Deluge

How many child inmates could turn into seals and swim as far as she and Ronan could? Maybe the net was supposed to keep other creatures out.

Pushing that thought aside, she swam under and joined Ronan, who waited for her a little offshore. They swam out to sea, diving and leaping over each other, feeling free for the first time since they had left the alien ship.

Each of them caught a strange-looking flat fish from a school swimming past. Murel felt refreshed enough to think again. We should swim around the island and explore what’s there, she told Ronan.

And we explain our absence how? her brother asked.

We don’t. We can’t do anybody any good cooped up in the children’s camp. We’ll keep free till we find a way to release everyone else.

Okay, but we should also swim back to the main prison and see if we can find a way inside it from the shoreline. If we can, then we might be able to get our people out that way, as well. Hmmm, I’ll bet there are sewers that empty into the sea. He said it as if he liked the idea of swimming in sewers.

Sewers? she asked with distaste.

Yes, in the stories I read while we were at Marmie’s, fortresses always had sewers prisoners could use to escape.

I just hope the people who built the prison didn’t read the same stories, Murel said. What I was thinking is that we might be able to swim over to the soldiers’ encampment at night and sneak into their com shed and use their equipment to call for help.

Oh, well, yeah, if they have anything there that will go offworld, Ronan said. I doubt they’d keep their long-range equipment here. It’ll be back at the prison where the admin people are.

You don’t know that. You just want to swim in the sewer. Hey, Sky didn’t come over here with us.

She looked around and started using her sonar to call.

I hope he didn’t get trapped on the ship. Ronan started calling too, but although their sonar didn’t pick up any otter-shaped creatures of any variety, it did warn of the approach of something large and threatening.

They began swimming for all they were worth, sounding for obstacles in their path and dodging or diving to evade them.

This is no good, Murel said. We can keep from getting eaten but we still can’t see what’s on the island. I want to look around.

Fine, you check the surface and I’ll swim underwater and check for trouble.

We have to stay in close to shore if we’re going to see anything, she said, so they swam in until they were just beyond an area where the shoreline dropped off steeply into much deeper waters. They soon discovered that the net strung to contain the bathing children followed the line of a ledge that ran most of the way around the island. At its widest point, the ledge extended about twenty feet from shore.

On the far side, the island ended abruptly in cliffs rising almost two hundred feet above the waves crashing against its rocky base, with a ledge receding into steep cliffs.

There’s a nice waterfall, Murel said, indicating a plume of water spurting from the cliff.

Maybe it’s from a sewer, Ronan suggested hopefully.

You and your sewers. Everything seems to be on the other side of the island. It doesn’t look to me like there’s anyplace sewers would drain from. It’s just runoff from a stream or rainfall probably.

But look over there at those rocks. They look like a fine place to rest and keep out of sight while we decide what to do next.

They swam to the rocks and stretched out on the sun-warmed stones. Ronan sighed and settled down to nap. His fur started to disappear, and Murel jumped into the tepid water again, splashing him. He sat up, looking cross. Cut it out!

You were changing, she said.

So what? Who’s going to know?

In the distance they heard the roar of a motor. A small boat had zipped out from shore, a vee-shaped wake spreading behind it like a flock of wild geese in flight. They’re looking for us, Murel said. I hope Rory and the Kanakas don’t get in trouble because we didn’t come back.

Me too, but maybe they won’t even notice, Ronan replied. One kid with a shaved head probably looks like another to them. Did you notice our welcoming committee didn’t even call us by name?

Pretty sloppy, I’d say, but it’s like they don’t much care who we are. I hope the little tiff with Kai didn’t call attention to us in particular.

I don’t think it did. They didn’t intervene or anything. We all just seem to be a bunch of brats who for some reason may have our uses as far as they’re concerned. Which is a good thing. I mean, what if Dr. Mabo were here, as Rory seemed afraid she might be? She’d be over here in a flash to collect us and vivisect us. She had a worrying thought then. I suppose they might have counted us and realized that two were missing.

Maybe, but I’m not sure they’d care if they thought we’d drowned, Ronan said.