Changelings Read online

  “Does she?” Yana asked. “Why doesn’t Ronan hide his own snowsuit? I believe both your father and I have tried to impress upon you—”

  “The thing is, Mum, it just isn’t practical to have to hide them,” Ronan said. “Sometimes we’d like to go explore someplace out of the water but we can’t because we don’t have a kit to put on when we get out of the water. We need a way to take them with us.”

  “I suppose we could rig up some sort of harness and a waterproof pack,” Yana said, thinking of diving equipment she had used while still in the Company Corps. “It would slow you down a bit but that’s hardly a bad thing. I’m not so sure I want you exploring outside the water so far from where you got in.”

  “Nothing would happen to us, Mum!” Murel said. “Petaybee wouldn’t let it. You know that.”

  “I know nothing of the sort. Petaybee has a good many other functions than providing divine intervention for you when you do something foolish and get yourselves into trouble. And once you’re away from the village and our summer campsites on the river, there are all manner of things that could indeed hurt you.”

  “Not any worse than freezing to death while a snow leopard squats on your protective gear and lectures you,” Ronan said with some residual bitterness at the unfairness of those who didn’t let him do as he liked, unchecked.

  Murel rolled her eyes at her mother and said, “Yes, Mummy, please make Coaxtl stop teasing Ronan. He is just so endlessly tiresome about it, and I’m the one who has to hear it all the time.”

  “Okay, here’s what I can do, kids. I’ll see if Marmion can send us some high-tech lightweight snowsuits and waterproof packs and harnesses for you from offworld. One of her companies develops that kind of thing, I think. But meanwhile, you don’t go anywhere without hiding your suits and letting Coaxtl and Nanook know where you’re going. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to your father about finding you a swimming companion. It will pain him, you know. He’d like nothing better than to join you, and the three of you could be off sealing around while I fend off would-be settlers and contractors and answer the wretched com unit.”

  “Thanks, Mummy, you’re the best!” Ronan said, giving her an enthusiastic hug that almost knocked her off her stool.

  Murel planted a kiss on her cheek. “We’ll look for a swim friend too,” she said.

  “Someone your father and I approve of, mind you!” Yana said, but she was calling out after their heels as they flashed out the door and down the snowy track between the village’s shacks, log cabins, and the incongruous but inconspicuous white Nakatira cubes, which blended into the snow.

  SEAN PROMISED THE twins he’d go with them and they could swim as far as the ice floe, farther than they’d ever been before, and look for a friend with flippers or fins who could chaperone them.

  The twins were unusually excited when the next ship landed, as it bore the imprint of Marmion’s company. Surely she had sent the gear Mother asked for, along with all of these strangers disembarking.

  Murel and Ronan hung around until the pilot appeared in the hatchway. “Johnny!” they both cried, and ran to hug Captain Green, one of their family’s oldest friends. “Did you bring us anything?” Ronan asked, looking around the pilot for something besides his usual flight duffel.

  “I brought you all of those exciting new friends, did I not? What more could you possibly be wanting?” he teased, ruffling Ronan’s hair.

  “But Marmie promised to send us something,” Murel said, hanging on to his belt. “For our birthdays, you know. We’re eight today, aren’t we, Ronan?”

  “We are. And she did say so, Marmie did, said she was sending us this particular item.”

  “Funny, I don’t recall a thing about it,” Johnny said with a look of what he intended to resemble wide-eyed bewilderment.

  “Maybe you didn’t see it get loaded, Johnny. Could you look, please?”

  Don’t overdo it, sis, Ronan told her. I’m sure he can see through you as well as I can when you bat your eyes at him like that.

  That shows how much you know. If you have any brains, you’ll start batting too. He might have to go to a lot of trouble to find it. We’d best be scoring all of the points for adorable that we can.

  “Hmm,” Johnny said, scratching his chin, although both twins were quite sure it wasn’t itchy. “Let me think. You know, there was a lot going on at the time, what with all these folks getting ready to board, but I do seem to remember Marmion mentioning something about you.”

  “She promised Mum she’d send us something. And you know Marmie would never break a promise to Mum,” Ronan said in a sober, man-to-man tone.

  “No, no, of course not. But I can’t think of anything at all unless it would be those wee ration packets.”

  “Ration packets?” both twins asked at once.

  “Yes, now that I think of it, she handed me the little foil packets and said your mum needed them for you.”

  “They weren’t ration packets, Johnny,” Murel said. “You did bring them, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, aye. Though I hardly thought it worth the trouble. There’s plenty of ration packets still left over from when Intergal ran the Space Base. What did I do with them? Gave them to the cook, probably. You’d keep things like that in the galley, you know.”

  “No, no, they’re not ration packets and they were ours,” Ronan told him.

  “We’ll go search the galley, Johnny,” Murel said. “You needn’t bother. How big were they and did the foil have writing on it? We can read that sort of thing now, you know.”

  “Ah well, I guess they were about as big as . . .” He reached into the pockets on the thighs of his pants and pulled out two packets bright as fish. “And the writing says—this one says, ‘for Murel,’ and this one says, ‘for Ronan.’ ”

  The twins snatched them and Ronan began trying to open his. Murel looked up at Johnny’s grin and said, “Thank you very much, Johnny, for bringing them. But Deirdre Angalook is quite right. You’re a terrible tease.”

