Before he could find it, he heard a splash.
Hah! Free! Sky's thought reached him. He caught a sense of the otter swimming away, scouting ahead of them.
When they found their footing, Ke-ola carefully handed the small Honu down to Ronan, then slid down himself.
Murel patted the Honu's shell. She couldn't work up a lot of reverence for a sea turtle the way Ke-ola and his people and even Ronan seemed to, but she liked him.
And he was very young as Honus went, and she sensed he was worried about them as well as about the other possible survivors they sought. Knowing the things
Honus knew seemed to carry a lot of responsibility with it.
Sky, water-slicked and excited, darted back again, shaking himself a bit. Good water. Deep water. Deep enough for river seals. No salt, but deep.
The twins undressed in the dark, strapped on their suits, and submerged themselves. Ke-ola and the Honu followed.
The first passage was deceptively easy. Its end was marked by a snarl of live roots that formed an almost impenetrable wall. Even Sky got stuck trying to pass through its openings.
Hah! he said. No swimming here.
Honu conveyed the problem to his fellow turtles. Go back, he said to the twins and
Ke-ola. They backed off a little ways and soon heard the hum, thump, grind, crash of the digger above them. They scrambled out of the new hole. The digger's operator and Johnny conferred, then the driver got back into the machine, drove forward a short distance, and lowered the shovel again.
"It's going to take forever if we have to keep doing this," Ronan complained.
"We could cut through the roots with a laser, I suppose," Marmie replied, "but it seems a shame to destroy the roots of some of the few organisms living on the surface of this desolate place. Besides, the laser might cut through to the far side and injure people who took refuge there."
Caution won out over speed. The twins would swim until they inevitably hit another barrier and once more had to haul out. Again they suited up, and waited inside a flitter with Sky, Ke-ola, and the Honu until the digger opened a new entrance beyond another impediment. Usually the blockage was caused by roots.
Once, the water disappeared, hissing, beneath a huge chunk of meteor. Then all of them had to turn around and splash back to the previous hole before they emerged.
It took endless hours. Although their night vision was good, the tunnels were usually cramped and there was little to see.
Murel could feel Ke-ola's spirits sinking a little more during each dark trip, though the Honu thought only, Noooo, not here. Not yet.
Often they had to wait quite a while for the digger to make its way over the cratered ground to reach the point above them.
But each time they emerged, some of Ke-ola's family were waiting at the hole's opening, peering expectantly down at them.
Marmie was among them when they climbed out of what seemed like the hundredth hole, muddy and discouraged. "I think that much as we hate to believe he could have been correct, Cally had the right of it," she said. "There don't seem to be any other survivors."
"The Honus feel that there are, Madame," Ke-ola said, although it sounded as if he had begun to believe that the Honus might actually be wrong for once.
"Very well," she said. "But one more dive only before we return to the ship.
Everyone is tired and hungry and the operators tell me the diggers need refueling and cleaning to maintain their efficiency."
This time, however, the diggers were not needed. Instead of narrowing to a root choked wall, the stream broadened and deepened.
Hmmm, I think this must be where the sonar comes in, Murel said.
I wish we'd asked more about it when we were home with Dad, Ronan said. If we were full-time seals living in the ocean, we'd have been using it already.
If we were full-time seals living in the ocean, we wouldn't be here, she pointed out.
True. I think maybe this is how it goes. There are supposed to be songs, I think.
Individual songs.
He made a noise that was somewhere between a snore and a belch and a little like a growl. Like that, he told her, and did it again, modifying and modulating the tones.
Oh, those noises! she said. Like the ones we used to make under the river ice. I never paid much attention to them before. I thought they were just what our vocal cords do when we're in seal form. Confined during their earlier childhood on
Petaybee to nearby rivers and streams where they went only for short swims, they were so familiar with the territory, they had been under the impression that their memories let them know where they were and approximately what things looked and felt like. Even during their brief time in the ocean, they'd relied mostly on vision to find their way.
But now that they wanted to learn to use their sonar properly, they found they'd been using it all along, far more than they'd previously thought. In this alien underground territory where they had no idea what was coming next, the seal sounds they made bounced back to them from shapes of various densities, rather like echoes. Once they were aware of it, they didn't need much practice interpreting the echoes. Their seal senses recognized the signals so they "heard" how deep and wide the water was, how far they were from the bottom and the walls of the passage. The solid surfaces of the canal were many body lengths away from them.
That's all? Ronan asked. A big flooded cavern. I'm disappointed. I understood we would be able to tell where the fish were and even plants and things. All I'm getting is these walls.
I don't think there are any fish down here, or anything else except more roots,
Murel answered tiredly. She would have enjoyed a nice juicy fish right then.
And then, suddenly, there was something else. Something unfamiliar. If it was a fish, it was a very large fish.
Murel sent a mental call to Sky. Come back, she said. Stay close. We are not alone.
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.