Maelstrom

CHAPTER 14

SEAN SHONGILI HAD been helping pole the shark tank barge away from the sandbar when Murel's cry reached him. Behind him was another river channel and the darkened forest. In front of him the lights of the barge sparkled off the rippling water with an almost blinding effect. Since he was concentrating heavily on directions from his fellow polers and his own physical exertion, it took a little longer for his daughter's terror to register than it had with her mother.

Shortly afterward, the barge cleared the bar. Sean was stripping down when the mobile call came, but the mobile itself was in the way of ridding himself of his trousers. When it fell in the water, he didn't bother retrieving it. Making an arrow of his slim sinewy body, he dived into the river and changed, his sleek seal form maintaining the arrowlike speed and purposefulness of his dive.

The barge, towed by one of Marmie's boats, had made excellent time, taking only the whole of one day and half the night before they reached a point about three quarters of the way to the coast. There, the channel widened and sandbars became a problem.

Sean swam past the brilliant lights cast by the barge, swimming as hard as he could to close the distance between himself and the sea.

The river mouth looked deserted without otters, but unless they had some information about his children, Sean had no time to chat anyway. He had been using his own sonar all along to keep his course straight through the swiftest current of the river channel, but once he hit salt water he slowed and sent out a throaty roar of a signal to try to get a heading.

That was when Ronan's call reached him.

I'm coming, he answered. He sought Murel, but received no clear response. How long he searched, he didn't know, though he had begun swimming hard again. He sent another call to Ronan, I'm not getting anything from her, son, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Ronan's alarmed thought reached him a few minutes later: Da, it's a pod of orcas.

Stay calm, okay? Sean told him.

He waited for a response from his son but it was not forthcoming.

Instead, he picked up a confused babble of thought, the orca pod, and homed in on it.

Where'd they go?

I dunno. I don't have 'em. Who has 'em?

Bitfin, you didn't eat both of them, did you?

No! This thought was disgruntled, pained, and angry. I was all set and- Father of seals! Another, clearer thought cut through the pod's chatter, which had begun to recede. They were swimming away from where the children had been.

The Honus greet you.

Where did my kids go? he asked them.

We do not know. Murel fell behind without our knowledge while we swam toward the new home. The next thing we knew, she cried out. The swifter among us swam with Ronan and the otter to try to save her, but although we were swift, your son was swifter. He dived into the pod of orcas and that is the last we saw of him. He made no outcry. The orcas have gone but no seals remain. On the bright side, neither is there much blood taste in the water.

Sean felt as if he would sink to the bottom and stay there at the mention of blood where his children had been.

Picking up on Sean's distress, one of the Honus suggested, One of the orcas had a wounded dorsal fin. Perhaps the blood was his.

Thank you for that. We'll hope so.

We will continue to dive. As soon as it is light enough for them to use their weak human senses, Ke-ola and Keoki will also dive.

Thank you. But tell Ke-ola and Keoki I am coming and can search before sunrise. I don't know how those boys got out there but we don't need to lose them too.

Well before sunrise, though, Sean heard the chopper flying overhead and figured that Sinead had called Yana for backup. By the time he surfaced, the chopper's searchlights and its noise were fading in the distance. It was on course for the emerging volcano.

He reached the Honus as the indigo skirt of the sky bloomed with the scarlet of the rising sun. This had the unfortunate effect of bathing the sea in blood.

THE HELICOPTER HAD picked up Ke-ola and Keoki by the time Sean arrived.

He wondered how the boys had survived the long swim from shore, which would have been far too cold for them to stand for long, if nothing else.

The seal children gave them the shells they carried on their own backs, the Honus answered, although Sean had not posed the question with an intention of receiving a reply.

So the kids gave the boys their dry suits. That would make one less piece of evidence he might find in the water to indicate what had happened to them.

Yana was aboard the chopper, as were Johnny, Rick, Pet Chan, and another man

Sean didn't know but whose face seemed familiar. Pet Chan squatted with Yana in the open side door of the aircraft. Both were dressed in diving gear. When Yana spotted Sean, she waved and said something into the mouthpiece attached to her headset. Shortly afterward, the copter hovered close to the water.

Sean looked up at her, trying to meet her eyes. Escaping strands of her black hair whipped in ribbons across her face. More than ever, he wished Yana and he could speak telepathically as easily as he could with the children. She wanted him to board the copter, he thought, and explain what had happened. She also wanted to dive in with him. In as large a gesture as he could make, he shook his sleek gray brown head from side to side three or four times and dived. No need for her and

Pet to risk themselves. Besides, they could obscure evidence of what had happened to the children. He had a better chance of sorting out the situation alone. Water was his natural element-well, one of his natural elements.