  “Deirdre said something to you about me, did she?”

  “Aye,” Murel said, pretending to scratch her own chin. “But I can’t quite recall what else it was she said except for the bit about the teasing.”

  Johnny stabbed a finger to her middle as if to tickle her, but at that moment Ronan figured out the packet and it unfolded, flowerlike, blooming into a metallic-looking suit with what seemed to be very light quilting.

  “It’s very small and thin,” Ronan said, a little disappointed as he felt the cloth.

  “Oh, there’s directions,” Johnny said. “It gets bigger and puffier, I’m told.”

  “How’s that?” Ronan asked.

  “See there, that fine print? It says, ‘Just add water.’ ”

  Both of them jumped him and there was a lot of rolling in the snow before he finally admitted defeat and said he had to go report in to their parents.

  “You two coming along?”

  “No,” Ronan said. “We need to try these on, test them. So we can show our folks.”

  CHAPTER 5

  WHEN JOHNNY HAD gone, the twins headed directly to the river. It connected the former Space Base with the village. In the winter, its frozen surface served as a road where people drove dogs and snocles back and forth from their ice fishing holes or to go after water.

  Ronan compressed his suit again and returned it to packet form, then began removing his snowsuit.

  “You’re not supposed to take off your clothes where there are people around, or change either!” his sister chided him.

  “Well, we have to test them.”

  “We can go to the spring. And besides, we need to find ’Nook and Co’ first anyway.”

  “No we don’t. With these suits, we don’t have to worry about getting caught without our clothes anywhere, and that’s all the cats really do. Otherwise they just hang around the water hole. I want to test these, Murel. Let’s go somewhere fun. Maybe we can find a new chaperone.”

  “Da sai
d—”

  “Didn’t you see that load of offworlders? Da will be busy processing and orienting them for days and days. If we can find someone Mum and he like to swim with us, we can go everywhere. We won’t have to hang around boring old Kilcoole with our skins itching for wet while Mum and Da entertain strangers.”

  Murel was not above temptation. She wanted to see what was beyond Kilcoole and the familiar waters too. And she knew what Ronan said was true. It seemed like with their parents, what everybody else wanted always came before what they wanted—or even needed. It was very unfair. If they could be a little more independent, or at least not have to wait on their folks or those land-bound cats, maybe they could even help with the work Mum and Da did for Petaybee. After all, they were eight now. That was pretty old.

  “Okay,” she said. “But not here. That place where they put in the fish wheel in the summer. Nobody is there now and we can strip off and plunge in without getting caught.”

  They raced through town without drawing much attention since everyone was busy meeting and greeting the new people. Even though a lot of Petaybeans didn’t want the offworlders there, Clodagh and the other leaders reminded folk that they had all been from elsewhere originally and these people, like themselves, were just looking for a home to settle down in. Petaybee would either accept or reject them before long. No need meanwhile for Petaybeans to be inhospitable.

  But the twins had had entirely too much of that. While they were in town making nice with the refugees, they weren’t swimming and playing and teasing their feline nannies.

  The stretch of river on the other side of town had another big advantage besides being less public. The hot springs fed into it, so areas of water stayed open year round, and much of the water that did freeze had a far thinner crust than that between the old Space Base and Kilcoole.

  The twins found a good, big open place to enter the water, but first took off their clothes and carefully concealed them under some brush on the bank. Then, having located the little straps to their tiny packs, they fixed them over their shoulders so the packs were in the middle of their backs. Then each took a running jump into the water. It was icy at the top but much warmer underneath, and felt warmer still as their transformation took place. By the time they were completely submerged, they were no longer lanky pale children but shorter, fatter, furrier gray seals.

  They played hide-and-seek with each other in the patchy ice, then dove deep, as the hot spring’s current was diluted by colder streams. They swam for the joy of it, loving the feeling of being in a cave made of river ice, with the bumpy riverbed below and the bumpy ice sheets above. This time of the year there was little sun, but their eyes were excellent in the dark and underwater. They raced each other downstream, stopping once in a while to claw open a breathing hole in the ice with the talons at the ends of their flippers. When they grew hungry, they snacked on fish. They caught the smaller ones just by opening their mouths. The larger ones they had to take to the surface to eat.

  When they had swum farther than they’d ever gone before, another hot spring entered the river, making a large area where they could surface and slide up onto the ice and over to the bank. The wind had come up, and it was pretty cold business getting themselves into their new suits. Had they not been native Petaybeans with the special adaptations to supercold temperatures the planet had engendered in its inhabitants, they would have frozen to death long before they got their suits on. However, since they were native Petaybeans, they put on their suits very very quickly. Once the shiny thin fabric covered their bodies, including their hands, feet, heads, and all of their faces but their eyes, they found they were quite toasty.

  This stuff is amazing! Ronan thought-spoke to his sister, both because that was how they usually communicated with each other and because the fabric covering their mouths made it difficult to speak or to hear someone else speaking through it. I bet it’s what they make ship suits out of.

