Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (10 page)

“Well?” Toklo was plodding over to her across the ice, followed closely by Lusa and Ujurak. “What did you find?”

“It’s clean,” Kallik reported. “This really could be what we’re looking for.”

“Then we should go and tell—” Lusa began.

She was interrupted by a loud squeaking from farther inshore. “K’lik! K’lik!” Kallik turned her head to see that Kissimi was scampering across the ice toward them.

Warm happiness spread through Kallik.
He knows my name!

As Kissimi hurtled toward her, his paws skidded on the ice. He let out a shrill cry of exhilaration as he slid forward with the wind flattening his soft fur to his sides.

Kallik’s happiness turned to horror. “Kissimi, watch out!” she shouted, hurling herself toward him.

But she was too late. Before any bear could reach out to stop him, Kissimi fell with a splash into the breathing hole. His excited squeal became a startled wail; then his head went underwater.

“No!” Kallik exclaimed.

For a moment of heart-stopping panic she thought that the young cub had vanished completely. Then she spotted him underneath the ice, scratching feebly at the underside with his paws. His eyes were wide and terrified.

Kallik crouched beside the hole and plunged a paw into the water, but Kissimi was just too far away for her to grab him; all she managed to do was push the cub farther away still.

Beside her Toklo reared up on his hindpaws. “I’ll break the ice,” he grunted, his forepaws poised to crash through it.

“No!” Kallik thrust herself in front of him. “You’ll hurt him!”

“I’ll save him.” Ujurak spoke behind them, tense but calm. “Wait here.”

He bounded over to the hole. Kallik watched in breathless hope as his body shrank and his brown fur vanished, to be replaced by a gleaming gray-brown pelt. In the shape of a sleek seal he dove into the hole, his slim form just brushing the sides.

Gazing down, Kallik saw Ujurak’s dark shape curl around Kissimi. The cub thrashed with his paws as if he was afraid and trying to escape. But Ujurak nudged him safely back to the hole, where Kallik bent down and sank her teeth into the cub’s scruff, hauling him out onto the ice.

“What did I tell you?” she growled as Kissimi lay with his paws splayed out, coughing up water. “I said stay by the river! You might have died!”

“Hey, take it easy.” Lusa pressed comfortingly against Kallik’s side. “He’s only little. He doesn’t understand about danger.”

“Then it’s time he learned!” Kallik snapped. She thought that her heart would never stop thumping. “Oh, little one, what if I’d lost you?” She bent her head and started to lick the seawater out of Kissimi’s fur.

“He got a bad scare,” Lusa went on. “And on top of being stuck under the ice, the way he was fighting looked like he thought Ujurak-seal was going to eat him! I’m sure he’s learned his lesson.”

“I hope so,” Kallik muttered between licks.

Ujurak pulled himself out of the hole, changing back from a seal to a brown bear and shaking the water from his pelt. Kallik looked up to see a huge fish flapping helplessly in his jaws.

“Great catch!” Toklo said, his eyes gleaming hungrily.

Ujurak dropped the fish on the ice and killed it with a bite to the back of its head. “There,” he said. “It smells fine. Proof that the water here is clean.”

All the bears gathered around. Kallik felt herself growing calmer as she took her first bite, relishing the delicious taste. “Here, Kissimi,” she said, tearing off a small shred of the fish and chewing it up before dropping the pulp in front of her cub. “You can try your first taste of food from the ocean.”

She watched the tiny cub as he nibbled the fish cautiously at first, then gulped it down with gleaming eyes and looked around for more. Kallik’s heart pounded painfully in her chest; she had never imagined that loving someone could hurt as much as this.

“Ujurak, thank you,” she said. “I’ll never forget how you saved Kissimi.”

Ujurak dipped his head. “Anytime.”

Kallik blinked at him, wanting to say more, then was distracted as Kissimi nudged her paw impatiently with his nose.

“Okay, okay, more fish coming up,” Kallik said. “Soon you’ll be catching these yourself,” she promised, preparing another mouthful for him.

Kissimi glanced back at the breathing hole, shuddered, and let out a squeak.

Lusa huffed with amusement. “He says not if he has to go near the water again!”

When the last scraps of the fish were eaten, the bears headed back toward their den. While they were still climbing up the slope from the bay, the first flakes of snow began to fall, rapidly growing thicker and thicker until the way ahead was almost hidden behind a whirling white screen.

