“Come to the surgery,” Mariko said. “I'll take—”
“No!” Pua pulled away from Jaime, and to her relief, he let her go. “I'm not letting anybody cut me open ever again.”
“Pua...”
“I'll rip my gills out before I let anybody cut me open again.” Pua slid her fingertips beneath the edges of her gill flaps and lifted them far enough to show their color. The dry air burned against the sensitive membranes, and it made her think of what she had done to the mountainlady earlier that night. She wished she could be certain whether the woman was a friend or an enemy.
“Pua, don't,” Nola said quickly.
“She can't get out,” Pua said. “Even if she gets the airlock open, I left the rays outside. She won't hurt anything here. I won't let her. Please, Auntie Nola.” She squeezed out a tear and carefully avoided the mountainlady's eye.
Nola took her wrists and gently pulled her hands away from her gills. The flaps sealed instantly, but the burning ache continued.
Nola turned back to the mountainlady. “If you even look like you're going to harm her or any of these children, you'll be dead before you know what hit you. Don't test me on this!”
The warden winced and rubbed her thighs again. “I doubt I could even attempt an escape right now. I don't know about you, Pua, but that little wrestling match we had just about wrecked my legs.”
Nola turned quickly to Pua. “What's she talking about? Are you hurt?”
“I'm just sore,” Pua said quickly. “We—we were playing with the rays. It would feel good to sit in the thermal pool, though.” She rubbed her own legs. Nola looked skeptical, but finally motioned them from the room.
“Come look, Pua,” Keha called as they passed the nursery entrance. “We got a new one!”
Despite Nola's order to the contrary, Pua darted inside. Kiki was standing shoulder deep in the nursery pool. He grinned and lifted a tiny, wriggling baby.
“Kiki!” Nola and Jaime called at the same instant. “Put her down!”
“Ha!” Pua raced to the pool. Sliding over the side, she took the new baby from Kiki's sure hands. It was a girl, and she was beautiful! Her dark eyes were wide and wise, and her golden brown skin was as slippery as a freshly peeled mountain apple.
The baby wrapped her tiny fingers around Pua's thumbs and opened her mouth wide. Pua mimicked her and laughed. “Like a scooperfish!”
“Put that baby down and get out of there,” Nola ordered. She and Mariko were still at the door, preventing the warden from entering.
Pua hugged the baby, then dunked her to see how her gills flared. Perfect! The baby didn't even blink, just spread her webs and started pulling at the water.
“Pua, please!”
Pua lifted the baby high overhead and turned to the mountainlady in triumph. “Look!” she cried. “Now, we have ten!”
Chapter 19
“Pua,” Jamie said from beside the pool. “You're giving your auntie a stroke. Put the baby down.”
“Ten!” Pua laughed again. She gave the squirming baby another hug, then tossed her back into the water.
Jamie caught his breath. “She's only three weeks old,” he said. “You have to be more careful with her.” Pua climbed out of the pool and shook herself. As Jaime turned away from the spray, she signed a quick order to Kiki. He flicked his brows in acknowledgment.
“She's gotta learn how to splash,” she said, “or she'll be scared when she goes outside with the rays.”
“She won't be going outside with the rays for a long time,” Nola said. “Come on. Get out of here. Mariko, you stay with the kids.” Mariko stepped into the pool and scooped the baby into her arms.
“Is she yours, Jaime?” Pua asked. He nodded and grinned.
Pua held her hands close to her face and breathed deeply of the baby's sweet, salty smell. “Where's the other one?” She knew this baby's mama had been carrying twins. The altered embryos had been implanted just a few days before Pua and her parents had been taken away from Pukui.
She looked up and around at the sudden silence.
“They were born early,” Jaime said. “The other one's lungs weren't strong enough for her to survive, and her gills never functioned properly.”
“Auwe,” Pua said softly. The mountainlady sighed.
“She needs a Pukui name,” Keha said. He had followed them from the nursery and was tugging at Pua's wet shirt. Pua wished she could just take the shirt off, but knew that with Jaime and the warden here, it would just cause more trouble. Someday, she thought, Pukui is going to be a place where only real waterworlders can come. Born waterworlders. Then we can do anything we want.
“What do you call her now?” she asked.
“Nellie.”
Pua wrinkled her nose. “That's an Earther's name.” She thought for a moment. “Her Pukui name is ‘Umi Iki. Little Number Ten, because that's what she is.”
“Oh, Pua, don't call her a number,” Nola said. “You know the other kids will do anything you say, and she'll end up being stuck with it for the rest of her life.”
“It's not good for a waterworlder to have an Earther's name, Auntie Nola,” Pua said. “Le Fe'e might not recognize her when she's swimming in the ocean.” She saw the mountainlady's brows lift slightly. Pay attention, she wanted to tell her, but said instead, “Come on, Keha. Auntie Puhi and I have some snowballs to show you.”
“I'm going to breeze Fatu's ass for filling you with all this nonsense,” Nola muttered.