His dive was not solo, however. The Honus dived with him. All of them.

We have searched clear to the bottom but there is nothing except rock, they told him. Silt, plants, and animals were already covering most of the rock. Although the water was very murky, he saw no sign of anything from that quarter that might have taken his kids, nor was there anyplace for them to hide. Not that they would be hiding. If they were here, he would know it.

Sean searched in an upwardly spiraling pattern from the black rock to the surface, combing a square mile without a trace of either of the children. He did, however, spot a piece of black bloody flesh. Before he could reach it, it had become breakfast for a large fish.

That would belong to the whale with the maimed dorsal fin the Honus described.

Those whales had been closest to his kids when they disappeared. From their conversation, Sean had the impression that the whales had not killed Murel, though not from lack of trying. Still, if he questioned them, perhaps they had seen what became of the kids, or remember something that would help him find them.

He surfaced again and leaped up and down to show that he was ready to board the helicopter. It extruded pontoons from its landing platform and Rick set it down upon the waves.

Ke-ola and the burly man hauled Sean aboard. Yana wrapped him in a tarp till he dried off and completed his change. Rick tossed him a duffel bag. "Extra duds in there, Sean. You're welcome to them."

Thankfully, he pulled them on. The wind was cool, and though the tarp kept it off, it didn't do much to warm him.

"Nothing?" Yana asked. "The boys told us what the Honus got from Ronan and Sky before they vanished too." She sounded annoyed that they hadn't had more information. Yana did not so much resemble other grieving mothers as she did an eagle with an eye out for prey. He knew she was holding back her emotional reaction while making a mission out of finding the kids. It was her training. Act and think first, feel later, when you had the luxury of time to fall apart. He took her hand and squeezed. A flicker in her eye betrayed her fear, then vanished when she squeezed his firmly in return. She was in control. Good. He agreed with her. There was much to be done.

"I overheard something I want to question our black-and-white boyos about but I want the copter. I want to be in my human form when I confront them.

Unfortunately, seals are fair game for orcas. I'll need more of their attention on my questions than on licking their snouts over how I might taste." The mother of his children winced. "Sorry, love. I don't believe they hurt either of our kids." He summarized the conversation among the orcas. "It's not their way to lie among themselves, and they wouldn't have known I was eavesdropping. But one of them may have noticed something he didn't feel was relevant to the argument or interesting enough to share with the others."

She acknowledged this with a sharp nod, the kind she might have given a report from another officer. "You know where to find them?" she asked.

"I do," he said, and gave her a heading that she relayed to Rick.

They were out of headsets and he couldn't make himself heard over the chopper's noise to explain to the others what he had to Yana, so she relayed that too, and made introductions. When she got to Raj Norman, he shook Sean's hand and patted his own belt, which bristled with armaments Sean could not begin to identify.

"Don't worry, buddy," he bellowed above the copter's roar. "If those whales give you a hard time, tell 'em the trigger-happy dude," he jerked a thumb at his own chest, "will be happy to make black-and-white puddin' of the lot of 'em."

"A comfort to me and none to them I'm sure," Sean said politely, though the idea of anyone attacking Petaybean creatures with high-tech armaments made him a bit nauseous. "But I don't think it will be necessary. I intend to pull rank."

Yana interrupted, pointing to the water, "Tall fins at 2200," she said.

Sean looked down and there they were, a flotilla of them in Y formation, proud as you please. The copter overtook them but did not set down. Instead, at Sean's urging, it circled high enough to keep from frightening the whales while keeping them in sight as long as their fins remained above water.

Sean could not copy their verbal speech aloud but he could think at them in their own language, and so he did. Hello there, boys, and isn't it a lovely morning and the water fine?

So it is, if it's any of your business, replied the lead whale, turning first one way, then the other, then flipping upside down trying to spot him. Even over the noise of the copter he heard them sending out their sonar signals, seeking him.

Up here, me fine finny friends. Don't worry about it. I am one of the people who put you into this lovely ocean with all of these tasty fish and other things your sort find agreeable.

Very good of you, we're sure, the alpha whale replied cautiously. What is it you want?

A while ago you made a little mistake. Oh, not that I blame you. You had no way of knowing, of course. But me and my-er, calves-sometimes take the form of seals, and it seems you mistook my daughter for a light snack.

