"I don't see what we can do about that at the moment," Sean said, pulling his dry suit on over his lean, muscular body, which was momentarily covered with goose pimples. "We can hardly go after them, and with communications as they are, contacting Whit Fiske or one of our other friends who might be able to help Marmie is going to be difficult, to say the least."
They sat together in the boat, Yana impatiently scanning the sky for the copter while Sean wished he were swimming after the kids, even knowing that he would never reach them before the copter could fly him to the fjord.
At last they heard the deep drumming of the rotors again, and the two of them, as well as Ke-ola and Sinead, climbed up the rope ladder to be ferried to the fjord.
Rick O'Shay had come alone, with bundles of survival gear and warm clothing, plus collapsible kayaks for the strictly human among them. "Reckoned it being a seagoing matter, you'd need boats," Rick said. "Seamus thought these ones would work for you in a pinch."
The sea looked so cold from the copter, all ice and rolling steel, turning briefly salmon in the volcanic sunset before darkening to black. Yana helped Ke-ola zip into snow pants, mukluks, and a parka, but the boy was still shivering. He sat by the copter door when he was dressed and watched the moonlit icebergs and the black sea rolling beneath the copter's pontoons as the aircraft thudded its way northward toward the fjord.
"What's that down there?" he asked through the headset they all wore to keep in touch with Rick.
"Where?" Yana asked.
"A dark patch on that iceberg down there. Looks like a seal."
CHAPTER 23
SKY? SKY! OTTERS don't drown, Sky. You can't drown, Murel thought forlornly as she nosed the half-frozen little body to the surface and kept him bobbing there while she steered him toward an iceberg to try to revive him. It was almost certainly hopeless, though, and she knew it. Even if she got him breathing again, he couldn't survive this cold. She should never have let him come.
Why had everything turned so horrible? All they had been trying to do was find a home for Ke-ola and his people, and all of a sudden everybody was drowning and getting eaten, and maybe worse, it seemed like everybody out here was trying to eat everybody else. She guessed that was what "dog eat dog" meant, not that she'd ever seen dogs eat other dogs. All poor little Sky ever ate was fish of one kind or another. He should never have come. He should have let her know he was too cold and too tired to make it.
She nosed him up onto an ice ledge and after three tries dragged herself onto it too.
The sea pounded them so relentlessly that even though she was not still in the water, she could not change, and that was all to the good, she thought. If she changed, she'd have that instant before she put on the dry suit when she'd be freezing-maybe shiver her way back into the water. Even if no harm came to her, she'd be no good to Sky.
In seal form, though, she was warm enough, her body well-insulated and furred.
Awkwardly, she nosed Sky's inert form into a ball and then curled her own around him, taking the brunt of the sea's beating with her own back. She tried to preserve what little warmth remained in the otter's body with hers while infusing him with her own heat and life force.
I NEVER SAW those seals before in my life, Ronan told Kushtaka.
Your sister is not there, or your father?
No, neither one of them. This lot could be keeping an eye on us for them, though.
Tell them to go away, Kushtaka said.
If Ronan had been in human form he'd have shrugged. What difference would it make if a herd of seals saw the city and knew he was inside? Still, he didn't want to antagonize Kushtaka.
Hey there, you seals, what are you lookin' at? he called. Haven't you ever seen the den of the deep sea otters before?
Who's that? A seal thought penetrated the city's barrier.
I dunno. I don't see anybody, do you? another seal answered. Other than the big otters?
Nobody worth seeing, no, the first seal replied. You lads see who was talking?
He could be inside one of those tall things, a third suggested. Ronan was pretty sure he knew where the thoughts were coming from. Three of the seals were crowded close together, studying the city with more intensity than the others. You there that did the talking. Are you a part-time seal? Because there's a part-time female seal looking for you if you are.
Yes, it's me, Ronan told them. Now go tell my sister I'm fine and stay away from here, will you? You're making the natives restless, and when they get restless, they make whirlpools big enough to drown you all.
Right, fine, we'll do that. Where is your sister?
Because the twins' childhood had been somewhat sheltered, confined to freshwater prior to their being sent offplanet to school, Ronan had never met wild seals before.
He was not impressed with their brilliance. How should I know? he asked. I'm stuck in here.
We could get you out, the most enterprising among them suggested.
No, you can't, Ronan said.
No, we can't, one of the others corrected the first seal. Shell's too hard. Claw it.
You'll see. It's like it's iced over, only the ice is thicker than it looks.
The scratching of seal claws against the outside was seen but not heard.
Tell them to stop that, Kushtaka demanded.
Stop that, Ronan told them. Then asked her, Why don't you tell them yourself?
I did, she said. They acted as though they didn't hear. You're the one they came for. Get rid of them.
The seals stopped scratching anyway. Too hard to scratch. We'll just be swimming away then, all right?
Yes, go tell Murel and Da I'm fine.
And don't bring them back here or we will be forced to take extreme measures,
Kushtaka threatened, but all that was visible by then was seal butts and the backs of flippers.
THE ICEBERG PITCHED and rolled but it kept Murel and Sky from the worst violence of the waves and let them rest like babies in a particularly active cradle.
Murel heard seals calling her and raised her head.
Cold bit her nose and stung her eyes, but beneath her it was warm, the ice slightly melted. She had lifted Sky in her front flippers so he wasn't lying entirely on the ice. He was very still but she felt him breathing. Around the curl of his body a shimmer of water overlaid the ice. He was generating his own body heat now.
Here, she answered the seal's call. I'm here. On an iceberg.
Okay, got a fix on your position. The seal voice was not Sorka's or Pork's or that of any of the herd she'd dealt with before. So it seemed the Perfect Fjord branch of the family was seeking her out. Above her a pale strip of lime green arced across the night sky. As she watched, it began to wiggle and swirl, other subtle colors blooming at its sides and tips. Those colors began jigging as well, dipping, swishing in broad swaths against the darkness. There was a bright moon but it was boring compared to the lights.
She had missed the aurora without even being aware of it. She and Ronan had been at school on Versailles Station for the best part of three years. It had been interesting in a way, and Marmie saw to it that they had far more than they'd ever been used to. They'd only been back to Petaybee a short time before they'd gone back into space to find Ke-ola's people.
Now, despite the warm waters of the volcano, winter was here. The aurora proved it. And winter was the longest season, the most familiar because she'd known
Petaybee wearing winter landscape most of the time. It was the time she loved the best. The lights were one of the reasons why. She knew they were caused by sunspots or electromagnetic fluctuations or some such, but they were still as beautiful and magical as when she thought they were the multicolored fringed skirts of a lady named Aurora fancy-dancing across the sky.