Changelings (20 page)

He surfaced and dived many more times, each time drawing shallower breaths and growing more light-headed. He should turn back, he thought, try to meet Murel, but he didn’t want to lose sight of the city for fear that he wouldn’t find it again. He half thought it was an illusion. Each time he went up for air, he tried to dive at a different angle, but always he was off to one side of the city. Perhaps it was farther than it looked, though he could feel the heat from the glowing crater beneath it.

It wasn’t just that the city had a hypnotic effect on him, he thought. No, he could break away from that if he wanted. It was just that if this were a real place, it was the best hope that Da was still alive and well. Unless, of course, whoever ran the city was evil or something.

Ronan? Ro? Where are you?
Murel’s mind-voice was very close to him now.

Here,
he said, but even to his own mind his thought was not projecting very well.
I’m here, by the city.

By the—what are you on about anyway? Have you been eating funny seaweed?

He didn’t answer. He felt her glide up next to him. More distantly there was a rumbling. He thought it was the volcano again but then felt the churning of the water and heard echoes of other human thoughts.

Oh. I see,
Murel said, her body hanging lengthwise in the water beside him as she looked into the city. She looked very funny, wearing a hat on the back of her head and neck and something weird and mechanical over her nose. She also had on some kind of clothing, not becoming to a seal. Though it was comical, he didn’t feel like laughing. He just stared at her for a moment then back at the city.
That’s incredible. I bet Da is in there somewhere. Have you tried calling to him?

Uh, not yet,
Ronan replied, feeling incredibly stupid.
I was—was waiting for you.

Let’s get some air, then we’ll try,
she said, but she had begun to sound less direct and certain and more as if she too had been mesmerized by the city and its lights.

This time when they surfaced, he was aware of the yacht, a slightly darker shape through the smoke, with figures moving purposefully about there.

River seals! River seals!
Sky called to them.
Have you found the deep sea otters? Have they seen your father?

No, but Ronan has found something else very strange,
Murel said. She was about to suggest that they return to the yacht to tell their mother about the city when there was a splash that sounded more like otter than rock, and presently the sleek brown head of Sky peered at them out of the smoke.

I thought river otters didn’t swim in salt water.

Normally we don’t but this was just a short swim, just a little ways and besides, if there are deep sea otters here, maybe they only speak to otters. Maybe they don’t know that river seals don’t eat otters.

What we’ve found isn’t exactly deep sea otters,
Murel told him.
Come.

The three of them dived back down to the city, which was still there.

It’s almost like it’s not real,
Ronan said.
I tried over and over again to swim into it but I couldn’t.

B
UT
S
KY WAS
not interested in the city as much as he was in contacting its inhabitants. Standing on the ocean floor on his hind paws, he moved the top of his body to the right and then to the left, then back again, inspecting the entire thing. Finally he sent out his message,
Deep sea otters, deep sea otters, it is your cousin Sky the River Otter who is also a sky otter, calling you. Our cousins the sea otters say that you live here. This otter has braved the salt water, which is not the element of river otters, to find you. Please answer. Your cousins have a problem and seek your help.

From within the city came the first thought any of them had sensed.
Do you think deep sea otters are so easily tricked, little cousin? We know you brought that boat full of scientists to study us. We know there are seals out there with you.

Hah! That is so. But the boat is full of rescue people and family members, not science people looking for you. The seals are only partly seals. Partly they are two-legged children. Their father, also only partly a seal, is missing and was last seen swimming your way. Did you see him? Do you know what became of him?

Maybe.
The thought was cautious.
We don’t want boats and seals around our den, though. Those seals, especially the one, have been here staring into our den for a long time.

Murel said,
It’s a pretty exotic-looking den, deep sea otters. We were just wondering how it got there and if our father might have found shelter there.

If he did, if deep sea otters helped him, then his children wouldn’t tell the scientists about our den?

If you don’t want us to, we won’t,
Murel said.
Nobody wants to hurt you or molest you, and we won’t let anybody study you if you don’t want to be studied. We just want our father.

You will tell no one else about us? No two-legged people?

