then issued an invitation from another far more hospitable world. They chose to come, of course. They are not idiots.” Her tone said,
Unlike the people I am now addressing.

“Madame, you know very well that once these people have stayed on this world for any length of time, they will become unable to leave it and thus ineligible for recruitment into the career opportunities with Intergal for which they were destined. There was a contract between their leaders and the company,” Cally said.

“Slavery is illegal, Colonel, and even if it were not, the dead make very poor servants or manual laborers, which I believe constitute the main career opportunities open to the personnel in question.”

“You also stole livestock belonging to Intergal.”

“I allowed the refugees to bring their sacred animals with them and the few possessions they still retained. But perhaps you are so ill-informed about what actually transpired because you and your vessel, after the most cursory search, abandoned your feeble efforts and took off for what you no doubt considered more urgent duties.” There. She had done it. She had totally lost her temper. She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes blazing, her voice searing the very skin off the stupid man. She was giving Petaybee’s volcano quite a lot of competition at the moment. She knew better. Much as she loathed stupidity, slackness, and cowardice, she of all people knew the value of diplomacy even in dealing with idiots. Losing one’s temper gave the advantage to one’s adversary. She took a deep breath and said, “It is useless to discuss this matter. You must take it up with my attorneys.”

The man in Federation robes spoke. “You are entitled to contact them from the incarceration colony where you will be held, Madame. Under the authority vested in me as a deputized representative of the Federation, I, Jorge Hedgerow, declare you to be under arrest and your properties and assets frozen until you can be bound over for trial. Unfortunately for you, I fear there is quite a full docket these days.” The man’s supercilious smirk was aggravating. Nevertheless, in the absence of her own allies she knew she would have to comply in order to avoid violence and possible injury to her passengers or crew. She tried once more to reason with the officious intruders on behalf of the passengers staying on the
Piaf.

“Some of the refugee families were involved in an accident since they arrived. They are no longer on the
Piaf.
All we have aboard here are the children and the old ones, not workers. You will want to either leave the children here with their parents or collect the families to come with us.”

“And give you a chance to rally your henchmen?” Hedgerow asked. “I think not, Madame. If the people want to be reunited with their children, they can apply to Intergal for transport to the holding area.”

Marmie widened her eyes innocently. “Henchmen? My employees are devoted, it is true, but hardly henchmen. As to whether you gather the families in question now or later, that is of course up to your discretion. As a businesswoman, I naturally point out that it is more cost effective to do it now rather than later.” Also, of course, while she remained in custody she would be unable to ensure her passengers’ safety or well-being. Given Cally’s prior depth of concern for them, having the families together, preferably on Petaybee, was the best way to protect the children, quite young mothers, and elders, all so vulnerable to abuse or neglect.

The gilt com unit in the replica Louis XIV board gave her personal signal. She started toward it but one of Cally’s minions blocked her way. She half turned to Hedgerow. “My crew will want a final order from me to surrender peacefully or there could be unnecessary injury or loss of life, and not only to
my
employees.”

Cally gave a curt nod and the minion stepped aside. First Officer Robineau said from the com screen, “Madame, there are two armed soldiers demanding access to the bridge. Your orders?”

“By all means show them in, Adrienne, and stand down,” she said, using her officer’s first name as if she were an innocuous housekeeper instead of a highly trained navigator and engineer. She could not beat the intruders at this point but if her crew gave the appearance of joining them insofar as to offer them hospitality instead of resistance, everyone might survive this situation. If open resistance was futile, killing them with kindness might yield intelligence advantages at the very least. And Adrienne Robineau was quite an attractive woman highly adept at social interchange. “Offer them wine or tea perhaps since they are still on duty, and some of the excellent croissants from the galley. They will be with us for the rest of the voyage.”

“
Oui,
Madame. It shall be as you say.” Marmie smiled to herself at her officer’s quick grasp of the situation. Adrienne, despite her French heritage and name, had no personal ties with La France Nouveau at all. And yet her speech already reflected a strong trace of Marmion’s own accent. “And Adrienne?”

“
Oui,
Madame?”

“Pass along to the others that our—guests—are to be accorded courtesy and cooperation from all crew members. I do not wish to entertain further interruptions while I am in conference with their superiors.”

“
Oui,
Madame.”

“The conference is at an end,” Cally said. “We will now depart for Gwinnet Incarceration Colony, where you and your crew will be—accommodated—pending your trial.”

I
T WAS A
long swim and Murel was weary. She wanted to go ashore, dry off, fly home with Mum, Da, and Ro, and sleep in her own bed, maybe after a steaming hot chocolate and a biccy or two. She and Ro could dream together as they sometimes did and share what they’d done while they were apart. He was okay. She was certain he was okay. She’d know if he weren’t.

