Changelings

CHAPTER 4

Murel and Ronan were quite advanced in most ways. They learned to walk very early, and to run almost as quickly. By the age of three they could sit on the back of a curly coat without being held there. They started school when they were five, and learned to read and write, demonstrating their abilities by reading to each other at home. But by the time they were seven, they were in and out of trouble all the time, the mildest problem being that the teacher was unfairly suspicious when they kept turning in identical test papers written in nearly identical left-handed printing.

The teacher also noted in their student evaluation that Murel and Ronan did not reach out to befriend the other students, especially the newcomers, and spoke mostly only to each other unless asked to recite.

The truth was, they not only didn't reach out to newcomers, they didn't like or trust them much either.

"They come to our world because they're sick or other worlds won't have them, and act like they're better than us," Ronan told their mother.

"They're just scared," she said. "It's rough for them, you know. They realize that they're not as well adapted as you are, so they have to act as if they know more in other areas."

"I don't see why," Murel said. "If they were nice, we'd try to teach them stuff about Petaybee, but some of them, especially the older ones, are just nasty and mean. All they do is moan and groan about how bad the com stuff is around here and how they can't always depend on it to reference their lessons or talk to their friends wherever they were before they left. They want to know why we don't have a decent satellite so all the stuff that needs a satellite works better.

They don't care about learning about here."

When Ronan came home with a black eye and Murel with a cut lip, their father said,

"Fighting, were you? Murel too?"

"It wasn't our fault, Da. That Dino Caparthy is a bully. He's really big and he has a gang and they jumped Ronan-I mean all of them. I sorted-I helped Ronan sort them out and sent Dino away with a bloody nose, grabbing his bollocks with both mittens, but they're really a problem."

"So you did win then, did you?" he asked. They looked at each other, shrugged, looked back at their father and nodded. He said, "Well, good. I'll speak to their parents and teachers but I'm not sure how much good it will do. They came here from Romopolis on Mingus Prime. It was one of the earliest terraformed worlds and it's not in very good shape. The cities are filthy and the air has been recycled so many times inside the domes that you can cut it as quick as breathe it. Their folks applied to us so they could get their kids out of that environment to someplace more wholesome, and since they've skills we can use, we accepted them. But they're going to have to talk to their kids about cooperating."

"To hear Dino tell it," Ronan said, "Romopolis is a wonderful funfair of a city, and Kilcoole is at the end of the universe and the bottom of the food chain. He said we were all so breaded our chrome was broken and we were mutes with scales."

"Is that insulting?" Da asked, looking puzzled.

"What he meant, of course," Murel said in a very careful and grown-up voice, "is that we are inbred and our chromosomes are broken so that we're mutants on the evolutionary scale, but he's too dumb to even know how to call people bad things."

Da looked like he was trying to keep a straight face and not smile. He liked it when they used big words, and because he and Mum used them a lot to talk about their work, Murel and Ronan knew how to say the words. And because they wanted to join in the conversation but had to keep asking what things meant, and Mum and Da always told them to go look it up-now-they knew what the words meant. Dino didn't like that about them either. He was the real mute with scales.

"And what inspired this lad to call you all of these things he couldn't pronounce?" Da asked.

"Nothing!" they both exclaimed, and Ronan continued, "It was just because we didn't feel bad that the stupid game his uncle sent him won't work here and because he thinks we should have great clattering halls full of fake stuff for him to play with. I can't tell you what he called Petaybee but it had to do with shite and it wasn't nice."

Da nodded, but whether he ever did anything about it, they didn't know. Whatever he did, it didn't work very well. After that, Dino only hit Ronan when he was sure Murel wasn't around.

The gang still said horrible, if garbled, things about them and the few other kids actually from Kilcoole, but they said it out of range of Murel's fists, feet, and fingernails.

If their teacher thought the twins were withdrawn, the track cats, Coaxtl, and the curly coats had the opposite opinion of them.

It was everything the helpful creatures could do to keep the pair out of trouble. They were insatiably curious, absolutely fearless, and downright dangerous to be around sometimes.

