Changelings

by Anne McCaffrey

  As the volcanoes blew and the islands formed and joined, it seemed to Murel that the sea itself was working with their party, a pathetically puny bunch of humans, occasionally some seals, plus an otter and a sea turtle. Instead of swamping the boat, the waves picked it up and carried it away from the volcano. They had been perhaps a mile away from the throbbing dome to begin with, but soon the swells carried them two miles, then five, then ten miles farther from it. By the time the cone’s pumping escalated into the fountain they’d been expecting, they were safely away from it. The lifeboat, still attached to the yacht, was also carried to safety. Honu and Sky ceased swimming back and forth and watched as the other sea creatures paraded past, greeting the new arrival, which would breed food and shelter for them in time to come.

  Ke-ola did not stop singing and stamping, however, and neither did the twins or anyone else, though they badly wanted to. Surely it was safe now? But maybe not. There were still those volcanic beds beneath the sea even this far out. Murel thought they would be agitated too.

  But she got out only another half-dozen stomps and another line of chanting that she wasn’t even sure got from her sandpapered throat to her mouth. Then her legs gave out and she sat down on the deck. To her surprise, she saw that Mum and Da were also both sitting down and no longer chanting. Ronan almost fell on top of her. Still, the rhythm and melody of the chant rolled on toward the volcano, as strongly as ever, and the beat seemed even stronger. Maybe the people in the lifeboat, sitting as they were, could carry on with more force?

  But as she glanced back she saw that something different was happening. A line of fishing boats bobbed along on the yacht’s port side, and more were fighting the waves to reach them, the paddles keeping time with the chant. No motors were running now. With the ash in the air, they would suffer the same fate as the yacht’s engines.

  Everyone seemed to be carrying the melody of Ke-ola’s chant, which was a good thing, because strong as he was, their classmate was beginning to droop a little.

  But reinforcements came just in time. Clodagh climbed over the side of the boat, as always amazingly graceful despite her great size, and, singing and stamping as she went in a kind of a dance, she joined Ke-ola, singing the same words he sang. The first time he faltered, she touched his shoulder to signal him to sit.

  She sang only a few lines more before the cherry red of the volcano faded to orange, then yellow. The rumbling quieted, the smoke cleared, and a shallow star of land rose above the ocean’s surface, its rays spreading from the central crater, while the sky’s bloody fever receded to a rosy blush.

  CHAPTER 23

  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED next, because nobody who was at the volcano was able to talk or move around much for the next couple of weeks.

  The fishing boats rescued the yacht crew and passengers and relayed them back to shore. The copter, which Johnny had left near the river otter dens when he and Yana finally joined up with Marmie and the yacht, once its motor was also cleaned, returned them all to Kilcoole.

  But nobody talked, because nobody could. It was even too much trouble to thought-speak for a long time because the chant was burned into their brains. Murel’s feet hurt up to her tonsils.

  Clodagh’s student, Deirdre Angalook, under the drooping eyelids of her teacher, made up salves, tinctures, syrups, and packs for everyone’s lungs, throats, and muscles. By the time she had everyone dosed, she needed sleep and the muscle salve herself.

  Finally, Murel, Ronan, and their dad were able to walk as far as the river and change to seal form, which was easier because then they wouldn’t have to walk and their seal muscles were configured differently. The river was silvery and cool, the slender trees on the banks a hundred shades of green—evergreen, or variegating from silver green to grass—as they flipped back and forth in the wind. Mum put on a wet suit and joined them since even in the summer the water of the Kilcoole River was too cold to brave for long in just human skin. The sky was the blue of a glacier, with fluffy clouds and no hint of smoke or steam, but the light faded far more quickly than it had just two weeks before. Some of the leaves on the deciduous trees were already yellowing where the sun lingered on them the longest.

  A little after the twins and their parents entered the river, Clodagh, Dierdre, and Ke-ola ambled down to meet them. Ke-ola actually looked great for a guy who’d done all that stomping around.

