Maelstrom

CHAPTER 5

KE-OLA'S FLITTER/DIGGER BEGAN trundling away from the crater. His voice came through their mic helmets. "None of my people are down there after all," he said. "They're still alive, but they've already gone farther into the tunnels."

"How can you be sure of that, Ke-ola?" Marmie asked.

"I can't but Honu can. He says we've got to keep looking."

"How does he know that?" she asked.

Ke-ola, sounding determined, said, "The sacred Honu knows these things. He sees what I see through my eyes when he wishes. He knows the hearts of his people. If the heart has stopped beating, he knows that too."

"Oh dear." Since they had all heard the exchange, Johnny, who had replaced the digger's pilot, followed the lead of Ke-ola's vehicle.

"Marmie, Honu thought-talks to us too," Murel said. "We could cover all the craters faster if we left the flitters to look around different craters. We could ask the Honu if there were people nearby."

"It's too dangerous for you out there unprotected," Marmie said.

"It's more dangerous for the survivors right now," Ronan said. "We'll be as careful as we can but if a big meteor came down and landed on the flitter, in spite of what you told that Cally, I bet we would get hurt. It's not like anyplace in this area is exactly safe."

Marmie gave a Gallic shrug and said, "So, you don't think the shields I invented for his sake would save us, eh? You are of course correct. Remind me never to try to do a business deal with you. You have come to know me far too well. So, proceed, mes petits, but with caution please."

The twins pulled on their helmets and gloves, reset their boots, and stepped out onto the wounded planet.

Ke-ola jumped heavily out of the flitter they'd been following and lumbered away from it.

Ronan slogged off in the opposite direction asking, Honu, you can read Murel and me from the ship too, can't you?

I can, the Honu replied.

You'll let me know if you sense survivors if they're nearby, as you did with Ke-ola?

Yes, Honu said.

I don't suppose you could tell us where to look for people as well, if we're getting warmer or colder?

I do not understand. It is warm where the sky rocks have fallen. You will be colder when you are farther from them.

That's not what I mean. I mean, warmer by am I nearer to the survivors or farther from them.

Walk on and I will try to sense the answer through you.

Ronan trudged on to the next area where it looked like a structure had collapsed under the onslaught of the meteor shower. Here?

Not there.

How about here?

No, no one is there.

Over here?

No.

There's something weird about all this, don't you think?

Murel's thought reached Ronan. She had walked away from the flitter in a position that triangulated his and Ke-ola's. Ronan could tell she was scared of what she might find, and he also caught thought pictures of crushed and burned bodies as his sister imagined what the meteors that had ruined the landscape might have done to living beings.

Meteor showers are sudden, not easy to predict without special equipment, Murel continued. But there are no people here, not even injured ones or bodies. Why not?

How could they have known in time to take cover the way Ke-ola seems to think they did?

They knew, the Honu said, because Honus know. My relatives living among the people warned them. The people fled to safety long before the sky rocks fell.

But how did Honus know the sky rocks were going to fall? Ronan asked. He didn't expect a scientific answer and he didn't get one. He knew what the Honu would say. It was the same thing any sensible creature on Petaybee would say, fleeing before a natural disaster could overtake it.

Honus know, the sea turtle said simply. Then, Ke-ola knows too.

Ronan and Murel looked toward their friend and saw him striding purposefully toward something orange. A piece of cloth? A flag? It moved against the stark background of a barren hill.

"What's that?" Ronan asked him through the helmet com. "What do you see?

What's the orange thing?"

Ke-ola was panting as he answered, "There's a guy waving the orange thing."

Ronan and Murel began to run toward him, but Marmie's voice crackled into their helmets. "Stop. The flitters will be faster."

Even as she spoke, the flitter skimmed the rocky, pitted ground as it swung toward them, pausing long enough for them to climb aboard before chasing down Ke-ola.

There, they could spot the man waving the flag. It might have been his shirt, since he wasn't wearing one.

"Keoki!" Ke-ola yelled. The com unit shrilled painfully loud feedback. "That's my bruthah, Keoki," he explained, his voice, though quieter, quivering with excitement.

"Excellent!" Marmie said.

By then the flitter had set down, the hatch was opened, and Keoki was practically on top of it before Ke-ola and the others could climb out. The brothers wrapped their arms around each other, but while they were still entangled Keoki began steering Ke-ola back into the hill.

After Johnny gave the other flitters their location and told them to stand by, the twins, Marmie, and Johnny followed.

There was a cave entrance in the hill. Keoki lit a torch while Johnny and Marmie flicked the switches in their suits that turned the fingers of their gloves into flashlights and activated another powerful beam on each helmet. Ahead of them a long black tunnel curved sharply downward.

"Lava tube, not the root canal!" Ke-ola crowed to the others. "Of course! Sure! I should have thought of that. These hills are full of them. Old volcanoes from long time ago, way before we came here."

