Maelstrom

CHAPTER 24

VERY WELL, THEY'RE gone now, Kushtaka, are you happy? Ronan couldn't keep the resentment out of his thoughts.

She ignored him, talking to others of her own species, whatever it was, in their own tongue. He didn't understand all of it-part of it seemed to be technical jargon of some sort, but the gist of it was that it was safe now and they could go.

The water around the dome filled with deep sea otters bearing something unidentifiable in their paws. They scattered, some remaining in sight, others disappearing among the fish and seaweed, the smoking black volcanic chimneys, and rocks. Some dived toward the bottom.

Setting the sursurvus, Kushtaka explained. We've recalibrated them to cover a broader area. We want to be prepared if the sharks return.

That won't be your only large predator this far north, he told her.

Somewhere beneath us lies what is left of the second greatest city of our civilization, she told him. I've visited the ruins many times.

She didn't like him knowing more about the place than she did. He didn't want to get Puk and Mraka in trouble by letting on that they'd told him something of their species' history on Petaybee.

Oh, then you know about the bears, he replied in an offhand way.

Bears?

You know, big white jobs, dive like us, swim like us, but faster, meaner, and eat anything.

Bears live on land, she said, as if he was trying to fool her. We've seen them when we venture close to shore.

Normal bears do, he answered. Black bears, brown bears, grizz. None of them mind a bit of a swim, usually in freshwater, but the white bears are almost as at home in the water as seals like me or otters like you folks. Or the regular kind of sea otters anyway.

It sounds most improbable, she said.

I thought the same when the sea otters told me about your people, he replied, and yet, here you are. The bears are real too. Keep watching and you'll see one before long I imagine.

Is this something else your people have put into these waters to endanger us? she demanded.

That was so unfair it made Ronan forget his manners. That's bollocks, he told her.

I'm sorry for your loss. My sister and I were the only ones who even knew you were here, you've been that secretive, so how could anyone else know the sharks endangered you? Even though we tried to warn you about them, you're blaming us for trying to help you. I would think instead of blaming children no older than your own, Kushtaka, that you as leader of these folk would be thinking more along the lines of telling them what was dangerous to them and planning ways for them to fight or escape it.

When we were the dominant species on this planet, there never were such creatures, she said haughtily.

Maybe not, but there certainly was something because Petaybee didn't survive long enough for you to keep living here, did it? He hoped Mraka and Puk would forgive him, but he wasn't going to let her keep treating him like a murderer for something that wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone else's fault either, really, except maybe her stupid son's for not being more careful, or hers for not keeping a better eye on him.

Looking at her closely, feeling what she was feeling instead of thinking, Ronan realized that was what bothered her. Jeel's death was her fault, and she wanted to blame someone else, however unreasonably, for her own lapse. Would Mum act that way if he or Murel did something dumb that got one of them killed by something introduced by someone else? He thought about it. Probably not. His mum, as a former Corps officer, would claim full responsibility as her own lapse, put his picture on the shelf by the stove, then hunt down whatever had killed him and obliterate it.

Of course, if those who had introduced the danger gave Mum any further grief, they would be in danger of obliteration too. He looked at Kushtaka again, wondering what, if any, means of obliteration she had at her disposal.

She returned her attention to the activities beyond the dome, but seemed to be deep in her own private thoughts. Since she didn't dismiss him or have him carried away by the flippers again-that was an experience to be avoided at all costs!-he watched with her as, one by one, the surveillance units were placed and new areas of the surrounding ocean were revealed. Most of them were dark and cold and wet, no big surprise there.

But after one placement, what showed on the screen was two of the big otters- probably the ones who had set up the equipment-surfacing, looking startled, diving again and swimming hard before jumping out of the water and splashing around, seeming to try to draw attention to themselves.

Ronan was sure he recognized them too, since he had just spent quite a lot of time with them. Puk and Mraka were either scared or they were up to something.

COMMUNICATION WAS DIFFICULT without the Honu to keep him in mental touch with Sean, as Ke-ola now thought of his friends' father. It was hard to think of a seal as Dr. Shongili in furry trunks. To try to tell what he was to do next, Ke ola had to watch the seal-man as well as he could in the moon and aurora-lit darkness.

