Changelings

by Anne McCaffrey

  His sister didn’t say anything as he climbed aboard her sled and she shouted at Dinah, the lead dog, to go. Sinead wasn’t happy to see her niece and nephew vanish into space either, but she understood the necessity.

  Back in Kilcoole they met with Liam Maloney, the borough sheriff. Sinead herself was now Game Warden and Environmental Control Officer. Two of her rangers and two of Liam’s deputies brought their teams along as well. Dierdre Angalook, a student of Clodagh’s who studied animal healing, rode a curly coat and brought saddlebags full of items for otter first aid.

  “Are you all armed?” Sean asked.

  “Yes, Guv,” Liam answered.

  “Can’t be too careful with otter rustlers, can we?” Sinead asked.

  Sean nodded his head gravely in agreement. “Okay, otter posse, I’ll meet you by the shack.”

  He had an ice fishing shack on the river he used for removing his clothing before dropping through the hole and changing into seal form. Marmion had provided him with a suit similar to the ones she’d given the children. She said she was glad to find something useful to give him for his birthday. Once he transformed, he swam over to the otter’s den. Are you ready, Otter? My friends are on their way.

  Yes, Father River Seal, but where are Murel and Ronan? Otters like brave children. Otters find them very reassuring.

  They had to leave, Otter. They are indeed brave children and their mother and I are very proud of them, but they aren’t always very wise. I believe the people who took your family did so because they were curious about Murel and Ronan. They must have seen them changing.

  “Hah!” the otter said. When we get my family back, will you send the men away and let Murel and Ronan return?

  As soon as possible, Otter, Sean said.

  The dog teams pulled up alongside the bank near the ice fishing shack. Sean surfaced, but the otter stayed under the ice. “The otter tunnels are just before the Chatanika Falls. We’ll stop before we reach the tunnels. Keep as silent as possible and be alert for any signs of surveillance from the woods or elsewhere. We’ll meet you there.”

  He and the otter swam on, their noses and eyes barely above the water. They dived under the ice whenever possible. On the banks, the sleds shushed along beside and slightly behind them. Otters and seals were both very fast swimmers, while dogs had to stop to sniff things and take turns yellowing the snow and making their deposits.

  Nanook and Coaxtl ranged along with the others, leaving a scallop of tracks along the river as they ran half circles around the dogsleds. Nanook ran along the side of the river where the mushers were, Coaxtl took the opposite side. Away they’d race to the surrounding woods, sniff a few rocks and bits of vegetation, and then return to the river. A half a klick before Sean and the otter reached the ruined tunnels, Nanook spoke to Sean.

  There. They are back there. I smell them. I smell otters too. Frightened, angry otters. Now the men will smell like them.

  Does the scent grow stronger or weaker the farther downriver we go? Sean asked.

  Nanook sniffed for a moment longer, then replied, Weaker.

  Can you pick up the trail at that point?

  I can. I am standing on it now.

  Otter, did you understand Nanook?

  Cats do not speak as clearly in the mind as otters or river seals, but the cat’s meaning was clear. Do we leave the river now?

  I will, at least. You may stay here if you wish.

  No, my family will feel better if I am near to reassure them. Also, other otters may speak to me when we are closer and I can speak to you.

  Fair enough, Sean said. He dived, leapt, and landed on the ice, then slid across to the bank, where he shook off the water and donned Marmie’s silver warm suit.

  It felt almost too warm to Sean but he was glad of the cover and admired the way it kept out the wind that stirred the light dusting of new snow across the ice.

  Something low and brown streaked past him. The otter. Hah! Come, Father River Seal, I’ll race you to the cat, he called.

  Nobody races anybody, Otter, Sean told him. We must go quietly and carefully, stalk these men as if they are prey.

  Fish? the otter asked.

  Very slippery fish.

  Slippery fish who steal otters.

  Keep trying to talk to the other otters. Let me know when you get a response, if they can tell us anything about where they’re being held, what kind of condition they’re in, how many men there are.

