“Nah,” Terry replied, “They can hide easier in the water. The cat can hide aboard ship without too much trouble, but the girl isn’t likely to be anything but an escaped prisoner, and these yahoos would probably shoot the otter, thinking it was a really big rat.”
“Well, yeah, but once we load the cargo aboard, there’ll be two female escaped prisoners here anyway…”
“And once we have them safely away from port, the seal girl can come back aboard any time, and the otter too. But we don’t want to attract any more attention to ourselves than we’re already likely to.”
A strong wind blew up, ruffling the water and rocking the boat. The men looked up for a moment. There were no clouds, though there was a definite disturbance in the air. They could feel and almost see the air currents swirling past them. Terry and Lloyd pulled their hats down more firmly on their heads and watched the shore intently, praying that if a storm was coming it would not blow up until the transfer had been made.
Two soldiers hefted a body bag between them and heaved it onto the dock where Terry’s boat routinely made its pickups of squid fodder. Shutting down the motor, Terry guided his boat in through the wind-driven waves. Then he and Lloyd hauled the heavy bag on board, unzipped it, and rolled the two bodies it contained onto the deck. The empty bag was tossed back onto the dock for reuse with the next lot. It’d never do to pollute the ocean or choke the squid with those nonbiodegradable bags, and the bags were reusable. The stiffs normally didn’t mind.
One of them winked at him, which was kind of eerie, as was the warmth of the bodies under the uniforms they wore. Bodies ordinarily went out of the world the same way they came into it. Clothes, even the rags most of the longtime prisoners sported, were also thought to be damaging to the delicate ecology of the ocean and its only large denizens.
The cat sniffed the two bodies. One reached up as if to stroke the cat, but the feline gave a snort and turned its curly tail on them. The younger of the two rolled her eyes comically but refrained from saying anything. Lloyd stepped over them to start the engine again.
“Stay down until we’re out of visual contact with the shore,” Terry told his newest set of passengers. They were silent as the dead while the boat chugged out to sea, until it reached the place where Terry and Lloyd would usually offload their cargo.
Then the younger woman asked, “How did Zuzu get aboard?”
“She swam,” he told her. “It’s getting downright crowded out here lately, if you want to know the truth.”
He was watching the stern from his binoculars and saw the heads of the seal and the otter pop up again. He expected them to swim toward the boat, but instead they were looking skyward. He followed their gaze but saw nothing. Then something dropped down to the surface of the water, obscuring his view of the two sleek heads. He thought for a second that his eyes had played a trick on him, that the seal and the otter had dived, but then the water began to bubble and churn as a hole opened in the surface to admit—something.
CHAPTER 18
RONAN THOUGHT MABO would never stop prodding, poking, shocking, and cutting him. She was far worse than the giant squid, who had only been trying to feed themselves when they attacked. They probably didn’t know the food had feelings. But Mabo did, and while she didn’t seem to actually take pleasure from hurting him, she didn’t exhibit any sign of pity either. At first he’d thought she was getting revenge for the time he and Murel had thwarted her attempts to experiment on the Honu and eventually caused her to flee the space station in disgrace, but she never mentioned it or actually gloated over him. Her attitude was more impersonal. She didn’t care if he screamed or winced unless it spoiled her aim when she was trying to snip off another piece of him. He was one big specimen to her, not even a living creature.
Kai, after her intial expressions of dominance over him, seemed to get bored with the process, maybe even annoyed with Mabo’s brisk orders, and didn’t go out of her way to so much as sneer at him. It was little enough, but he was grateful that when Mabo decided it was time to sleep and left Kai with the collar control and instructions to guard him, the girl looped the strap of the control around her heavy wrist, gave him a meaningful look as if to say, “You know what will happen if you cross me,” and walked around behind him. She probably thought he wouldn’t know what she was doing if he couldn’t see her, but her snores gave her away.
If she hadn’t had the collar control, he could have tipped the tank over and escaped that way. But he had to do it without waking her.
