Maelstrom

CHAPTER 8

SKY DIDN'T NEED to be told twice. In fact, he didn't need to be told once because before Murel's thought was finished, he was back beside her, keeping himself safely shielded between her and Ronan.

Back, back, river seals, the otter told them. Something is there. Something large and hungry.

As if they needed proof, they felt a disturbance in the water, ripples piling against them as something swished back and forth in the water beyond, back and forth, back and forth, relentless, sinister, blocking their way forward. In the dark cool silence the water broke as the something sliced through it with great and churning force, leaving a broad turbulent wake behind it.

It's really big, Ronan said finally. Much bigger than us. Bigger than Ke-ola even.

Yes, I feel that too.

Hundreds big, Sky agreed. Eats otters, river seals, Ke-olas, and Honus.

Not if we don't give it a chance, Ronan said, and flipped over in the water so he was headed back the way they came. What are you lot waiting for? Start swimming.

Murel and Sky flipped in the water too but they met Ke-ola head-on. "Honu!" he called aloud. "Where are you?"

The twins heard no answer from the sea turtle but could feel the creature swimming forward. Each time he paddled, he hesitated ever so slightly, as if listening or waiting.

And then, swift as a diving hawk, the thing that had been swimming before them suddenly turned, shot forward, and was among them.

"Hey!" Ke-ola shouted.

Murel thought he was the one under attack. But then her sonar told her Ke-ola was swimming close beside her, crying, "Honu!"

She heard the click-crunch of teeth on shell. The creature had the Honu! Scooping it into its maw, the attacker grabbed the turtle, then abruptly turned and swam away again.

Let go of the Honu, she demanded, hoping that the telepathy she and Ronan shared with other creatures worked as well on Halau as it did on Petaybee. He's not for eating! Since the Honu's attacker didn't seem like the sort to take orders from seals, she added, Also, he has large relatives who could crush you by crawling on top of you.

She streaked through the water toward it. When a sinewy tail as large as she was slashed close to her face, she leaped on top of it, clamped her teeth into it and hung on.

Let go of my tail! it cried. I have relatives too and they're circling us now.

Ronan's sonar confirmed the creature's threat. He leaped onto the tail too and sank his teeth into it.

Got it! he thought. Let go of the Honu, monster, and tell your relatives to leave us alone.

Unless of course you've already hurt the Honu. Murel's thought was threatening.

In which case, you can say good-bye to this tail. I'm pretty hungry!

Wait! the thing's thought cried out. Mano halau, get back or I will be eaten by these monsters.

The twins found it difficult to use their sonar while their mouths were full of thrashing tail, but the water churned wildly and they had the distinct feeling that something dangerous was giving them a bit more space.

Good, monster, Murel said. Now let the Honu go. And he'd better be alive and unhurt.

He's free! I let him go. I wasn't hurting him. I was only giving him a ride.

Aumakuas do not eat aumakuas. So untooth my tail and leave me alone.

Sky piped up, The turtle is swimming now, river seals. He is swimming in circles.

He does not know where to go. But he is swimming.

Honu?

I live. The thought was feeble. The Mano's teeth did not penetrate my shell.

That's good, but your shell broke one of my teeth, little brother, his attacker complained.

You fellows know each other, then? Ronan asked, thoroughly puzzled.

Ke-ola, who'd been swamped by the thrashing and churning water, recovered enough to swim to the Honu and scoop him into protective arms. His voice was shaking as he said aloud, "Ronan and Murel, you have been biting the tail of the great Mano, the shark. The smell of blood excites his kind, and his relatives surround us."

The Honu's thought-voice was a little stronger. The other Honus say this shell biter is Mano'aumakua, sacred to his clan as we Honus are to ours.

So you're related? Ronan asked.

The monster swirled in the water so that even in the darkness they saw his teeth.

Do I look as if I am codding related to a turtle, morsel?

Ke-ola, perhaps prompted by communication with the Honu the twins did not hear, spoke again, "The sacred Honus have intervened to save us. These Manos will eat anything except their own people or another aumakua. Our Honu protects us."