No one,
she said.

Not even Mum,
Ronan promised.

River Otter, you believe these seals?
the alleged deep sea otter asked.

These are the seals that save the lives of otters. They do not lie. They do not tattle. But they will keep searching until they find their father, and so will the big boat. There are other men too. Men who can enter the water and swim like otters.

Deep sea otters are very shy,
the thought came to them, but to Murel, it sounded more sly than shy.
No men must come and find our den.

They won’t come if we don’t tell them to,
Murel replied.
But we need to find our father. He is a very important man to this world and none of us will rest until we know where he is and how he is. If we don’t find him,
she warned,
there will be more men and women here than any deep sea otter has ever seen before.
It was a safe threat. Since no people had ever seen deep sea otters that she knew of, it stood to reason that deep sea otters had never seen all that many people either.

Above them, through the murky water, she saw two new shadows—a large human-shaped one and a round one, which she recognized as being turtle-shaped.
One of our friends is seeking us now,
she said
. You know what?

She received an image of otter ears pricking forward as if to say “What?”

I think you know where our father is. I think you found him and took care of him in your secret den and he is still alive. That would be very good for deep sea otters, you know. It would make my brother and me and the sky otter here and even all the men who don’t know about you owe you big-time.

She got the impression of confused inter-otter chittering.
We would be your friends and wish you well and maybe do something for you sometime.

You must keep us a secret,
the thought returned clearly.
If you do this, we may be able to help you with what you seek.

Great.
She looked up and saw the Honu and more of Ke-ola than she had before—hands and upper torso gaining shape.
Oh look! One of the divers is coming now! What do you say? Shall we keep him away? He’ll go away if we say so.

Yes. He must not find our den,
the spokes-otter replied quickly, though again she felt there had been some excited consultation before he spoke.

Okay then. We’re all going to surface for air now and to keep our friend up there from finding you. You otters think it over.

She conveyed this, and the three of them lofted themselves toward the surface. It was none too soon, as the ocean floor rolled and fiery liquid belched beneath the city/den. Strangely, the eruption didn’t seem to hurt or move the odd collection of lighted towers in any way, but it splashed upward. Had they delayed another moment, they would have been burned.

The three of them rose straight up underneath Ke-ola and the Honu, nudging Ke-ola back up into what could now only loosely be called fresh air.

“Ronan and Murel! River Otter! The Honu felt that you were in danger. We came to help you. We must go back to the boat. The Honu and I would be fine but the boat could sink from the falling rock. It’s very hot, you know.”

They couldn’t answer him. The waves swelled like angry cats and attacked them, driving them apart and spinning them around with the force of the tormented water.

Hah! River otters are not meant for salt! River otter fur is full of dirty ashen stuff that stinks and stings.
Sky was fretting, but neither Murel nor Ronan could see the otter or each other because of the water and the steaming ash.

Only the Honu bobbed on top of the waves, sliding down them and riding back up.

But more than anything they were actually experiencing was the pressurized sensation that something ominous was building very near them, something about to explode.

Why is Petaybee so furious with us?
Murel couldn’t help but wonder.

Not furious. Spawning,
the Honu told her.

Well, as soon as the planet’s between contractions we should dive one more—

At that moment something bobbed up beneath her, bumping her underside. Murel rolled off it and down and saw another seal.
Da!
she cried. But the other seal did not answer her. It bounced helplessly with the waves, not moving a flipper to help itself.

Then suddenly the ocean seemed to fly apart as a torrent of water plummeted from high up in the sky, smashing into her body with more force than a speeding snocle.

CHAPTER 22

T
HIS CAN’T BE
happening. It’s too weird and too unfair.
Murel sent the message to all and sundry as a wave slammed her under, the force of it almost driving her back to the ocean’s shallow bottom. She choked on dirty ashen water and tried not to breathe until she fought her way to the surface again. Wherever that was!

The whole world rumbled and roared louder than a giant snocle. Clumps of burning rock pelted her and she kept dodging scalding steam.
Da? Ronan? Otter? Sky? Honu?
she called silently.

