Changelings

"Is it safe in the cave, Clodagh?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I guess."

Johnny was more reassured by that than he would have been were he not a native-born Petaybean. He was a brave man, the veteran of many years of military service in the Company Corps and numerous hazardous missions on behalf of his civilian employer. Still, he found himself reluctant to step into the tunnels leading deeper into the planet's grumbling bowels, which sounded as if Petaybee could use a dose of antacid and a nice cup of tea.

However, though the walls shook and the footing was uncertain, though the water sloshed and rolled in the little hot pool as if it were a miniature ocean, they reached the communion cave without incident. The major pieces of rock all seemed inclined to remain where they were.

Clodagh pulled out a thermos and four cups, as if she'd read its mind about the planet needing tea. "There now, just you simmer down, love," she murmured to Petaybee.

Yana smiled and said quietly to Johnny, "Clodagh's talking to the planet like she did to me when I was going into labor with the twins."

"Our Sean is still missing," Clodagh said conversationally, not to Johnny or Yana. "We'd like him back safe, please."

After a while other people began filing into the cavernous room, people with drums and other instruments.

They started singing songs. Yana and Johnny sang a couple too, then Yana said, "I can't sit here. We have to go look. Call Marmie and have her send another chopper if we must, but we have to go back out there. He could be hurt, clinging to a log or something."

But one of the search copters had returned by then, and the pilot, who had been out since daybreak, was more than willing for Johnny and Yana to take the evening shift. With summer, evening was very long-it lasted until twilight, and somewhere around midnight the sun, which had only taken a slight dip in the sky, began to rise again.

Even so, the weather was hardly bright. Debris in the air almost obscured the sun entirely.

Johnny didn't expect to be able to find anything farther away than the copter's nose.

Unfortunately, his expectations were fulfilled. He and Yana ventured as close as they could get to the steaming smoking vent in the ocean, closer than they should have gone, but to no avail. They spent hours circling it, waiting while the quakes grew greater and subsided, backing off as the rumbling grew more intense and edging closer when it stilled, but they couldn't see more than the surface of the water, and even then infrequently. They had to return to refuel twice, and both times he could almost hear Yana fretting that they had missed Sean at the very moment when they might have saved him.

At her insistence, they did the same thing after the next crew went up, and again the following day. They spoke very little the entire time. Yana's focus was total and she could not seem to bear a word to break into her thoughts.

But finally, after the third search shift, Johnny said, "I think I'd best give you the children's message, Yana, and you pass it on."

At once her eyes snapped to his like an eagle fixing claws on its prey.

"They want to know if people can tell about their selkie nature from a blood sample. Their new science teacher, Dr. Mabo, was seen to pocket a handkerchief Murel bled into after cutting herself in lab class. They thought it suspicious and figured their father would know."

They were on their way back to the helicopter, but Yana turned and pointed in the direction of Johnny's ship. "Go get them now and bring them home, Johnny," she said, and as an afterthought added, "Please."

"I guess the answer would be yes to that question then?"

"I don't know about the blood, but a Dr. Marie Mabo was one of the scientists-the head one, if I remember correctly-Sean and Sinead arrested for, as Sinead put it, 'unlawful detention of river otters.' Mabo and the rest were deported. It may not be the same person, but I don't want to even entertain the possibility that the woman might be anywhere near my children. Losing Sean is bad enough."

"I'll go then," he said, his hand on her shoulder squeezing a little, trying to be reassuring. "But you've not lost him yet. He may have swum to the other pole to get out of the way, for all you know. Communications haven't been the best so we wouldn't necessarily know. But I'll get the kids nonetheless. They'll be glad to be returning."