Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (11 page)

“But how does he know?” another seal asked warily.

“I have found the place where the poison leaks into the water,” Ujurak explained.

“Poison?” The word was echoed by more than one seal in the crowd.

“What is he talking about—poison?”

“I’ll show you,” Ujurak answered. “Follow me.”

Sliding down through the breathing hole, he swam farther inshore, until he spotted another hole near the rocks. When he hauled himself out, still clumsy in this new shape, he found himself close to the place where Kallik and Lusa had found the leaking pipe.

“Look,” he said to the big seal as his whiskery face popped up out of the hole. Ujurak pointed with one flipper toward the place where the brown stinking liquid was oozing out onto the rocks.

The big seal pulled himself out onto the ice, followed by his companions. Shocked exclamations came from some of them; Ujurak realized how strong the stench was to his sensitive nose—stronger even than when he was a bear—and he could understand how the seals must be revolted by it. One or two of them even plunged straight back into the hole.

Anger jolted through Ujurak at the thought that the seals had stayed in the cove when something was so obviously wrong. “You must have known this was here,” he accused the big seal. “Why haven’t you moved away? I know it’s been making you sick. The water is poisoned. The fish you eat have been poisoned.”

Ujurak’s heated tones didn’t seem to affect the big seal. “This is our home,” he growled. “And the no-swims helped us make our home here. So why would they do something that would drive us away?”

No-swims?
Ujurak wondered.
Does he mean flat-faces? And what does he mean by saying that they helped the seals?

The big seal loomed over him. “I don’t trust you,” he went on. “You don’t live here, you’re not one of us, and yet you’re so anxious for us to leave? This feels like a trap. Did the bears send you?”

Chapter Eleven

Ujurak

Fear surged through Ujurak, and he
had to force himself not to recoil in front of the big seal. He didn’t know how the seal could have come so close to the truth.

“Of course the bears didn’t send me!” he snapped. “I’m a seal!”

The big seal still loomed over him, stretching out his whiskery snout to sniff at Ujurak’s skin. Frantically Ujurak wondered if some of his bear scent was still clinging to him.
No other creature has mentioned it before, but then, this is the first time I’ve drawn attention to myself like this.

“There’s something strange about you,” the big seal growled, still sniffing.

“Yes.” Ujurak forced himself to speak steadily, not showing his fear. “I’m the only seal here who seems to realize that this water is making you sick.”

Before the big seal could reply, a smaller female edged forward timidly. “I thought the water was bad, too,” she said. “But no one listened to me.”

Instantly Silver, the aggressive male with the silver back, rounded on her. “Splash, how dare you say that about our home? Remember how hard we fought to win this place!”

Ujurak glanced up at the big seal. “What does he mean?”

“Tell him, Dark,” Silver said, with another hostile glare at Ujurak. “Then we’ll drive him off.”

Dark, the big seal, gazed out across the frozen sea for a moment; Ujurak could see memory flickering through him like shoals of fish.

“Our mothers and our mothers’ mothers have calved in this place for longer than any seal can remember,” he began. “Yet there came a time when we were almost driven out. Orca came—”

“I know that story!” a young seal calf interrupted, slapping his flippers against the ice. “You told it to me in our snow-den,” he added, nudging up against a female with a dappled pelt.

“That’s quite enough from you.” His mother cuffed him lightly over the head. “We don’t interrupt when Dark is speaking.”

“Thank you, Dapple.” Dark gave her a brief nod. “Orca came to the cove, many sunrises ago, and attacked us,” he went on. “A lot of seals died. We tried to fight, but there were too many orca. And they came back, time after time, until few of us were left.”

“I remember that,” an older male said, his head bowed in sadness. “My mate was one of those who tried to drive the orca away, and she never came back.”

“My father was another,” Silver added, the aggression in his voice giving way to pain.

Murmurs of agreement came from the other seals, as they remembered their own losses. Ujurak could sense the horror that enveloped all of them like a cloud.

How could they have lived through that, day after day? They must really love this place.

“In the end,” Dark continued, “we decided that we couldn’t fight them. We would have to leave. We—”

“I wish I’d been there! I wouldn’t have been scared,” blurted the young seal calf. In the midst of his tension Ujurak had to stifle a huff of amusement at the youngster. “
I’d
have killed all the orca!”

“No, you wouldn’t have! I would have!” Another calf butted his friend from behind. “You be an orca, and I’ll show you!”