“Murel! Ronan!” Mum’s voice called out to them somewhere very near.

Murel heard the thought as much as the words and struggled toward her mother’s voice.

Here you go, little seal,
came another thought, and she felt herself snatched clean out of the water and handed up, so that she tumbled onto a hard, knobby surface.

Almost immediately something huge and heavy was dumped on top of her. She tried to roll sideways but there was very little room. Before she could pull herself entirely clear, something else was dumped on top of the other thing. The things wiggled and breathed, and, of course, when her vision cleared, she saw that they weren’t things at all. It was Ronan and Da. Mum and Johnny sat at the bow and the stern of a lifeboat with the three of them in the middle. Nobody was rowing, and Murel feared they’d be swamped. But as she dragged herself out from under her relatives, she saw that there were lines attached to the lifeboat tied to the
Melusine.
The boat was being towed back toward the yacht by all hands on deck, fighting the swamping waves and the swell.

Something else, small and wriggling, flopped into the boat. “Hah!” Sky said, his favorite otter expression mingling indignation and relief in the same puff of breath. “Hah!”

Finally one more object landed in the boat, clattering on the side.
I could have made it myself, foolish boy,
the sacred Honu said.
I was swimming before you were an egg.

“Ke-ola, get in!” Mum cried. “You’re exhausted.”

“No room!” he bellowed back up at her. “Sink . . . you. Hang . . . onto . . . hull.”

A huge wave slid the lifeboat back to the yacht, smashing into it and dumping everyone back into the raging sea. The crewmen were tossed backward, to sprawl on the deck, and the ropes went flying. The lifeboat, its hull splintered, sank beneath them as they scrambled for safety.

Murel saw Mum thrown against the yacht’s hull and swam over to break her fall. Ke-ola grabbed Johnny, who, being unhurt, shook him off. Da started to sink with the lifeboat, but Ronan fetched him up again.

Otter clung to the Honu’s tail.

The lines were tossed over the side once more. Mum, Johnny, and Ke-ola caught them. Then Ke-ola boosted Murel up on a rising wave so that she practically washed onto the yacht. He did the same thing with Da and Ronan. Mum, who was shaken but didn’t seem injured, tried to help, but Ke-ola nodded to her own rope. Seeing that he had matters in hand, she climbed aboard and was helped on deck by Johnny, who had by that time helped Marmie pull Da and Ronan onto the deck. Sky scampered up across Mum’s back and hair to safety. Johnny turned to pull Ke-ola aboard but the Kanaka boy rode another wave up and clung to the deck.

Darkness descended on them almost as quickly as the waves. Marmie bundled them all in blankets, which were soaked but not so thoroughly that the seals couldn’t change back into Shongilis.

Wanting to stay human for a while, and unsure that they would do so if the waves kept washing over them, the twins tugged on their waterproof suits, pulling up the hoods.

Johnny tried to stuff Da into a waterproof suit too. Da struggled to sit up, saw Mum’s face and said, in a voice much the same as the one they’d heard him use when he’d drunk a bit of the blurry at latchkays, “Jayz, darlin’, what are you doing out here? The weather’s terrible.”

Mum made a funny half-sobbing noise Murel could barely hear as Da finally managed to sit up and pull on his own suit.

Because of the darkness and the fact that only their family and closest friends were helping, the selkies’ secret was preserved as much as possible. They couldn’t be sure, of course, but none of the crew members said, “Hey look, those seals they hauled up just turned into a couple of kids and their old man!” so it seemed their secret was intact.

But that kind of exposure was the least of their worries. Marmie and Pet Chan helped everyone but Sky and the Honu lash themselves with ropes—lines—to the sturdier and more permanent features of the yacht. Although Murel wondered how sturdy the boat could actually be since apparently it had come off the spaceship in pieces with some assembly required. “All secured, Captain,” Pet told Johnny.

Johnny in turn shouted to the crew, “Okay, give her full throttle and get us out of here.”

“Uh, Captain?” the nearest crew member said.

“Yes? Wait a tick. We are supposed to be idling. I know it’s noisy here but we’re not idling. Why are we not idling?”