"They keep leaving their outer coats lying around on the riverbank where anyone can find them," Nanook complained. The intrepid track cat was getting a little tired of playing nanny.

Nevertheless, she dutifully turned around and used her hind paws to spray powdery snow over the snow pants and parkas the twins had carelessly left lying near their latest ice hole in the river before taking an afternoon dip in seal form.

"It's a very good thing for Sean and Yana that they aren't exactly like the seal people in the old stories," Coaxtl said, settling her white fluffy belly into the snow. She placed her huge paws with their tufts of fur between the toes on either side of the ice hole and watched with flicking fringe-tipped ears for fish swimming across the exposed circle of running water. The water was so deep and cold it looked black at this time of the year.

"Do you recall the song sung at the naming latchkay?" Nanook asked.

"Many songs were sung," Coaxtl replied. "It was very tiring."

"I mean the one about the seal people who shed their coats when they became human, not the other way around. If any other human found the sealskin and kept it, then the selkie had to stay on land with that person."

"One recalls something of the sort, yes."

"I fancy Sean and Yana must sometimes wish it were true of the twins so they would have to stay in the nest until they could be safely supervised," Nanook mused. "Of course, humans are a bit silly about that. Their young are sooo fragile and they have only one or two at a time."

"There is no room for those two in any enclosed space," Coaxtl said, and turned her head to lick her shoulder.

At that moment water geysered out of the hole and drenched the snow leopard, who somersaulted backward in surprise.

She twisted and sat up facing the hole. A gray seal slapped front flippers on the edge and pulled its sleek body after it. The eyes were big and blue and the mouth was grinning.

As soon as the seal was out of the water, it flipped water all over both Nanook and Coaxtl. A childish human laugh pealed from the midst of the spray and a small bare boy stood before the cats. "Gotcha!" he laughed.

Coaxtl gave the boy a withering look and walked two paces forward until she sat on top of the buried snowsuit. Cold, youngling? she asked, purring.

"You took my snowsuit! You big fur ball!"

Nanook walked forward and touched a cold nose to the child's bare rump, nudging him back to the ice hole. If I were you, I'd be a seal again. At least you're dressed for the weather when you're in seal form.

Ronan resisted smacking at, though not on, the black-and-white track cat's icy nose. "Don't get cat snot on me, Nanook. I'm cold enough. I don't want to swim anymore."

Then I suggest you show submission to Coaxtl and beg her to return the property with which you so carelessly littered the landscape. Honestly, child, you never find us leaving our pelts lying around.

"Oh yes we do. During breakup you shed your fuzzy body all over everything."

We remain attractively clad in fur at all times, Coaxtl said. She allowed a sleeve of the snowsuit to poke out from beneath her belly. You, on the other hand, cover yourself in small bumps, which do nothing that we can see to warm you.

"I'm going to freeze to death and it will be on your head!" he proclaimed with something of his father's Irish lilt. It was good for dramatic pronouncements.

From the ice beside the hole came a sharp smack and a swoosh, and Murel rose, flashed pink skin, and then ran to the bank and pulled her buried snowsuit and blanket from under a log.

She wrapped the blanket around her as she tugged on the suit, then tossed the blanket to her brother.

"Don't tease him, 'Nook," she said. "Can you not see he's about to perish of the cold?"

Perish? It's only minus twenty! Nanook said, but shot a look at Coaxtl, who decamped from atop the clothing while the blanket-clad boy scrambled for it. Downright sultry weather, I'd call it. It's a wonder the ice is holding. Younglings Petaybean born and bred should be able to withstand this without getting all hissy and breaking out in bumps.

Murel bullied her twin often enough when he wasn't bullying her instead, but she didn't want anyone else to do it. "Come on, Ronan, don't give the cats the satisfaction next time. I told you to hide your snowsuit. What if one of the offplanet people was to find it? They'd think you'd drowned and would have set up a huge hue and cry and everyone would have to pretend to find you without letting the off-p's see you as a selkie."