  “Did Dierdre give you extra salve while you’ve been staying up at Clodagh’s?” Murel asked him when she’d dragged herself out of the river, dried off, and put on the change of clothes she’d brought along. Her voice was still a bit husky, but at least audible now.

  “Naw, it’s that gravity thing,” he said, sounding almost normal. “I’m used to being heavier so I’m way stronger than you wimpy Petaybee guys. I could go back out and talk to Pele Petaybee some more right now if I wanted to.”

  Ronan was out of the water now too, and said, although he was once more in human form, “I flash my furry seal butt at you, big fella, and flap my hind flippers in your general direction. I don’t want to see anything hotter than a teakettle for the rest of my life.”

  Ke-ola laughed and waded in, turned the color of the sky and waded out again.

  “We can take you to the hot springs if you fancy a dip,” Murel offered. “And there’s parts of the river warmer than this, but this was the closest place with any privacy.”

  He nodded and lay back on the grassy bank with his head cupped in his palms.

  Mum used the newcomers’ arrival as an excuse to escape the water. She did her best, but she just wasn’t a watery person at heart. “Clodagh, I need to know something.”

  Clodagh lifted her eyebrows. She never used words where an expression or action could do the job, and seldom used two words when one would do.

  “Why did all of you show up in the fishing boats the way you did, when you did, and how did you learn Ke-ola’s chant?”

  “Petaybee told us,” she said simply.

  It was Mum’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “It did?”

  “Sure. We were all down in the caves when the drumming started coming through the walls, and the words. We knew you were out there with that volcano, so that was the only place it could be coming from. Petaybee echoing the words back was a good sign that the planet liked what you were doin’, so we joined you.” She shrugged. “That’s all.”

  “Well, of course,” Mum said. “Silly me. Who wouldn’t mount a major rescue operation on the basis of an echoed chant heard inside a cave from hundreds of miles away. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Clodagh patted her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Yana. You’re not a cheechako anymore, but you didn’t grow up here. You’ll get used to our ways one of these days.”

  A wistful look spread across Ke-ola’s big face, but he said, “You folks think I could borrow a boat to go check on the Honu?”

  Clodagh surprised him. “Not now. Maybe later. Fall latchkay time now. Lots of people coming and we gotta get ready.”

  He nodded but Murel could see he was disappointed.

  “But latchkays are wonderful, Ke-ola. You’ll like them and—Ke-ola gets to come, doesn’t he, Clodagh?”

  “Sure. Marmie isn’t leaving until after so you can all come.”

  I don’t like the sound of that, Ronan said. What does she mean “all”?

  They wouldn’t make us go back to the space station now. Not after we saved Da and everything. They can’t! And Ke-ola saved all of us. They can’t send him back too. He likes Petaybee. I know he does.

  It’s too cold for him, sis, and winter’s coming.

  Well, but—well, it just wouldn’t be fair. He should get to pick.

  WHEN THE HUMANS returned to Kilcoole, Sky and the Honu stayed behind so the Honu could swim and commune with the sea otters and absorb more information about the place he felt would become his new home. Sky had remained behind to tell his hundreds of relatives and the sea otters all about his adventures,

  Sky otte
rs, he told his hundreds of relatives, now including the sea otter cousins, know all kinds of creatures, like this big shell one. He is not a big clam and he is not to eat. He is a turtle and a very important creature. He came with his own human from a place far away that is not our home. But he helped keep the volcano from killing everybody, otters, humans, everyone, so he must belong here. So otters can play with him and talk to him but not harm him.

  What happened out there after we left? the sea otters wanted to know. And Sky had a long and enjoyable time of it telling them in great and colorful—and because he was an otter, somewhat smelly—detail of the adventures they missed.

  While the others prepared for the latchkay, Johnny Green and Marmie accommodated Ke-ola by taking him out to visit the Honu. When they returned, Sky came with them.

  Ke-ola was looking a little more satisfied. Sky scampered off the copter ahead of him.

  Ke-ola had no fancier clothing than his bright colored ship suit and the flowered shorts he swam in, but Clodagh said she thought he could wear some of her things.

