Instantly, she was attacked.
Flashing silver, the reef rays slid under and around her, buffeting her clear of the net and into deep water. “It's me!” she called, laughing, though it was obvious they knew who she was. None was displaying its teeth or its spines. And all were jockeying for positions where they could brush their forward wingtips against her skin. She reached out to grab the pack leader. Sliding her arms around the narrow place between its front and back wing sets, she pulled it into a tight hug.
The others bumped them upside down. They tumbled over and over in the clear gold water until finally Pua was forced to let go. The pack leader slid out of her grasp, but moved only far enough away to slide both sets of its long, silken wings along her arms. Then it shot to the surface.
Pua followed, laughing again at the sleek, sudden movement of the ray pack. The smaller, single-winged rays, the ones who had not yet coupled into adulthood, darted among their giant double-winged elders. One pair, not yet attached but obviously close to doing so, swam nose to tail along with the rest.
One by one, as the rays reached the surface—and then in pairs—they leapt in long, shallow curves over the water. The shock of their spread wings crashing back onto the surface ricocheted like drumbeats off the reef.
“It's so good to be back!” Pua cried as she joined them at the surface. “It's so good!”
Suddenly, she stopped and turned back toward the algae pen. She had expected their wild play to set off at least a dozen alarms. She had certainly been buffeted close enough to the sensors that her presence should have registered.
“What's wrong around here?” she asked the rays. “What's happening?” She swam deliberately close to one of the yellow markers. Nothing happened. There was no wailing siren, no spray of dye along the line to stain the water and her skin. She took the floater in her hands and shook it. Nothing. The alarm was dead. Angrily, she thew the sensor back and swam along the net's upper edge until she reached the next one. It, too, remained quiescent.
Pua followed the markers the length of the pen, becoming more and more concerned when none of them reacted to her presence. The entire security system was apparently shut down. Near the far end, she dropped below the surface to inspect the net.
As she suspected, the net had been opened in several places, but not by any Pukui crew. The openings were jagged rips in the fine mesh, made carelessly, and sloppily repaired. The sludgelike algae was growing through several small holes the poachers had missed. Quickly she pulled the holes closed and tied them with loose strands of the net's filament. Then she scooped up the loose algae and carried it to the surface. The holes must have been freshly made, because she was able to cup all of the orange sludge in her two hands.
“Bugger-boned poachers!” she shouted as she threw the algae back inside the net. It must have been they who had turned off the alarms.
But why hadn't it been noticed, and why had the pen been left to grow so dangerously full? Her mother would be—would have been—furious if she had seen this.
“Well, I'm furious, too,” Pua called out.
The rays had followed her along the reef but had stayed in deeper water, well away from the bulging net. “I don't blame you,” she said as she rejoined them. “It's a big, slimy mess, and I don't like being near it either. Come on, let's go home.”
She clicked her nails in the signal for the main boat dock and spun along with the rays to swim in that direction. After a moment, the pack leader lifted close beneath her. Pua grasped the front edge of the ray's forward wings. Its skin was like silken velvet against Pua's cheek and chest as she pressed close to the creature's back. Abruptly, the ray's wings lifted, and they surged ahead. Pua was caught once more in the joy of being home.
Too soon, the ride ended. The ray slowed as they reached the shallow fringing reef of Home Island, and Pua quickly let go. She slid off into shoulder-deep water. A few quick strokes brought her to the docked bus. Fatu had left the side rope down, so she used it to climb aboard.
“What the hell is going on around here?” she demanded as she slipped through the rail. The others turned and stared. Zena lifted one dark brow, more at her language than at her question, Pua suspected. Well, she didn't care. Her dad wasn't here to scold her, and her mother would certainly have said worse if she had been the one to discover the damaged reef.
“The number-twelve growing pen is about to burst!” she said. “It's actually touching bottom in some places! And the sensors have all been turned off!”
No one moved. The tankers stared at her with open mouths. Pua stomped her foot. “We have to do something!”
