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.
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 flay?
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?
That's it then, that's how many otters are here, all with big sharp teeth to defend themselves against the bad otter-eating seals. A hundred otters in my family.
That's a very large family, Murel told him. Caribou have families that large, but I didn't know otters did.
My parents were very much in love, he told her. Besides, we need large families with very big sharp teeth to fend off the bad otter-eating seals.
I thought you lived in this river and we were the only seals you'd ever seen in a river? she asked.
He swam a couple of strokes and pulled himself up through a hole in the ice, onto more ice.
Look, she said. We really really don't eat otters, even if they weren't poisonous and if there weren't a hundred with big sharp teeth. If we're going to play together, that makes us friends.
Friends don't eat friends.
Ninety-nine, a hundred! Ready or not, here I come! Ronan called.
"Hah!" the otter said from somewhere she couldn't see. The other seal knows how many are in my family. He said it.
No, that's just part of how we play the game. The hole in the ice wasn't quite large enough for a full-grown seal but Murel could just pull herself up through it with only a tiny clawed modification around the edges. She found herself in a low tunnel-good height for an otter and not bad for a seal if she slid on her stomach and just used her flippers to propel her slide forward.
The otter slipped and slid ahead of her, weaving in and out of tunnels as she followed behind.
He didn't seem to be hiding exactly, though, so she did. One of the otter's tunnels led to a den dug deep into the thick river ice lining the bank. None of the hundred otters with the big sharp teeth seemed to be using the den, so she hid there waiting for Ronan.
If he found the otter first and the otter got to be it and came looking for them, maybe it would set the little guy's mind at ease about their intentions.