  However, when the drumming began at the longhouse and everyone filed past the stew steaming in the cleaned-out fuel drum heating over the open fire, Ke-ola wore his ship suit. One of Clodagh’s extra snow shirts was draped over his lap, humped up in the middle.

  “We looked for you all day long but couldn’t find you anywhere,” Murel whispered fiercely. “Where were you?”

  “I had stuff I had to do,” he said, his lower lip squashing into his upper one as he looked down at her to see if she bought it. There was a ghost of the old twinkle in his eye. He was still pretty tired, she guessed, and also sad. He’d miss the Honu. Maybe Marmie would let him swim in her river sometime. Maybe they’d all end up swimming in it together. She decided not to think about that.

  Speeches were made, and Clodagh said there would be songs to sing about the volcano, but everyone’s throat was still very sore right now, so that night no one would sing of it, except for one repeat of the chant, for those in the village who had not come.

  Ke-ola laid aside the snow shirt and what was under it and obligingly sang the chant and stamped the rhythm, as did all of the others who had been there. Then it was time for the smoked salmon to get passed around and a few more speeches.

  But finally Ke-ola stood up himself and said, “I want to do something before it’s time to go. This is something my people used to do all the time, and now only at special times, and with special people. These aren’t what we usually use but I did what I could with them.”

  He lifted the shirt, under which was a mound of flowers, purple and magenta fireweed and lupine, pink wild roses, white wild daisies. Only the flowers, none of the stems. It must have taken him hours and hours, since the fireweed was a cluster flower. Lifting a few in his fingers, he brought up a long necklace made of them and put them around Clodagh’s neck, kissing her on both cheeks and saying, “Aloha, Auntie.”

  He did the same for Marmie, Johnny, Yana, and Sean, and last for Ronan and Murel. The wild roses were for Murel, and she stroked the already wilting petals.

  “These are flower leis. In old times they were made of plumeria, frangipani, and other beautiful flowers from our islands, to welcome people. But I made these to thank you for your hospitality.”

  “No dance tonight,” Clodagh told everybody. “Meet in the communion cave in an hour.”

  People murmured among themselves. Some folks had traveled from as far away as Harrison’s Fjord to attend this latchkay, and the amenities were being dispensed with. Everything was so hurried up these days, what with the offworlders here. Even Clodagh seemed to be losing her feeling for the stateliness of the old ways.

  Murel and Ronan grabbed Ke-ola’s arms and immediately headed with him down to the hot springs. They knew he’d enjoy a nice warm swim, and they wanted to show off the beautiful waterfall and steaming pools, one falling into the other, where their parents told them they had fallen in love.

  The twins dived and splashed for a while but soon fell into the same mood as Ke-ola, who floated on his back and admired the new night sky.

  Before long the others began arriving and filing into the waterfall, with the cave behind its shimmering curtain.

  The three of them got out, dried off, and dressed. Marmie and Johnny, Mum and Da, Clodagh, Dierdre, and Dr. Fiske were just arriving. Mum put her arm around Ronan, Da around Murel, and Johnny Green clapped Ke-ola on the shoulder. They walked straight through the outer cave and down the winding path into the innermost one.

  They stepped cautiously forward as they reached the inner cave. Murel let out a sigh of relief. Ronan said, Much better than last time, yeah?

  Much. Petaybee is glad we’re home. I almost feel like the planet is giving us a lei too.

  Yeah, like we’re being honored or something. As we should be. Really, we’ve been wonderful.

  She batted at him. We did good, but Ke-ola was really the hero. He’s such a good guy, Ro, and he’s just sort of lost.

  Yeah, well . . .

  They all sat, and Murel was afraid she was going to have to explain things to Ke-ola, but when the planet began talking, he just snuggled back against the rocky cave wall with a huge grin on his face. So Murel relaxed and gave herself up to the experience.