The silence continued, but Zena and Fatu exchanged a guarded glance. “My reef is dying!” Pua cried, and to her chagrin she felt tears on her cheeks.
Finally, one of the tankers reacted. He laughed.
“Pua,” the mountainlady said.
A look from Fatu silenced the tanker.
Pua stepped closer to the mountainlady. “Do something!” she said. “Order in a harvest crew. That's what you're here for!”
“Pua,” the woman replied. Her voice was very, very calm. “Put your clothes on.”
Pua stared at her, then down at her own wet, glistening skin. She was wearing only the coiler and the braid of her mother's hair. “Oh, reef rot!” she shouted, and stalked to the bow to reclaim her clothes. She had forgotten all about the stupid Earthers’ ways. Furious, she yanked on her shorts and shirt. More carefully, she peeled the coiler from her wrist and tossed it back into the water. “Grow up and crush a Company bus,” she called after it.
“Fatu,” the mountainlady said behind her, still in that smooth, calm voice, “when you're finished here, get the new workers settled. Then set up the submersible. I want to tour the farm first thing tomorrow. Zena, see that arrangements are made to get the rest of Pukui's supplies from Landing. Order them delivered, at Company cost. You don't need to go back there yourself.”
“Aye,” both Zena and Fatu replied, and from their tone, Pua knew the mountainlady had gained at least their temporary support. That made her even angrier. She snapped the water from her hair and twisted it back atop her head as she turned back. The mountainlady nodded toward Pua's shoes, then stepped ashore, obviously expecting her to follow. Pua glared after her. She picked up the shoes and threw them after the coiler.
Fatu chuckled.
“I hope your penis grows reef hair, Fatu,” Pua muttered as she stepped past him. His grin widened, and he brushed a quick hand across her back. Pua almost broke then, at that touch from her uncle, from her very best friend. She hesitated, wanting desperately to turn back into Fatu's warm, strong hug, to share her pain, her grief at losing her parents, her horror at possibly losing the reef and all of their plans, as well.
“Go on, Little Fe'e,” Fatu said softly. All of the laughter was gone from his voice. Pua shivered. She blinked away tears, lifted her chin, and followed the mountainlady ashore.
Chapter 8
A broad expanse of eversmooth grass led upslope to the main house and the nearby farm control center. Both were wooden buildings, raised off the ground so the air could move freely underneath. The house had two stories, the lower wrapped all the way around by a broad lanai. Pua's mother had said the design was once a common one on many of Earth's Pacific Islands, but Pua hadn't seen anything like it while she was there.
Pua bent to snip off a tough blade of grass, and chewed it as she walked slowly uphill. She saw that her favorite mountain apple tree, off to the right in the jungle, was loaded with ripe fruit. They had given her something at the recon center that they said was an apple, but it wasn't the same. The thing they called a lichee had been closer, but even that had been the wrong color.
“It doesn't matter what they call their stupid food,” she muttered. “I'm not going back there. Not ever!” She brushed her palm over the top of a carefully trimmed fireflower bush. Its afternoon blossoms were tipped toward the west.
Pua slowed further as s
he neared the house. This was her mother's place, even though it had been the whole family's home. It was made all of wood, polished and carved, and it glistened in the sunlight, as welcoming as if her mama were still waiting inside. Pua wondered if, when evening came, Auntie Kate sat all alone on the lanai now. She deliberately did not look up toward her parents’ bedroom windows.
The warden was waiting for her at the bottom of the lanai steps. She had been looking under the house. “What are the coral markers for?” she asked as Pua approached. “Is there something buried under the house?”
Surprised that the woman's first comment was not a complaint about her going into the water, Pua glanced, startled, down at the neat rows of coral markers.
“Just my shells.”
She said it too quickly; the mountainlady tilted her head and lifted her brows.
Well, it wasn't entirely a lie. “I bury them so the animals inside will rot and the gunk will run out into the ground. Sand mites clean out what's left.” She hoped the woman wouldn't ask her to dig one up. She wasn't sure she remembered which of the marked spots actually held shells—and the rest of her treasures were none of the Earther's business.
