Maelstrom

CHAPTER 28

BACK AT CHARLENE'S, everyone crowded around her tiny table, sitting on whatever could be used as a chair: upended logs, toolboxes, and a stool made from a single whale vertebra. The conversation was far from cheerful.

Their coats and pants hung steaming beside the stove, drying. Their boots were on the stone hearth and their mittens on a line Charlene had rigged around the chimney. Charlene and her husband, Dan, were outside unhitching and feeding their dogs and helping the neighbors with the other teams. It was snowing again, and through the cabin's window, already halfway snowed in, the people out there were hard to make out, little more than shadows moving clumsily within the heavily layered draperies of falling snow.

Mum tried the mobile but shook her head in frustration as she pocketed it again. "I hope Sinead and the others haven't started from Kilcoole to pick us up in this."

"If they have, they'll be grand, love, sure they will," Da reassured her. "A whiteout is no big thing to Sinead and her team, or the others, for that matter."

"Any more news about Madame's ship and the kids?" Ke-ola asked.

"What about them?" Murel and Ronan said, startled by the question and alarmed by the looks passing from Mum to Ke-ola and Da.

Mum swallowed a gulp of tea. "While we were out at the volcano and the copter with Rick, Johnny, and Pet, and Raj was coming back to help the uninjured survivors back to base, Marmie and her crew were arrested and the Piaf was impounded with all passengers aboard."

"They can't do that!" Murel exclaimed. "That's against Federation law."

"Which statute?" Ke-ola asked anxiously.

"I dunno! I can't remember everything," Murel said impatiently. "But it just is. It has to be."

"It's against common decency and common sense," Da agreed. "But that doesn't always have a great deal to do with the law."

Mum sighed. "We've had no luck trying to raise other ships or any of Marmie's allies because of the interference, but the crew was able to keep the channels open for us until the ship got out of range of the clear signals we can receive. It's looking pretty grim. They're apparently being hauled off-secretly from what we can tell-to Gwinett Incarceration Colony."

"On what charges?" Ronan demanded indignantly.

"Kidnapping the Kanakas and stealing the turtles and sharks."

"I wish we could give them the sharks back," Murel muttered. "In fact, I'd like to see the punters swim in and get them."

"Gwinett?" Ke-ola looked stricken. "That's a terrible place. They're taking the kids there too?"

Mum nodded. "From what I can gather. And you're right, Ke-ola: it's bloody brutal there. I hate to think of Marmie there, much less the kiddies. But we can't do a blessed thing about it, and furthermore, I'm afraid that's not all there is to it." She told them about the transmission she'd overheard.

Da grunted. "Arrest us all so they can take over Petaybee? Must be a new generation of bullies who haven't heard how well that works." He looked at the window. There wasn't much of it left uncovered by snow. "In fact, I'd say offhand that Petaybee may be taking evasive action right now."

"If only we could hail another ship," Mum said, "then Pet, Johnny, and Raj could hunt up some of the other powerful people in the Federation and even in Intergal- those who are friends of Marmie's and would put a stop to this nonsense soonest."

"Nonsense it is too, Mum," Murel agreed. "You said it was that Colonel Cally and his lot that brought charges. Mum, they were going to just abandon Ke-ola's people and not even check to see if they'd survived the meteors-just leave them there for more of the same. If we hadn't been there, they'd be starving while waiting for the next meteor shower to squash them."

Ke-ola said, "It's our fault you're all in trouble."

Da snorted. "Nonsense, lad. Petaybee would have been a giant strip mine and ourselves more or less slaves if Yana and Marmie hadn't drummed up influential people with consciences enough to prevent tossers like the one's Cally brought in from winning. Your folks are only an excuse for them to try their same old tricks again. But the fact is, they'll find it's very hard to invade us in the winter, and very hard to lay siege to people who are more or less under it two-thirds of the year anyway. We've not allowed them to map us completely, and Petaybee has very tricky terrain. Even if they did have a map, this world is capable of changing things around just to confuse them."

"But Breakup will come eventually," Murel argued. "And meanwhile, Marmie and the others will be in their awful prison. We have to do something."

"Have to," Ronan agreed.

"We will," Mum said. "But we must each do our part, and right now for you that means returning to the cave and staying where I can keep an eye on you."

"Oh, Mum," Murel and Ronan said together. As if they hadn't already been into space twice and solved all kinds of problems.

"Kids, there's nothing else you can do for now. Our communications are still inadequate to reach even as far as Marmie's spaceship. We'll just have to wait until one of our other friends arrives and get them to help Marmie and us. We've no other choice. With the Piaf gone, there's no craft to carry our message."

"There is one," Ronan said.

"OUT OF THE question," Mother said.

"Too dangerous," Father said. "From what you kids tell us, the deep sea other people are just this side of hostile, though they were perfectly pleasant to me when

I came to get you. Perhaps we can persuade them to take me."

"You can't, Da," Murel told him. "You'd have to take human form to tell anybody about Marmie and you'd have to leave the city also. You know you wouldn't be able to live offworld for long, and there's no telling how long it would take."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, lass," Da said with uncharacteristic gruffness. But Murel knew he was only being gruff because he hated that what she said was true.

"I will go," Ke-ola said. "It's because of me Madame is in trouble, her trying to help my people."

