Maelstrom

CHAPTER 11

THE RIVER WAS almost more of a home to the twins than their parents' cabin.

Racing to their favorite entry spot, they stripped down and dived in, changing to seal form as they hit the water. Meanwhile Sky danced on the shore ahead of the Honu procession, which watched the foolishness tolerantly.

Before they could surface, they heard and felt a large splash. Fingers and opposable thumbs caught each of their tails. They flipped around to face a laughing Ke-ola.

"Trying to leave me to all the dull diplomat stuff, were you? Leilani can handle that. The Honu wants to go with his elders, and Keoki can't wait to see the sea."

The twins couldn't answer him directly but over his shoulder they saw Keoki leading two curly coats, their own horses, Chapter and Page. He seemed to be receiving a lot of unsolicited advice from Nanook and Coaxtl. Coaxtl walked in circles around the boy and horses, giving them a thorough inspection while the more domesticated lion-sized track cat, Nanook, rubbed against all ten legs involved in the horse-leading operation.

Ke-ola's Honu friend had been installed atop the shell of the foremost land-tortoise shaped Honu, where the younger, smaller creature could advise the entire column.

Wouldn't you rather be in the water with us? Murel asked.

I could not swim in this form, the Honu said, and it would be disrespectful to change before my elders.

Suit yourself, Ronan said, plunging back into the refreshing depths of the living river.

They frolicked in the currents and eddies, playing leap-seal and having races, snacking on the plentiful tasty fish, loving the freedom of the big wide deep river after the confines of the root-choked tunnels of Halau. It smelled so good, so full of growing plants suffusing it with oxygen, so full of colors and textures in the water's flow. It was as different from the tank and the tunnels as Halau was from Petaybee.

Sky jumped in and out of the water, splashing the ponderous Honus playfully, sprinting back to play peeking games with Keoki. Ke-ola's brother was surly to start with, but eventually seemed pleased to be included in the otter's games.

Chapter and Page pranced restlessly, eager to stretch their legs after too many weeks of receiving the minimum attention due them while their primary riders were away.

The smell of snow was in the air, a shimmer of frost sparkling on the ferns lining the banks.

The river was chilled by ice that formed at night and melted when the sun rose. It felt marvelous, but when the warm sulfurous current from the hot springs flowed into the river, that felt marvelous too.

We should show the Honus and Keoki the hot springs, Murel told her brother.

When he agreed, she passed the thought on to the Honu who told Ke-ola what she was thinking.

Then they turned up the little stream that flowed from the pool below the falls that concealed the communion cave.

Ke-ola floated in the current and called to his brother, "Hey, Keoki, you're gonna love this, man! This is the magic place I told you about when we were on the ship. You should come in now. The water is warm, feels great."

"Stinks a little," Keoki said, drawing near and peering into the water from which a light steam rose.

"Get used to it!" Ke-ola told him. "You think that's bad, man, wait till you smell what it's like out near our new place."

Keoki wrinkled his nose but stripped off the three layers of outer clothing he'd been wearing against the chill, held his nose, and jumped in.

When the twins reached the pool at the foot of the waterfall, they saw the Honus tagging far behind them, a line of upturned cauldrons in stately procession. Ke-ola, Sky, and Keoki climbed to the top of the waterfall and slid down it into the pool.

Ronan said, Come on, sis, let's do that too!

But Murel, suddenly self-conscious, replied, But we'd have to change…

So what? Ke-ola and Keoki know we change.

Maybe so, but we shouldn't be so careless about it, she said. That wasn't the real reason. She wasn't even sure what the real reason was, but lately, sometimes, she'd felt some differences in her body that had nothing to do with changing into a seal.

Have it your way, Ronan said. The truth was, he enjoyed being back in their own waters so much, he didn't want to come out any sooner than necessary.

So they played the game their own way. Murel hid behind the falls and leaped over Ke-ola when he splashed into the foam at the bottom of the pool. Ronan dived under Keoki when he splashed in. When Sky fell, he didn't reach the pool because Murel leaped up and caught him on her back, shedding him when she plunged deeper into the sulfurous warm water.

