Deluge

by Anne McCaffrey

“Me too,” he said. “I can’t figure out how you killed those two we saw yesterday.”

  “We didn’t,” she said. “They attacked us and we fought back, but then they started fighting with each other and we got away.”

  He nodded. When he spoke again, she thought he was going to ask a question, but he said, “Fair enough, you want to know about me—and Lloyd too, I guess. We used to have a space vessel, but I had a slight dispute with a company official over my fees and whether or not he should pay them, and the next thing you know, my ship was confiscated and Lloyd and I were arrested.”

  “So you’re a prisoner too?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, though we could still be. Later that year there was some new blood in the Federation court system and on the company board, and all of the cases were reviewed. Anybody could see the charges against us were pure fumes, but by the time we were released, our ship had been chopped up for parts.”

  “Didn’t the new court offer to pay for it?”

  “Honey, letting prisoners go and letting money go are two totally different issues to a corporate entity. They did give me some compensation, and later I invested part of it in this boat. And they offered me a job.”

  “This one?”

  “No, I worked as a locksmith for a while early on, then later helped set up security systems. Gwinnet was the last place I worked on.”

  “But—how come you’re working out here now?”

  “I didn’t like it inside. I saw stuff that turned my stomach.” He gestured to the boat’s deck. “At least the stiffs I throw to the squids aren’t suffering anymore.”

  His voice was bitter, with a fierce edge that rang more true to Murel than any gentler pity. He sounded like her mother might have if she were doing the same job. Da, he would try for scientific detachment from what he couldn’t help, but when Mum said how she felt about something, you knew that for her, that was how it was—the long and the short of it, as Aunty Aisling might say. Da was the family diplomat. Mum, with her long career in the military, was more inclined to direct action, and if that was not possible, frustration. And in some cases subversion, the kind she had been plotting when Ronan and Murel decided they needed to take matters into their own appendages.

  “Couldn’t you leave?” she asked. “Do you have to do this?”

  He took a deep breath and gnawed the end of his fluffy white mustache, which reminded Murel a bit of one of Sky’s sea otter cousins. “I tried to transfer offworld again, but there was never space for me on the transport ships, somehow or other. I think they’re afraid I’ll blow the whistle. But I couldn’t just stay inside and watch. I knew that sooner or later I’d go nuclear on one of those bastards and end up back on the wrong side of the bars. So when this boat was brought in as part of a seizure from a big drug bust, I bought it. Then I put on my cheery corporate guy face and convinced the brass to let me transport the bodies out to the deep part of the ocean instead of dumping them right offshore, where they were creating a health hazard for the guards and admin personnel, as well as the other prisoners who, you know, didn’t actually count.”

  He jerked his thumb back at the mate. “Lloyd came with me. One of these days we’ll get him back home to see his kids, or maybe it’s grandkids by now, but in the meantime I need him around. He’s the only one who can put up with me for any length of time.”

  “Have you got a family?” she asked.

  “Several,” he replied. “In different places, from different times in my life. I used to hear from one of my sons once in a while, but that was before I landed here. I don’t think any communication is allowed through.”

  “None? Are you sure?”

  “I haven’t received any demands for money from any of my exes since I’ve been here. Which just goes to show you that even a sewer like this has a silver lining.”

  “Are you going to turn me in?” she asked.

  “If I don’t, I don’t know what to do with you. We’re not exactly outfitted as a cruise ship here.”

  “Just let me go, then.”

  “You were never here,” he said. “Only—if you go back in, what are you going to do? You said they caught your brother. Seems like it’s not going to be long until they catch you too. I have a suggestion for you—and it’s just a suggestion, mind you. Why don’t you and your otter buddy dive back in the drink but hang around with us? That way I’ll know you’re safe or can help you out if you get into trouble.”

  “Or know where I am when your friends come to collect me,” she said.

  “If that’s what I’m up to, I could just net you again.”

