Maelstrom by Anne McCaffrey

the Honu continued.
    Can you sense the people beyond the roots, Honu?
she asked.
    Yes, two Honu people,
the Honu said.
I will tell the other Honus and the diggers will come.
    Sky dived and surfaced again a short distance away.
There is a hole in the roots, river seals. Otters can go through there. Maybe Honus. River seals and Ke-olas are too big.
    Be careful,
Murel told him.
They might have more water and sharks on that side too.
    Otters are very careful,
Sky told her, and dived.
    Waiting was not good. They waited with their heads above the waterline while Ke-ola dog-paddled and the Honu swam around in circles. Under the water, everything was very quiet, but once they surfaced the tiniest sound was magnified as it bounced off the water and back and forth in the tunnel, ricocheted through the cavern and lake beyond, and bounced back again. They could hear Mano restlessly sectioning off the lake with great thrusts of his muscular body. They heard the slap of water against the sides of the tunnel and Ke-ola’s sigh of weariness.
    Odd to be down so deep within this world and not feel anything at all from the planet,
Murel said, suddenly very homesick.
    It’s dead,
Ronan replied flatly.
There’s nothing to feel.
    It’s just strange, is all I’m saying,
she replied.
Meteors crash into it, people settle on it, but all it does is wallow around in space like flotsam.
    Of course,
he replied.
This place isn’t a natural force like Petaybee. If it was ever alive, it was a long time ago. I’m not of a mind to stay here one minute longer than necessary.
He asked the Honu,
Are the diggers coming yet?
    Yes, but far away. The humans also come.
    Good,
Ronan replied.
    The land shuddered. A moment later a wave rolled in from the lake and flung them against the tree roots.
    What was that?
Ronan asked, trying to see in the dark. His sonar told him something disturbing was happening, that the walls around them were subtly shifting.
    The land quakes,
the Honu told him.
When its shell was smacked and dented with sky rocks, its insides were damaged too.
    I hope that was it,
Murel said.
I don’t fancy being down here during a major quake.
    Perhaps it was. Perhaps not,
the Honu said, as if it didn’t matter.
    What happened to “Honus know”?
Ronan asked.
    Ke-ola spoke up. Through his link with the Honu, he now received a filtered version of the turtle’s communications with the twins. “It doesn’t take a Honu to know we need to find the survivors down here and get back to the ship before we’re
all
smacked, dented, and damaged.”
    “I wish Sky would hurry,” Ke-ola said. “While we’re swimming I can stay warm enough but I’m freezing now.”
    Murel dived and Ronan heard her sonar song from beneath the water.
Aha! Just as I hoped,
she crowed. Surfacing, she told Ronan,
Follow me. The quake opened a river-seal-sized hole in the root wall even big enough for Ke-olas and Honus,
I think.
    She dived again, followed by the Honu, then Ke-ola, with Ronan bringing up the rear. The hole on their side was very large but the roots made a maze of the passage they had to weave their way through. Twice Ke-ola became stuck and had to hold on to one of Murel’s fins while Ronan body-slammed him through from behind, sacrificing some of Ke-ola’s human hide to the rough roots.
    Once they were through the root wall, they expected to see Sky, but found only more of the same narrow canal they’d been swimming in on the other side.
    At least there don’t seem to be more Manos,
Murel said gratefully.
    They swam on for several moments. Twice more the tunnel shook and the water sloshed, but these quakes were mere tremblings compared to the first one.
    Sky popped out of the water ahead of them.
    Did you find the people?
Murel asked him.
    Yes,
he said.
Hundreds of Ke-ola relatives.
    That meant there were quite a few, but not necessarily hundreds. Otters were very intelligent but they didn’t count. When they first met Sky, the twins had asked him how many