While the rest of them climbed, leaped, and dived, the Honus continued to make their way up the side of the stream until the path intersected with the one used by the villagers during latchkays.

After one more circuit in the waterfall by the frolicking youngsters, the Honus came abreast of them, then walked under the fall and into the communion cave.

Ke-ola almost landed on top of Murel's head as she paused to watch the last short triangular Honu tail disappear within the cascade.

Ke-ola surfaced and saw her looking after the tortoises. "Is something wrong?"

She couldn't answer directly. There wasn't anything wrong, but the power of the caves could be very strong. She'd never known others to enter without a native

Petaybean, usually someone like Clodagh, beside them.

Catching her concern, Sky scrambled onto the bank and dashed after the Honus.

Otters belong to this world. Otters can show the Honus the world, and the world the Honus.

Well, so could river seals. She and Ronan were the emissaries, after all. Keep the Ke boys here, Ro. I'll change in the cave.

The Honus and Sky were no longer in the outer cave. Murel shook herself off and loosened the harness holding her dry suit, climbing quickly into it. She followed the padding of ponderous Honu feet and the patter of otter paws on the cave's stone floor. Eleven leathery Honu heads craned from eleven shells, and eleven pairs of eyes widened as the heads swayed back and forth, taking in the cave. Sky ran circles around them, chattering away about how this was much better-hundreds and hundreds better-than the caves back on their old world.

You tell the Honus too, Murel, Sky said when he saw her. Tell them how our world is better.

She sat on one of the stone benches and shook her head. You're doing a great job, Sky. River seals don't tell these things any better than otters.

That was true, of course, though she knew she probably would have mentioned more things the Honus might like and less about how very tasty the fish and river grasses were and how many wonderful muddy places there were to slide in the winter and icy ones in the summer.

But as Sky regaled the tortoises, the cave grew welcoming and warm, as it did at the beginning of the night visits for a latchkay.

Although none of the more spectacular expressions of the planet's personality manifested themselves, the tortoises seemed well aware of Petaybee's presence.

They craned their wrinkled necks and widened their eyes and appeared to be listening with their invisible ears to something beyond Sky's sales pitch. At last they seemed satisfied, lowered their heads, and with deliberate steps turned their shells toward the entrance to the cave. Then they paraded single file out from behind the waterfall and down the path. Murel followed and watched until their shells appeared no larger than a nut's. Ke-ola and Keoki, seeing the Honus were leaving, stopped playing. Keoki awkwardly mounted Chapter and led Page, while

Ke-ola struck out swimming back to the main channel, following the Honus.

Sis? Ronan called.

Coming, she called back. Stripping off her dry suit, she harnessed it to her back again, then dived into the pool, transforming as she shot deeper into the steaming warm water.

By the time she reached Ronan and Ke-ola, Ke-ola was ready to climb out and join his brother. "That hot springs water wears you out," he told the two seals watching him from the stream.

It did indeed, so much so that when the stream rejoined the river, the twins had to catch a few fish to keep up their strength.

As the day ended, the twins flopped themselves onto the bank. Murel chose a particularly ferny spot that provided her with privacy to finish changing and dressing. Then the twins helped the brothers to find the best wood for a fire. When it was just right, Ronan dived back in and caught enough fish for all of them, though Sky brought his own, the largest fish of all. They got little warmth from the fire, though, for the Honus were feeling the chill of the evening and ringed the blaze with their giant shells, blocking the warmth from the unshelled members of the party.

The twins and the brothers slept in bedrolls carried on the horses. Sky joined the two-leggeds in a companionable way, snuggling between Murel and Ronan, though normally he would have slept in a den in the riverbank.

Long before the sunrise, an event occurring minutes later each day, the Honus announced that they would be off again. Moving was warmer than not moving, and by now they thought they smelled the salt of the sea.

At midday Sky streaked ahead of the others, returning in an hour with some of his hundreds of relatives. They greeted the twins with diving and nosings, and thoroughly explored the tortoises, running around, between, and over them. One even tried to peer inside a huge shell but the Honu discouraged the bold otter with a hiss.

