The Manos are difficult relatives but all must come or none will. You do not leave your grandmother and grandfather behind."
"That grandfather would have eaten the Honu, Sky, and you too if Murel hadn't grabbed his tail," Ronan said.
While they were arguing, the old woman, who seemed to think they would do exactly as she thought they ought to, saw to it that several children were lifted to the surface. They were immediately put into flitters to return to the ship. They were followed by three young women who appeared to be their mothers.
Once they were gone, the old woman called to the remaining adults. Bearing torches and holding them high, they entered the water and she led them deliberately around the rescue party, away from the escape hole, and toward the tangled roots.
"Where are you going?" Murel asked.
"To fetch the Manos."
"But-" she started to protest.
The Honu told her, They do what they must. Now we will do what we must. The diggers must uncover the Mano lake. Meanwhile, we will make a place for them.
The twins looked at Ke-ola, who shrugged, settled the Honu under one arm, and used his other hand to hang on to the rope as it was raised toward the surface.
Sky draped himself over Murel's shoulders as she ascended, followed by Ronan.
Halfway to the surface the rope was enveloped by a tube that blew fresh air from the flitter down at them. Within its protective envelope, they reached the flitter's opening, and Ke-ola helped them in. This was not the simple four-passenger flitter they had seen before, but like a large passenger carrier.
Johnny Green's voice greeted them over the com. "Is that everybody, then?"
"Everybody but the people who stayed behind to wait with the sharks," Murel told him.
"Stay behind with the what? Sorry, darlin', but the reception seems to have a glitch. I didn't quite catch that last word." He chuckled. "It sounded as if you said `sharks.'"
"That I did," she replied. "Sorry, Johnny, but what with all the mind-reading and psychic communicating with the Honu, Sky, the sharks, and Ronan and me, we quite forgot you wouldn't be hearing any of it. It seems that what the Honus are to
Ke-ola's clan, sharks are to this group of survivors. They say that if we want them to go, we must make room for the sharks as well."
"Ah," Johnny said. "I decided against marrying a lass one time because she said the same about her mother. Her mother was somewhat less attractive and amiable than most sharks, but she had the advantage of not needing to live in a tank."
"The Honu says the other Honus will let the sharks have the tank," Ronan told him.
"Did they now? That's very interesting. I suppose they'll be expecting their minders to hold them all the way back to Petaybee?"
Ronan shrugged. "They didn't say. I suppose we can sort it out with them when we've returned to the ship."
"Best do it before deciding to take any sharks aboard. I don't recall Petaybee inviting sharks, do you?"
They did not, of course.
The large flitter groaned under the collective weight of the passengers all the way back to the ship, but at length it arrived and they climbed back through the air lock and onto the main deck, feeling as if several tons of rocks had been removed from their heads, shoulders, hands, and feet. The children began bouncing around as if they had invisible wings, laughing and zooming into each other.
Most of Ke-ola's people of the Honu aumakua were still back on the surface, waiting to help the Mano people evacuate their finny friends. So the twins weren't surprised to see the lounge empty except for a few people and some odd-looking occasional tables they hadn't previously noticed.
What did surprise them was that the Honu tank was empty. Where before the giant turtles had glided through the water in an oddly graceful ballet, now there were no creatures in the water at all. There was also somewhat less water in the tank than there had been, and the deck was flooded around the pool at the end of the water slide.
Ronan noticed an old man leaning against a table, his clothing and the ends of his long hair damp, and that others among the remaining people were similarly soggy.
"Where are the Honus?" he asked him. "Why aren't they in the tank?"
But it was Ke-ola who answered, after conferring with the old man in their language. He told the twins, "The Honus slid out of the tank on the water slide and the people helped them out of the pool because the Honus requested it."
"Why did they want out?" Ronan asked. "Were they worried about the sharks?
Where are they?"
"Right there, of course," Ke-ola replied, nodding at the tables, some of which now had heads, tails, and legs.
"Silly, didn't you recognize them?" Murel asked.
"No, the shells are different, aren't they?" Ronan answered. "The Honu shells are like our Honu's, kind of pointy at the back and streamlined. These are round and have that octagonal cell design on the back."
"Shhh," Ke-ola said.
"Why?" Ronan asked. It seemed apparent to him, not anything to be quiet about.
"Because it's their secret," Ke-ola said. "The Great Secret Transformation of the Honus."
"The one Dr. Mabo was so mad to find out about?" Ronan asked, referring to their former science teacher, a woman who had an obsession with shape shifters and had tormented the Honu because she believed the sea turtle could change shapes.
"Yes," Ke-ola said. "She found out that they made the transformation, she just didn't know what it was."
"Neither do I," Murel said, puzzled. "What is it? That their shells change shape and color a bit?"
"Oh, no," Ke-ola said. "It's far more dramatic than that."
"So?" both twins demanded, still puzzled.
"Well, look at them more closely. It's obvious!"
The twins looked at each other and shrugged, then turned back to Ke-ola.
"Look at their legs. See? No flippers. Big sturdy legs. They've changed, you see.
They are no longer sea turtles who live in the water. They have altered their structure so that they are now land tortoises."
"Oh," Murel said.
"It's a very big change," Ke-ola declared, as if daring them to say it didn't amount to much, though in fact it was hard to tell there was any change at all.
"Oh, yeah," Ronan said. "Anyone can see that. But it makes me wonder-could the sharks turn into something else too? Like dolphins or salmon, something like that?"
"Not that I've ever heard," Ke-ola said in a wry tone. "Though there is a rumor that perhaps the Mano come to us in the form of recruiters for the Intergal labor force."
AT FIRST JOHNNY said he didn't think they could load the sharks without killing them, since unlike the Honus, the sharks needed the water to breathe. But Ke-ola's
Honu pointed out that a shark would just fit into his old, smaller transport tank.
"What do you think, Madame?" Johnny asked Marmie. "It's your call."
"I think if we try and we fail, then at least we will have made every effort to accommodate these people, which I hope they will remember. If we try and succeed, then we'll have to decide what to do next. I'm a bit worried about Petaybee's reaction."
Murel said, "I shouldn't worry too much about that if I were you, Marmie. It's not like there aren't other predatory creatures already on Petaybee. And you know, if it doesn't care for the sharks as they are right now, Petaybee has a way of adjusting things-adapting them, so they are better suited to it."
Johnny, who knew of sharks by reputation and from personal encounters on other worlds, nodded and said, "Yes, I've no doubt that eventually it will all work out. It's just that painful adjustment period that might cause a spot of bother."
The Manos's people insisted on personally handling the sharks during the transfer from lake to tank to larger tank aboard the ship. Nobody contested their exclusive claim to the dubious honor.