“Not actually sure, sir, but the engineer said something about ash clogging the fuel pumps.”

“That’s just—” Another huge wave washed over the deck. Murel felt paws wind tightly into her hair. When the water subsided with the yacht miraculously still right side up, she saw Ke-ola leaning over the railing, apparently communing with the Honu, who was in the water. “—brilliant,” Johnny finished.

Sky, you’re pulling,
Murel told the otter.

Grooming,
the otter mumbled through a mouthful of hair.

Da and Mum were hanging on to each other literally for dear life. Murel felt rather than saw her father staring at her and Ronan as if he could hardly believe they were there.
How long have you been home?
he asked.

Dunno,
Ronan replied.
Feels like not very long and nearly forever at the same time.

What happened to you, Da?
Murel asked.
Everyone thought you were a goner.

Far as I knew, I could have been. The last thing I recall was something falling on me, and then I woke up floating in the water beside you two.

So you don’t remember anything about otters, for instance?

Oh, the sea otters were having a grand time bringing up clams from the lava beds when I left them but I finally swam onward. Not all that clever of me, really. It would have been a better job for people with two legs and equipment. It’s dangerous around here, in case you haven’t noticed.

We noticed.

Who’s the big lad being chummy with the turtle? And for that matter, how did the turtle get onto Petaybee? No turtles were authorized that I recall.

That’s Ke-ola, one of our classmates from the station. The sacred Honu is the turtle. I believe they’re considering immigrating. Ke-ola just saved the lot of us, pulling us out of the water and sticking us in the lifeboat, so I think you might want to give their request special consideration.

Should Petaybee allow us to live through this, I promise to do that very thing,
Da said.

The sun, having disappeared for half an hour or so, once more swung around on the horizon until it was over the ocean. Of course, nobody on the boat could actually see it, but they knew that it had because the rays shined through the shroud hanging over the ocean and dyed it brilliant scarlet, fuchsia, and tangerine.

Almost as if the sun’s rising soothed the volcano’s temper, the rumbling quieted and the seas became comparatively calm. With the yacht’s motor out, the loudest noises were the tinkering and swearing that could be heard clearly from the engine room. The twins and their parents loosened their lines enough that the twins could turn around and give their father huge hugs.

“You took that business of being hero twins seriously, didn’t you, kids?” he asked aloud. “Your mum says it was you who came to fetch me from what I can only presume was almost a watery grave.”

“Much as we’d like to take credit for that, Da, it was actually Sky—”

“Sky?”

“Otter. Now that he’s ridden to your rescue in a helicopter, he is a sky otter instead of merely a river otter, so we’ve given him an appropriate name and he likes it.”

“It is more original than Otto or something of the sort,” Da agreed. “And it was good of him to come along. River otters do not go to sea, as a rule.”

“So he’s told us. But in your case he made an exception. And it’s a good thing he did,” Murel said. “He’s the one who, uh—found where you were for sure.”

“But you two got me out? How did I survive?”

“There seemed to be air pockets or something—maybe the volcano created a kind of grotto with an air tube to the surface?”

“Which, providentially for me, did not turn into a lava tube? Petaybee was being extremely thoughtful there.”

“Pity that mood didn’t continue,” Mum said.

Lookit Ke-ola,
Ronan told Murel while their parents were discussing Petaybee’s moods.

Ke-ola stood on deck staring straight out at the tip of the cone, becoming slightly visible above the water at times, when the steam wafted up and away from the rim. His expression was thoughtful. A dome bulged in the cone like an egg about to hatch. Although the volcano was quiet for the moment, once more they could feel the pressure building.

“Whatcha think, Ke-ola?” Murel asked.

“I was just thinking about my twenty nieces and twenty-five nephews,” he said.

“Are you worried you will never see them again?” she asked sympathetically. At least she and Ronan were back home with their parents and their friends, even if it only meant they wouldn’t die alone. Not a happy thought. Murel choked up in spite of herself. She didn’t want to die, but the dome inside the crater was bright red and pulsing.

