Deluge

CHAPTER 20

THAT WAS BRILLIANT, Mraka, Puk, Murel told the two alien engineers. Your fishing jet pushed Captain Terry’s boat ahead of the flood. They’re fine, Marmie, Adrienne, the captain, Lloyd, and I heard Zuzu meowing from the hold. And as you can see, Ronan is fine as well.

What there is left of me, Ronan said. But he wasn’t grumbling. He was immensely relieved to be away from Mabo and the island, but he was hurt and exhausted, and longed for home as he had not since this mission began.

We need your help again though, Murel told their friends. I don’t know what range your fishing jet has, but if you could give us a wee boost back toward the mainland, we’d appreciate it.

We just came from there, Mraka said, sounding puzzled.

I know, and there’s no need for you to go back. In fact, it would compound the disaster. But since you’ve a power source now, we could use a lift if you can provide one. Your wake will have had the same sort of effect on the mainland and the prison that it did here. If there’s flooding, the prisoners, including our friends, will be trapped.

You must not go alone, Mraka said. There are wicked humans in that place, the sort who destroyed our world.

I think they’ll be busy saving their own skins.

Hah! Sky said. The seal children will not be alone. I will be with them.

Me too, Tikka said.

Not without me, Kushtaka told her daughter.

Look, that’s great. But we have to go now, Murel told them. Our friends may be drowning.

The fishing jet was crowded. Two seals, a sky otter, and several deep sea otters and squid-forms traveled inside it. Mraka and Puk gave it as much power as they dared without causing further tidal catastrophes. The new volcanic vent provided sufficient power to propel them almost to the squid trough, across which the twins and Sky swam with great alacrity, leaving their alien allies to deal with any of their tentacled kinfolk who might rise far enough from their deep sea home to endanger the swimmers.

The waves were not as great as they had been, but the agitation from the waterspout and its sinking had caused a secondary oceanic agitation that was compounding the damage from the first. The twins were swimming under their own power, halfway across the squid trough, when a giant wave picked them up and carried them up over the prison wall and into the moat pool the waves had made of the prison yard.

Sky washed in beside them. Behind him were Tikka, Kushtaka, and three of their people. Like Kushtaka, these three had assumed their squidlike form, but Tikka maintained the giant deep sea otter guise the twins were more accustomed to seeing.

The main entrance to the prison had been blown open by the force of earlier waves and they were able to swim inside. The floors were covered with water that would have been waist high on a human, but no humans were in sight until the rescue party reached the cells. The electronic controls on the barred doors blocking the corridors had been shorted out by the flood, but the bare overhead bulbs flickered fitfully, casting long shadows on the water.

Women’s voices issued from the cells ahead of them, calling to each other, asking what was going on, some mocking, some bitter, some solicitous, and many in languages the twins did not understand. Some of the words were familiar, though, and pronounced in the melodious accents of the Kanakas.

Catching sight of them, one of the women said, “Seals! And an otter? They’re turning this place into an aquarium!”

“And me without my mermaid tail! Any of you girls got a comb and a mirror?”

“No, but I can sing. Mermaids do that.” This was a familiar voice too, but from a distance the emaciated, dirty, ragged, and very wet woman speaking was all but unrecognizable as Marmie’s housekeeper, Mrs. Fogarty.

“Ah, yes, dearie, let’s have a rousing chorus of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat,’” another woman suggested. “Or any selections you may have that include swimming instructions.”

“I used to like wet and wild, but this was never what I had in mind,” yet another woman said.

“What’s the water level like up there?” someone called from the end of the row. “Is it rising?”

“Doesn’t seem to be,” someone called back from behind the twins, and then let out a shrill scream.

This was followed by others. The twins flipped over to see what was causing the screams. The women behind them were pointing at Kushtaka and her companions.

“Monsters! They feed the bodies of the dead to those things and now they’ve turned them loose on us!”

Stay back, Kushtaka, Tikka. They’re frightened of you.

So we can hear by the noises they make, Kushtaka replied.

By now the twins were near the cell of four Kanaka women. At first these women also seemed frightened of the aliens pointed out by the others, but now one asked, Seal sistah, seal brutha? Friends of Ke-ola?

Ronan barked and Murel flapped her flippers together and walked backward on her tail as comically as possible to allay the fears of the prisoners. Once the Kanaka women recognized the twins, however, so did Mrs. Fogarty and other incarcerated crew members among the female prisoners. Then Kushtaka and her people were able to come forward and gain acceptance by association.

“It’s very good of you children to try to free us,” Mrs. Fogarty told them. “But unless you happen to have a spacecraft handy, I’m not sure it will do us much good to be out of our cells.”