The iceberg where they had seen the seal who might be Murel was three or four kilometers offshore, and before they reached it they had to slide out onto the thin ice. Some of it was left over from past years, the permanent ice pack that rimmed the northernmost shores of the northern continent. Some was fresh ice, newly formed for the winter that was only beginning in Kilcoole. Ke-ola, being large and heavy, was afraid he would fall through before he found a clear enough spot so he could hop into the boat and paddle out.

Sean, in spite of his worry over Murel, was thinking about him too, Ke-ola saw.

Seals knew where the thin ice was, and Sean solved the problem by clawing a hole in it with his front flippers and enlarging it all the way out to the open-or more open-sea.

Ke-ola widened the opening with his paddle, making a place big enough for the emergency boat, then climbed in, kneeling in the center of the boat and breaking the ice with the paddle as he used it to push away from the jagged edges and into the open sea.

Once there, he spared a glance for the colored lights dancing overhead, reflected in the rolling water. His winter suit was warm, if bulky. The boat was neither a kayak nor a canoe but a semirigid inflatable made of a pierce-proof synthetic fiber, the shape somewhere between that of an Irish fishing dory and a raft. It had a compact but powerful motor unit as well as the paddles. He tried the motor, and to his relief, it immediately roared to life.

Across the color-sheened waves he heard the barking of seals. More than one, so it was not just Sean, or even Sean and Murel. Besides, he saw Sean's head bobbing ahead of him as the selkie swam, his fur shining pink, then green or orange. Ke-ola had a torch in his snow pants pocket, but the boat had no running lights.

The rhythm of paddling came naturally to Ke-ola, even though Halau had all of its water underground and no seas underground that they had ever located. But all of the chants and dances he had learned from Aunty Kimmie Sue had a similar rhythm, one that came to him when he dipped his paddle. He was singing inside himself, and his song and these wild northern waves fit together in a pleasing and calming way.

Other icebergs loomed up ahead of them, but he didn't mistake them for the one with the seal because Sean seemed to know which one that was. The wind was loud enough to mask most sounds, but Ke-ola could still hear the barking of seals once in a while over the dual roar of the sea and wind. The wind was icy, sticking pins and needles in his nose and making his mouth feel lipless and dry. He pulled a scarf across the lower half of his face, tucking it into his hood as Clodagh had once showed him, playing "dress up like a real Petaybean" at a pre-latchkay gathering at her cabin after he first arrived. The scarf had been crocheted by Sinead's partner Aisling in a lacy pattern from the mud-brown undercoat of a musk ox. It was soft and stayed dry inside even when it iced up outside.

The seal barking grew louder and louder. Sounded like an argument to him, and he was pretty sure he could hear Murel. Sean barked too but his was a solo voice.

Somewhere close there were a lot more seals, all in a group.

Two more dark heads raised out of the water, otterlike but bigger than Sky's head or that of a regular sea otter. These guys started bouncing up and down on the waves, going "Hah! Hah!" and making chirpy noises that were not quite as loud as the barks. They were waggling their paws, as if they were waving too. Something was definitely disturbing their world and they seemed to be trying to warn someone - the seals?

Sean swam back toward the boat, and a couple of dozen other seals swam in the same direction, heading frantically back for the ice.

Ke-ola strained his eyes to see what was bothering them but the black fins were almost impossible to see until they almost touched the boat, then they were under it and Ke-ola was paddling air until the boat rolled sideways and dumped him in all of his heavy clothing into the frigid sea.

AS SOON AS the other seals dived and swam away from her iceberg, Murel, feeling Sky move, looked down at him.

He looked up from busily grooming his fur, his eyes as bright and curious as ever.

Hah! he said. Fooled those seals.

I didn't know otters could play possum, Murel said. But glancing up again, she saw other otters playing at something else. Two of the deep sea otters seemed to be trying to get her attention.

No more seals, she told Sky. Can you make it now? Shall we go see what they want?

Otters need sleep sometimes, but when they wake up they can swim very fast, Sky assured her. Also, otters do not like seals-who-eat-otters.

Selkies don't like to see those seals either, Sky, she said, making a clear distinction between herself and the attack seals. Those deep sea otters seem to have scared them away.

What deep sea otters?

That's funny. They were right over there, she said, diving in. Sky slid into the sea beside her and she sent out her sonar signal. The two large otters were not far from them, underwater, though she couldn't see them in the glacial flour clouding the northern sea so close to land. However, she also sensed something else: a large group of large something elses.