Sky was puzzled.
Is there not enough water here for you?

We were thinking of our families, Sky. Ke-ola was remembering his relatives who are not here.

He has many?

Hundreds, like you.

Many Ke-olas. Good. Honu likes Ke-ola. Sky otters like Honu.
Sky looked over the side, where Honu was swimming back and forth beside the yacht.

Johnny Green returned from belowdecks and reported to Marmie.

“How long?” she asked.

“Too long, I’m afraid,” he replied, shaking his head. “They’re clogged as bad as if they’d been poured full of concrete. The lads are working as fast as they can but they’ll be no match for Herself,” and he nodded to the volcano. He turned to Marmie. “There’s one lifeboat left. You and Pet, Yana and the kids—”

“Not us,” Murel said. “We’re better off as seals now that we’re rested, right, Da?”

“Yes, but I’ll be alongside the boat where your mother is.”

“Mother isn’t going in any lifeboat,” Mum said. “There’s room enough for Marmie, Ke-ola and the crew. Too many people depend on Marmie for her to be lost this way. She’s been Petaybee’s number one outside ally. You’ll need her help.”

“
We’ll
need her help, luv.”

“He’s right, Yana. I’m the captain, not you. I’ll go down with the bloody ship if anyone does,” Johnny said.

“No, Johnny. Marmie needs you too . . . and I outrank you.”

“Not anymore, you ridiculous baggage. Get in that boat, and that’s an order.”

“You can’t talk to my wife that way, Johnny. I’ll do it,” Sean said. “Get into that boat, Yana, and stop being such ridiculous baggage. You’re the mother of our children and
they
need
you.
”

Meanwhile other sailors, more practical and less noble, had lowered the remaining lifeboat over the side and were climbing in. Pet Chan practically forced Marmie in along with the crewmen. Once Pet was seated, there was room for two more passengers.

“Not the way they need you,” Mum argued with their father. “You understand them. You can all speak without words. I—”

“No time for this nonsense, Yana,” Da said, and tried to lift and manhandle Mum over to the lifeboat. When he proved too weak to do it, Johnny scooped her up but she fought them both off.

“Hey, Mama,” Ke-ola said, padding barefoot over to the three of them and separating the men from the twins’ furious mother. “You don’t gotta do it, lady. I’ll go now. I know what has to be done. It’s in the oldest chants. Your keikis need you, your man, your world.”

“Petaybee does not seem highly attached to any of us just at the moment,” Mum snapped, and turned on Ke-ola, her dark eyes flashing. “And where is it you think you’re going, young man?”

“Ke-ola knows all this old stuff from when his people lived near volcanoes, Mum,” Ronan told her.

“Yeah, I bet they had some really neat way of dealing with eruptions and stuff, didn’t they, Ke-ola?” Murel asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right. Those old ones knew that if you were gonna have life, there had to be death so somebody had to give themselves to Pele—our volcano goddess. I’m not afraid. There’s too many people where I come from anyway. I’ll do it, then the volcano will quiet and you all can go home.” He turned and walked to the rail, and in another fraction of a nanosecond would have slipped into the waves. Ronan and Murel exchanged looks and ran up beside him, stripping off their dry suits. He gave each of them a chagrined look. “Little bruthah, little sistah, you should understand!”

“Are you out of your
mind
?” Mum demanded. “Johnny, Sean, someone brain this child before he does something monumentally stupid.”

“I don’t care what your chants said, Ke-ola, if they told you to jump into a volcano, they were wrong,” Murel told him. “I thought that was a good place you came from to begin with. Why would your volcano want anyone to jump into it?”

“Yeah, it’s not hungry, for pity’s sake,” Ronan added. “It’s trying to pump stuff out, not take stuff in. You’d just be polluting it. We’d have Ke-ola bits all over the nice new island Petaybee’s trying to make. Honestly, I know it looks bad, Ke-ola, but nobody has to die here. If anyone does, it will be an accident, and Petaybee, well, I think Petaybee will be really sorry. You were the one who said the planet wasn’t angry, it was just giving birth and a little out of control.”