The other problem was that with his bottom half in seal form, he had no leverage to raise himself out of the tank except his arms and hands. His tail was heavy, heavier than just his legs and rear. According to physics, that wasn’t supposed to be possible, but physics didn’t need blubber to keep its butt warm in arctic waters. Futher-more, he would stay seal-tailed as long as that part of him remained in water, which it would in the tank. He didn’t see how he could dry out enough to get his legs back without flipping water onto Kai and waking her. And there was no way to climb down the ladder with a seal tail. He’d just have to figure out the water-flipping issue when he got to it. Maybe if he flipped away from her…
Placing his hands on the rim of the tank, he pushed with all his might, trying to raise himself. He slid up out of the water but was still too wet to change into human form. He raised himself and suspended all but his flippered tail above the water, but his arms began to shake and he felt himself caving. In order to keep from losing the gains he’d made, he twisted to one side and bent his torso over the rim. He felt the tank shift slightly beneath him, but it seemed anchored to its platform well enough to prevent it from tipping under his weight.
After a rest, during which he tried to suppress his panting so it wouldn’t wake Kai, he started sliding his hands and middle along the edge of the tank’s side, working his way back toward the ladder.
He had one hand on the back edge and was ready to shift when he heard footsteps outside, coming toward the doorway. He let out a sigh and dropped back down into the tank.
“Kai?” It was a young girl’s voice. “Hey, Kai, it’s me, Pele. You hungry, sistah?”
Ronan groaned as he heard his guard stirring, then rising from the chair.
“’Course I’m hungry. Isn’t everybody?”
“We got special treats tonight and I snuck one for you,” Pele said. “Didn’t want you to miss out just because you were helping the old woman.”
“Good of you, since you hate my guts for joining up.”
“Naah, you are my sistah. Besides, you’re just smarter than we were. Joining up is the only way to get out of this place. It’s the only reason they keep us around. They say our folks are dead, even the ones back on the new home. We don’t join up, maybe soon they stop feeding us anything.”
Kai grunted with satisfaction and tore off a big bite of doughnut, chewing it noisily.
Ronan was turned sideways to the girls and pretended not to watch. Pele and the others had certainly changed sides quickly enough, he thought bitterly. Petaybee was right about Ke-ola, but Ke-ola seemed to have far from the usual temperament in his tricky family. Exhausted, sore, and scared about what was going to happen next, Ronan wished they had just left the rest of them behind for the meteors to finish off. Then Marmie would never have been arrested, and he and Murel would never have come to this horrible place where Mabo could pounce on them.
He fully expected that soldiers would soon be dragging Murel in, to be subjected to the same treatment he’d been getting.
While Kai was munching, Pele caught him watching them. Without changing the rest of her facial expression, she gave him a one-eyed squint. A wink? Why?
She said a friendly good-bye to Kai, with a promise that she too would soon be in uniform, and departed. Kai finished her treat and settled back down beside the door. What tatters of hope and courage he’d still had deserted him. She could see everything he did before he could tell if her eyes were open or not, and e
ven if he escaped from the tank, he’d never make it past her to the door. She’d had her nap and a snack. She’d no doubt stay awake just to push her wretched button once in a while to watch him writhe in pain.
But he was wrong. No sooner had the bully girl sat down than her snores filled the hut. That was heartening, but it didn’t solve the problem of how he was to escape.
Then he heard the door open, and he feared Mabo had returned. Kai grunted and stirred but didn’t wake.
Ronan waited tensely until the person who had entered walked in far enough to see. It was Rory, in uniform, holding the collar control.
Almost silently, Rory climbed the ladder and deftly undid the collar around his neck. Ronan held his hands up, and Rory cut his bonds. A wave of anger and disgust emanated from him. Silently, he tried to help Ronan out of the tank, but it was slow going. Ronan was surprised Kai didn’t wake up. “Put that around her neck so she won’t call out if she wakes up,” he whispered.