To her relief, the mountainlady merely shook her head slightly and started up the stairs. “Good idea to have the buildings up off the ground like this,” she said. “It must help to keep them cool.” Sweat stained the back of the woman's shirt. As she spoke, she untucked it from her trousers and tied it at the front, baring her midriff.
Before following, Pua brushed her right hand across the almost invisible layer of crystals on her opposite arm and blew the glittering dust onto the ground. It's me, Pua, she announced silently, to be sure the house would recognize her and not take offense that she had come still tasting of the sea. Her mother's house was a land person's place.
“Mostly it's to keep the nightcrawlers out,” she said aloud. “They don't like to climb the stairs.”
“Nightcrawlers?” The woman looked back.
“Don't you have those on Earth?” Pua asked.
“Lots of them,” the woman said. “I use them to go fishing all the time. But I never had any trouble with them crawling into the house!”
Pua nodded. “They make good bait if you know how to hook them without hitting the dye sack.”
The woman frowned and shook herself slightly, then continued on to the top of the stairs.
“This is lovely,” she said when she reached the lanai. She looked all around. “After what I saw at Landing, I wasn't expecting anything so ... hospitable.” She walked across the lanai to where the ornately carved main doors were spread wide and welcoming. The carvings told an ancient story about New Zealand; they had been a gift from Zena to Pua's mother. The warden slid her fingers across the carved pictures before pulling open the screened door.
“Aren't you going to take off your shoes?” Pua asked when the woman started to step inside. Again the warden responded with that quick backward glance, brows lifted.
Pua pointed to the shelf beside the door. Her own well-worn sandals were there, straps still taped and heels worn thin, just as she had last seen them. Her parents’ sandals were gone, but Katie's battered reef boots were there, and several spare pairs of thongs. Pua scuffed her bare feet clean on the door mat. Matt burped and shifted comfortably, tickling her softened soles.
The woman turned slightly pale and swallowed hard. Finally she bent to pull off her boots. She carefully placed them on the shelf at the end nearest the door. She did not step on Matt.
The house had been kept open and aired. Pua could tell by the smell. There was only that faint mustiness in the foyer that Katie, for all her scrubbing and disinfecting, had never been able to eliminate. “Let it be,” her mother always said. “That last bit of mildew might be the only thing holding this place together.” Pua blinked and forced her attention back.
The mountainlady was turning in a slow circle. She paused to stare at the black and white masks bordering the wide entry to the library and office. “Devils’ masks,” she said. “Now, that's an interesting form of protection for a house so far from Chuuk.” She crossed to the library and glanced inside. Pua was surprised. She had never met anyone but her father who knew anything about Micronesian traditions. She would have to remember to tell Fatu what the woman had said.
The warden lifted her hand toward the painted spear that hung next to one of the masks.
“That's a reef ray's spine on the top,” Pua said. “Its poison can kill you.”
The warden snatched her hand back. The move was awkward, but efficient.
Pua laughed. “I'm just kidding. Reef rays’ spines aren't poisonous. Fatu just used to tell me that so I'd be careful when I played with them.”
The warden scowled the way she did each time she lost an arm-wrestling match, but Pua could tell she wasn't really mad. When she turned back to study the other artifacts lining the walls, the Earther kept her hands clasped behind her back. Pua giggled.
“What's in here?” the Earther asked when she reached the Dutch door on the rear wall. Pua wondered why she didn't push it open. Maybe she had seen Katie's furtive movement behind the pantry louvers.
“The dining room and kitchen,” Pua said.
The woman nodded and then crossed to where she could look up the open stairway. Finally, she returned to the center of the room. She squatted and ran her hands over the inlaid floor. She stiffened slightly when she saw her long, thin fingers spreading across the polished wood, but recovered quickly. “I see why you leave your footwear outside,” she said.