“This is all we need,” Toklo grunted.

The wind picked up, blowing into their faces, until they were forcing their way into the teeth of a blizzard. Kallik could hear Kissimi whimpering unhappily and realized how cold and tired he must be. She felt his tiny paws clinging to a tuft of her fur.

“Don’t let go, little one,” she warned him. “I’d never find you in all this snow.”

Lusa had taken the lead, with Toklo just behind her, nose to tail so as not to lose her, then Kallik, and last of all Ujurak. They plodded through the thickening snow; Kallik wasn’t sure if they were heading in the right direction any longer.

Up ahead a startled yelp came from Lusa, and her black shape, scarcely visible through the driving snow, suddenly vanished. Toklo stopped so abruptly that Kallik almost blundered into him.

“What happened?” she asked.

“This is the gorge,” Toklo replied, glancing over his shoulder at Kallik. Snow was thick on his muzzle and around his eyes, and he sounded as if he was struggling to repress panic. “Lusa stepped over the edge.”

Kallik’s belly lurched with anxiety. “Is she okay? Lusa!”

“The snow’s thick enough,” Ujurak pointed out as he joined them. “It would be soft to fall on.” Kallik suspected he was trying to sound more confident than he felt.

“I’ll probably have to drag her out of another drift,” Toklo muttered under his breath as he began heading down the steep slope, stepping sideways through the deep, soft snow so that he wouldn’t slip.

Kallik and Ujurak tried to walk in his steps, but the shifting snow made it almost impossible.

“Lusa! Lusa!” Kallik called as she floundered around in the sea of white, and she thought she heard an answering cry beneath the whining of the wind.

Peering through the snow, she spotted a black boulder just ahead; as she drew closer it turned into Lusa.

“Thank the spirits!” Kallik exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lusa replied, though she sounded shaken. “Do you think we should shelter down here until the wind drops?”

Through the whirling snow Kallik could see that they had reached the bottom of the gorge. “We could make a temporary den,” she began, “Kissimi could do with—”

She broke off. A rumble of thunder sounded through the gorge.

“Thunder?” Ujurak sounded puzzled. “In a blizzard?”

For a moment Kallik froze. She knew something was wrong. The sound was growing louder and louder with every breath she took. The snow beneath her paws was trembling, and a thin layer started to shift around them.

“Something’s coming down the gorge!” she exclaimed.

“Run!” Toklo barked.

Side by side the bears struggled to scramble up the far side of the gorge. But the newly fallen snow was soft and powdery, and it shifted under their paws. Kallik found that she was sinking into it as far as her belly fur, and there was nothing solid for her paws to grip. She floundered a few steps upward and slid down again in a flurry of snow.

The thundering sound grew louder still, and suddenly a herd of caribou lurched out of the blizzard. Something had spooked them, and their hooves pounded through the snow as they galloped down the gorge in terror, a moving wall of hooves and antlers, bearing down on Kallik.

The white bear froze, staring in horror.
Kissimi! What can I do?

“Kallik!” Toklo’s voice sounded urgently from just above her. “Kallik, up here!”

Kallik looked up to see the brown bear perched on a rock a couple of bearlengths above her head. He was peering down at her, gesturing urgently with one paw.

“Up here!” he repeated.

Desperately Kallik launched herself upward, thrusting Kissimi in front of her. Toklo leaned down from the rock and grabbed the cub in his jaws. Kallik tried to follow, but as she scrambled toward the rock, she felt her paws slipping under her. Snow cascaded around her as she fell back to the bottom of the gorge, under the hooves of the caribou.

One pointed hoof struck her on her shoulder as she struggled to regain her paws. She fell back again, scrabbling sideways toward the foot of the slope, but another set of flying hooves caught her on her back. The terrified caribou trampled her as she fought frantically to climb back up. In the chaos of thundering hooves she thought she could hear the bears calling her name. Then blinding pain shot through her head; the gorge wheeled around her, a sickening whirl of white. She gave up her struggles, lying limp and helpless. The white gradually darkened to gray as her senses faded, then to a black sky filled with stars, and the tumult of the fleeing caribou faded to silence.

Kallik opened her eyes on a world of unbroken white. There was no wind, no falling snow, no sound of thundering hooves.

Am I dead?
she wondered.
Nisa, where are you?

A face loomed over her, but it was black, not white; blinking, Kallik recognized Lusa. Toklo and Ujurak were just behind her; Kissimi was clinging to Ujurak’s fur.

