Ronan and Murel were perfectly happy to stay on the Piaf without the need for space suits or dry suits or having to swim through root-choked tunnels. After enjoying a snack of tea and cakes, with tinned fish for Sky, they returned to their cabin to catch up on their sleep.
When they awoke, the dry area of the lounge was crowded with both turtle and shark people as well as large slumbering Honu/ tortoises. The tank was filled with murderous-looking Manos, who appeared less than happy to be there and seemed to be continually evaluating the nutritional benefits of the various crew members who passed before them.
The sharks' presence made the twins want to avoid the lounge, which was the most pleasant and social of the meeting areas on the ship. Somehow, the sharks glowering hungrily at everyone through the glass put a damper on their own appetites. There were only four-the male they had met, his mate, and two young- but in no way did they blend in with the rest of the company, despite their claim to kinship with some of it.
The new passengers-sharks and Honus/land tortoises aside-were not the cheerful, nature-centered, flower-wreath-making, singing, and dancing folk Ke-ola had told them about. The children, thin and runny-nosed, cried constantly, and the heavy appearance of people like the old shark matriarch, the twins discovered, was more a matter of bone structure than nutrition.
Indeed, after looking askance at the replicated food and nutrient bars that were routine shipboard fare, the newcomers began eating so much that the replicators overheated. As a result, by the third day of the trip home the electronic bits wore out and the replicators stopped working altogether. Fortunately, the ship also carried stores of the dried, powdered, or otherwise preserved staples that had provided occasional treats for the twins. Most of these provisions were bound for some of Marmie's client satellites. The tinned fish went quickly, and the twins later learned this was partially because Sky had raided the stores and hoarded a good stock of his favorite food for his own needs.
Large bags of rice, supplemented by cans of mystery meat, served to keep everyone full. The Honu/land tortoises were shown to the 'ponics garden, and they crawled sedately down the corridors, then loaded one at a time into the lift down to the garden level. There, under Midori's watchful eye, they could graze on the plant life and also on the bugs that inevitably seemed to sprout in the garden along with the seeds.
That took care of everyone but the sharks.
"Ritual sacrifice is out of the question," Johnny Green announced before anyone suggested it. "Unfortunately, we have no designated sacrificial crew members aboard at this time."
"The Manos are hungry!" the shark clan chieftainess declared.
"Madame, that is painfully obvious," Johnny told her, darting an uncomfortable glance at the toothy snarling maws staring hungrily through the glass at the lounge full of inaccessible prey. In an attempt to be diplomatic, he smiled his most roguishly handsome smile and asked, "As primary shark liaison officer for your people, have you any suggestions about what we could offer them-other than personnel, that is?"
She looked at Sky and raised her eyebrows in a calculating way.
Sky attempted to look small. Murel and Ronan stepped in front of him.
"I'm afraid Chief Petty Officer Sky, our otter operative for this mission, is essential personnel," Johnny told her. On a more practical note he added, "Besides, he'd be less than an appetizer for the smallest of your cranky kinsmen."
That's when they learned about Sky's secret stores of tinned fish, or at least it was when he admitted it. Since Sky periodically brought the twins a tin to unzip long after the rest of the fish supply was exhausted, they had sort of figured it out already.
When he led them to his hiding place, though, Murel shook her head. I can see why you'd make the offer, Sky, but there's even less of this than there is of you. And it's not like you can eat just anything. You need this fish just as much as the sharks do.
"Besides," Ronan said aloud, "the Mano madame says sharks only like live prey."
"What are we going to do then?" Murel asked. "I wish those people hadn't brought those horrid creatures along or that we'd never found them."
"They have some redeeming qualities," Ronan said. "They didn't eat us when they had the chance, though I'm sure they're regretting that now."
"Indeed."
Ke-ola had followed them from the lounge and glanced sheepishly at his new friends. "I'm sorry about this. Sharks make good aumakuas because they're such powerful creatures but they aren't really good space travelers. Actually, they can probably survive the whole journey without eating as long as it doesn't take any longer than it took us to get here, but I wouldn't like to be on the transfer team that takes them from the ship to the ocean on Petaybee."
"They'll probably have to be sedated," Murel said.
"That's it! That's brilliant," Ronan said. "We just need to sedate them-hypersleep would probably be the best thing, but they wouldn't fit in the chambers."
Sedation worked, but in the end they had to sedate the old lady and two other family members as well. There were only a few days left of the journey, too short a time to put the people in hypersleep. However, once the sedated sharks were floating peacefully in their tanks and the old lady and her staunchest followers slept in their bunks, the tone of the entire journey markedly improved.
Ship's maintenance extended the apparatus for the twins' privacy curtain to veil the shark tank, a measure that markedly improved the morale of the crew and most passengers.
The twins and Sky helped entertain the children. While they were at it, Ronan and
Murel picked up some conversational vocabulary in the language of their guests.
Sadly, however, the children of Halau knew very little of the colorful customs Ke ola had described and demonstrated at school and on Petaybee.
"So your people didn't really live like that?" Murel asked.
"We did, or at least tried to, when I was growing up," said Ke-ola, who had reached the ripe old age of thirteen recently. "But Midori and I were talking about it and she says the culture grew from the place we lived, back on our islands on Terra. It makes sense, since we recognized the spirits of the land and sea and other animals. Except for the aumakuas, we don't have any of those things anymore.
That land, to hear Aunty Kimmie Sue tell it, was rich and full of food for feasts.
The climate was mild and we didn't have to work very hard to live, so we developed our dances and singing and other skills. You've seen Halau. If the people tried to live like they used to, it would kill them. The planet is deteriorating and the company hires away many of the stronger adults and older kids. The people who stayed behind did well just to keep themselves and the aumakuas living and fed. At least the kids know about that part of our culture."
Murel made an mmm sound. Ronan gave a snort. He considered the aumakuas a mixed blessing. Honus were fine. Sharks were something he would have just as soon left behind.
More Petaybeans would share that feeling when the Piaf docked near Kilcoole and the sharks had to be moved from the only space port on the whole pole to the warm seawater near the volcanic island.
CHAPTER 10
NATURALLY, THE SHARKS could not be unloaded until they had been thoroughly inspected by everyone on the entire northern pole brave enough to enter the ship and face the monsters for whom they coined the Petaybean word that translated as "doom with fins."
The twins' geneticist father, Sean Shongili, was fascinated with the offworld creatures. He immediately buttonholed the shark clan matriarch, whose name was