“Well, be that as it may, splitting them up is not an option,” Marmie told her firmly. “For one thing, it would break their hearts, and they have already been through a great deal, being separated from their parents and their home. For another thing, it can hardly have escaped your notice that ours is a small educational facility with only one class for each age group.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Professor Mabo said, barely managing to keep the impatience out of her voice. “But I have a suggestion. I think Ronan would benefit by doing an extra lab class with me, as my assistant. I have been trying to teach my grandson to do it but he is not an apt student. Initially the twins disliked the dissections, but now they seem to tolerate them well. I believe that with additional exposure, Ronan may turn into a fine little scientist.”
“He’s only ten years old, Dr. Mabo,” Marmie said.
“Immaterial.”
Ronan and Murel had been listening, with the collusion of Pet Chan, on the intercom, and now Marmion said into it, “Pet, would you have the twins join us in the observatory tearoom please?”
The professor was dressed in an elegant long scarlet robe over her ship suit. She seemed to be trying to appear relaxed, but the twins weren’t fooled.
“The professor seems to feel you two should study independently of each other for a while and has offered you, Ronan, the opportunity to be her lab assistant. What do you think?”
Careful, Murel said.
I know. I don’t trust her any more than you do, but we’ve got to start learning more about this stuff, Murel, if we’re ever going to be able to control our own shapes.
Da could—
We’re not with Da, are we? He’s too busy to help us figure this out, and besides, if he knew how, he probably would do a better job of it for himself. Remember their story about how he got shot when he was half changed?
Their message to their father for advice about the blood sample so far had gone unanswered. Pet’s advice about making the message they sent their father secure was not reassuring. “There’s all kinds of ways to secure information, and there’s also all kinds of ways for data thieves to hijack it. The safest way to do this, if it’s really important, is to set up a code with the recipient—a personal code, that is—and encrypt your message using that. Even so, data pirates have strange minds that seem to read yours and they’ve been hijacking passwords and codes for centuries. Really, the very safest thing is to hand-deliver the message by a courier both you and the recipient know and trust. If it was really imperative that the message not fall into enemy hands or be hijacked, that’s what I’d do. Of course, I have been accused of being overly paranoid, but this is the same advice I give to Madame and the procedures we follow in extreme circumstances. Of course, you understand that my duties include only her personal communications. Corporate and station security are the responsibility of other personnel.”
Since they had set up no code in advance, they wrote out the message. When Johnny stopped by prior to his supply run to Petaybee, Murel tucked it into his hand. “It’s top secret, Johnny, but really urgent. Ask Da to give you the answer before you leave.”
“I’ll do my best to corner him, Murel.”
“Really important,” she stressed.
Johnny had several other stops to make, however, and hadn’t returned as yet, nor had Da answered in any other way.
I’m going to do it, Murel, Ronan said. She’s snoopy and cranky, but she is still an expert in what we need to know about. Maybe we’ll even get to be friends and I can ask her directly sometime.
Don’t! Murel warned.
I’ll talk to you before I do, don’t worry, he promised. Aloud, he said, “I think I’d like to be your lab assistant, Professor, but except for that, Murel and I don’t like being split up. Can we stay together in class if I work for you alone afterward?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “But in my professional opinion—for your own good, mind you—you two need to work on developing some independence of thought and opinion. I realize the bond between twins is supposed to be quite close, but too much interdependence is unhealthy, particularly when they are of different genders, as you two are. You are entering puberty now, after all.”
Marmie frowned but said only, “Very well. Ronan, I’ll place a flitter at your disposal for you to return here after you finish working with Dr. Mabo each day.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the professor told her. “You have kindly placed a flitter at my disposal as well. The least I can do is to give Ronan a ride.” She turned and regarded him with clinical interest that made Murel shudder.
I bet she asks you to climb up on a slide and scoot under a giant microscope lens right away, Murel said.
She’s not going to try anything when Marmie knows right where I am. Besides, station security wouldn’t let her do anything to me.
I still have a really bad feeling about this, Ronan.
SEAN SWAM WITH the sea otters, one large gray seal among their smaller forms, gliding through the water with ease for many kilometers.
He had no trouble telling when they began swimming across the volcanic ridge since a very warm column of water bubbled to the surface. Anticipation bubbled through the otters at the same time, and suddenly they all dived at once. Sean followed.
Look at them! the senior otter exclaimed, his thought filled with blissful anticipation. Such clams! Petaybee must really love otters to give them this food.
Although the seal in Sean could certainly have eaten something, the clams were not so interesting by themselves as they were as part of the underseascape.
They had to dive quite deeply, but Sean was somewhat surprised to find it was not as deep as he would have thought. Normally, seals and otters would not be able to dive to the most extreme depths of the ocean, but it was comparatively shallow here. The volcanic activity had built up the ocean floor, forming a sort of mountain range that would build the farther south it went. Sean had observed this from a distance on other swims, but he hadn’t realized the planet was in such a hurry to produce its new landmass.
