Maelstrom (13 page)

Like a frog whipping out its tongue to catch a fly, the device shot forth a beam of light. Water wrapped around the beam, creating a waterspout, a concentrated whirlpool. The practical reason for this, when it wasn’t being used for rescuing selkies, became clear when it swirled back into the room with its waters full of shellfish, seaweed, and the sort of plant life they had seen before near the undersea volcanoes.

You use that to hunt?
Murel said.

As you see,
Kushtaka replied.

Don’t you ever leave your city for anything, then?

Occasionally, when it seems safe.

Oh! The sharks. I almost forgot. The reason we came here was to try to find you, once the sea otters told us you were still around. You see, some new people are coming and they brought the sea turtles with them, but their relatives also brought along sharks. I’m afraid they might eat you if they catch you, so we wanted to warn you about them.

What are sharks?
Kushtaka asked, exactly mimicking the way Sky had asked the meaning of “dream.”

Mean!
Sky answered immediately.
And dangerous. Sharks are very mean with huge teeth and they always want to eat you.

And yet you escaped to warn us?
Kushtaka said, sounding as if the idea that they would do so was an entirely alien concept to her.

They won’t eat us,
Ronan said, more confidently than he felt.
We saved them from dying of starvation on another world.

And they acknowledge this, these mean sharks? Do you think them trustworthy?

No way!
Murel said. When Kushtaka looked puzzled, she tried to explain.
Trustworthy is not the term I’d use for them if I happened to meet them in the open sea, but that’s not the case. We helped them and they know if they hurt us, they and their people might suffer.

Their people?
Kushtaka asked.

Murel tried to explain.
These sharks are special to some of the people who are coming, like we said. They’re sort of clan totem animals—the people think they have the spirits of their ancestors living in them and are here to protect and help them. That’s what the Honus, the sea turtles, are too. They’re the aumakuas of some of the other people.

Sky piped up again.
The aumakua of river seals is the sky otter—me! Except this otter is not the ancestor—that means father’s father, to you deep sea otters who do not understand two-legged terms as well as this otter—of these river seals or even a blood relative. I hope to be the ancestor of many river otters soon, but Ke-ola’s people think I am the aumakua because I am good friends with the river seals and we help and protect each other.

It was a lengthy speech for Sky. It seemed to Murel he was learning quickly about their world and thought concepts. Well, why not? Otters were not stupid animals by any means. And Sky was particularly smart.

You speak of two-leggeds as if standing on two legs means human,
Kushtaka said.
Deep sea otters stand on two legs.

But you have otter legs—the right amount,
Sky said.
And your hind paws are flippered like those of the sea otter cousins. You cannot be real two-leggeds like Murel and Ronan.

What do you mean? They do not have legs at all. They have flippers.

Not always,
Murel said.
We are not the regular kind of seals. We’re selkies, like our father.

That means as soon as we dry off we turn into people with two legs and two arms,
Ronan explained helpfully.
Most of our lives we’ve been stuck on dry land or in space—you know what space is?

We know,
Kushtaka told him without hesitation.

This otter is a space otter as well as a sky otter,
Sky told her proudly.
I am the first otter in space!

Not precisely,
Kushtaka replied, half to herself. Sky didn’t catch her thought. He was preoccupied with a fish from the catch inside the hunting chamber and looked over at Ronan with an amiable expression consisting of wide eyes and chewing.

Murel, intrigued by the big otter’s remark, pretended she hadn’t understood it either. She was beginning to have suspicions, however—how could she not?
So, how did you come to be deep sea otters?
she asked, seemingly conversationally.
Are your species one of Petaybee’s adaptive mutations—originally the regular kind of otters but for some reason specially adapted to live underwater and near volcanoes?

Mutations? No, we are not mutants,
Kushtaka said with a hint of indignation.

No, no,
Murel said hastily,
I didn’t mean anything bad by that. We’re mutations ourselves—almost everybody on Petaybee is. The planet does it, see, so we can live here. Our grandfather and great-grandfather and our father too helped decide which original plants and animals belonged on Petaybee, but then a lot of those changed, so they could survive. Usually it takes a long time but on Petaybee it happens really fast. Take our mother, for instance. She came here when she was grown up and had traveled in space her whole life, but now that she’s been here a while, Petaybee has changed her so that she can’t go offplanet anymore.

We can only go because we’re still kids,
Ronan added.
The change doesn’t happen until you’re past puberty.

Kushtaka displayed no interest in that explanation at all. Instead she repeated,
We are not mutants.

Murel decided finally to be direct and say what was on her mind.
You’re not really otters either, are you?
she asked.

Not always,
Kushtaka admitted.

And let me guess,
Ronan said, having shared his sister’s doubts about the deep sea otters almost since they first met Kushtaka.
You haven’t always lived on Petaybee either, have you?

Always is an inexact term,
Kushtaka replied.

I think this is the part where we ask to be taken to your leader,
Ronan said.

I am the leader,
Kushtaka said, then added curiously,
Our otter shape has worked well for us until now. Other otters accept us as otters. What makes you think otherwise?

Well, you live in a city with a force field, for one thing,
Murel said.
Normal otters don’t tend to do that.
Of course, the other otters, Sky included, were funny and active, playful and curious, and Kushtaka displayed no more of those qualities than an iceberg.

But had we not saved you and allowed you to see our habitat, you would not have known?
she asked. Her whiskers drooped. She was downcast at having been found out, and seemed to consider it a personal failure of some sort.

No, and your point is taken,
Murel responded quickly.
We’re really, really grateful to you for saving us, and our father too, so we know you’re good, of course. But why do you want to keep your presence and what you really are such a big secret? I’m guessing you must be some other sentient species from some other world, but there are lots of people here now who’ve lived on other worlds. If Petaybee doesn’t care that you’re here, we sure don’t.