Dapple let out a growl as the two calves started to shove each other. “Stop showing off, both of you!”

“What happened then?” Ujurak asked.

“Swift, who was the head seal, was ready to lead us in search of a new home,” Dark replied. “But at the last moment the no-swims came.” He nodded in the direction of the flat-face denning area.

“And you’d never guess what happened.” Splash, the small female who had backed up Ujurak about the poison, broke in, her timidity forgotten as her eyes glowed with the memory. “The no-swims started killing the orca!”

Ujurak was astonished. “They what?”

“They killed the orca,” Silver repeated. “Open your ears, mud-brain!”

“Finally the last of the orca fled.” Dark took up the story again. “And so we stayed here. And ever since then we have looked on the no-swims as our saviors.”

Dapple nodded. “We like living close to them. The no-swims don’t hunt us, so we must be special to them.”

“And that’s why we have to stay,” Dark finished.

Ujurak’s head was spinning. He couldn’t understand why the flat-faces would have hunted the orca to save the seals. Then he remembered Sally and the other flat-faces who had helped the animals and birds trapped in the oil.

Sally and her friends really cared. Maybe these flat-faces are like them? But that still doesn’t mean the seals can stay here. . . .

Ujurak let his gaze travel over the listening seals. “How many of you have been sick?” he asked.

Dark let out a growl of annoyance and glared at the other seals as if he was daring them to answer. But to Ujurak’s relief he didn’t manage to silence them all.

“I have,” Dapple said.

Splash gave a vigorous nod. “I have, too. I
told
them it was the water!”

A voice spoke from farther back. “My calf died.”

“Can’t you see that Splash is right?” Ujurak asked. Once again he pointed with his flipper to the stinking liquid oozing out of the pipe. “It’s the water that’s making you sick—the water and the fish that swim in it. You can smell that the stuff coming out of there is all wrong. It’s bad no-swim stuff.”

The words were hardly out before Ujurak realized he had made a mistake. Dark loomed threateningly over him again. “The no-swims aren’t bad!” he insisted.

Ujurak saw that the head seal was ready to fight, and that there were others, like Silver, who would back him up.
Arcturus, tell me what to say!

“No, the no-swims aren’t bad,” he agreed, realizing he would have to handle this carefully. “They haven’t poisoned the water deliberately. It’s an accident.”

“What? How?” Silver demanded, while Dark still glared at Ujurak and the rest of the seals muttered urgently among themselves.

“I don’t know,” Ujurak replied. “But I know it isn’t the no-swims’ fault. If they want you to be safe, they’d be happy for you to move.”

To his relief Dark backed off slightly. He seemed to be thinking about what Ujurak had said. The other seals looked at one another anxiously.

At last Dapple spoke up. “I’d be willing to move. I don’t want my calf getting sick.”

“I’d go, too.” A younger male pressed forward, his whiskers twitching eagerly. “I’m sick of living near that stench.”

“But what about the orca?” The older male, the one who had lost his mate, looked Dark in the eye. “They’ll attack us again if we don’t have the no-swims to protect us.”

“You’re right, Shade,” Silver said. “Besides, why should we move away just because this mud-brain tells us to? Maybe he planned this with the orca!”

There was a chorus of agreement. Ujurak could feel the mood of the gathering swinging against him, as if the seals were prepared to admit that the leaking pipe might be causing their sickness, but they were too terrified to move away from it.

Give me the right words now, Arcturus!
he begged.

“Where is your pride?” he asked challengingly. “Can’t you fight for yourselves? There are many, many seals in the ocean—as many as there are stars in the sky. They don’t all have no-swims looking after them.”

Dark struck the ice with a flipper. “Are you saying we’re scared? I’m not, and I’ll prove it to you! Maybe we should move after all. . . .”

“Then I know where you can go,” Ujurak said eagerly. “There’s a bay farther around the island—” He gestured with a flipper. “A river runs down into it. The water is clean, and there are plenty of fish.”

“Yes! Let’s go there now!” Dapple’s calf bounced up again. “I’m hungry!”

A loud discussion broke out. As he listened, Ujurak spotted Toklo, Kallik, and Lusa looking down at him from the top of the cliffs.

They’re probably wondering what’s taking so long,
he thought.