"Oh, would they? If you're that worried about it, you could have hid mine too. Where would you be during all of this hueing and crying and searching?"

Murel gave a deep and put-upon sigh and strode as purposefully toward the village as her seven-year-old legs would carry her. "Really, Ronan, you are such an infant sometimes! I can scarcely believe we have the same birthday. You make any pup in Bunny's new litter look downright mature by comparison. You just don't think, laddie."

But Ronan had pulled his mittens on and was bouncing the finger pad off the thumb one.

"See? This is your mouth! You just don't shut up, do you, lassie?"

He caught up with her and tried to race past her but she ran even faster when she saw what he was trying to do.

Kits! Nanook said.

The track cat had meant to bring up the snowsuit issue with Sean and Yana, but her humans were always so busy these days, it took actual claws to get their attention. The company and the offplanet people simply would not leave them in peace. They were always trying to settle some new group on Petaybee or bring in some kind of improvements for the good of everyone, as they said, and they kept Sean and Yana hopping night and day just to field all of their chatter. Some of the offplanet people who were settlers were nice enough. Some even settled into Petaybean ways. But most of them came to Petaybee for peace, healing, a clean and simple life, and then wanted to clutter it up with all manner of things they were used to from their noisy, unpeaceful, unhealthy, dirty, and complicated lives somewhere else. That was what Nanook had heard the villagers say anyway. As long as the newcomers didn't bring with them anything that preyed on track cats, she did not concern herself with them.

"What those younglings need is something that can keep up with them swimming," Coaxtl said finally. "They swim farther and farther up the river every time and I'm afraid sometime they'll get in trouble and we won't know because we won't be close enough to catch their cries for help."

At the same time, Murel and Ronan, having captured their mother in one of her rare moments of leisure, were expounding on the situation to her. "If Da could come with us, it would be fine. We are really too old for babysitters now, but if we have to have one, it should be another selkie, or at least someone who can swim with us," Ronan said.

Murel nodded her head, the red tints in her black hair flashing with the firelight from the window in the woodstove. "Coaxtl can swim and doesn't mind it in the summer but she's really a big wuss-puss about swimming under the ice. All she does is hide Ronan's snowsuit."

"Does she?" Yana asked. "Why doesn't Ronan hide his own snow-suit? I believe both your father and I have tried to impress upon you-"

"The thing is, Mum, it just isn't practical to have to hide them,"

Ronan said. "Sometimes we'd like to go explore someplace out of the water but we can't because we don't have a kit to put on when we get out of the water. We need a way to take them with us."

"I suppose we could rig up some sort of harness and a waterproof pack," Yana said, thinking of diving equipment she had used while still in the Company Corps. "It would slow you down a bit but that's hardly a bad thing. I'm not so sure I want you exploring outside the water so far from where you got in."

"Nothing would happen to us, Mum!" Murel said. "Petaybee wouldn't let it. You know that."

"I know nothing of the sort. Petaybee has a good many other functions than providing divine intervention for you when you do something foolish and get yourselves into trouble. And once you're away from the village and our summer campsites on the river, there are all manner of things that could indeed hurt you."

"Not any worse than freezing to death while a snow leopard squats on your protective gear and lectures you," Ronan said with some residual bitterness at the unfairness of those who didn't let him do as he liked, unchecked.

Murel rolled her eyes at her mother and said, "Yes, Mummy, please make Coaxtl stop teasing Ronan. He is just so endlessly tiresome about it, and I'm the one who has to hear it all the time."

"Okay, here's what I can do, kids. I'll see if Marmion can send us some high-tech lightweight snowsuits and waterproof packs and harnesses for you from offworld. One of her companies develops that kind of thing, I think. But meanwhile, you don't go anywhere without hiding your suits and letting Coaxtl and Nanook know where you're going. Meanwhile, I'll talk to your father about finding you a swimming companion. It will pain him, you know. He'd like nothing better than to join you, and the three of you could be off sealing around while I fend off would-be settlers and contractors and answer the wretched com unit."

"Thanks, Mummy, you're the best!" Ronan said, giving her an enthusiastic hug that almost knocked her off her stool.