“At least we won’t drown in here if we go with them,” someone else told her sensibly.

“I can’t swim,” another woman said in a worried tone.

“Ronan and-I mean, the seals, won’t let you drown,” Mrs. Fogarty told her firmly. “Nor will I.”

First we have to unlock the cells, Murel said, eyeing the locks.

Otters know all about locks, Sky said, surfacing between her front flippers. The cat showed me. He carried a ring of keys in one paw.

Otters will have to unlock the doors, then, Ronan said. I wish when our grandfather designed us to be seals he had designed seals with fingers and opposable thumbs.

The prisoners grew quite excited seeing the little otter with the paw full of freedom and exclaimed about how cute and clever he was. Sky, who understood human speech pretty well by now, preened.

“Here, little fellow, give those to me,” Mrs. Fogarty coaxed.

It’s okay, Sky. She’s a friend, Murel told him.

Sky otters have many friends, Sky replied smugly. But there should be a game. I will drop the keys, then you dive?

No time for that, Sky, Ronan told him, struggling to keep his patience with their friend. But there is a huge game of hide and seek to be played here. Why don’t you swim around the prison, keeping out of sight, and see how many friends you can recognize from the ship and Ke-ola’s planet? Find the keys to all the cells, if you can, especially on this floor.

We could just free everybody, Murel said.

I don’t think we want to do that. There are probably a lot of real criminals mixed up with the people who’ve been falsely accused like our friends. If we release the wrong people, it could do us more harm than good.

I don’t think we’ve time to be that picky, Murel argued.

Sky somersaulted through the water and proffered the keys to Mrs. Fogarty, who unlocked her cell and waded out.

Ready or not, otters are coming! Sky’s thought declared while he verbalized a lot of chitters and squeaks and swam a brown streak back through the water.

“They took Madame and her first officer to the dungeons,” Mrs. Fogarty said. The twins knew she was actually addressing them but trying not to give away their secret. “It’s said that is where the worst things happen to people. They go down there and don’t come back.”

“Sorry, love,” said the woman whose cell she was unlocking. “Your friends will be goners by now.”

I wish we could tell her not to worry about them, Murel said.

Yeah, but there may be other people down there who need help, Ronan replied.

You think they’d have survived this long?

Maybe, maybe not, but there’s the male crew members from the Piaf and the station to free yet.

I’ll lead Mrs. Fogarty and the key ring over there, sis. You go help Sky. He won’t be strong enough to drag anybody out of danger if necessary.

I’ll go too, Tikka volunteered.

Sky, have you found the dungeons yet? Murel asked.

Yes! This way. It is a good slide.

Murel was afraid of what she might see, but at least she knew it wouldn’t be Marmion and Adrienne drowned. She dived down the triple flight of stairs, Tikka right behind her. The water had forced the door open so it hung twisted to one side of the frame.

Using her sonar, Murel swam around the floating uniformed bodies. She could see fairly well. There were high windows around the top of the walls and these had also been forced open when the water flooded the floor.

There is air! Sky told her. At the top, there is air. Up high.

She followed him through the rooms, searching as she went, then heard the otter exclaim, Here are humans! Live ones! They are hanging from the ceiling.

Puzzled, she sought Sky out and found him swimming circles around three people hanging limply from their wrists, their chins barely clearing the flood. Two young men and a female. Oddly, they wore the tattered remnants of guard uniforms.

Tikka swam closer and examined what held them up. Then she dived toward the floor and came up again, clutching something in one forepaw. I will cut them down.

I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Murel said. They can breathe where they are now, and if we take them with us, we’ll have to carry them back up the stairs, and there’s no air in the stairwell. We might kill them instead of save them.

But I found them! Sky protested, as if they were fish he was being denied the chance to eat.

I know. But I don’t know how to free them without doing more harm than good. And we don’t know who they are. They could have been hung here for brutality to prisoners, for all we know.

She didn’t think that was true, but it could be.

This one, Sky said, circling one of the men. The cat and I saw him through the holes. He came for Marmie and Adrienne. They did not smell afraid with him. The little otter paused and studied the man’s face for a moment before adding, Yes, I think it is him. He was dry when I saw him before.

Once the water drained away and the people on the roof realized it wasn’t going to rise any higher, Murel knew they’d climb back down into the prison and resume business as usual. Then these people, who were evidently being punished or tortured, would wish they hadn’t survived. If she didn’t move swiftly, she, Ronan, Kushtaka’s people, and everyone else they were trying to rescue would all be captured as well.