Sky brushed against her consolingly.
Deep sea otters will not harm Ronan, Murel. Seals—bad seals, not river seals—sometimes eat otters, but otters do not eat seals.

As if mentioning otter-eating seals had somehow alerted the species, she received another message.
Do not worry, half cousin. Our relatives have surrounded the strange new thing in their fjord and are keeping a close eye on it. No harm will come to your sibling with them watching.

But it was such a long swim. She wished she could have trusted the orcas enough to beg a ride with one of the powerful creatures for her and Sky. But in doing so she’d bring death to the very seals helping her locate Ronan. Perfect Fjord was another day’s swim at least, and she didn’t see how she could make it without rest. Sky wasn’t made for this sort of swimming either. He normally frolicked in freshwater. Long-distance saltwater swimming was completely foreign to him, and he had been through as much as she had.

Sky, you can go ashore if you want to,
she said.
You are not a sea otter, after all.

I am a sky otter,
he told her.
And a space otter and an underground otter as well. I can swim in the sea, so although my face is not pale and round, I am also a sea otter.

In his own way, Sky was as much a shape shifter as selkies or the Honus. He simply didn’t bother changing his physical form when he changed his mind about who he was. Her former biology teacher, Dr. Mabo, had an unhealthy fascination with shape shifters—unhealthy for the shape shifters at least. But she would never understand one like Sky, no matter how many otters she tormented.

The farther north they swam, the closer and more wintry the shoreline grew. The ice reached out in broad flat plains from the land. When pieces broke off and upended, they formed the icebergs that seemed to float like castles above the water. Beneath the water they hung in the depths like upside-down mountains. In places along the shore, cobalt cracked glaciers rose high above the ice floe. The sky grew duller and grayer until time for sunset, when it blazed with volcanic-ash-filtered light before dying altogether. The full moon rose, and for many many kilometers they saw little in the blackness of the sea but moon and ice, ice and moon.

Murel used her sonar to keep them off the ice, singing to herself in the night, hoping to hear the other seals soon, the ones who were the relatives of Pork and her herd. Apparently Pork and the others had lost interest in her problems. Probably they were keeping busy evading sharks and the killer whales.

Before long we should be close enough that I can reach Ro,
she told Sky,
if our thought-talk can go through the alien city’s shield—and I guess it can, since we talked the alien otters into letting Da go.

For once, Sky did not answer.

She turned her head to the side where he had been swimming and saw only water. She looked all around her. No otter. She dived and surfaced and swam back to the last iceberg.
Sky!
she called.
Sky?
And her sonar returned an otter-shaped image to her, just beneath the surface of the water, not swimming but slowly sinking.

“T
HE
H
ONU SAYS
Murel went to find Ronan,” Ke-ola told Yana, nodding at the smallest of the turtles swimming along beside the fishing boat that had picked him up. “She says bring the copter up to Perfect Fjord, but only her papa should swim out to find them. Everyone else should wait on shore in case they’re needed.”

“Anybody got an ulu?” Yana asked, referring to the semicircular knife women traditionally used in cleaning and dressing animal skins. “I’m going to skin my daughter alive when we catch up with her. Why didn’t she
wait
for the copter if she wants us to use it?”

“She needed to be a seal to find Ro,” Ke-ola said reasonably.

“Sean is in seal form too. Why didn’t she get him?”

Ke-ola consulted with the Honu again.

“He was busy, missus,” the boy replied. “Murel needed to go quick.”

Sean, swimming along beside them, raised his sleek gray-brown head from the water to look first at the Honu, then Ke-ola, then Yana. He lowered his head as if to roll into a dive. “No! Don’t you go swimming off too, Sean,” Yana called. “We’ve got multiple crises and I need to keep track of one member of this family at least. Hop in the boat and change. I have a lot to tell you.”

Hopping into the boat was easier to say than do for him, but Ke-ola and the fisherman rescuer cast a fish net and he swam into it and allowed himself to be hauled aboard.

Yana had sent the copter back with Puna, Keoki, Pet Chan, and Raj Norman. After what happened to the
Piaf,
the Kanakas needed to be with their wounded and what was left of their families, and Pet, Raj, and Johnny needed to strategize while she and Sean sorted out how to retrieve their kids as well as the others.

“The
Piaf,
its passengers, and crew, including Marmie, have been hauled off to some Federation Incarceration Colony,” Yana told Sean once he was in the boat. “Intergal had Marmie arrested for kidnapping Ke-ola’s people and ‘stealing’ the Honus and the sharks. Johnny said once the ship’s crew knew what was going on, Com Officer Guthe made sure the channel was open so Johnny could hear what happened on the bridge.”