Changelings
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: The Twins of Petaybee #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Changelings». Краткое содержание книги:
CHANGELINGS
They are Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili. Twin brother and sister. Children of Yana and Sean. Children of Petaybee. As such, theirs is a destiny deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet’s creatures–such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.
But the twins’ bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes that Ronan and Murel hunger to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent–and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.
Meanwhile, Petaybee is changing–and much faster than an ordinary planet’s natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries–and the potential for disaster.
But Ronan had pulled his mittens on and was bouncing the finger pad off the thumb one.
"See? This is your mouth! You just don't shut up, do you, lassie?"
He caught up with her and tried to race past her but she ran even faster when she saw what he was trying to do.
Kits! Nanook said.
The track cat had meant to bring up the snowsuit issue with Sean and Yana, but her humans were always so busy these days, it took actual claws to get their attention. The company and the offplanet people simply would not leave them in peace. They were always trying to settle some new group on Petaybee or bring in some kind of improvements for the good of everyone, as they said, and they kept Sean and Yana hopping night and day just to field all of their chatter. Some of the offplanet people who were settlers were nice enough. Some even settled into Petaybean ways. But most of them came to Petaybee for peace, healing, a clean and simple life, and then wanted to clutter it up with all manner of things they were used to from their noisy, unpeaceful, unhealthy, dirty, and complicated lives somewhere else. That was what Nanook had heard the villagers say anyway. As long as the newcomers didn't bring with them anything that preyed on track cats, she did not concern herself with them.
"What those younglings need is something that can keep up with them swimming," Coaxtl said finally. "They swim farther and farther up the river every time and I'm afraid sometime they'll get in trouble and we won't know because we won't be close enough to catch their cries for help."
At the same time, Murel and Ronan, having captured their mother in one of her rare moments of leisure, were expounding on the situation to her. "If Da could come with us, it would be fine. We are really too old for babysitters now, but if we have to have one, it should be another selkie, or at least someone who can swim with us," Ronan said.
Murel nodded her head, the red tints in her black hair flashing with the firelight from the window in the woodstove. "Coaxtl can swim and doesn't mind it in the summer but she's really a big wuss-puss about swimming under the ice. All she does is hide Ronan's snowsuit."
"Does she?" Yana asked. "Why doesn't Ronan hide his own snow-suit? 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.' "