  Maybe it was just the recent volcanic activity, but Petaybee seemed more excited than usual, stimulated, happy even. The cave walls glowed with the cherry red of lava, and Murel felt the beat of her own feet on the shipboard and seemed to hear the chant resounding through the stone. A breeze blew through the cave, the scent of flowers on it—surely not the flowers Mum and the others still wore with their leis? These flowers were as heavily and sweetly perfumed as anything Murel had ever smelled before. She felt something soft under her fingers and looked down. Sky lay beside her, his head cradled on her leg, looking utterly peaceful and happy.

  Paradise. Petaybee was already very good, but tonight it felt like paradise. Which, she realized, was a concept from ancient religions found mostly in old books these days. But it meant that a place was the best of all possible places, an ideal place. Tonight Petaybee showed them how it could make a place with no ice, where the water was warm and the wind was balmy.

  Great round rolling waves seemed to break at her feet, which felt as if they were bare and buried in something pleasantly hot and gritty. The roar of the water was as great and as oddly comforting as Coaxtl’s purr. These rhythmic swells had a completely different feeling than the fierce and frightening crescendos of water that had pounded the yacht.

  Then, gradually, the sense of being beside the lovely sea faded, and the only watery roar she heard was that of the waterfall at the mouth of the communion cave. Murel caught one last fleeting impression of foamy pearls left glistening in front of her toes before the seaside sensations washed away entirely.

  People began to stir and move. Clodagh was the first to rise.

  She smiled beatifically. “Well, Petaybee has spoken. Did everybody get the message?”

  People nodded to each other, though some a little doubtfully.

  Murel wondered what the shanachie meant, since usually the communion was somewhat different from person to person. Mum and Da, for instance, were so tightly entwined they seemed to entirely forget where they were.

  Ke-ola opened his eyes, blinking, then rubbing them.

  “You, young man, you understand what our world is saying?” Clodagh asked.

  He shrugged. “I—I think so.”

  “I hope you do, because Petaybee told me that you, of all the people here, are the one who understands the need for the warm landmass and the one who wants it. You were the one to welcome it with your song. Soon Marmie’s ship will be flying back into space, and before you go, Petaybee has a question. Did you get it?”

  He blinked and shook his head uncertainly.

  “You, Murel and Ronan, did you?”

  They exchanged looks, widened their eyes at Clodagh and shook their heads too.

  C
lodagh began to laugh. She turned to Marmie. “I thought these kids were getting an education up there in your sky house, Marmie, but they don’t even seem to see the obvious.”

  Ronan, who didn’t have much patience and knew when he was being teased, prompted, “Which is? You’re the wisewoman, Clodagh. You tell us.”

  “It’s dead simple, boy. Petaybee loves your new friend and wants you all to find out if there are any more like him out there that you can bring home.”

  Epilogue

  “I’M NOT SURE which one will take longer,” Da told the twins and Ke-ola, “Petaybee, building its landmass, or the Federation red tape we have to cut through to invite Ke-ola’s people to join us.”

  Three months had passed since the latchkay. Summer was at an end and freeze-up would begin soon. Neither Ke-ola nor the twins had returned to school.

  Mum, back from her helicopter trip with Dr. Fiske and Dr. Metaxos to check on the volcano, said, “My money is on Petaybee finishing first. As for inviting Ke-ola’s people, a lot of that paperwork is just nonsense they use to keep the punters at bay and the pencil pushers employed, love. Have you never heard that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission?”

  “It’s my ancestral family motto, actually,” Ke-ola said.

  “Which makes it ours too,” Ronan put in.

  “See there?” Da told her. “We’re setting a bad example for the children. Pay us no mind, kids. We’re just frustrated by the communication glitches. With the equipment banjaxed every other week or so, having to send messages by passing ships is ponderous. Really, you do have to wait for permission for some things. To make it official. To keep from bringing the wrath of the heavens down upon our humbled heads. We’ve yet to hear back from the Federation or Intergal about our proposal. Neither is there any response from Ke-ola’s people.”

  “Da, why don’t we just go get them?” Murel asked. “I don’t see why we need permission to issue an invitation or why they would need permission to come and see if they like it here or not.”