“Thank Arcturus you’re all right!” Lusa gasped.

Kissimi let out a loud squeal. Wriggling out of Toklo’s grasp, he hurled himself at Kallik’s chest, bouncing up and down.

“Gently, little one,” she muttered, encircling him with a paw.

Kallik’s heart thumped harder as she realized that she had thrust Kissimi to safety just as her mother, Nisa, had thrust her away from the orca. She would have died for Kissimi, just as Nisa had died for her. New strength and determination gathered inside her as she felt herself treading in her mother’s pawsteps.

Slowly the white bear rose to her paws, testing each leg to make sure she could stand on it. Her body ached all over from the caribou’s hooves, but nothing seemed to be seriously damaged. “I’m okay,” she said.

All along the gorge the caribou had churned up the snow, a trail that broke up the untouched whiteness as far as Kallik could see in both directions.

“What on earth spooked them?” she asked, not expecting a reply.

Toklo shrugged and shook his head.

“They went past too quickly,” Ujurak said. “I couldn’t sense anything from them except fear. But I think we should get out of here, in case they come back.”

“Good idea,” Toklo agreed.

He led the way a little farther up the gorge until they came to a place where the sides were lower and it was easier to climb. Twilight was falling by the time they reached the top.

As they trudged on, the lights of the no-claw denning area came into sight; Kallik could hear noise coming from there, and the sound of seals barking.

“We did it!” she said, satisfaction flooding through her. “We found clean water, and we got back safely.”

“We did.” Lusa’s voice was confident. “And tomorrow we move the seals.”

Chapter Ten

Ujurak

Black waves lapped at the pebbles
as Ujurak padded down the beach and waded out into the ocean. As the water’s icy claws sank deep into his fur, he scanned the surface for the bobbing heads of seals, but he couldn’t see a single one.

Strange. This is the bears’ hunting ground, so where are the seals?

The black water rose rapidly around Ujurak as he waded farther, and he plunged downward as it closed over his head. Swimming underwater, he kept his bear shape, resisting the urge to take the sleek form of a seal.

He felt a stab of panic as the water grew darker and darker and he still couldn’t find any seals.

Have they all left? Will I ever find them?

Then suddenly the seals were all around him, shadowy, supple shapes swarming everywhere, gliding around him but never touching him. Their eyes glinted at him, shining brighter and brighter in the dark depths of the ocean, until Ujurak suddenly realized that they weren’t eyes—they were stars.

The water had vanished. Now Ujurak was swimming through the night sky, surrounded by stars that blazed so brightly he had to blink against them. When he looked down, he could see the icy island far, far below him, and on the seashore three tiny dots that he knew were Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik.

No!
Ujurak’s panic returned, flooding over him in vast waves. His paws thrashed helplessly at the air.
I’m going to fall!

Then a quiet voice sounded alongside him. “Don’t be afraid. You’re quite safe with me.”

With a rush of relief and love, Ujurak recognized the voice of his mother, Ursa. She was all around him, her starry body enfolding him with the softest brush of fur. Ujurak reveled in her touch, realizing that he had never felt more at home.

Looking down at himself, Ujurak saw that his fur was full of stars, too, blending into his mother’s fur so that he couldn’t be sure where he ended and she began. He gazed up into her shining eyes, content not to question.

“Do not fear,” Ursa whispered. “I am waiting for you.”

The cold touch of snowmelt trickling through his fur woke Ujurak. He was curled up in the snow-den under the thorns, tucked in among the sleeping bodies of his friends. Pale dawn light was seeping through the entrance.

For a moment Ujurak blinked in disappointment, yearning for the stars and the soft touch of his mother’s fur again. Then he remembered that this was the day they had to move the seals to the bay they had discovered, and his memory of the dream was swallowed up in apprehension.

The other bears began stirring around him; Toklo parted his jaws in an enormous yawn. Ujurak wriggled between him and Kallik and scrambled out into the crisp dawn air, waiting for the others to join him.

They were all quiet, exchanging quick glances with one another. Their confidence of the previous day had ebbed like the tide. Ujurak could tell that they were all sharing the same thought:
This is a huge task! Can we really do what we promised?

Lusa was the first to break the silence. “Come on! We have to do this.”

Pride in her courage warmed Ujurak like a ray of sunlight. He remembered how Aga had called Lusa “Tungulria.”