Funny, Ronan told his sister, I could have sworn it was the other way around.

Let's not mention that we are only honorary Honu clan, Murel suggested.

The shark was trying to examine its own tail. Fortunately, the part they'd bitten was largely cartilage and was not bleeding heavily.

There was no need to bite me, the shark complained. Had his thought-voice not been so rasping and whispery, he would have been whining. I wasn't going to hurt him, I was carrying him to some of his two-legged relatives who are staying with our two-legged relatives.

So what relatives of yours are swimming around us now? Murel asked. Two-legged or shark-finned?

Shark-finned, of course, seal. You are so stupid I am tempted to eat you and improve your gene pool.

They are not of our people and do not know our ways, the Honu said. The twins realized with astonishment that the turtle was apologizing for them. And they are young, but considered quite bright on their world.

The shark's thought was preceded by a shark's version of a growl. It must be a very stupid world.

It is an intelligent world, the Honu replied. I have spoken with it myself. And meteors do not fall on it in great numbers. That is an advantage. Also, the waters, though cold, are open to the sky.

You don't say, the shark replied, chewing on the thought, though fortunately not on the Honu.

Murel had not known many sharks-or any sharks-before. Petaybee did not even have sharks, as far as she knew. She was not entirely sure Petaybee needed sharks.

The planet had invited Ke-ola's people and Honus, not sharks. But it seemed that the shark had the same relationship with some of the people that the Honu had with

Ke-ola, so probably it was a package deal.

We came to help your people as well as Honu's people, she said. If you and your kind can keep yourselves from eating anybody we can save everyone.

Can't you even let us have the otter? it asked. We haven't been fed all day and we're very hungry.

No, Ronan said, and remembered what Ke-ola's people seemed to think. He is our aumakua so you owe him professional courtesy too, right?

Seals don't have aumakuas, according to any lore I've been told, the shark replied scornfully. I thought you were Honu people but you're not. Seals look like meals to me.

They are not seals all the time, Mano, the Honu told him. They are two-legged children.

Why don't they have a seal aumakua then, instead of a puny little otter?

Who knows how things work with those from other worlds? the Honu replied.

Perhaps otters on their world are the ancestral spirits of seals.

Ronan, just to keep the shark confused, said, No, otters are the ancestral spirits of people just as you are. The seal spirits are our father's- What he means to say, Murel said, is that there aren't many human seals like us.

We are aumakuas in training ourselves. So, no eating us or the otter or Ke-ola or Honu. Are we agreed? If so, can we stop discussing cross-cultural theology now and save the people?

Follow me, but if I feel you looking at my tail, I will tell the Mano halau to eat everyone but the Honu and his human. The shark gave a long shudder. Murel realized he was not refraining from eating them out of any kind of respect, but because he was afraid of them. He was not used to being attacked and he felt instinctively that anything smaller than he was, foolish enough to attack, must be either very dangerous or so deranged, and maybe diseased, as to be unpalatable.

The shark was actually quite anxious to get away from them. It shot forward into the water.

They followed the tail, no longer lashing the water but knifing through it so sharply it seemed the shark might leave a dry trench in his wake.

At length the lake narrowed back into the sort of canal they had seen before, then to a streamlet. When they got that far the shark told them, You go ahead. Too shallow for me.

I thought you were taking us to your people, Murel said.

They're over there, downstream, beyond the wooden reef.

Murel thought he might mean a ball of roots like those they'd encountered before.

How do you know they're there if you can't go that far? she asked.

The Honu answered, Manos know too.

In spite of the shark's failure thus far to eat them, Murel was very happy to leave him behind in the lake while she and Ronan, Ke-ola, Sky, and the Honu continued.

Can you sense the people beyond the roots, Honu? she asked.

Yes, two Honu people, the Honu said. I will tell the other Honus and the diggers will come.

Sky dived and surfaced again a short distance away. There is a hole in the roots, river seals. Otters can go through there. Maybe Honus. River seals and Ke-olas are too big.