  “True. You could do that,” she said. “But I can’t just hang around here and be safe. I have to try to help Ro and Marmie and the others.”

  “We got a message asking us to assist with your capture, and it warned us about the net stretched along the bottom. There will still be people waiting for you to spring it. Your safest bet is to go ashore with us, but we’re going to need a reason to land on the island. If someone asks us what we’re doing here now, we can claim we’re doing some recreational fishing. You’d better keep out of sight.”

  “I can do that easier in the water, but I have to help Ro.”

  He nodded. “We’ll see what we can find out from this end, but we’ve got to make it all look like business as usual. Can you hear it if I tap on the hull?”

  “Sure, but it’s easier if you just tell the cat.”

  “Of course it is,” he said, clearly trying not to laugh. “Silly me not to think of that. You’re all telepathic, right?”

  Murel nodded.

  “You talk to the squids too?”

  “They were about to have supper so we couldn’t stay and chat,” she said.

  He grinned but made no further comment.

  She pulled off the hat and jumped overboard, letting the water pull the T-shirt up around her neck. Sky used his otter paws, more flexible than her flippers, and helped her remove it the rest of the way. They left it floating, and the dip net descended and scooped it up.

  She wished she could relax and just let the adults handle this, but it was beginning to seem like those days were over. This man might help and he might not. Her impression was that he sincerely wanted to, but from what he said, he was almost as much a prisoner as she was.

  Nevertheless, instead of turning back toward the mainland, he turned his bow toward the island.

  CHAPTER 17

  RONAN’S STRUGGLES WITH the net ended when his head knocked against the side of the boat. Dimly, he heard Murel calling him, but he could not answer. Then the calling stopped, as did all other impressions until he found himself awake, on a beach, naked and in human form, surrounded by feet both bare and booted.

  “The freak’s waking up,” someone said, half threatening and half scared.

  “Let’s throw it back in the water again and watch it change back,” someone else said.

  “Are you kidding? The old bat would kill us if we let him go. As it is, extra rations all around.”

  “And a promotion for me,” a girl said. Ronan looked up into Kai’s triumphant face. “I’m the one who helped catch him. If I catch his sister too, I’ll get off this planet and have a berth aboard a ship before the rest of you finish basic training.”

  Ronan scanned the faces around him while keeping his own as still as he could, trying not to give anything away. Rory was there, his expression also carefully blank. Kai was the only one of the Kanaka kids in the crowd. Ronan had never seen any of the others, who were mostly older and wore, in addition to their camp tunics, bits of Corps uniforms. Among them stood adult soldiers, wearing uniforms and self-satisfied expressions.

  Presently Dr. Mabo arrived. She patted Rory’s shoulder approvingly as she passed him, a most un-Mabolike gesture.

  Rory must have joined up fast, Ronan realized, maybe right after he talked to him and Murel. He recognized that he was on the beach near the military encampment, not the one near the children’s prison. There we
re no nice little huts or bamboo walls, just blocky prefabs and the company colors flying below the Federation ones on a pole in the middle. That was all he could see, looking between heads and feet. Mabo prodded him with her toe.

  “Get up, boy, and come with me. We have important work to do, the two of us.”

  Ronan sat up. “Can I borrow a shirt or something?” he asked.

  “Clothing is for human beings,” Mabo said. “Don’t worry. You won’t be staying in human form long.”

  She leaned forward, and he thought for one incredulous moment that she was going to help him up, but instead she reached around his neck and clamped on a collar. “You’ll be wearing this at all times, in whatever form.”

  It was soft and nonchafing, but when he touched it, he felt some sort of webbing throughout the surface. “What is it? A dog collar?”

  “As long as you are a good creature and cooperative, it is simply a monitoring device.” She pulled something out of a pocket in her trousers. “If not…”

  Pain shot directly into his head and all the way down to his toes. He wet himself with the shock and the onlookers snickered or made disgusted sounds.