She pointed to a small red octagon at the floor's center, then to several other similarly colored pieces. “What kind of wood is this?”
“Koa,” Pua replied. “My mom brought it from Hawaii. The rest are from Lesaat trees. You can tell by the wide grain and the way they've grown together along the edges. Earth woods don't grow anymore after they're cut, at least that's what my dad said.”
The mountainlady looked up. “The last koa stand on Earth died of bark blight fifty years ago. This must be very old.”
“It was part of a trunk my great-grandmother gave Mama. It got smashed on the way here, so my dad cut it up to make the floor. Mama used to come in here sometimes when she got lonely for her Earther family.”
The woman spread her hand again across the patterned floor. “Yes,” she said. “It does have the feel of home.”
Pua frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” The warden stood. “Where are the bedrooms?”
Pua motioned her up the stairs.
As she climbed, the woman touched the banister, the wall panels, the base of the stone tiki set into the alcove at the turn of the stairs. All the wooden things. Her fingers traced the varied grains more naturally than Pua had seen them move before. “A land person,” she could almost hear her mother whisper. It had always been Lehua Pukui's first assessment of a new person entering her home.
“Which room is yours?” the woman asked from the top of the stairs.
Pua hesitated. “The first on the left.”
The woman turned right. She stopped before a set of opened doors. “Your parents’ room?” she asked.
“Yes,” Pua whispered. From the top of the stairs, she could just see the edge of her mother's day quilt draped across the sleeping candleberry bush. Tapa cloth, pounded from Lesaat paper-tree bark and patterned with nightcrawlers’ dye, lined the wall behind it. There was a small tear in the woven floor mat, just where it had always been.
Get away! Pua wanted to shout. You can't use that room! You can't sleep in Mama's bed! She wanted to hit the woman, slide her fingers under her gill flaps and rip them away. Get away from that door! Get out of my house!
She pressed her fingers tightly against her thighs and remained silent.
The woman ran her palms down the face of the smooth wooden door panels, studied the room for a moment more, then moved away to inspect the others.
“I'll stay here,” she sai
d when she reached the smallest room, the one next to Pua's. She stepped inside, pressed one hand down on the narrow bed, then crossed to the open window. It was only a few steps. “I can't see Little Mauna Kea from here, but it'll do,” she said. Pua couldn't tell from her tone if she was joking or serious. Zena or Fatu must have told her the mountain's name.
By the time they returned to the entry hall, there was a tray of fruit and candied gemfish waiting by the front door. Pua noted with an abrupt return to good humor that there was a small pile of thinly sliced rock bread stacked among the fish and fruit.
“Where did this come from?” the warden asked.
“Auntie Kate put it here for us,” Pua said.
“The housekeeper?”
Pua nodded. “She doesn't like talking to people, but she always offers food to visitors. Everyone does on Lesaat. It's bad manners not to.” She caught a slight movement behind the slatted window to the pantry. The louvers opened just enough for her to see Katie's wide round eyes peering through. Pua grinned and waggled a finger at her, and the louvers snapped shut. The warden turned at the sound, but Katie could no longer be seen.
“Come on,” Pua said, loud enough for Katie to hear. “She won't make sugar soup for dinner if we eat this in here.” She picked up the tray—not trusting the warden to carry it in front of Katie—and backed her way through the screen door.
Katie's mind worked slowly, and she didn't understand a lot, but she was fiercely protective of the house and anything she perceived of as belonging to Lehua Pukui. There was no telling what she might do if a stranger dropped food on Lehua's koa floor.
The warden followed her onto the wide porch. “Did you say your Auntie Kate was one of those who never fully recovered from the deprivation drugs?”
Again Pua nodded. “She's a drone.” She set the food on the sideboard beside a freshly filled pitcher of iced water.
“Does she always stay hidden?”
“Usually. She's extra shy around people she doesn't know. My mom was the only one she talked to, and then only about the house and stuff my mom wanted done. Sometimes she talks to me, too, but I usually don't know what she's talking about.”
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