The water around them was milky blue, the color, as Sean knew, coming from the minerals and bacteria in which volcanic areas were rich.
Tall black rocky chimneys rose up from the ocean floor, which was paved with flowing billows and pillows of black lava rock. Each crevice and crack of the lava was stuffed with the foot-long clams. White crabs scuttled along over the blackness, going about their business. Like little gardens of animals, each of these communities had as its centerpiece huge clusters of exceptionally long tube worms, bursting like enormous red flowers among the other creatures.
Surfacing for air again, Sean told himself he had to return with a scientific team sometime and see what was down there. He was certain there were all manner of life forms that Intergal, the company that had ordered the planet terraformed, had no idea were there. He just wanted a quick look in seal form. All around him sea otters surfaced carrying large clams, though not the largest.
Are they good? he asked the nearest otter conversationally.
Delectable. Bright red meat and lots of it. But opening them is tricky. They’re not of a size you can crack open on your chest without cracking otters as well as clams.
When we get back, I’ll change into man form and get a heavy rock to open them for you, he promised.
You will? The sea otter’s round eyes got, if anything, rounder in his round face. Did you otters hear that? Go for the big ones! The river seal will help us open them and there will be feasting for us all!
The surface thrashed with otter bodies diving down and popping up with clams bigger than their heads. Each otter could carry only one clam. Soon, Sean knew, they’d be ready to return. I’ll just swim ahead a little and circle back and catch up with you, he told them. I want to see the New Home where it is building the quickest.
There’s not as much food there, an otter told him. Too hot, too busy. Hey! No fair slipping out of otter paws! Come
back you! And his sleek rump surfaced for a moment before it smoothly vanished under the waves. For the first time Sean noticed that off in the distance what had seemed to be low cloud cover was actually rolling smoke. Petaybee surely was cooking with gas now.
He swam swiftly forward. The bubbly warm spots grew more frequent, until the entire ocean seemed to be warmer by many degrees. He caught fish simply because he had to swim through so many of them to proceed and it was easier to catch some than to go around them.
The water grew warmer and warmer, like bathwater and not unpleasant. The seawater cooled the molten lava almost at once, though that would not be the case once the volcano grew until it erupted on the surface. He wondered how close that was. He’d been feeling a bit foolish for deciding to reconnoiter by swimming over the site, but with the smoke and ash piling up on the horizon, aircraft would be in danger of getting their motors and other sensitive parts clogged.
Soon he realized that he’d left the otters far behind. He could see the bottom of the ocean beneath him now simply by looking down. The piping black smokers and the gentle lava pillows stuffed with clams and other sealife had long ago given way to some true volcanic mounds with vents in the middle. Diving down, he could see a long way into them, into the heart of Petaybee.
He got so busy looking down and diving to swim around the vents and examine the life forms there that he forgot to look up and ahead until the entire ocean shook like jelly, sloshing him about. He was startled to see that a real mountain loomed ahead of him, the summit just below the ocean’s surface.
It was brilliant! What a wonderful opportunity. He wondered why he had seen no larger animal life so far, whales or dolphins. They would all love the fish and other animal and plant life as much as the otters. But he did not hear them or sense them. Perhaps the change in the depth and temperature of the water had caused them to shy away. The mineral content was much different around the vents too, some of it toxic. He trusted his seal nose to keep him away from the dangerous parts. The otters, with their curiosity, seemed to be the only mammals venturing close enough to be harmed. But they had been very clever about diving, snatching up what they wanted, and surfacing again.
The sight of the billowing smoke sobered him. It had been foolish to come out here as a seal, he thought. Better to come with machinery and instruments. Petaybee giving birth was not likely to be tolerant. For that matter, Yana, who loved him, hadn’t been in the best of moods while in labor. One more dive and then he’d call it quits and follow the otters back to shore.
His dive took him to the base of the underwater mountain. Quake after quake, at first small and then larger, shook the water and sent rocks tumbling down from above.
The water was murky here from all of the sediment. Circling the mountain’s base, he tried to gain some idea of its size and shape. Then, in a deep rift below the mountain’s base, he spotted something curiously angular and shining, despite the sediment and rock. He surfaced, caught his breath, and dived again. It could hardly be a shipwreck since Petaybee had never had large ships on her waters. The ports were all icebound too much of the year to make it feasible. It could have been a space vessel or even the wreck of a station, but there had been no report he could recall of such a crash. And it would have been noticed. The impression he had was of something as vast as a city.
He forced himself to dive deeper than he had done so far on this journey. The area in question was indeed filled with what seemed to be manufactured structures—angular, architectural, though indistinct because of the opacity of the water. Lying in the rift as it was, it could even be the ruins of some ancient Petaybean civilization, from the look of it.
But before Intergal had terraformed the planet, it had been little more than a ball of ice and rock, and for all anyone could tell, had never been inhabited by sentient life prior to its colonization.
Of course, as his people knew, the planet was itself a sentient being, but still, it didn’t build cities, or at least had never been known to do so.