  “If you fail to follow orders, that will happen. I can make it worse. If you attempt to escape, I can track you. There is a lethal setting, by the way. Come along.”

  “Can I wash off first?” he asked.

  “You’ll be wet again soon enough,” she said.

  Murel? he called, but his sister didn’t answer. He was sure she hadn’t been captured or she’d be there too. How was he going to get out of this? He wished he could communicate with Rory the same way he could with Murel, but he couldn’t. Rory was smart. If there was a way he could help, he would. Unfortunately, Ronan was sure Mabo knew that too.

  The others had parted before Mabo. When Ronan didn’t follow quickly enough, the collar gave him smaller shocks that made him twitch and jerk and threw him off balance. Derisive laughter followed his naked behind as he trailed behind Mabo until she entered one of the prefab huts.

  He heard footsteps behind him and turned his head for a second. Kai was following them into the hut.

  Mabo gave him a grandmotherly smile and stroked the side of the collar’s control device with her thumb. “I realize, Ronan, that since you served as my research assistant previously, you are the most qualified applicant for the present opening. However, since you are to be the subject of the current experiments, I need a new assistant. This girl has showed initiative and furthermore seems to have some sort of a grudge against you. But don’t worry. I won’t let her harm you any more than necessary.”

  When he had first stepped in from the sunlight, the inside of the small structure seemed dark and featureless, but now he saw that besides a desk, chair, and a metal table, there was a sturdy stand supporting a clear-sided tank about the size of a deep bathtub. It was filled with water, and for a moment he thought there might be fish in it—snacks for him? He didn’t think so. Mabo didn’t strike him as the considerate type.

  “Get in,” she said, pointing to the tank.

  He frowned at the tank, and another bolt of pain ran through him. “I can’t!” he said, hating the whine in his voice. “It’s too high.”

  Kai walked to a shadowed corner and pulled out a ladder, which she attached to the top of the tank, then pointed to him and the ladder.

  He didn’t want more agony. He climbed in, mooning Mabo and Kai as he lowered himself into the tank.

  His feet began changing into his flippered tail as soon as they touched water, and he slid down, eager to cover himself with water and fur.

  “Stop right there,” Mabo said before he could sit in the water. So there he was, tail to the knees, bare human thighs bound at the knees by his own transition. Mabo climbed the ladder and leaned over the edge of the tank, holding something other than the control to the collar. Despite the heat, Ronan shivered as the back of her hand brushed his skin. He felt a sharp sting just where his tail met his leg, then another one, and jumped, knocking into Mabo. She turned her face slowly sideways to meet his gaze, allowing her eyes to flick meaningfully to her hand. He held perfectly still as she straightened herself on the ladder and climbed down it. Then, while she turned to prepare some slides, he examined the sore spot. The water was bloody.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “I never promised it wouldn’t hurt,” she said. “I have to take specimens. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Have you tried it on yourself?” he asked.

  “Of course not. I’m a human being all the time.”

  “So?”

  “So if you don’t quit whining and leave me to conduct my work in peace, I’ll give you more of this to whine about.” The pain slashed through him again. He cried out before he could keep his vow to not give her the satisfaction. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t even paying attention to him anymore. Kai was out of his range of vision, behind him somewhere, which didn’t thrill him either.

  He wished he could train himself to think past the pain caused by the collar. Whatever Mabo said, he knew she didn’t want to damage him, because then she wouldn’t have a live specimen, so even though the collar hurt like mad, it probably wasn’t doing him any real harm.

  What hurt most was his tail. It was not designed to have his dry body standing on it. He eased himself slowly, slowly, down the side of the tank so he could sit. He didn’t want another taste of the collar, but he didn’t want to crush his tail either, which would mean his legs and feet would be broken when the tail changed into them again.

  “Doctor, Doctor!” Kai said.