  How many? A hundred, Father River Seal. A hundred otter-stealing men all with big tight nets.

  I can see this might be a problem, Sean said. Murel had told him about the otter and counting. Can you get them to say, “the man with the torn coat” or “the man with the beard,” and tell us who each of them is that way? Then we’ll have a better idea how many there actually are.

  Otters can do that. Otters have good eyes.

  And try to stay back here near us, Otter. If you run ahead of us too far, the men might capture you too.

  Otters can be very fast, but otters can also be sloooow, like men and dogs and cats.

  Carrreful who you call slow, little beast. This cat can run down a caribou herd, Coaxtl grumbled.

  The woods were still, as if holding their breath, when the rescue party, dog teams, and the curly coat slipped into the forest almost as silently as falling snowflakes.

  The otter chirped and gibbered seemingly to himself, but Sean realized these were the outward manifestations of the little creature’s attempts to link minds with his family members.

  My mother! She is alive! the otter declared at last. She did not want me to come because she feared I would be captured too, but at the same time she was thinking that, she was thinking, “Get me out out out.” And she did not know until I told her that the father of river seals and his hundred friends with their sharp-toothed dogs and their long-clawed cats are with me. She was afraid of you too until I told her that you are the father of Murel and Ronan River Seal, the friends who attack wolves who try to eat otters.

  I trust she was reassured by the news?

  Oh, yes.

  Did she give you any idea of how far away the men took her and the others?

  Otter didn’t answer for a moment, then said, Not far. Otters had no time to bite through nets before they were put in dens with heavy bars on them.

  Sean considered. Apparently, while he could converse with the otter who was with him, he was not sufficiently attuned to the species to share long-distance inter-otter telepathic communications.

  And how many men—can she say what each man there is like?

  After another pause, the otter said, There is man with wind like dead things, man with chin fur, man with wet nose, man with longer chin fur, man with lip fur but no chin fur, young female and old female.

  Is that all?

  Mother says yes. Hah! Mother is growling. Man puts hands on her.

  Can’t have that, now can we? Sean said, and made a sweeping gesture with his arm ending with a point in the direction the track cats were following. The dog teams and the curly coat swung in behind.

  Sean took several more strides forward and saw Nanook’s tail whipping back and forth across the trail in front of him.

  Here, Sean. Otters are here, Nanook told him.

  That was immediately evident, as from beyond Nanook came otter chirpings and jabberings and explosive “Hah!” “Hah!” sounds in the voices of, if not a hundred otters, at least fifteen.

  And human voices called out suddenly too. “What’s with these specimens all of a sudden? They sound like someone stuck a pin in them and let the air out.”

  “Omigod, I see what the problem is. They see that big old house cat there. Here kitty kitty . . . kitty like otter meat?”

  Nanook growled low in his throat, but Coaxtl let out a roar that sounded as if it came from deep inside a cave instead of a snow leopard’s chest.

  Sean caught up with the cat. “Slainté. What are you doing with these otters?”

&nbs
p; “Uh, studying them.”

  “Yes, we have seen some unusual creatures on this planet and we want to make sure these otters are the ordinary kind and not some strange Petaybean hybrid.”

  “What if they are a Petaybean hybrid?” Sean asked. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Dr. Sean Shongili. My grandfather collected and adapted the creatures here on Petaybee. I don’t think he’d appreciate it if you attempt to reverse-engineer his otters.”

  Sinead stepped into the clearing as well. The men kept the otter cages in the open but they had puff tents for themselves. The puff tents were first cousin to the Nakatira cubes. You set them up, opened a valve, and they inflated themselves with a foot of air in walls, floor, and ceiling. Furthermore, they were totally fireproof, so a heating device or even cooking equipment could be used inside them if the occupants were very careful about how they moved. Four of these tents were set up among the spindly trees that were part of the landscape on this part of the planet. Because of the deep ice, even very mature trees reached no great girth. The otter cages were on a table in the center of the clearing, where they would be in full view of the occupants of each puff tent.