But maybe eons ago there had been other life here and they built this city and perhaps others, still buried under the sediment on the ocean’s floor. Although the mountain above him rumbled and shook and showered more rocks and debris so they shot into the water like deadly missiles, Sean dived a little deeper.
Yes, it could be a ruin, although everything looked remarkably intact and—there seemed to be lights. Perhaps it was just molten lava glowing up from beneath, in which case this ruin would be ruined once more in very short order. But it didn’t have the red glow of lava, or the green or blue iridescence Petaybee often displayed. No, this light was brighter, whiter, less natural-looking.
He could go no farther without another breath. He shot for the surface, thinking of the lights and what appeared to be buildings where none should be. Though his mind was occupied, his eyes saw the boulder crashing toward him from the murk, and his seal reflexes responded. Those reflexes were fast, and sent him into a dive, but they were not fast enough to evade the impact. A single boulder avalanche smashed into his body, and the pain of it was the last thing he knew.
CHAPTER 16
HOW’S IT GOING? Murel asked from class, as Ronan pushed a broom around the laboratory.
So far all I’m doing is housework, he told her. She won’t even let me ask any questions. I think we were worried about nothing. She’s like every other scientist we’ve ever met, so wrapped up in what she’s doing when she’s working that she doesn’t even think about other people.
Yeah, that sounds familiar. She loaded us down with homework too. But so did the others.
After a while Murel stopped checking in with him, which gave Ronan a lonely feeling. Professor Mabo kept him for a couple of hours every afternoon after classes mostly picking up after her and tidying the lab.
DURING THE FIRST week Ronan worked for Professor Mabo, Murel had the feeling she’d forgotten or had lost something. She wasn’t used to being alone, even in her own thoughts, and it felt weird.
She went back to Marmie’s alone the first couple of afternoons, but it was just too lonesome with nothing to do but try to get Ro to tell her what he was doing. She knew how lame that was. Other kids could spend five minutes without their brothers around. What did they do?
She made the mistake of whining about it to Pet Chan, who said, “For pity’s sake, Murel! Here you are on a space station with a computer that holds the knowledge of the universe in its data-banks, holo decks to play on where you could be anything and do anything, and you’re bored because your brother has to work after school? Give me a break!”
She made a mental note that security personnel, even those who made great cookies, were disinclined to be sympathetic about catastrophes that didn’t actually involve explosions, break-ins, beatings, or murders. But she had one more whine coming. “Yes, but I don’t know how to use half this stuff. Remember us, the hick kids from the low-tech world? How do you turn on a holo deck anyway?”
She thought she had shamed Pet into feeling sorry for her. Maybe the security woman, who did after all sometimes make those great cookies, would see how mean she was being to a poor twinless girl and would put aside what she was doing and take her down and make up some story to play with her on the holo deck. People did that, Murel knew. She just didn’t know how they did it exactly.
Pet did turn aside from the security cameras, and for a moment Murel thought she was going to get her way, but then Pet said in a tone worthy of Nanook or Coaxtl, “Not my problem, child. I understand there’s a whiz kid student aide on call, so call, already, and let me get my work done.”
Murel scrubbed tears from her eyes as she climbed into the flitter that took her to the holo deck. She’d do that. She’d show Pet and Ro and all the rest of them. She’d make up some holo where they were all getting chased down by polar bears and if they screamed loudly, she might decide to rescue them. Maybe. Maybe not. She was pretty sure the bear would probably eat Dr. Mabo before she could be rescued. Of course, t
hat wasn’t a very good thing to do to the bear. Probably break its teeth on the stringy old bat.
She flounced in, not paying much attention. Most of the time the holo lab was a big blue grid, but now there was a sandy beach and huge blue waves breaking off it. Ke-ola sat on the beach playing some kind of a little guitar while people danced a swaying dance with a lot of hand motions and sang beautiful songs and ate roast pig. Everybody had flowers around their necks. It looked like a lot of fun, but Ke-ola was sitting apart from everybody else, his fingers barely touching the instrument, staring out to sea. He wasn’t in a good mood either, for the first time since she’d met him. Maybe it was something in the ventilation system that day. Big tears were rolling down his broad brown cheeks.
“Hey, Ke-ola, can I come to your party?” she asked.
“Better you go away, little sistah,” he said. “This luau is just for us ghosts.”
“Ghosts? You’re not a ghost.” He really was in a bad mood.
“Oh yes, I am,” he said. He clapped his hands, and now they were standing on a dirty street between two tall buildings. The sea was still out there but it rolled in a sluggish way and it was a muddy brown color. Where they had been before, with all the happy people, was an island clearly visible from where they stood now.
“You know what happened there, to that place? That second place where we lived?”
“You said there was something there the company wanted so they made you move,” she said.
“No. This,” he said. And suddenly a blinding light flashed. When she could see again, the island was bare of people and palms, and the sea and sand were slimy with bits of dead fish and seaweed. “What our new home had that they wanted so much we had to go? It was far from other places. So they set off bombs there to see how much damage they did. Better to blow it up than to let us live there.”
“That freezes,” she said.
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