Maelstrom by Anne McCaffrey Page B

don’t know how we’re going to satisfy everybody, Ke-ola. Can’t the people and the Honus come with us now and maybe Marmie can come back for the sharks later?”
    “And maybe not, eh?” the old woman interrupted. “We will live with the Manos or die here with them.”
    Ronan didn’t want to ride with the sharks. Swimming with them once was enough. And if it came to that, he didn’t want sharks prowling the Petaybean seas.
    “Maybe we can send for another ship to take these folks and their sharks to another safer planet somewhere,” he suggested.
    Ke-ola shook his head. “My people will not come without them. We are all related. The Manos are difficult relatives but all must come or none will. You do not leave your grandmother and grandfather behind.”
    “That grandfather would have eaten the Honu, Sky, and you too if Murel hadn’t grabbed his tail,” Ronan said.
    While they were arguing, the old woman, who seemed to think they would do exactly as she thought they ought to, saw to it that several children were lifted to the surface. They were immediately put into flitters to return to the ship. They were followed by three young women who appeared to be their mothers.
    Once they were gone, the old woman called to the remaining adults. Bearing torches and holding them high, they entered the water and she led them deliberately around the rescue party, away from the escape hole, and toward the tangled roots.
    “Where are you going?” Murel asked.
    “To fetch the Manos.”
    “But—” she started to protest.
    The Honu told her,
They do what they must. Now we will do what we must. The diggers must uncover the Mano lake. Meanwhile, we will make a place for them.
    The twins looked at Ke-ola, who shrugged, settled the Honu under one arm, and used his other hand to hang on to the rope as it was raised toward the surface.
    Sky draped himself over Murel’s shoulders as she ascended, followed by Ronan.
    Halfway to the surface the rope was enveloped by a tube that blew fresh air from the flitter down at them. Within its protective envelope, they reached the flitter’s opening, and Ke-ola helped them in. This was not the simple four-passenger flitter they had seen before, but like a large passenger carrier.
    Johnny Green’s voice greeted them over the com. “Is that everybody, then?”
    “Everybody but the people who stayed behind to wait with the sharks,” Murel told him.
    “Stay behind with the
what
? Sorry, darlin’, but the reception seems to have a glitch. I didn’t quite catch that last word.” He chuckled. “It sounded as if you said ‘sharks.’”
    “That I did,” she replied. “Sorry, Johnny, but what with all the mind-reading and psychic communicating with the Honu, Sky, the sharks, and Ronan and me, we quite forgot you wouldn’t be hearing any of it. It seems that what the Honus are to Ke-ola’s clan, sharks are to this group of survivors. They say that if we want them to go, we must make room for the sharks as well.”
    “Ah,” Johnny said. “I decided against marrying a lass one time because she said the same about her mother. Her mother was somewhat less attractive and amiable than most sharks, but she had the advantage of not needing to live in a tank.”
    “The Honu says the other Honus will let the sharks have the tank,” Ronan told him.
    “Did they now? That’s very interesting. I suppose they’ll be expecting their minders to hold them all the way back to Petaybee?”
    Ronan shrugged. “They didn’t say. I suppose we can sort it out with them when we’ve returned to the ship.”
    “Best do it before deciding to take any sharks aboard. I don’t recall Petaybee inviting sharks, do you?”
    They did not, of course.
    The large flitter groaned under the collective weight of the passengers all the way back to the ship, but at length it arrived and they climbed back through the air lock and onto the main deck, feeling as if several tons of rocks had been removed from their