Unencumbered by space gear, Keoki, torch in hand, trotted well ahead of them.

"The meteors never hit our settlements while I lived here," Ke-ola said, "but us kids found the tubes. We wanted to explore them but our folks always said it was too dangerous. Then one of my uncles who'd joined the Corps and come back with one leg missing said instruments on the expeditionary ship that brought him back showed subterranean water, bigger than what was in the canals. But they were really deep down so we never got to go all the way down while I was living at home. They'd make a good shelter, though, deeper than most of the meteors could penetrate and with water for the Honus and the others. Yeah. Makes sense."

He pulled off his helmet and shook loose his dark hair, which had grown to shoulder length since he left school. "Ahh, good air. Better than in the canals."

Johnny referred to the tiny control panel on his wrist again. "It does seem safe enough."

They removed their helmets and continued down the tube.

The tunnel was of black rock that looked as if it had dried after being poured around the cave. In places it was perfectly smooth, in others the floor and walls rippled and undulated. There were no stalactites and stalagmites toothing the passage as they did in the communion caves on Petaybee. Also, deeper and farther along, huge roots pierced through the walls and ceiling of the passage.

It's as if they grow upside down, Murel said. These roots are more like their branches than the part that grows aboveground.

The cave smelled pleasantly of life growing and decaying. Moisture soothed their nostrils, dry from breathing the recycled air of the helmets.

Soon they began hearing noises: an occasional shout or even a laugh, some splashing, coughs, the slap of bare feet, the shuffle of shoes, the rustle of clothing or the rattle of rocks displaced by shifting bodies, sniffs, a sob, a low fevered repetition of unintelligible words that could have been a chant or could have been nonsense. There was even a little singing.

It grew louder as they walked deeper into the tube. The twins' knees ached with the steepness of the descent. Their lights bounced off the broadening lava walls as they rounded a bend, ducked under a curtain of low-hanging roots. Keoki waited for them, torch in hand, and made a right-angle turn. The tube flared into a vast cavern and the lava floor gave way to a wide black shining lake. All around it people gathered in groups. Within it several people swam or floated, as did several very large Honu and a few small ones.

Keoki called out something to the other people in his and Ke-ola's language. He pulled Ke-ola forward and thumped him on the back, then beckoned Marmie,

Johnny, and the twins.

"Ke-ola, will you tell them-" Marmie began, but Ke-ola raised his hand.

"You don't need an interpreter, Madame, if that's what you think. Keoki doesn't have good manners, like me. But everybody here knows Standard. The company makes us all learn it so we can get along on the job later on."

"Of course," Marmie said. "How silly of me." She raised her voice. "Hello, everyone," she said, but for once her presence didn't work. Maybe it was because her stately form was enclosed in a bulky space suit and she was standing just outside of a shadowy chamber even more dramatic than she was.

The people kept talking among themselves and pointing at the newcomers or splashing across the lake to see what was going on.

"Hey, everybody!" Ke-ola bellowed. His voice echoed through the cavern. Ronan was glad they weren't still wearing helmets. The feedback would have deafened them, maybe permanently. "All of you pipe down a minute and listen to this lady.

This is Madame Marmion de Revers Algemeine who runs the school I've been at and a lot of other stuff too."

Keoki gave Marmie a once-over that was pointless considering the sexless space suit, and scoffed, "If she's so important, how come she's with you, bruh?"

"She and these other friends of mine came to save your sorry butt, Keoki."

"From the meteor shower? You're a little late. Good thing for us we got the Honus.

They told us to come here. If it wasn't for them we'd have been squashed into poi."

"We got a Honu too," Ke-ola said. "He told us you were still alive. He said your

Honus would have warned you about the meteors. He's back on the spaceship."

"You got a Honu on a spaceship?"

"Yeah," Ke-ola said. "A little one."

"We have an otter too," Murel put in, just in case anybody was interested.

A woman wearing the ragged remnants of a ship suit got up and walked over to them, giving Keoki a disgusted look and reaching out to pull Ke-ola into an embrace. "Welcome home, little bruthah. We knew about your Honu. Keoki's just being a pain. We got the message a long time ago from the space-station school 'bout your Honu needing a mate. We wondered when you were gonna bring him home to find one."

"We found another home, Leilani, someplace we can all live if we want to," he told her.

Turning back toward the rescue party, Ke-ola said, "This is my sistah, Leilani,

Madame, Captain, Murel, and Ronan. Leilani, Murel and Ronan are my friends from Petaybee. They can explain about the new home better than me."

"First, however," Marmie said, "Leilani, Keoki, is everyone all right? Does anyone need medical attention?"

"Yes, Madame," Leilani said. "We all got inside the tube before the first rocks began to hit. We didn't stay up there to watch the show, though. The Honus told us to take them and take cover so we did."