“Hurry up, Kissimi.” Kallik nuzzled her cub and crouched down so that he could scramble up onto her shoulders. “We’re going to visit some seals.”

The little cub let out a plaintive wail as he settled himself in Kallik’s fur. Ujurak guessed that he was hungry; it had been a long time since they’d shared the fish he had caught.

“I don’t blame you, little one,” Ujurak muttered; he could feel the hollowness in his own belly. “I’m hungry, too!”

“Are you sure you should take Kissimi with you?” Toklo asked. His voice was concerned; he seemed to have lost a lot of his hostility toward the cub. “Remember what happened with the caribou.”

“I’m not leaving him behind!” Kallik’s head whipped around, and she gave Toklo a searing glare. “You never know what might be lurking, just waiting to take a cub who can’t defend himself.”

Toklo shrugged. “Okay, calm down. It was just a suggestion.”

Kallik hesitated, then nodded, her anger fading as if she realized that Toklo was concerned for Kissimi, too. She set off in the direction of the old seal hunting ground, with a glance back to see if the others were following.

Is she really afraid that something will harm Kissimi?
Ujurak wondered as he padded after her.
Or is she worried that one of Aga’s bears will find the cub?

With Kallik in the lead, they skirted the flat-face denning area, where a few lights were showing among the dens. The only sound was a flat-face voice, then another answering it, but they were faint with distance, and Ujurak realized they were no threat.

Several firebeasts were crouching here and there among the dens. Toklo glared at them as they padded past, and a low growl came from his throat.

A shiver went through Ujurak as he waited for the firebeasts to open their glaring eyes and break into a menacing roar. But they stayed dark and silent.

“It’s okay. They’re asleep,” he whispered.

“They’d better stay that way!” Toklo muttered back.

Keeping their distance, the bears headed down to the shore and scrambled over the boulders into the cove.

“Thank Arcturus there aren’t any of the white bears here!” Lusa exclaimed as she leaped down onto the pebbly beach. “They listened!”

Toklo gave a huff of agreement. “We have enough to worry about without them coming around.”

Gazing out to sea, Ujurak spotted several seal breathing holes, and even some seals basking on the ice, well away from the shoreline. He took a pace toward them, then stopped, realizing that he had no idea what to do next.

“How are we going to get them to move?” Lusa asked, echoing his doubts. “I thought we could show them the poison trickling out, but how would we get them close enough to see it? Or we could get the stuff on our paws and then—”

“You can forget that right now,” Toklo interrupted. “I’m not getting that stink on my paws, not for all the bears on the ice!”

Lusa sighed. “You’re right; it is horrible. And we would still have to show them where it came from. Kallik, you know more about seals than the rest of us,” she went on. “How can we make them understand?”

“We can’t,” Kallik replied. “Bears don’t talk to seals.”

“Then maybe we can chase them into the other bay,” Toklo suggested, hunching his shoulders as he gazed out at the distant seals.

“We can try,” Kallik agreed dubiously. “But what if they dive back into the water? We can’t chase them there.”

Toklo hesitated, then shrugged. “We’ll have to stop them from going back through their breathing holes.”

Kallik gave Toklo a look that told Ujurak she didn’t think that would work, but she said nothing.

“We can’t just stand here,” Lusa said. “Let’s give it a try.”

Toklo lumbered out onto the ice, picking up the pace as he drew closer to the seals. Lusa dashed after him. Ujurak exchanged a doubtful glance with Kallik, then followed.

But well before the bears reached the first breathing holes, the seals were aware of them. They started hauling themselves across the ice, slipping down through the holes into the safety of the ocean. There were too many holes for the bears to intercept the seals. Ujurak could sense their panic.

“Cloud-brains!” Toklo halted and let out a roar of frustration. “We want to help you!”

“They don’t understand,” Lusa panted.

Kissimi squealed with excitement as Kallik hurled herself across the ice, trying to intercept a seal as it dove down through a hole. It slid past her, barely a muzzlelength ahead of her claws, and vanished with a farewell flick of its tail.

Lusa charged into a group of seals, biting and snapping in her efforts to herd them toward the new bay, but the seals just scattered in terror. Lusa lost her footing on the ice and thumped down hard on her haunches.

“Why won’t they do as they’re told?” she gasped.

Ujurak heard a panic-stricken screech behind him and spun around to see that Toklo had flung himself on top of one of the seals, which lay limp under his claws, its eyes glazed with fear. Toklo was poised to sink his teeth into its throat.