Murel planted a kiss on her cheek. "We'll look for a swim friend too," she said.

"Someone your father and I approve of, mind you!" Yana said, but she was calling out after their heels as they flashed out the door and down the snowy track between the village's shacks, log cabins, and the incongruous but inconspicuous white Nakatira cubes, which blended into the snow.

Sean promised the twins he'd go with them and they could swim as far as the ice floe, farther than they'd ever been before, and look for a friend with flippers or fins who could chaperone them.

The twins were unusually excited when the next ship landed, as it bore the imprint of Marmion's company. Surely she had sent the gear Mother asked for, along with all of these strangers disembarking.

Murel and Ronan hung around until the pilot appeared in the hatchway. "Johnny!" they both cried, and ran to hug Captain Green, one of their family's oldest friends. "Did you bring us anything?" Ronan asked, looking around the pilot for something besides his usual flight duffel.

"I brought you all of those exciting new friends, did I not? What more could you possibly be wanting?" he teased, ruffling Ronan's hair.

"But Marmie promised to send us something," Murel said, hanging on to his belt. "For our birthdays, you know. We're eight today, aren't we, Ronan?"

"We are. And she did say so, Marmie did, said she was sending us this particular item."

"Funny, I don't recall a thing about it," Johnny said with a look of what he intended to resemble wide-eyed bewilderment.

"Maybe you didn't see it get loaded, Johnny. Could you look, please?"

Don't overdo it, sis, Ronan told her. I'm sure he can see through you as well as I can when you bat your eyes at him like that.

That shows how much you know. If you have any brains, you'll start batting too. He might have to go to a lot of trouble to find it. We'd best be scoring all of the points for adorable that we can.

"Hmm," Johnny said, scratching his chin, although both twins were quite sure it wasn't itchy.

"Let me think. You know, there was a lot going on at the time, what with all these folks getting ready to board, but I do seem to remember Marmion mentioning something about you."

"She promised Mum she'd send us something. And you know Marmie would never break a promise to Mum," Ronan said in a sober, man-to-man tone.

"No, no, of course not. But I can't think of anything at all unless it would be those wee ration packets."

"Ration packets?" both twins asked at once.

"Yes, now that I think of it, she handed me the little foil packets and said your mum needed them for you."

"They weren't ration packets, Johnny," Murel said. "You did bring them, didn't you?"

"Oh, aye. Though I hardly thought it worth the trouble. There's plenty of ration packets still left over from when Intergal ran the Space Base. What did I do with them? Gave them to the cook, probably. You'd keep things like that in the galley, you know."

"No, no, they're not ration packets and they were ours," Ronan told him.

"We'll go search the galley, Johnny," Murel said. "You needn't bother. How big were they and did the foil have writing on it? We can read that sort of thing now, you know."

"Ah well, I guess they were about as big as…" He reached into the pockets on the thighs of his pants and pulled out two packets bright as fish. "And the writing says-this one says, 'for Murel,' and this one says, 'for Ronan.' "

The twins snatched them and Ronan began trying to open his. Murel looked up at Johnny's grin and said, "Thank you very much,

Johnny, for bringing them. But Deirdre Angalook is quite right. You're a terrible tease."

"Deirdre said something to you about me, did she?"

"Aye," Murel said, pretending to scratch her own chin. "But I can't quite recall what else it was she said except for the bit about the teasing."

Johnny stabbed a finger to her middle as if to tickle her, but at that moment Ronan figured out the packet and it unfolded, flower-like, blooming into a metallic-looking suit with what seemed to be very light quilting.

"It's very small and thin," Ronan said, a little disappointed as he felt the cloth.

"Oh, there's directions," Johnny said. "It gets bigger and puffier, I'm told."

"How's that?" Ronan asked.

"See there, that fine print? It says, 'Just add water.' "

Both of them jumped him and there was a lot of rolling in the snow before he finally admitted defeat and said he had to go report in to their parents.

"You two coming along?"

"No," Ronan said. "We need to try these on, test them. So we can show our folks."