Sky patted the man’s face with his paw. Wake up. Time to go!

The young man’s eyes opened, then he groaned and closed them again. He looked to be in terrible pain.

Tikka swam up to him and looked questioningly at Murel.

Go ahead, Murel told her. If he’s conscious, he can swim. Pat him again, Sky, and see if you can rouse the others.

The man opened his eyes again and stared at Murel curiously, then at Sky. He tried to flinch away from Tikka, but he had no room and no strength. The alien otter cut the restraints binding him to the ceiling, and he sank like a stone, his eyes wide open. Murel dived and caught his shirt in her teeth, but it tore away. However, he was awake and surfaced again.

“So you’re not here to eat us after all?” he asked aloud. She wished she could answer him.

Sky splashed him. “Silly! Otters do not eat humans. Seals sometimes eat otters, but not river seals.

Humans sometimes eat otters and seals, but not the other way around. Otters like delicious food like fish and clams. Humans do not smell delicious.”

Still, Murel could tell that in spite of his attempts to reassure the man, he was pleased to be mistaken for a ferocious man-eating otter. She, on the other hand, was appalled at being mistaken for a ferocious man-eating seal.

The man helped Tikka free the other two people, holding each of them up until they awakened enough to swim on their own. Now it was time to leave the safety of the air pocket and lead these people up to the ground level.

There was no way to tell the humans what they wanted to do, though Murel tried sending calming thoughts to them. Finally she swam up between the first man’s legs, inviting him to ride her back, and he turned to the others.

“They want to give us a lift through the flood. Hang on however you can. They can swim out of this faster than we can alone. Deep breath now and-”

He ducked his head down and clasped his arms around Murel just above her flippers. She shot back through the water and spiraled up the stairs as quickly as she could, keeping her movements fluid and yet stable enough not to throw her passenger.

Have you got them? she asked Tikka.

Yes. Hurry! These creatures are fragile, Tikka replied, her thoughts full of anxiety.

They reached the surface in time to see some of the prison walls shaking. Ronan, bare as the day he was born, his skin full of terrible bruises and sores, was running down the stairs toward them. “Our people are loose on the lower level and I just released Marmie’s crew who I found on the upper one. Did you feel that? There’s a quake starting.”

He jumped back into the water, resuming his seal form. The prisoners Murel and the others had rescued were too busy breathing to notice his change.

The newly rescued prisoners began swimming toward the entrance to the prison. Up the corridors and coming down the stairs were others, also fleeing. Murel hoped they knew where they were going and what they were going to do, because she had no idea.

Kushtaka told her, We will swim out and return to the ship now. Will you come, too?

We can’t just leave them, can we? she asked Ronan.

I don’t see what more we can do to help, he replied. And there’s Marmie to think of. If we can manage saving her, she can help everyone else.

They could see the flooded prison yard through the doors when they heard the shots ring out and shouting. They dived under and swam out into the moat, twisting to look up.

The guards are firing from the roof! Ronan exclaimed. The prisoners will be shot like ducks in a barrel.

Murel had reached the door by then. The prisoners were under the water, swimming for the entrance.

Suddenly, the prison shook as vigorously as the twins when drying off to become human. People fell off the roof into the water.

The light was strange. Beyond the crowded roof and tumbling figures, beyond the firing guns, the sky blistered and boiled with brilliant hot color.

The twins knew what that meant. They had seen it on Petaybee a lot recently.

The volcano in the middle of the island… Murel said.

Maybe the alien Petaybeans upset the seismic balance or the core magma levels or something…

Ronan said, making a wild guess.

Or maybe this planet is waking up too, Murel suggested. As they swam out to sea, she filled him in on what she had learned about the squid and about this being the original homeworld of the alien Petaybeans.

But if that’s so, they invaded and overran existing sentient life-forms to make this prison colony, Ronan said. That’s impossible! It’s goes against the foundations of Federation law.

So does quite a bit of what we’ve seen here, Murel said. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone much.

They swam farther out, over the squid trough. The lifeless bodies of several more squid bobbed on the water’s surface, their tentacles limp as seaweed.

When they were almost across the trough, the sea in front of them opened like the mouth of a giant whale. Kushtaka, Tikka, and the other three aliens swam into it and were sucked in so quickly that they seemed to vanish. Sky cut through the water past the twins and with a gleeful and slightly startled “Hah!” also disappeared.

The twins followed and, after several breathless moments, whooshed once more into the control room of the underwater city-vessel.

Mraka and Puk looked as alarmed as giant deep sea otters could look. We have the power we need now. But it has made danger for the land-dwellers.

Whoops, Ronan said.