As he watched his friends, Ujurak saw some of the white bears coming up behind them. Even at that distance he picked out the huge shape of Unalaq. Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik rounded on them.

“Stay away from the seals!” Toklo’s roar reached Ujurak down on the ice.

Gesturing vigorously down into the cove, Lusa added something Ujurak couldn’t hear; he guessed she was telling the white bears yet again about the poison in the water.

But the white bears clearly didn’t want to listen. Unalaq and Toklo were facing off against each other; Ujurak realized that a fight could break out at any moment.

A pang of alarm shot through him.
I have to get a move on! I wouldn’t put it past Unalaq to eat Lusa!

Down on the ice the seals were still trying to decide what to do.

“We
have
to go,” Splash urged them eagerly. “If we don’t, the poison will kill us all.”

“And if we do go, the orca will get us,” Shade replied somberly.

“Well, I’d rather take my chance with the orca than live near that stink anymore,” a young male declared.

Ujurak tried to think of what more he could do to stop the seals from hesitating.
I could turn into a flat-face and attack them. . . . No, too complicated.
He thought of drinking the poisoned liquid himself, to prove that that was what was making them sick, but he knew that he might never recover.
And it would take too long. . . .

Somehow he had to prove to the seals that they weren’t dependent on the flat-faces. Then they would have the courage to move to a new home.

Turning back to the seals, he felt his heart sink as he saw Shade and some of the older seals clustered around Dark.

“I know of seals who used to live in that bay he told us about,” Shade was saying. “They were driven out by walruses!”

“There are no walruses there now,” Ujurak assured him, hurriedly hauling himself across the ice to join the group. “It’s perfect!”

“So
you
say,” an older female retorted. “I don’t want to risk it.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Ujurak tried to force down his desperation and speak calmly. “Plus you could learn to defend yourselves against an orca attack. Or a walrus attack, if they ever came back.”

Silver let out a scornful grunt. “And how do you suggest we do that?”

“You could . . .” Ujurak thought rapidly. “You could swim into shallower water, where the orca couldn’t reach you. You could hide under rocks. Or—” A picture suddenly flashed into his head. “You could make a wall of seals, all thrashing and impossible to catch. Fight back against the orca, together!”

He was encouraged to see that Dark was looking interested, his hostility gone. But Shade and the others were still shaking their heads doubtfully.

“Why should we do that?” Shade asked. “We’re safe here because of the no-swims. The orca don’t come near us.”

Then an idea came to Ujurak.

“I think you ought to consider moving,” he told the seals. “I think you should have faith in your own strength. But I don’t want to argue with you anymore. It’s time for me to move on.”

He could see that Dapple and Splash looked disappointed, but most of the seals seemed relieved, and he heard Silver mutter, “Good riddance!”

Dark gave Ujurak a dismissive nod and waved one flipper. “Thank you for coming. We will think about your words.” But the tone he used convinced Ujurak that once he was gone, most of the seals would do their best to forget about him.

Ujurak slid back into the breathing hole. He could feel his friends’ stares of disappointment from the cliff top when they saw that none of the seals followed him.

With a flick of his powerful body, Ujurak headed for the mouth of the cove. He reflected how strong and graceful his seal shape was in the water, when he had felt so awkward on land. He was aware of other seals looking at him suspiciously as he swam past.

Ignoring them, Ujurak swam out of the cove, diving deeper and deeper until the water was black around him and there were no more seals. He listened for any other signs of life, but there was nothing. Pushing away a sudden pang of desolation, he pictured an orca in his mind, making it as clear as he could: the powerful black-and-white body, the sleek shape, the jaws with their rows of spiny teeth.

Pain rippled through him. Ujurak had only once before transformed from one creature to another without becoming a bear again in between. That was when he had changed from an orca to a tiny fish, to save himself from the vicious creatures who were attacking him.

With danger so close, he had changed almost without thinking. Now he had time to think about how hard it was to tear his mind away from everything that made him a seal and plunge into the thoughts and being of an orca.

Not a small hunter of fish anymore . . . a huge hunter of seals. No more fear . . . I’ll be stronger than anything in the sea!

Ujurak gasped as the pain of his transformation suddenly intensified. His body stretched and expanded, and water churned around him as he took on the shape of the orca. Sensations rushed over him; the water was full of the smell of prey. He visualized warm, fat seals, tempting mouthfuls of fur and flesh. His jaws gaped in anticipation.