  Yeah, Murel said, twirling a little in hers, which was fun because the boots were as slippery as her flippers on the ice. And we could go skating even in human form while we’re wearing these.

  Ronan yawned. What I’d rather do is take a nap. I’m pretty sleepy.

  Me too. Then we probably ought to start back before ’Nook and Co’ start stalking us.

  So they found a sheltered place among the spindly trees that grew along the bank and lay down beside them. The snow felt soft through their suits, and not the least bit cold. They had barely closed their eyes when Murel sat up. Did you hear that?

  What?

  That chirpy noise. It isn’t a bird. I know it’s not a bird.

  “Hah!” something said, very close to them.

  It’s coming from the river, Murel said.

  “Hah!” it said again, followed by more of the nervous-sounding chirping, like a mother bird missing her chicks.

  Almost sounds like a dog driver coming up the trail, Ronan said.

  Only not quite. It’s coming from under the water.

  Yeah?

  Listen!

  You’re right, it is.

  They fumbled removing their suits. Ronan left his on the bank and started to slide into the water but Murel stopped him. No! Strap it on. It’s shiny. A bird might take it. Besides, that’s what we wanted them for.

  He grumbled but struggled into it while she, with her pack already strapped over her shoulders, slid into the water and transformed. She dove under the ice before her brother hit the water.

  It occurred to her to wonder why they heard the sound as a voice if it was underwater. It was a distinct sound that she’d heard, not a thought.

  Swimming deeper under, she saw something struggling in the ice. From time to time it made the noises they had heard, but she felt it tiring and sensed it was frightened.

  What’s wrong? she asked, approaching to see a body with a short thick tail and four furry paws, the back two webbed, struggling in the water. The body ended at the ice.

  Caught. Crack opened up and dumped me in then ice trapped my head. Caught. “Hah!”

  I see. And your paws are all too far below the ice to be able to help you. We’ll see what we can do.

  Ronan joined her, and the two of them used their clawed flippers and noses to push the ice away from the other creature.

  A chunk broke off in Ronan’s claws, and abruptly the little animal dropped down into the water with a flourish of bubbles that, when they reached the surface, contained the word “Hah!”

  But what the creature was thinking was, Seals? River seals? I never heard of river seals before. Did you free me so you could eat me?

  Of course not, Murel answered.

  Why? Ronan asked. Are you scrumptious?

  No, no, no, the creature answered, its little brain whirling with ideas and images. Actually, my kind are poisonous to seals. That’s why I asked, you see. You two seem like very good sorts for seals and I wouldn’t want to make you sick if you tried to eat me, or even kill you.

  What kind are your kind? Murel asked. Other than poisonous to seals, that is?

  The otter kind, the creature answered, swimming away from them a certain distance. It wanted to escape but its curiosity kept it paddling in the water just under what looked like another hole in the ice. What kind of seals are you to swim in rivers? You’re just pups, I can see that. Did you get lost from your mother?

  How do you know we’re seals if you live in the river and seals never swim here? Murel asked.

  Otters get around, the little fellow said. He had a round head with a short black nose and very little neck. His eyes were large and shiny, and his mouth curved up into what looked like a smile regardless of what he seemed to be feeling or thinking. I’ve been to the coast to visit my cousins. Well, once. But they told me about seals and how they eat—well, I saw some at a distance. But they all lived on the beach or the little islands right around. None have ever come into the river before.

  We are called Petaybean shepherd seals or selkies, Murel
told him, remembering their father’s earlier teachings. We eat fish when we’re in the water, but no other creatures. Shepherd seals protect other creatures and help maintain the harmony of the water life on our world.

  Thank you very much, I’m sure, the otter replied. I’m feeling extremely harmonious, now that I think of it, and very glad not to have my head stuck in the ice anymore. So if you’re sure you will not try to eat me—and make your good selves very ill if not dead, of course—I’ll just be on my way now.

  The little creature was afraid of them, they could see that, but he was also uncontrollably inquisitive. Unless, of course, you’d like to play?

  We should be getting back to our vil—to our mother, Murel said.

  But we could play for a little while, I guess, Ronan answered, and in an aside to his twin said, It’s only polite not to just run away. Besides, he looks like the sort of chap who could get himself right back into trouble if we don’t keep an eye on him.

  You should know all about that, Murel said, as if she were the oldest and didn’t get into plenty of trouble herself.

  All right then, the otter said. Hide-and-seek? You two be it and I’ll go hide.

  Wait a minute, Murel said before he darted off. There’s only one it. You and I can go hide and Ronan can be it.

  Why don’t I go hide with the otter and you be it? Ronan argued.

  Don’t be such a baby, she told him. It’s just till you find one of us. Then we’ll switch. Now close your eyes and count to ten.

  The otter had been about to zip away again, but now, once more, curiosity held him. What’s count? he wanted to know.

  It’s how to measure things, she told him. Like how many of them there are.

  Oh, like how many otters there are in my den? There are many, you know. What count is many?

  I don’t know. Ten? Forty-seven? A hundred?

  What’s the most many?

  A hundred?