  “I am Sinead Shongili, and I’m the game warden for this area. I don’t recall issuing you an otter-molesting permit, folks. If our creatures need taking care of or keeping track of, my rangers and I see to it. I’ll thank you to release the creatures you have in custody. If any of them have been injured or killed while in your care, you must turn them over to me in the name of the Kilcoole Wildlife Council.”

  “What is it with you Shongilis, coming out here to throw your weight around?”

  Liam Maloney stepped forward now. “Dr. Sean and his wife are the co-governors of Petaybee. I am Sheriff Maloney, and you are in violation of ever so many serious statutes. Do as Warden Sinead says and release the otters or we’ll be lockin’ yourselves up instead.”

  “I believe I can clear this up, sirs and madam,” said the small wizened woman with the dark brown skin and heavily chiseled broad features of an aboriginal New Adelaidian. “I am Dr. Marie Mabo of IGISI, the Inter Galactic Institute of Species Identification. My team and I are here by their authority, so naturally I assumed that our presence and mission were known to and approved by local officials as well. We have been observing these creatures in their wild state for some time and two days ago were privileged to see them interacting peaceably with a pair of seals who seemed to be accompanied by a pair of children who fended off a wolf attack.”

  “You saw the wolves menacing the children and you did nothing to help?”

  “It looked like the wolves were doing fine to me,” said the man the otters had identified as the one with fur on his chin.

  “That will do, Eric!” Dr. Mabo said. To the Petaybeans, she said, “I apologize that my colleague chooses to display his rather sardonic sense of humor at such an inappropriate moment. I do realize the children must have been yours, Warden, since you and your canines and felines came to their rescue. Had you but known it, we were right behind you, ready to intervene ourselves. We hesitated only because we truly had no wish to shoot the beautiful wolves encircling the children and it seemed we had no alternative. You proved us wrong.”

  “Did, didn’t I?” Sinead said. She stepped forward, her rifle over her arm, and opened an otter cage. There were only three otters in it but they seemed to explode all over the clearing in their haste to get away, and looked like at least ten times their number. No wonder the otter thought he had a hundred family members.

  Sinead signaled her rangers to continue opening cages while she opened the puff tents. An anesthetized pregnant female otter lay on a folding table. Her belly was shaved and a needle fed into one of her paws. She was shivering either from shock or hypothermia. Computer equipment in an enclosed thermal shell lined one side of the tent.

  Sinead picked her up and folded her inside a special pouch she carried next to her body. She carried the otter in the pouch over to the curly coat where Deirdre Angalook, Clodagh’s student, received her, bundling the injured animal to her as if she were a baby. The only other otter to be seen by the time she emerged was the one who had accompanied them from Kilcoole.

  “I’m guessin’ the only reason you put this little one out was so she wouldn’t bite your hand off, right?” she said to Dr. Mabo.

  “Actually, we wanted to preserve the specimens as long as possible for more testing,” Eric the Whiskers said.

  Dr. Mabo whipped around so fast the hood from her parka fell away from her face. “Somebody gag him,” she said.

  “Nobody will be gaggin’ anybody else,” Liam Maloney said. “But we’ll be cuffing all of you and then taking you back to Kilcoole for deportation, at least until your institute sees fit to consult with us before conducting a study on our four-legged friends.”

  Deputy Tukaluk walked around the tents and into the forest. “They got a snocle over here, Sheriff. Big one. I never saw one this big. Musta brought it with them when they landed.”

  “How many will it hold exactly?” Sean asked.

  “Six and a driver,” Tukaluk said.

  “Very well, then. I’ll drive and Dr. Mabo can ride in Sinead’s sled on the way back.”

  “Ought to make them walk, Sean,” Liam said.

  “That would slow us down too much,” he replied. “I’ve business back in Kilcoole. I must tell my children, for one thing, that the otters have been released and are safe.”