I didn't eat her! came a protest from the ranks. Sean wasn't close enough to tell which one, but he suspected the speaker's dorsal fin had a piece bit out. She deserved it, mind you. She is vicious. She bit me but- Frankly, I was about to call the game off when she disappeared, the alpha whale interrupted, with an aside he apparently thought Sean would not hear to the speaker - now known as Bitfin-to let him do the talking. Whales might not lie, but like anybody else, Sean suspected they probably wanted to put the best spin they could on an error in judgment when called to account for their actions. I knew there was something peculiar about that one. And then, you know, she said she was actually not a seal but a mur- Moray eel, boss, one of them supplied, based on what she thought she'd heard. She said she wasn't a seal, she was a moray eel.

There you have it. Of course, I've been known to gnaw on one or two of those too if I'm a bit peckish, but she didn't seem like a seal or an eel to me but another more dangerous creature altogether. I've no doubt that if she hadn't disappeared when she did, she'd have made us all sick at the very least so, as I said, I was about to call it off when she vanished in a cloud of murk and bubbles.

And my son? Sean asked.

Looked like another seal, did he?

He did.

Never laid an eye on him, much less a tooth.

He'd have been swimming with an otter. Not the usual kind. A wee brown fellow.

Had whales possessed shoulders, the pod would have shrugged them. I saw no strange-looking otters swimming along with the strange seal. I didn't see either, did you?

Not me!

Nor did I!

There you have it, the alpha whale said again. Now the normal sort of otter, we'd have probably gobbled up without a thought, but after meeting your she-calf, I should have felt it my responsibility to warn my pod off any funny-looking animals in the vicinity. But that reminds me. The little-your she-calf-said something about some sharks, thinking to frighten us, I think, though pretending she was giving a warning. What was that about?

She was warning you indeed, Sean replied, the thought giving him a pang. That would have been part of what took his kids to sea. They'd have thought it necessary to warn the other creatures about the new predator in the waters. They were like that. And yes, sharks are coming.

As I told your calf, sharks are our natural prey, not the other way around. I hope you've no objection to us eating them? No relation, are they? Aunties? Uncles?

Mothers of mates perhaps?

Sarcasm really didn't suit orcas but Sean let it pass. No, no relation, but it would be in your own best interest to let them breed and multiply for a few years so there's enough for you to eat and enough to breed more sharks as well. Also, you should know there'll be some new humans coming this way soon.

Well, that's all right, the alpha whale said. By and large your sort have treated us well enough here, and you're not all that tasty-so it's said. Wouldn't know personally, of course.

Sean was pleased. They seemed to be on very good terms in spite of a potentially hostile situation. He felt that the alpha whale and the others were being truthful insofar as they understood the truth.

Yana cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him and he nodded and made a hand sign for her to be patient just a bit longer.

Of course, he said. But now that we understand each other better, I want to ask you all to think if you can remember what happened just before nobody ate my kids and the otter.

That's a bit more difficult, the alpha whale said. Sean could feel the whole pod, spurred by their keen instinct for survival in the face of a massively mucked-up situation, giving thought to his inquiry.

Did you for instance notice the sea turtles swimming after my son? Sean asked, probing.

Well, no, we wouldn't have noticed those, would we? Bitfin replied. We were circling at the time, you see. Using the sonar to confuse the prey-I mean, your calf, not that we knew she was your calf, as we said. By the way, she has teeth.

Very sharp indeed.

What Bitfin means to say, a whale thought-form that was distinctly feminine interjected, is that our attention was directed inward, toward your calf and each other. I did not see turtles or another seal or an otter, just that bubbly whirlpool thing before Bitfin's tail blocked my view.

What was that? the alpha whale, eager to get to the bottom of this and leading the pod away, asked. I was up near the surface. Seemed a bit turbulent there for a bubble or two, and next thing I knew, we were all bumping into each other and the seal was nowhere to be seen or heard.

I couldn't tell, Bitfin said with true regret. You see, I opened my mouth to bite, and you know how it is when you open wide, you can't see the morsel anymore. You sense them, feel them there, but you don't see them. She was there, she was trying to get away, I open me gob, but when I bit down I nearly break a tooth gnashing them against each other. There was a tickling at my chin, a feeling something was whirling.

The whirlpool thing, another female said. I was down below Bitfin and could barely see the prey-sorry, the calf-as it was, but I saw a bit of flipper. Then all of a sudden there was nothing but whirly water in my face and we were scattering. I did - She hesitated, then continued more tentatively, I did get the feeling that there was something inside the water. And of course, that might have been the calf, mightn't it? Almost had to have been, come to think of it. Still, it seemed to me there was something larger there, something not afraid to come into a pod of us in feeding frenzy. I think we were right to scatter when we did.

Sean could not decide if this was good news or bad.