“No, Toklo!” Ujurak yelled. “We’re not hunting! The seals are poisonous!”

Toklo let out a snarl of rage and scrambled off the seal. The terrified creature lay frozen for a moment, then dug the claws on its front flippers into the ice and flung itself down a breathing hole.

“This feels all wrong,” Toklo grumbled. “Seals are
prey
.”

“Not these seals,” Lusa reminded him.

Glancing around, Ujurak saw that almost all the seals had vanished, and those that were left were moving rapidly toward the nearest holes. Chasing them hadn’t worked.

“Now what do we do?” Kallik panted.

Lusa shook her head helplessly. “I have no idea.”

“It was a dumb idea anyway.” Toklo glared at the breathing hole where the seal had vanished. “We couldn’t have chased them all the way to the new bay.”

“We could have if they’d stayed on the ice,” Kallik argued.

Ujurak listened to his friends bickering and realized that there was only one answer. He let out a long sigh. “I know what to do,” he said reluctantly.

He concentrated as he headed toward one of the breathing holes, feeling his fur shrink back until a smooth gray pelt covered all his body. His legs changed into flippers. By the time he reached the hole, he had taken on the complete shape of a seal.

As Ujurak slid easily through the conical tunnel into the dark water beneath, a nearby seal swerved away from him in alarm, with a soft grunting noise. Ignoring it for the moment, Ujurak drew a little of the water into his mouth, aware right away of its sickening taste, and he saw how cloudy it was because of the poison leaking from the pipe.

This is disgusting,
he thought.
I wonder why the seals haven’t moved already. They must know about that beautiful clean bay; it’s not so far away
. Hope surged through him.
It’s so clear they must move. Maybe this task will be easy, after all.

Ujurak swam among the seals, who were hovering in the water, reminding him of the shapes that had swirled around him in his dream. They were all staring at him with solemn eyes in whiskered faces.

I’m surprised they know I’m a stranger,
he commented to himself, finding it hard to tell one seal from another.

Then as his gaze traveled around the group and he looked more closely with his seal eyes, he realized that he was wrong to think they looked alike. One seal had more of the silver-gray dappling on its back than any of the others. Another had especially long whiskers. Yet another was very fat. Ujurak realized that each of them was subtly different.

As different as one bear is from another
.

Ujurak swam on, looking for a breathing hole so he could take in air, but also wondering which of the seals was their leader. Spotting a circle of light above his head, he headed for it, only to find a big, whiskered seal floating just beneath the hole.

His senses spinning from lack of air, Ujurak wondered if the big seal would try to block his way. He braced himself for a fight, but at the last moment the big seal swam aside.

Ujurak popped out through the hole, gulping in huge mouthfuls of air. He hauled himself out onto the ice and dragged himself awkwardly a bearlength forward.

Cautiously Ujurak scanned his surroundings. To his relief none of the white bears were waiting for their prey to appear. Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik had disappeared, too; Ujurak guessed they were hiding so as not to spook the seals.

Hearing a grunt behind him, and the sound of a large body flopping onto the ice, Ujurak turned to see that the big seal had followed him out of the hole.

“Who are you?” the seal asked. “Where have you come from?”

“I come from far away,” Ujurak replied, hope surging up inside him at the chance of explaining. “I have something important to tell you.”

The big seal blew out a noisy breath, riffling his whiskers. “What?”

Ujurak glanced around. More of the seals were appearing through the breathing hole, staring curiously at Ujurak as they formed a ragged circle around him and the big seal. This time Ujurak had no difficulty reminding himself that he wasn’t one of them. The urgency of his mission kept his mind focused.

Taking a deep breath, Ujurak raised his voice to carry to all of them. “This place is making you sick!”

The big seal narrowed his eyes, giving Ujurak a suspicious look. Ujurak expected him to deny that there was anything wrong, but he said nothing, as if he was taking his time to weigh what Ujurak told him.

The other seals, Ujurak could tell, were more shocked by his announcement. One or two of them shot him hostile glares. Others bent their heads close to one another and muttered anxiously.

One young male with silver markings clustered thickly on his back leaned forward and slapped one flipper threateningly on the ice. “Go away and mind your own business!” he barked.

“Leave him alone, Silver!” an older female snapped, shouldering the young male back. “Maybe he’s got a point.”