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.
Of course, as his people knew, the planet was itself a sentient being, but still, it didn't build cities, or at least had never been known to do so.
But maybe eons ago there had been other life here and they built this city and perhaps others, still buried under the sediment on the ocean's floor. Although the mountain above him rumbled and shook and showered more rocks and debris so they shot into the water like deadly missiles, Sean dived a little deeper.
Yes, it could be a ruin, although everything looked remarkably intact and-there seemed to be lights. Perhaps it was just molten lava glowing up from beneath, in which case this ruin would be ruined once more in very short order. But it didn't have the red glow of lava, or the green or blue iridescence Petaybee often displayed. No, this light was brighter, whiter, less natural-looking.
He could go no farther without another breath. He shot for the surface, thinking of the lights and what appeared to be buildings where none should be. Though his mind was occupied, his eyes saw the boulder crashing toward him from the murk, and his seal reflexes responded.
Those reflexes were fast, and sent him into a dive, but they were not fast enough to evade the impact. A single boulder avalanche smashed into his body, and the pain of it was the last thing he knew.
CHAPTER 16
How's it going? Murel asked from class, as Ronan pushed a broom around the laboratory.
So far all I'm doing is housework, he told her. She won't even let me ask any questions. I think we were worried about nothing. She's like every other scientist we've ever met, so wrapped up in what she's doing when she's working that she doesn't even think about other people.
Yeah, that sounds familiar. She loaded us down with homework too. But so did the others.
After a while Murel stopped checking in with him, which gave Ronan a lonely feeling.
Professor Mabo kept him for a couple of hours every afternoon after classes mostly picking up after her and tidying the lab.
She went back to Marmie's alone the first couple of afternoons, but it was just too lonesome with nothing to do but try to get Ro to tell her what he was doing. She knew how lame that was. Other kids could spend five minutes without their brothers around. What did they do?
She made the mistake of whining about it to Pet Chan, who said, "For pity's sake, Murel!
Here you are on a space station with a computer that holds the knowledge of the universe in its databanks, holo decks to play on where you could be anything and do anything, and you're bored because your brother has to work after school? Give me a break!"
She made a mental note that security personnel, even those who made great cookies, were disinclined to be sympathetic about catastrophes that didn't actually involve explosions, break-ins, beatings, or murders. But she had one more whine coming. "Yes, but I don't know how to use half this stuff. Remember us, the hick kids from the low-tech world? How do you turn on a holo deck anyway?"
She thought she had shamed Pet into feeling sorry for her. Maybe the security woman, who did after all sometimes make those great cookies, would see how mean she was being to a poor twin-less girl and would put aside what she was doing and take her down and make up some story to play with her on the holo deck. People did that, Murel knew. She just didn't know how they did it exactly.
Pet did turn aside from the security cameras, and for a moment Murel thought she was going to get her way, but then Pet said in a tone worthy of Nanook or Coaxtl, "Not my problem, child. I understand there's a whiz kid student aide on call, so call, already, and let me get my work done."
Murel scrubbed tears from her eyes as she climbed into the flitter that took her to the holo deck. She'd do that. She'd show Pet and Ro and all the rest of them. She'd make up some holo where they were all getting chased down by polar bears and if they screamed loudly, she might decide to rescue them. Maybe. Maybe not. She was pretty sure the bear would probably eat Dr. Mabo before she could be rescued. Of course, that wasn't a very good thing to do to the bear. Probably break its teeth on the stringy old bat.
She flounced in, not paying much attention. Most of the time the holo lab was a big blue grid, but now there was a sandy beach and huge blue waves breaking off it. Ke-ola sat on the beach playing some kind of a little guitar while people danced a swaying dance with a lot of hand motions and sang beautiful songs and ate roast pig. Everybody had flowers around their necks. It looked like a lot of fun, but Ke-ola was sitting apart from everybody else, his fingers barely touching the instrument, staring out to sea. He wasn't in a good mood either, for the first time since she'd met him. Maybe it was something in the ventilation system that day. Big tears were rolling down his broad brown cheeks.
"Hey, Ke-ola, can I come to your party?" she asked.
"Better you go away, little sistah," he said. "This luau is just for us ghosts."
"Ghosts? You're not a ghost." He really was in a bad mood.
"Oh yes, I am," he said. He clapped his hands, and now they were standing on a dirty street between two tall buildings. The sea was still out there but it rolled in a sluggish way and it was a muddy brown color. Where they had been before, with all the happy people, was an island clearly visible from where they stood now.
"You know what happened there, to that place? That second place where we lived?"
"You said there was something there the company wanted so they made you move," she said.
"No. This," he said. And suddenly a blinding light flashed. When she could see again, the island was bare of people and palms, and the sea and sand were slimy with bits of dead fish and seaweed.
"What our new home had that they wanted so much we had to go? It was far from other places. So they set off bombs there to see how much damage they did. Better to blow it up than to let us live there."
"That freezes," she said.
"We have this kinda luau now," he told her, and flipped a couple of buttons on the little guitar, which was actually the remote for the holo suite. It changed into a pokey little room with no color, no sea, no sand, and a bunch of ragged, discouraged-looking people tending some anemic plants.
He switched it off and they sat in the blue-gridded room she remembered.
"I'm sorry, Ke-ola. But that's all past, isn't it?"
"Is it? That's no place for us. Only place good for us is too good for us, the company says.
Madame brought me here, but so what? Where my family lives now, they're gonna die. They live in little boxes and little fake ecobubbles. We are people of the sea bubbles, not ecobubbles. I miss my family, Murel. I love them. But I got no place with them. One more mouth, one more breather, one more kid to hear the ghost stories about what all of us used to be."
He never sobbed, but the tears kept rolling until they didn't. Murel patted him on the shoulder, feeling helpless. His questions didn't have any good answers that she could think of. The funny thing was, he was mourning a place he'd never been as much as he he mourned the family that was too big to hold him now. She felt that way about being away from Petaybee sometimes, except she knew she and Ro would be going back sometime soon. Wouldn't they?
Working with Dr. Mabo was frustrating. Ronan thought that once she got used to him, she'd be ready to teach him the things she hinted that only she knew. But usually, even after several weeks of
working together, when he tried to ask her a question, she'd grunt impatiently and wave him aside.