  “Those were your children, then, Dr. Shongili?” Marie Mabo asked, but not as if she didn’t already know.

  “They were. And like my sister the Game Warden, they are extremely protective of the other species on this planet.”

  “I’d very much like to talk to them and apologize for worrying them,” Dr. Mabo said. “They’re the age of my grandchildren, and we certainly didn’t mean to frighten them.”

  Sean’s heart pounded extra loud for a couple of beats before he said, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. They’ve gone to visit a friend offworld. I’ll relay your apologies.”

  After the cuffed prisoners had been loaded into the snocle, Sean took the helm. Sinead had already strapped Dr. Mabo to her sled. Deirdre and the injured otter took off on the curly coat while the other sleds followed. Nobody remembered the single otter that had not run away.

  In moments only tracks remained where the rescue party, the offworld scientists, and the captive otters had been. The lone remaining otter returned to the tunnels where he had played with his family and the river seals, but they were still smashed and still abandoned.

  CHAPTER 10

  AT MARMIE’S INSTRUCTIONS, as soon as the communications officer received word from Kilcoole about the capture of the otter rustlers, she reported straight to Ronan and Murel.

  “Oh, good,” Murel said absently.

  Ronan nodded and said, “Serves ’em right.”

  If the ship’s crew was expecting a big reaction from the children about this bit of news that, according to the boss, the Petaybean kids had been waiting for throughout the trip, they were disappointed.

  The twins had eyes for nothing but the viewscreen. Through it they watched the space station, its lights in the darkness of space making it look as if it were decorated for the holidays. Larger and larger it grew until it filled up the screen and only a tiny portion of it was visible. Then that portion, the port hatch, opened like a water lily unfolding to receive the ship into its heart.

  “Reminds me of the otter’s den,” Murel said, smiling to her brother, who grinned back as they raced to their quarters. There, they gathered the few things they’d brought with them, their warm suits and their more conventional parkas, mukluks, snow pants, and mittens for when they went home, plus pouches of Clodagh’s remedies and the journals Mum had given them.

  When they followed Marmie out of the ship into the docking bay, they looked all around them.

  It’s huge, Murel said, her neck straining as she looked up and up and up. Flitters, carrying
passengers, zipped from a wall to a bit of ceiling to another bit of wall, busy as—well, insects. It didn’t matter if they were bees or wasps or mosquitoes.

  Yeah, Ronan said. I bet you could fit all of Kilcoole in just this part.

  His sister nodded mutely.

  “Come along, children,” Marmie said. “We can do the tour after you’ve settled in a bit.”

  A flitter landed in front of them. A very handsome man in a uniform was at the helm.

  “Is that your husband come to collect us, Marmie?” Murel asked.

  “No, dear, he’s one of the chauffeurs, I suppose you might say. There’s an entire cadre of them here just to man the flitter fleet.”

  “Flitter fleet?” Ronan asked, laughing. And had to say it several times over until Murel said privately, Stop. It’s getting annoying. You don’t want Marmie to get cross, do you?

  Marmie’s not cross. You’re the one being bossy. What do you think? Now that we don’t have Nanook and Coaxtl to mind us you get to be in charge? Not likely, my girl!

  Now you’re being snotty. I just want us to make a good impression. Marmie is our friend but she’s a very important lady.

  So? Mum and Da are governors. That makes them just as important.

  Yes, but not us. Mum and Da are our parents. They have to love us. Marmie doesn’t.

  Maybe she’ll get mad at us and send us back, Ronan said. I wouldn’t mind.

  You’d mind by the time Mum got done with you, and once she was through, Clodagh would be after us. We’d bring disgrace to all of Petaybee if Marmie sent us back because we were too big a handful for her.

  I don’t think that will be a problem. If she gets tired of us, she can just hand us over to the cadre of chauffeurs and their fleet of flitters. With this he began shaking again with another fit of the giggles.