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...
The spinning stopped as the city settled, and the pressures of the deep crushed the air from her. Above her, the squids recovered from their spins and set their courses straight for her. Then, as she touched the invisible barrier, it opened and she tumbled in, followed by Sky.
But Kushtaka and two of their other allies were there at the top of the dome, waiting for them. Tikka swam up and straight to Sky, who floated listlessly in the dense waterlike atmosphere of the dome. Murel recovered enough to realize that if the waters had felt crushing to her, they must have all but flattened her little friend.
Tikka took hold of Sky’s paw in her larger one. To Murel’s relief the otter turned over twice, shook himself, and said, That slide was very big!
Are you okay? Murel asked. But Sky wasn’t listening. He pulled Tikka down toward the slide that curled around the top of one spire all the way to the streets of the city.
Looking down, she saw that the street was unusually dark. On Petaybee, Kushtaka’s people had settled it over volcanic vents, which gave it a brilliant glow from the sea floor.
Did you come for us, Kushtaka? she asked.
We did not know you were here, the large otter replied. We thought we were returning to our old homeworld again, but we must have miscalculated. Our people did not respond to our hails, and nothing looks familiar.
Kushtaka, those beings seek entrance to the city, Mraka said, pointing up at a garden of waving squid arms and feeder tentacles within which the huge eyes of the creatures gleamed like high-tech holographic flowers, with light reflected from the city dancing across their lenses.
No, don’t! Murel said. Those things almost ate us.
It is strange, a squid replied, and Murel knew it referred to her. Our kind are curious. We feed seldom and it looked tasty. We wished only to try one.
If it thinks I look strangely tasty, it is going to think the same of you, Murel told Kushtaka. She had continued staring at the squid, which seemed to be trying to hypnotize her. When Kushtaka did not reply, Murel looked at her instead. Where the deep sea otter had been, another squid, albeit a somewhat smaller one, faced the ones staring in through the dome. The other deep sea otters were changing too.
Maybe not, she amended. The alien Petaybeans were shape shifters like Ronan and her, but had the advantage of being able to assume a wider repertoire of shapes. Mraka and Puk were in the process of changing into squid as she watched. She hoped the squid’s dietary preferences didn’t come with the shape.
How did you come to look this way? Kushtaka asked the squids. And where are the others?
Some have changed to shapes that can burrow beneath the sea floor, others live near the vents, but without our cities. Those were destroyed when the invaders first arrived, and most of our people were killed.
No word of a great war reached our adopted world, nor even tales of a genocide.
There was no war. Nor do we believe they intended genocide. Our eradication came as a by-product of them making this world suitable for themselves. Only the hardiest of us survived, and then only because of the return of spacefarers like yourselves who helped us heal and adapt.
They wiped you out accidentally? Murel asked, disgusted. Oh, man, that’s what offworlders are always trying to do to things on Petaybee. No wonder you tried to eat us!
Not only delicious-looking, but compassionate, the squid said. What manner of creature are you?
I’m a Petaybean shepherd seal and a shifter like yourself. I can also look like the people who ruined your world, she replied, putting the best possible spin on her dual nature. It comes in handy, she added, thinking that that made her sound more like a sea creature who spied on humans instead of a human who was occasionally a sea creature.
To Kushtaka, she said, Maybe I should go find Sky and Tikka and let you all talk among yourselves, catch up on old times, that sort of thing.
While she found it interesting that the aliens had come home to the same prison world where Marmie was being held, she didn’t see how that would make squid any less hungry, so maybe it was a good idea if she didn’t hang around looking quite as yummy as they seemed to think she was. Since they were all apparently the same species, she was fairly certain Kushtaka would let the outside squid in sooner or later, and she still didn’t relish being around when that happened.
Mraka and Puk followed her. You are troubled, Murel? Perhaps you are hungry? Shall we fish?
I could eat, but it’s not my hunger that’s worrying me, it’s that of your long-lost relatives, she told them. Would it be too much to ask you to turn back into otters again? You’ll note these scars on my neck and back? Ronan has similar ones. Your friends nearly ate us.
The two changed their shapes and tactfully refrained from mentioning that one of the sharks, at the time considered friends of the Shongilis, had eaten a member of Kushtaka’s family.
Where is your brother? Mraka asked.
He’s being held captive by a wicked old woman who wants to know how we change shape. I was trying to get help to rescue him from a boat up on the surface when you arrived. I’m afraid we can’t stay long. I need to help Ronan.
Why does she care how you change shapes? Does she wish to assume one of your shapes herself?
Why does she not simply do so?
She isn’t a shifter, Murel replied.
Static? But she wishes to be able to shift shapes? How sad she must be to be stuck in the one guise for life.
I’m not sure that’s how she looks at it, Murel said. I think she just likes to hurt things and make them do what she wants, but I suppose I could be-partly mistaken. Maybe she has a reason.
Perhaps you should ask her.
Then Kushtaka joined them, as an otter again, and seemed more disturbed than Murel had seen her since the death of her son. Come. Prepare to move. We cannot remain here.
I have to return to the surface if you’re leaving, Murel told her. Ronan is in another fix and I have to get him out. Then we’ve still to get Marmie and her crew and the Kanakas free, and I suppose quite a few other people.
Are you undertaking this task alone?
There’s Sky, and Captain Terry… she began. But otherwise, yes, pretty much alone.
We may be able to assist you in some way, but first we must refuel, and there are no open vents here.
I know where they are, Murel told her. The water’s a bit shallower there too, and squidless, so it would be easier for me to come and go. No offense about the squid…
They are all that is left of our race, Kushtaka said. Once this world was so overpopulated with our kind that they would not allow us to remain when we returned from an exploratory journey to the new home. And those who are left have changed. They seem to have de-evolved.
I certainly thought so, Murel said. I’m glad to know it wasn’t just me.
The city began to spin again, or rather, the water around it churned into another whirlpool and then a waterspout that lifted the craft above the surface.
You know, Murel said, there are easier and less disturbing ways to do this.
According to our equipment, much of this ocean is too shallow to permit us to travel underwater.
We need to recharge before we can fly unsupported. This is the only way.
There’s pontoons, Murel said. She realized it was ungrateful of her to criticize how they chose to help, but the waterspout was every bit as alarming as the whirlpool. It didn’t take much imagination to picture what would happen to the displaced water in its wake. Natural waterspouts, she had read-since Petaybee didn’t have any that she knew of-were formed when cyclonic winds touched the sea’s surface and picked up droplets. The wake from these was said to be little more than bubbles and ripples.