Deluge
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: The Twins of Petaybee #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Deluge». Краткое содержание книги:
Meanwhile, the powerful and avaricious Company is making another attempt to take over the world of Petaybee for its resources, and the twins parents, Yana and Sean, along with the entire planet, must fight for the independence of their sentient world once and for all...
Once they were in space, it was much like being inside the city underwater, except that the vastness was far greater, deeper, and seemingly uninhabited. Being aboard the city-vessel was also a lot like being in another sort of spaceship, except for the all-encompassing view afforded by the transparency of the shield.
A bit unsettling, that, Ronan remarked in his thoughts to his sister, his eyes widening as he tried to twist his thick furry neck to take in the scenery.
Sky, the twins’ otter friend, ran from one side of the domed sursurvu chamber to the other until he finally flopped down between his friends’ flippers and said in a rather sad voice, Otters who are not me and not deep sea are gone now.
Murel nuzzled him with her nose. You could have stayed behind, Sky.
Sky otters go where river seals go, he told her.
As Petaybee seemed to shrink with distance, Murel and Ronan continued to watch, while Sky curled up for a nap. The twins’ thoughts spun as the vessel had when rising. They were not yet eleven years old and this was their third journey into space on behalf of their family and their world. This one promised to make the other two trips seem like-well, child’s play. Explanations about why they had to be the ones to go were unnecessary this time. Even the river and sea otters, who normally cared only about swimming, sliding, and catching fish, had sensed the urgency of their need and sent messengers to the chilly waters of Perfect Fjord to summon the creatures they considered to be large otterly cousins.
Kushtaka’s species had lived on Petaybee when it flourished the first time, before the Company Corps’ terraforming that had made the planet barely habitable for the twins’ paternal ancestors. Like the humans, the deep sea otters were originally immigrants from another world, and like Ronan and Murel, they could assume another shape-one vaguely squidlike, which the twins couldn’t help thinking of as “alien.” Their city was also designed as a sea- and spacefaring vessel. Once the twins had explained their urgent need for transport, since no other spaceworthy vessels were left on Petaybee, the aliens agreed to take them to Versailles Station, Marmion’s home base. Once there, they hoped to alert Marmie’s powerful friends to her illegal arrest, so the important people could make the company release her. After all, Marmie was on the company’s board and had a large financial interest in it. She was also an influential member of the Federation Council.
The twins knew that her arrest had been bogus, the result of her crossing a Corps colonel while rescuing Ke-ola’s people and their aumakuas-or totem animals-the sea turtles and sharks. The colonel had done nothing to help the Kanakas while their colony was bombarded by meteors, and then accused Marmie in particular and Petaybee in general of kidnapping company employees and livestock and had his friends arrest her. If everyone else hadn’t been busy with emergencies at sea, they might have been able to prevent it. But as it was, an open com link had alerted Mum-who was co-governor of Petaybee-and the village that after confiscating the Piaf, the company intended to send more troops to take Ke-ola and his people back and arrest Mum and Da and the villagers of Kilcoole as Marmie’s accomplices.
The twins couldn’t believe it when they first heard, but listening to the adults talk, they realized that there was more to internal Company Corps and Federation politics than they had ever wished to know. Mum said it was always a struggle to keep the most grasping, greedy, and inhumane interests from taking control. She had obeyed plenty of orders she didn’t like while in the Corps, but now that she no longer worked for the company, she wasn’t about to tamely accept outrageously high-handed tactics that flew in the face of previous Federation edicts regarding Petaybee and her people.
The thing was, once adults-including Mum-had been fully adapted by Petaybee to the planet’s extremes, there was no leaving. Da had explained that complete adaptation to Petaybee’s extreme cold involved actual physiological changes that made it impossible for assimilated Petaybeans to survive a space journey. To arrest a Petaybean adult-even one not born on the planet-and take him away from the planet was to sentence him to death. None of them, particularly Mum, intended to go tamely.
I hope we’re doing the right thing, Murel thought to Ronan. I was so wishing that this time maybe we could let the grown-ups take care of things, like they said, and stay hidden with the family and the rest of the village.
Mum didn’t leave us much choice, Ronan told her. I am no more ready for another trip than you are. But if she and Johnny and Pet start a guerrilla war against the entire Company Corps and try to hijack their ship so Johnny, Pet, and Raj can get someone sensible to stick up for Marmie and for us, they could all be killed. Johnny and Pet are good, and that Raj guy is well armed, but hijacking a company ship? And then what happens to Mum if they succeed? Does she think the soldiers aren’t going to notice their ship is gone and look around a little? She’s bound to get caught and sent away. They might even be able to use drugs or something to make her tell where the others are hiding.
Mum? Not likely! Murel replied, but she wiggled her whiskers back and forth, perplexed. But they can’t hide in the caves forever. Too many folk know about them now, and those who’ve failed Petaybee’s entrance exam are not the sort who’d mind telling. Sooner or later they’ll find our people and take what they think is their chance to be rid of us. But even if they weren’t trying to arrest us too, we can’t let the PTBs lock Marmie up in some horrible place. Da says she made a lot of the PTBs mad at her for championing us and Petaybee’s cause, but she still has lots more friends who wouldn’t let anybody touch her if they knew she was in trouble.
Yeah, Ronan agreed, understanding PTBs as shorthand for powers that be. And you can bet once she’s free, her friends who are the good PTBs will make the rest of the company back off from trying to arrest everybody else on Petaybee too.
Too right, Murel said. I remember the lessons we had about the Federation Justice System, and the accusation and arrest both stink worse than week-old dead fish.
When at last they could no longer see Petaybee, even as a bright spot in the sky, they began to explore the city a bit, keeping an eye out for Kushtaka, her daughter Tikka, and Ronan’s new friends, Mraka and Puk. They swam in and out of the various rooms either through the door holes or by dissolving the walls.
The colored lights in the city’s towers spiraled and spun up and down.
CHAPTER 2
TIKKA FOUND THEM. Though she was not as friendly with Murel and Ronan as she had been before the sharks killed her brother Jeel, Sky was still very much in her favor, and the two otters departed for the sliding areas that were built into the city.
Kushtaka’s people were much like regular otters and seals in that they ate when they were hungry, not at fixed mealtimes. The fishing beam the twins had seen Mraka and Puk operate gathered many fish before the journey. Murel didn’t know where the fish were stored, but they were almost as tasty as fresh caught.
There were chutes in many places throughout the city where the otters could summon a snack, as Ronan and Murel had seen several of them do.
But although anyone was free to eat at any time, the twins’ hosts seemed to prefer to dine with convivial company.
First Mraka and Puk, then Kushtaka and a few friends, and finally Tikka and Sky, gathered together while Mraka operated the chute.