“No worries on that score, mate,” Rory told him. “There was poppy dust on that sweet. She’ll do for now. I’m saving this jewelry as a gift for my dear old gran, if you must know.”
“It will suit her,” Ronan said. He couldn’t have spoken louder even if it were prudent. The collar had affected his throat, and he could barely whisper. The whisper was a raspy one, at that. “But I’ve no idea how to get out of this tank, even with your help.”
“We could bail, but there’s nothing to bail with,” Rory said. “It’s an awkward arrangement altogether, even for them, I’d think. I can see having it up in the air like that to make it hard for you to get out, but she wouldn’t have had time to have it built especially for you, would she?”
“No,” Ronan said. “This looks like the smaller tanks she kept in her lab on Versailles Station when I was her lab assistant—not the tanks the Honu was kept in, but some others with different sorts of fish. But those had levers for raising and lowering to clean and—”
“Where were they?” Rory asked.
“Under the lower right-hand corner of the tank.”
“Found it!” Rory said, and Ronan, battered, hungry, and exhausted as he was, felt light-headed for a moment as the room seemed to rise around him, though in reality he was going down.
So was Mabo. He intended to see to it.
“WHAT ARE YOU doing?” Marmion cried as Captain Terry pushed the throttle of the little boat so it spat forward so fast she doubted the hull touched the water. “I saw Murel and Sky. You did too! What game are you playing?”
In the time it took her to say that, the boat had covered the better part of a mile, and still the water swelled around it and tried to drag it backward and sideways.
“Did you see that thing plunge into the water? Look!” He pointed sternward, where the water coiled in snakelike swells, increasingly dark as they spilled into the center. With surprising velocity, the boat fought the waves, spurting away from the danger behind them.
Adrienne said, “Even sea creatures can’t survive that.”
“I think perhaps Murel and Sky will be able to,” Marmion said, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Something of this sort happened on Petaybee before the Piaf was seized. If this is the same force, it is something Murel can manage.”
Zuzu appeared at Adrienne’s feet, winding herself around her ankles.
“The cat’s cool, so they must be okay,” Captain Terry said thoughtfully. “They talk, you know. The cat, the otter, and the girl. I guess her brother too. So I’d expect the cat to be upset if the others were drowned. But then, you never can tell about cats.”
MUREL AND SKY saw nothing when the vessel entered the water, but Murel’s sonar told her exactly what it was, and she and Sky dived into the center of the vortex as the waters whirled around them.
What are they doing here? she wondered, as if the otter might have an answer.
Tikka missed us! Sky replied. With no otter friends, she had to slide alone.
It seems a long way to come for a sliding companion, Murel said. According to Sky, most issues had otters at the center.
The vortex pulled them in deeper than Murel ever remembered diving. They were in the middle of the trough containing the squid, and in the coils of water rising above them she spotted several of the creatures, or the parts of them not obscured by the turbulence of the spinning water.
The vortex was calm, a straight shot down the center, and there was air sucked from the surface. Multicolored lights blinked and beckoned from the towers inside the invisible dome. Murel feared that the alien Petaybeans, as she rhymed them in her mind, would not see her and Sky seeking entrance. Having just landed, the creatures would not have the benefit of their sursurvu equipment to show them what was going on beyond their city.
The spinning stopped as the city settled, and the pressures of the deep crushed the air from her. Above her, the squids recovered from their spins and set their courses straight for her. Then, as she touched the invisible barrier, it opened and she tumbled in, followed by Sky.
But Kushtaka and two of their other allies were there at the top of the dome, waiting for them. Tikka swam up and straight to Sky, who floated listlessly in the dense waterlike atmosphere of the dome. Murel recovered enough to realize that if the waters had felt crushing to her, they must have all but flattened her little friend.
Tikka took hold of Sky’s paw in her larger one. To Murel’s relief the otter turned over twice, shook himself, and said, That slide was very big!