You were quick, Murel said to Sky.

Yes, otters are quick, that is so, Sky responded. But the sea is close. Very close.

Is it? she asked. I thought we still had miles to go.

It moved, Sky told her. My relatives' old dens are far beneath the sea now. They moved too. Even the sea otter cousins moved from their island. The sea is near.

He was right. In another half hour or so, even with all of the otter foolishness, they soon reached a place where the river broadened, covering hills and land, even trees, until there was only water and no banks to be seen on the surface. The water grew suddenly salty.

Murel dived and swam out a short distance. Beneath her, fish swam among the bare and rotting tree branches, while seaweed and crabs decorated the trunks, making of the drowned trees a forest of individual wooden reefs.

The water smelled ever so slightly of sulfur, like the spot in the river where the stream drained from the hot spring.

Murel returned to the shore. Ronan and otters of both riverine and sea variety swam in the shallower waters. Keoki and Ke-ola dismounted and turned to face the approaching Honus.

Now we change, the smallest Honu announced on behalf of the others. The seals must change as well. We will need them.

Murel and Ronan hoisted themselves onto the shore, Murel finding the upper branches of a submerged tree to conceal her while she pulled on her dry suit. Then she joined the boys.

The small Honu needed only Ke-ola to help him transform, but when it came time for the larger ones to do so, the brothers slid into the water and supported the front ends of the heavy tortoises while the twins supported the back end from the shore.

In this way, the tortoises were able to change their stumpy legs to long flippers on the front and shorter wedge-shaped ones in the back without injuring themselves, while first the lower shell and then the edge of the upper changed. At that point in the transformation, each half sea turtle/half tortoise could complete the transformation by dipping his head under the surface without drowning. This accomplished, the Honu swam gracefully out to sea.

All four youngsters were exhausted by the time they had helped all eleven tortoises convert.

"I can see why they don't do it more often and Dr. Mabo thought it was so secret," Ronan told Ke-ola.

"They need our help usually," Ke-ola said. "At least to go back to sea. They're very vulnerable to attack while they change. And their flippers won't support them for long on land, unless it's sand. If they take the tortoise form into the water, they can't survive either. So as far as I know, they never change without some of us around to help them."

"As an adaptive mechanism, then, it's not very convenient, is it?" Murel asked.

"I think they're still learning," Ke-ola told her. "I don't think Honus have always been able to do it."

Ronan, who was very interested in learning about other shape shifters and shape shifting in general, said, "That's funny. Dad, Murel, and I have always been able to change."

Ke-ola shrugged. "Maybe the shells make it harder. Or maybe it's because they're older. I don't know if they even know."

"Did you ever ask them?"

"No. See, we've always had Honus, but I don't know anybody who's ever been able to talk to one as personally, I guess you could say, as I have been and you guys are able to do. What we usually do-used to do-was wait till we had something important to ask them, or maybe they waited till they had something important to tell us before we talked to each other."

"Not much for idle chitchat, then?" Murel asked.

"Not as such, no," Ke-ola said.

"I'll ask," Ronan said, and waded back into the water where the turtles were now swimming toward the horizon.

"Wait for me," Murel said, a bit late.

"I'm coming too," Ke-ola said.

"Me too," Keoki said. "They're our Honus after all."

They swam after the turtles until the smallest swam back toward them, up under

Keoki, inviting him to hang on to the shell.

Murel decided Honus were probably good at psychology. It was easy to see that

Keoki was disgruntled by the changes, by being uprooted and separated from

Halau, horrible as the place had been. She'd felt a bit that way several years before when she and Ronan had been sent off Petaybee to school on Marmie's space station, even though it was a beautiful and luxurious facility. Ke-ola, who had already visited Petaybee, had met the planet and been accepted by it. He was much more at home here than his brother. The newly transformed sea turtles gave off an intense feeling of relief and ease at being able to stop crawling and start swimming.

Keoki, having literally taken the turtle by the shell, was emboldened enough to ask the question. "Sacred Honu, how did you and the others happen to learn to change from sea creatures to land?"