And neither will anybody else,
Ronan added, as reassuringly as if Kushtaka had been abducted from the sea by a giant waterspout and deposited in
their
shielded fortress instead of the other way around.
You’re safe, really.

We never doubted it,
Kushtaka said coldly.
However, we prefer our privacy and discretion to wider exposure to the land population—particularly humanoids.

I guess we can understand that,
Murel said.

During this part of the discussion, Sky, oblivious to so much conversation when there were things to explore, darted off to poke into one hole after another.

Now he returned, followed by a smaller version of Kushtaka.

Mother, this strange little fellow came into my den. What is he doing here and why are you talking to these seals?
the small deep sea otter asked in a girlish mind-voice, suggesting to Murel that this was a daughter otter.

Tikka, this is colony business,
Kushtaka said sternly.
These are not simple seals. They are the children of that other seal we pulled in during the eruption. They were the ones who came for him and insisted that we release him. They say that they and their father can transform into human form.

Really? They have another form? Like us? Can I see?
Tikka asked, addressing the last question to the twins with more of the otter enthusiasm they had come to expect of Sky and his relatives.

Sorry. We can’t do it in the water,
Murel told her.
We’re seals as long as we’re wet. How about you? What is your other form?

Kushtaka bristled at Murel’s friendly interest. Tikka, however, answered immediately. She suddenly slipped out of her otter skin as if it were only a wrap. Inside of it her skin was a smooth translucent gold, with an inner light that cast soft pastel colors over her. Like them, she had a head and a trunk, but four arms ending in long web-fingered hands and four legs ending in flippers. Her eyes were huge, blue green and somewhat prominent. From the middle of her forehead and extending down her back, a delicate fin waved and floated like a solid sheaf of gleaming hair.

Wow!
Murel said.
You’re beautiful!

Tikka, change back this instant!
Kushtaka demanded.

But why, Mother? You heard them. They like how we look in this form. And I like being able to use more than two legs and two arms at a time. Otter form is so inconvenient that way.

You know we must be discreet for the good of all. Your brother was supposed to be watching you. Where is he?

He wanted to see the humanoids and that new species that just arrived. They were on the sursurvu.

The what?
Murel asked.

One of our surface surveillance viewscreens,
Kushtaka told her.
We are constantly studying this world around us, so of course we have sensors of all sorts to help us monitor our surroundings. That is how we realized your father and then you were in danger. It is also how we observed the sea otters enough to see that they are sociable, curious, and clannish, and would respond well to our presence if they were told we were distantly related.

Tikka jiggled all eight limbs impatiently during her mother’s explanation, then said,
Mother, Jeel was highly impressed by the new species. He liked their teeth. I did not. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such ferocious-looking fish before. But he wants to inspect them more closely.

I hope you mean he’s just zooming in with your device from here inside the dome,
Ronan said anxiously.
He wouldn’t be likely to go outside, would he? Your people don’t ever leave here, do you?

Of course we do,
Tikka replied.
That’s how we met the otters and learned to be deep sea otters. It would be way too boring to be cooped up here all the time. Besides, we’re supposed to be exploring and learning about new species, right, Mother?

Your brother went outside the colony without telling me?
Kushtaka demanded, whiskers bristling.

Jeel could tell you were busy with your guests, Mother, and didn’t want to interrupt,
Tikka told her.

They would be the sharks that we were telling you about, Kushtaka,
Ronan said.
They eat anything and anybody in their path, and these ones have been cooped up and hungry for a long time.

What’s the quickest way out of here?
Murel asked.
We’ll go fetch him back for you.

I will call him,
Kushtaka said.

It’s better if we go,
Ronan tried to insist.
Like we told you, the sharks know us and they won’t hurt us.
Truthfully, he was not all that sure how long shark gratitude lasted. But surely the shark-people refugees would have come with their aumakuas so they’d help control them if necessary.

Also,
Murel said, picking up his train of thought even though it was a bit buried for anyone else to catch,
there’ll be humanoids with the sharks probably and they know us already. We could help hide Jeel so they wouldn’t find out about your colony.

Very well,
Kushtaka agreed reluctantly.
But first we must clear your minds of this place.

How can we help get Jeel back here if you do that?
Ronan protested.

He knows the way. If you must stay with him to protect him, you can follow him.

Okay, but hurry up. He’s really in danger, honest,
Murel said.

It is not a process that can be hurried,
Kushtaka replied stubbornly.

Then for his sake let us go now. We won’t tell. We promise. We didn’t tell before. You can wipe our memories when we get back if you want to, but if I were you, I wouldn’t. You need somebody to warn you about dangerous stuff like this.

Kushtaka finally agreed.
This is not according to our protocol, and I will have to answer to our security team for the breach. However, since the situation is an urgent one, I hope they will understand my unilateral decision to compromise. One of you may go to bring Jeel back, but the other one must stay here until Jeel is safely returned. To save more time, we will locate Jeel in the sursurvu so you can find him more quickly and bring him back. Your small companion otter may remain here too, for his own safety.

While Murel and Ronan argued about who would go and who would stay behind, Kushtaka beckoned them to follow. Thrusting her paws to her sides, she kicked her legs in a smooth undulation, and shot upward. She led them into a domed room at the top of the invisible dome enclosing the city.

Tikka, who had not bothered returning to otter form, took Sky’s paw by the end of one of her beautiful web-fingered tentacles, and asked,
Do you like to slide? See that building over there? It has a spiral slide all the way from the top of the dome down to the sea floor.
He ran around her in excited circles as she led him away.