  Mabo looked over and her eyes narrowed. He expected another stab of pain from the collar, but instead she stood, both hands closed, and said, “I was going to do this a bit slower, but now that you’re down that far, stick your head under too. Not your shoulders and torso, mind you, just your head. And leave it there until I tell you otherwise.”

  He meant to obey, tried to obey, but the tank was too narrow and the water too deep if he tried it one way and too shallow another.

  Finally Mabo said, “Fine then, Kai, you hold him around the waist and stick his head under.”

  The big Kanaka girl climbed the steps, her heavy gravity body making the tank slosh and shake with each rung. She grabbed Ronan by the hair, then under the armpits, and hauled him up until she could get an arm around his body where his waist met his tail.

  Though it seemed to him she lifted him as he would one of Clodagh’s cats, though he’d have been gentler, she complained, “Ugh. He’s really heavy.”

  He started to return the compliment, but before he could, she took hold of the back of his head and bent him double, shoving his face into the water.

  MUREL CALLED AND called, both mentally and by using her sonar song, but she heard nothing from Ronan. Not a peep. Surely they wouldn’t just kill him? They might not mean to, but accidentally? The thought panicked her until she realized with an inner certainty so concrete that if it had been an anchor it would have sunk to the bottom of the sea: If he were dead, I’d know. Followed by: Wouldn’t I?

  Sky popped his head above the surface and said, Ronan river seal is not here. He is hiding?

  I wish! Someone is hiding him.

  We can find him! Sky said. Where are the best hiding places here?

  They’re ashore, Sky, but there are nets between us and the shore. I think we’re going to have to trust the people on the boat to take us ashore—maybe in disguise.

  What is disguise?

  Pretending to be someone you are not.

  I will pretend to be another otter? Which one? There is only one sky otter and I am the one.

  I didn’t mean you. I meant me. I will pretend to be another human. There are no other otters of any kind here that I’ve found, so you’d better just hide. Come on, she said, and began swimming toward the boat, only to find it was no longer where they had left it.

  She sang her sonar song again and found it, but it was very far away. Cat? she sai
d. I thought the boat was going to stay with us?

  The capitaine thought that you were going to stay near to the boat. We received a message that is causing us to return to the prison.

  I thought he was going to tell you to let us know if there was a change in plans.

  He did, but first I was eating and now I perform my toilette. I cannot do it all at once. So I tell you now. We return to the shore of the prison. If you wish to be with the boat, you must also come. The otter swims very quickly. He can catch up, of this I am certain.

  Sky found nothing to quibble with about the cat’s attitude, and Murel, raised with Nanook and Coaxtl and Clodagh’s orange-tabby pride, realized she was very tired and worried indeed. Of course, the cat had better things to do than take messages for them. She was a cat, after all.

  No matter. Before long the boat was in sight again and the captain spied them with his binoculars. Soon they were back on board. Murel changed, and wore the now-dry T-shirt and cap once more. Sky, with Zuzu’s assistance, was eating a fish.

  “I guess I don’t have to ask if you had any luck,” the captain said.

  “No luck. And if we had, I think I’m too tired to do anything about it.”

  “Take a nap in the cabin. We’ve about two and a half hours until we reach shore and have business to take care of. We may need your help then.”

  She took him up on his suggestion, curling into a ball on the sticky, ripped plastic cushion of the long, curved bench inside the cabin. Just before she dropped off, she was aware of two furry bodies joining her, one snuggling into the place behind her knees and one climbing on top of her to sit on her upturned hip.

  “WHAT ARE WE going to do with them?” Sinead asked, nodding in the direction of the longhouse, where armed villagers—the few not currently crowded into Clodagh’s cabin—guarded the soldiers. The temperature outside had risen and the blizzard had blown away, leaving deep drifts and silence as its legacy. Clodagh’s stove pumped heat into the room, and steam rose from the snow melting from mittens, hats, and boots.

  “Keep them there, I guess,” Aidan replied, extending his bare hands toward the stove to warm them. “They’re really gonna cool their heels, though, with no fire.”