Be careful, Murel told him. They might have more water and sharks on that side too.

Otters are very careful, Sky told her, and dived.

Waiting was not good. They waited with their heads above the waterline while Ke ola dog-paddled and the Honu swam around in circles. Under the water, everything was very quiet, but once they surfaced the tiniest sound was magnified as it bounced off the water and back and forth in the tunnel, ricocheted through the cavern and lake beyond, and bounced back again. They could hear Mano restlessly sectioning off the lake with great thrusts of his muscular body. They heard the slap of water against the sides of the tunnel and Ke-ola's sigh of weariness.

Odd to be down so deep within this world and not feel anything at all from the planet, Murel said, suddenly very homesick.

It's dead, Ronan replied flatly. There's nothing to feel.

It's just strange, is all I'm saying, she replied. Meteors crash into it, people settle on it, but all it does is wallow around in space like flotsam.

Of course, he replied. This place isn't a natural force like Petaybee. If it was ever alive, it was a long time ago. I'm not of a mind to stay here one minute longer than necessary. He asked the Honu, Are the diggers coming yet?

Yes, but far away. The humans also come.

Good, Ronan replied.

The land shuddered. A moment later a wave rolled in from the lake and flung them against the tree roots.

What was that? Ronan asked, trying to see in the dark. His sonar told him something disturbing was happening, that the walls around them were subtly shifting.

The land quakes, the Honu told him. When its shell was smacked and dented with sky rocks, its insides were damaged too.

I hope that was it, Murel said. I don't fancy being down here during a major quake.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps not, the Honu said, as if it didn't matter.

What happened to "Honus know"? Ronan asked.

Ke-ola spoke up. Through his link with the Honu, he now received a filtered version of the turtle's communications with the twins. "It doesn't take a Honu to know we need to find the survivors down here and get back to the ship before we're all smacked, dented, and damaged."

"I wish Sky would hurry," Ke-ola said. "While we're swimming I can stay warm enough but I'm freezing now."

Murel dived and Ronan heard her sonar song from beneath the water. Aha! Just as

I hoped, she crowed. Surfacing, she told Ronan, Follow me. The quake opened a river-seal-sized hole in the root wall even big enough for Ke-olas and Honus, I think.

She dived again, followed by the Honu, then Ke-ola, with Ronan bringing up the rear. The hole on their side was very large but the roots made a maze of the passage they had to weave their way through. Twice Ke-ola became stuck and had to hold on to one of Murel's fins while Ronan body-slammed him through from behind, sacrificing some of Ke-ola's human hide to the rough roots.

Once they were through the root wall, they expected to see Sky, but found only more of the same narrow canal they'd been swimming in on the other side.

At least there don't seem to be more Manos, Murel said gratefully.

They swam on for several moments. Twice more the tunnel shook and the water sloshed, but these quakes were mere tremblings compared to the first one.

Sky popped out of the water ahead of them.

Did you find the people? Murel asked him.

Yes, he said. Hundreds of Ke-ola relatives.

That meant there were quite a few, but not necessarily hundreds. Otters were very intelligent but they didn't count. When they first met Sky, the twins had asked him how many were in his family and he had not understood the question, so they asked if it was one otter or maybe a small group of otters or hundreds of otters. Sky usually reported any group larger than two or three to be hundreds.

The canal was more torturous than previous ones, choked not only with tangles of roots, but also littered with chunks of earth and stone that had fallen from above.

The twins followed Sky as long as they could in seal form, but then the water ran out for creatures of their size and they had to flip themselves dry and put on their dry suits while they and Ke-ola, hunched over under the low tunnel ceiling, waded through the shallow water, following Sky and the Honu.

At last they rounded a bend and saw torchlight and a shelf of rock extending from the streamlet to the side of a cavernous root canal.

In the flickering of the torchlight, the twins saw a small band of people-not hundreds.

And from above them they heard rumbling. Ronan and Murel could smell the fear and hopelessness emanating from the people as their eyes fearfully searched the sides and roof of the cave while rocks and dirt rained down on them.