"I don't think someone who's human all the time can live in their environment, Ke ola," Da told him.

"The Honu should go, then. The children will be afraid. The Honu will calm them."

"We may never even see the children," Murel said. "All we have to do really is make sure Marmie's people know she needs all of her lawyers and every friend in high places she's got to get her and everyone else free and off our backs."

"None of you are going and that's final," Mum told them. "You twins are at the top of the Most Wanted list. If you stay here, they'll never find you and you can help the rest of us hide by keeping us informed of intelligence the animals might gather."

AWAKENING IN THE sulfur-smelling darkness, Murel knew she was not back in the cabin in Kilcoole. Then she remembered: they were in the communion cave where the village had taken refuge. The cave was too small for everyone to live in, but the white Nakatira cubes were invisible in the snow-and there was plenty of snow now.

Murel heard the waterfall outside the cave and, beyond it, voices: her mother's and others', not Da's.

It's Pet, Ro told her, reaching between their cots for her hand. And Johnny and that Raj guy.

What are they saying?

Dunno. Can't hear for the waterfall. Let's see what they're doing.

They crept out of their sleeping bags and over the bodies of other people and animals sleeping nearby, then walked down the path from the communion cave to the one under the waterfall, stopping just outside it.

"Let us handle it, Yana," Johnny was saying. "You stay here and take care of your family and the planet. It's my ship that was taken."

"And my boss," Pet said.

"And we'll be using my firepower," Raj said.

"Right. And it's my family and my home that's being threatened, folks. Besides, the Federation will want to talk to me. Better to do it offplanet where nobody else is going to be exposed."

Johnny laughed. "You just don't like hiding. What does Sean think of his co governor as a hijacker anyway?"

"He doesn't know. And we haven't hijacked anything yet. They haven't sent the ship. Maybe they won't. Maybe Marmie's friends found out what they were up to and were all over them before they got her to Gwinett. If the next ship that comes is friendly, we can ask them nicely to help. If not, we go with my plan. Agreed?"

"Agreed," they said.

The twins crept back to their sleeping bags, where Sky slept between them. Murel stroked his fur and cried a little. Adventures away from home were one thing, but having to leave your home to hide because it was under attack was far more worrying. Mostly she was worried about Mum doing something foolish while forbidding everyone else to take action that she thought was foolish, even when she didn't understand what was involved.

She finally fell asleep, awakening only when Ronan shook her shoulder. Sky was gone, no doubt already fishing for breakfast. Outside the cavern, wan light glanced off the snow sifting into the sulfurous steam of the communion pool.

Murel and Ronan stripped down and dived in.

At the river, Aunt Sinead's partner, their Aunty Aisling, was standing guard. She looked very strange with a hunting rifle instead of a piece of needlework across her lap. She looked up when they swam past her.

"Where might you young rascals be off to this morning?" she asked. "Worrying your poor mum into a head full of gray hairs again, are you?"

They barked that the truth was just the opposite-it was Mum that was worrying them-but Aisling didn't speak seal; she just waved and they swam onward.

Along the way, they spoke to the animals they met on the riverbanks. They told them about the threat to Petaybee and asked them to let Da know about any strange ships in the sky, or any men on the ground, as soon as they saw such things or heard of them from others. All along the length of the river they spread the message.

When they reached the sea, they expected to be met by Sky's relatives and cousins.

Instead they saw only Sky, climbing up an icy bank, searching the horizon, then sliding down and climbing up again.

Sky! Murel called.

Hah! There you are, river seals. Good. Sea otter cousins are coming.

Where have they been? Ronan asked.

You will see, Sky said.

And then they did see. Offshore, to the north and just beyond where the sea otter island had been, the water parted in a great whirling path that sucked it down then released it into a wave that swamped both the twins and Sky.

Sea otters began swimming ashore, and then, to the twins' amazement, they were followed by the larger variety of sea otters, the deep sea otters. Mraka, Puk, Kushtaka, and Tikka floated offshore. Sky joyously dived in to join them.

Come, river seals, he called. Otters know the wishes of relatives who are not otters.

You wished to see the deep sea otters again. Sky otters cannot swim so far again so soon, but sea otter cousins can. Deep sea otters come to see you.

The twins swam out to the big otters, who were being loaded down with gifts of clams, crabs, and shell-cracking rocks by their sea otter hosts.

Sky dived under Kushtaka and surfaced on her other side, where he took Tikka's paw and pulled her out of the water and over to his slide.

I didn't think you could put your bubble where there was no volcanic vent, Murel said to Kushtaka.

For a short time we can, when we have gathered full power. There is no vent here, but also there are no sharks.

Before Murel could make another remark, Kushtaka said, The otters say that new trouble threatens our world. Why?

Murel and Ronan began to explain. Despite the mistrust that had marked the beginning of their dealings, Kushtaka listened carefully to everything they said, asking questions when she didn't understand. When they finished, Murel and Ronan felt they finally had an adult ally who understood the entire problem and was willing and able to help solve it.

Tell Da that Kushtaka says we won't be long, Murel told a sea otter cousin.

And tell him to tell Mum not to do anything rash, Ronan added. Then, with Tikka and Sky sliding down the ice crust and jumping into the sea to join them, the twins followed Kushtaka, Mraka, and Puk back to their undersea bubble.