"It's a good thing," Ke-ola told her. "Your biospheres are nothing but holes in the ground. We thought at first you were in them, then that you'd gone underground in the root canals. That was before our Honu sensed that you were someplace else and okay. The meteors have stopped for now. We got room for anybody who wants to come on board Madame's ship. Who's coming?"

"Not so fast, Ke-ola," Leilani said. "Go where? Why?"

"To Petaybee," he said.

"What's that?"

This is where we come in, I guess, Murel told Ronan, then addressed Leilani and

Keoki but turned to include anyone else who wanted to listen too. "Petaybee is our planet. We came to tell you that you're welcome there."

"We're welcome here too," Keoki told her, an angry edge to his voice. "What is this, some new company scam to get us to move again because they've found something they need that makes this place too good for us to live here?"

"No," Murel said. "We're not from the company. I told you we're from Petaybee.

It's where the company moved our grandparents a long time ago. The company figured it was too cold for anyone to survive there, but the planet helped us and adapted everybody so we've all done fine. Only once you grow up, you can't leave again because of all the adaptations. That's why they sent Ronan and me to invite you."

Leilani crossed her arms over her chest as if she were shivering. "If it's colder than here, count me out."

"Where we'll live isn't going to be so cold," Ke-ola said. "It's in the middle of the ocean, between the poles, and there's hardly any ice there since the volcano started blowing."

"Ice and a volcano?" This from a wizened little old man. "Sounds like we'll be homesick for the meteor showers."

"No, really, it's a good place," Ke-ola said.

"The volcano wouldn't bother you folks very much, probably," Ronan said. "All you have to do is keep chanting to it like Ke-ola did and-"

"What chant was that?" Keoki asked. "What you been telling these people? Some of that old voodoo Aunty Kimmie used to talk?"

"Used to?" Ke-ola said, and looked from face to face. He didn't find the one he was searching for.

"She died two turns ago, bruh," Leilani said.

"None of her homemade poison could stop her coughin'," Keoki said. "'Bout drove everybody nuts hackin' her head off till she finally croaked."

"What's the matter with you?" Ke-ola asked his brother. "You didn't used to be like this. You got no respect now for anything. Aunty Kimmie knew about our people. Her medicines worked too."

"Keoki, you should be ashamed talking like that," Leilani said. "Aunty Kimmie may have been kind of old-fashioned but she was important to a lot of people,

'specially the older ones. And most times her medicines did work-they just tasted like crud."

She turned back to Ronan, Murel, Marmie, and Johnny. She was a very thin lady, much older than Ke-ola, Murel thought. But he'd said he had a big family, and if she was the oldest sister, she might be almost old enough to be his mum. His real mum was dead, Murel recalled him saying.

Later, Murel realized they could have been there arguing without accomplishing anything until the next meteor shower had it not been, once again, for the Honus.

As everyone else chattered, the great sea turtles swam to the bank of the black lake, making their decision on the matter known. As the first turtle reached the bank, three men hauled it toward them and gently lifted it among them.

"The Honus say it's time to go now," one of the men said. "Can you folks move aside so we can pass? Ours is a very old, very well-fed Honu."

"Go where?" Keoki asked.

"They say they want to go to the Honu on the lady's spaceship."

"She can't take our Honus away without us!" Keoki said.

The spokesman for the first turtle's team shrugged, then, in one strong heave, the men lifted the huge Honu up over their heads. His weight was so great, as the twins knew from their acquaintance with their own much smaller Honu friend, that his flippers were too fragile to carry him on hard ground.

Murel got an idea then, and whispered something to Marmie, who nodded.

"Come on, Ro, let's show them the way," she said aloud.

Okay, but that's not really necessary, is it? Won't the Honu guide them onto the ship? her brother replied in thought-talk.

Yeah, but I just thought of a way to make the people feel welcome, only we have to be there in time to greet them the way I plan.

After a few words with Marmie, they scuttled back up the tunnel ahead of the first

Honu bearers, who were followed by several more turtle-toting teams. The gravity made the twins less than speedy, even when they used the lightest setting on their boots, but at least they didn't have to carry turtles as big as they were while they climbed.

The first flitter, on Johnny's order, picked up the twins and took them back to the Piaf. They looked behind as they left and saw the first Honu and its bearers being loaded into a second flitter.

We'll have time, Murel said. It's going to take the flitters several trips to ferry all the Honus and people from the cave to the ship.

THE TWINS QUICKLY pulled off their helmets and suits and raced into the main lounge. In the great tank, the Honu swam excitedly back and forth. He had been stolen as an egg, so this would be his first meeting with others like himself.

The purser, Aidan Carnegie, strode into the lounge. On his wrist, he wore his "brains," a small computer holding the data he required for the smooth operation of the internal organization of the ship.

