Changelings

Rory finished up.

Ke-ola was next. He shuffled to the front and tapped in his program, picked up his laser wand.

As soon as he started his presentation, Murel and Ronan realized there was even more to their large friend than there appeared to be. Three worlds started spinning.

"I am Ke-ola O'honu-aumakua. On Old Earth my people lived on islands in the warmest of the two great oceans, the Ocean of Peacefulness. Originally we ate what the islands brought us, fish from the sea, fruit from the trees. The climate was mild and warm, and except for volcanoes erupting at times, or monsoon rains, our lives were peaceful. Then other people came to the islands with things and ideas they said would make our lives better. Some things seemed to but others did not. Finally came the day when Intergal came to the few of us who were left and still in possession of some of the islands in our chain. They told us they now owned our island and we could not live there any longer but would be moved to a better place. We did not quite believe them because, although the islands were not as good in many ways as they had been before the new ideas and things came, they were still a very good place to live. The new place was a specially prepared world that much resembled our own. We brought with us the seeds to some of our trees, and the eggs and young of our fish and animals. My family brought the eggs of the sacred Honu, the sea turtle that is our special animal. Our last name means 'people of the sea turtle.'

"For a time we lived in the new place fairly contentedly, though it was a new place and never home and we still sang to each other of the old islands lost to us. Then the company came and told us that our new place, which they already owned, had been found to have a rare mineral they needed for a vital manufacturing process, but that another place had been prepared for us and we would be moved again.

"This time, the new place was not as well prepared as the other, and though we brought our plants and animals with us again, they do not thrive in this new place. Neither do we. The gravity is greater, the weather is colder and more changeable, and our animals must be kept in artificial pens and tanks, our plants in big houses with artificial sunlight. Once, on the old world, and to a lesser extent on the second one, we were scientists and singers, ranchers and dancers, teachers and creators of beautiful and useful items."

He paused, pointed the wand to the first globe and drew up a picture of what looked like a hat made of flowered fabric with a pineapple-shaped container strapped to either side of it. Ke-ola suddenly grinned, a warm and funny expression that seemed totally at odds with the serious and even sad look he'd worn throughout the rest of his recitation. "Well, some of the items were ugly and useless too, but the outsiders seemed to want them so we sold them to them." Then the grin went away as if it had never been and he continued in the same slightly singsong voice, "We were healers, lawgivers and musicians, makers of food and purveyors of goods. We have become a people of zookeepers and gardeners.

"The company tells us that we are ungrateful for everything they have done for us and that our people must learn new jobs and new ways to be more productive to repay the kindness of the company. And so I have been sent here to school on a special scholarship to learn more about how to maintain space stations. I cannot tell you of imports or exports-everything my people have they have brought with them or have had provided for them, at a cost, by the company, who may take back whatever they need, including us. Fortunately, even though the heavy gravity is very hard on the mamas when they give birth, our families have become large with little to do but grow food and children. We don't manufacture much anymore or work away from home much either. Mostly the older people tell the younger ones stories and teach us our old songs and dances so we don't forget who we are or what we had a long time ago. That's all good, but as you can tell, we don't always have enough to eat." He patted his round stomach. "So probably it is a good thing I am here among you, my classmates, where I don't get so skinny I blow away on the wind. Makes more food for my family at home too."

As he talked, he spun the worlds and brought up the animals, trees, volcanoes, fish, and turtles of the first world, and showed people like him doing the jobs he described. The second world he showed had less of everything, and the new one had a lot of the same things, only in containers set on stark landmasses.

That's terrible that they just kept taking his people's homes away from them, Murel said.

They're i.p.'s too, just like us- the inconvenient peoples Intergal moved to terraformed worlds from places the company had a better use for.

Yeah, that's kind of what the older people were afraid of about Petaybee, that once the company realized how good our world was, they'd try to move us off of it. That was before Mum and Da straightened it all out, Ronan replied.

"That was excellent, Ke-ola, and far exceeded the assignment," Dr. Freyasdottur said. "Your holos turned out so well I'm afraid you may have raised the grading curve on this assignment."

The big kid flushed and grinned but to their surprise said, "Don' do that, teachah. I cheated a little."