Are you okay? Murel asked. But Sky wasn’t listening. He pulled Tikka down toward the slide that curled around the top of one spire all the way to the streets of the city.
Looking down, she saw that the street was unusually dark. On Petaybee, Kushtaka’s people had settled it over volcanic vents, which gave it a brilliant glow from the sea floor.
Did you come for us, Kushtaka? she asked.
We did not know you were here, the large otter replied. We thought we were returning to our old homeworld again, but we must have miscalculated. Our people did not respond to our hails, and nothing looks familiar.
Kushtaka, those beings seek entrance to the city, Mraka said, pointing up at a garden of waving squid arms and feeder tentacles within which the huge eyes of the creatures gleamed like high-tech holographic flowers, with light reflected from the city dancing across their lenses.
No, don’t! Murel said. Those things almost ate us.
It is strange, a squid replied, and Murel knew it referred to her. Our kind are curious. We feed seldom and it looked tasty. We wished only to try one.
If it thinks I look strangely tasty, it is going to think the same of you, Murel told Kushtaka. She had continued staring at the squid, which seemed to be trying to hypnotize her. When Kushtaka did not reply, Murel looked at her instead. Where the deep sea otter had been, another squid, albeit a somewhat smaller one, faced the ones staring in through the dome. The other deep sea otters were changing too. Maybe not, she amended. The alien Petaybeans were shape shifters like Ronan and her, but had the advantage of being able to assume a wider repertoire of shapes. Mraka and Puk were in the process of changing into squid as she watched. She hoped the squid’s dietary preferences didn’t come with the shape.
How did you come to look this way? Kushtaka asked the squids. And where are the others?
Some have changed to shapes that can burrow beneath the sea floor, others live near the vents, but without our cities. Those were destroyed when the invaders first arrived, and most of our people were killed.
No word of a great war reached our adopted world, nor even tales of a genocide.
There was no war. Nor do we believe they intended genocide. Our eradication came as a by-product of them making this world suitable for themselves. Only the hardiest of us survived, and then only because of the return of spacefarers like yourselves who helped us heal and adapt.
They wiped you out accidentally? Murel asked, disgusted. Oh, man, that’s what offworlders are always trying to do to things
on Petaybee. No wonder you tried to eat us!
Not only delicious-looking, but compassionate, the squid said. What manner of creature are you?
I’m a Petaybean shepherd seal and a shifter like yourself. I can also look like the people who ruined your world, she replied, putting the best possible spin on her dual nature. It comes in handy, she added, thinking that that made her sound more like a sea creature who spied on humans instead of a human who was occasionally a sea creature.
To Kushtaka, she said, Maybe I should go find Sky and Tikka and let you all talk among yourselves, catch up on old times, that sort of thing.
While she found it interesting that the aliens had come home to the same prison world where Marmie was being held, she didn’t see how that would make squid any less hungry, so maybe it was a good idea if she didn’t hang around looking quite as yummy as they seemed to think she was. Since they were all apparently the same species, she was fairly certain Kushtaka would let the outside squid in sooner or later, and she still didn’t relish being around when that happened.
Mraka and Puk followed her. You are troubled, Murel? Perhaps you are hungry? Shall we fish?
I could eat, but it’s not my hunger that’s worrying me, it’s that of your long-lost relatives, she told them. Would it be too much to ask you to turn back into otters again? You’ll note these scars on my neck and back? Ronan has similar ones. Your friends nearly ate us.
The two changed their shapes and tactfully refrained from mentioning that one of the sharks, at the time considered friends of the Shongilis, had eaten a member of Kushtaka’s family.
Where is your brother? Mraka asked.
He’s being held captive by a wicked old woman who wants to know how we change shape. I was trying to get help to rescue him from a boat up on the surface when you arrived. I’m afraid we can’t stay long. I need to help Ronan.
Why does she care how you change shapes? Does she wish to assume one of your shapes herself? Why does she not simply do so?
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