"Madame and the captain will be joining us soon, I trust?" he asked.

"On their way," Murel said. "But there are also several delegations of Ke-ola's relatives bringing more of the sea turtles aboard. They'll go into the tank, of course, and we should make their human friends comfortable too."

"I've already arranged with the galley staff for refreshments. Madame relayed orders to the bridge about your other requirements. Dr. Eisenbeis is waiting for you in the gardens."

"Great," Murel said. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

MIDORI HAD ALREADY plucked all of the tropical blossoms and started stringing them into necklaces or leis. Ke-ola had presented the twins with leis for their first birthday aboard the space station, explaining that these were greeting, parting, and celebratory gifts his people gave each other. Midori, whose specialty was knowing how natural things were used in various cultures, was pleased to have a practical application for her knowledge, though she grieved to have to denude her tropical garden of its flowers. Murel and Ronan pitched in and began stringing the bright soft blooms alongside her.

"We won't be able to make enough," Ronan said.

"That's okay," Murel said. "I think it's the thought that counts here. We'll give one to Leilani and let Ke-ola decide where else to put them. Maybe we can give individual blossoms to other people kind of randomly. It's a goodwill gesture.

Emissaries do that kind of thing, you know."

"Of course I know. We studied the same stuff. How are we going to get them to sit still long enough to collar them?"

"Collar them? We're not arresting them, we're honoring them, Ro. You don't have to make fun just because you didn't think of it first."

"I just figured naturally we'd do that since that's what they do," he said. "I didn't know you were going to make such a big deal of it, though."

She rolled her eyes and continued as if he hadn't spoken. Midori looked up from her stringing and smiled. Murel thought Ronan was showing off for the benefit of the pretty scientist.

Midori helped her out by asking, "When do you plan to present the leis?"

"We have a little time. Once the Honus are settled into the tanks and all of the other people arrive, Mr. Carnegie's crew will offer them something to eat and drink, of course. I don't think they were able to take much with them when they evacuated, and now all of their supplies are destroyed. Even if they don't want to come to Petaybee, they're going to be on short rations until Intergal gets around to replenishing their food, so I hardly think they'll refuse a meal. But first we'll have to lift off again because, of course, we can't just sit around down here and wait for meteors to fall. Johnny will offer to take them for a spin outside the meteor belt.

Then we'll present the leis while the food is served and welcome them to the Piaf and, we hope, to Petaybee."

"And if they decide not to emigrate to Petaybee?" Midori asked, her fingers flying through deep lavender and cream petals.

"I don't see that they have a lot of choice now. That planet is not fully terraformed.

Petaybee in the middle of winter has more to sustain life. I think Marmie is planning on taking any who don't want to come with us to the nearest Federation outpost to lodge a complaint about Intergal's negligence in overseeing their welfare. But why would they want to go through all that? They know how reliable the company's promises, or even the Federation's, can be. And with the Honus on board and wanting to come with us, and a lot of their relatives, I bet everybody else will want to come too. At least they should be in the right frame of mind to consider thinking about coming with us."

"While they're eating, we could show them the holo we did about Petaybee for school," Ronan suggested. "I saw it in the Piaf's memory banks."

One of their first assignments while attending classes on Marmie's space station had been to make a holographic representation of their planet, including the topography, special features, imports, exports, culture, and in fact most things a prospective settler might want to know. Each student in the class had made one to acquaint all of the others with his or her background.

Ronan continued, "Marmie got some good footage of the new volcanic island when she returned to fetch us for this mission. Ke-ola can sing the song he made about the big eruption." He ran out of words, remembering that Keoki had seemed almost hostile and none of others had been ready to leave until the turtles swam ashore.

"Do you think they'll go for it?"

Murel looked at him gravely. "They don't have that much choice, do they?"

"I guess not, but they don't seem anxious to make friends."

Midori said, "That's your job. That is why this," she lifted the lei, "is such a good idea. If you show some understanding of their culture, their viewpoint, they may feel that you want them to be comfortable, that you care about them. That should help."

"That and feeding them, maybe," Ronan said.

Marmie's voice came over the intercom. "Murel and Ronan, our guests have arrived."

"We'll be right there, Marmie-only, maybe someone could bring a florrie to help us carry the flowers?" The florries were a cross between a small flitter that could operate in the corridors of the ship and a lorry, or truck.

"Never mind, Madame. We'll take mine," Midori said. She stepped into a bay that was hidden by greenery and drove out in a florrie that still had water glistening off it. "I just washed it after hauling some soil," she explained.

"I'll come back and wash it again for you later," Ronan offered shyly. Midori was very pretty.

"I don't think so," she said with a disappointing lack of gratitude. "I like to care for my own equipment." She added gently, "But thanks for the thought."