When they reached the thermal pool, the mountainlady didn't even hesitate. She tested the bubbling water with her hand, then stepped into the pool, clothes and all. Without another word, she lay back and sank to just below the surface.
Keha stared down at her. “She's funny, Pua. Where'd you get her?”
“Earth,” Pua replied. “She used to live on a mountain.”
“Like Mauna Kea Iki?”
Pua peered down at the woman. She had relaxed completely in the water. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like she did under the snow trees sometimes—as if only her body were present, and her spirit had gone somewhere else. Her gills pulsed with the rhythm of a very slow oxygen intake.
“I don't think so,” Pua said.
“What's she doing?”
Pua shrugged. “I don't know. She just does that sometimes, usually up on the mountain. She'll wake up after a while.”
“She's meditating,” Jamie said. “Calming and centering herself. I never saw anyone go so deep so fast before.”
“She's not very deep,” Keha said.
Pua stepped into the water. It felt wonderful on her aching hips and thighs. It had been a good idea to come here, in more ways than one. She grinned.
“Here, Keha,” she said. She lifted the bag of snowballs from around her neck. “Don't drop them in the hot water, or they'll melt.” She clicked a quick message against the side of the pool as Keha took the bag and squatted eagerly beside the pool. He dumped the snowballs into his hand. There were too many to hold, so he poured them into a pile on the moss.
“So many!” he whispered. His eyes were bright with excitement, and his obvious pleasure made Pua feel as warm as the water.
“Where did you get them all?” Jamie asked. He lifted the largest of the balls, one about the size of Little Ten's fist when her fingers were all rolled up. Pua liked that image and decided to add it to her personal list of weights and measures. Of course, the baby's fist would grow, but that didn't matter. Pua and Le Fe'e, and the rays, would remember what the measurement meant.
The warden surfaced beside her. She looked as surprised as the others when she saw the snowballs.
“Katie saved them from before,” Pua said. “She buried them under the house with my shells and things.”
“Poor Katie. She never did like those things lying around the house,” Nola said. She glanced at Keha. “Neither do I.”
“Kiki left the ones you brought before on Auntie Mariko's catch nets, and they ate a hole right thro
ugh,” Keha said. He grinned.
Pua nodded. “They dissolve anything with plastic in it really fast. You have to be careful where you put them. Specially when they get warm.” Keha had lined the snowballs along the edge of the pool. Pay attention, Mountainlady, Pua thought.
The sudden sound of crying babies came from beyond the gate.
“Jaime, go help Mariko,” Nola said. “I'll take care of things here, but lock the gate on your way out. Just so you know, Warden, all the locks down here are designed to thwart fingers like yours. You might be able to trip the locks, themselves, but you won't be able to do it without triggering the alarms. Keha, don't let those fall in the hot water. They'll make an awful mess.”
The warden submerged again.
“What's she doing now?” Keha asked.
“Probably thinking up another question,” Pua said.
The mountainlady surfaced and pushed her hair back from her forehead. “How many more kids do you have in utero?” she asked.
“See what I mean?” Pua said, and Keha laughed. “Three,” she told the warden.
Nola cursed softly. “You're bound and determined to tell her everything, aren't you, girl?” She met the warden's look. “We have two more pregnancies, a single and a set of twins. Both are due very soon.”
The warden got that startled look again, like she had before when Pua told her there were nine waterbabies already born. “Why are there so few?” she asked.
To Pua's surprise, Nola answered. “Because Lehua was the only one who could manipulate the embryonic genomes properly. And because, since we had to live and work in absolute secrecy, we were selecting willing parents from a very small pool.”
The warden was silent for a long time. “Pua,” she said finally, “is she lying to me?”
That startled Pua. The warden had always been able to tell when someone was lying before. She shook her head.
The warden shook her own head, slowly. She stared at Nola. “You have a total, a total, of ten kids with only three more on the way, and no way to produce more in this generation. How can you people possibly think you can populate this planet with thirteen kids? Even if you do manage to get them past the Company inheritance laws.”
“When the time comes,” Nola said, “they'll take mates from among their standard cousins up above, numerous mates—they won't have the luxury of monogamy for the first few generations. At least half of their offspring will be born with the water changes, and twins will be the norm in those cases. It's not as hopeless as you seem to think.”
“I don't think it's totally hopeless,” the warden said. “It's just—I'm just—well, spit! I thought I was going to have a little more to work with here.”
“Anyone coming to live down here, child or adult, has to be legally ‘dead’ topside,” Nola said. “Dead in such a way that their bodies are never missed. I came down thirteen years ago, when Pua was born. For the benefit of the census records, I was trapped inside the hold of a hydrobus when it sank in deep water. I birthed a set of twins carrying my own genes later on, and have been surrogate for two more. The rest were carried openly above, but claimed as stillbirths for the record and brought here immediately after being born.”
The warden glanced at Keha.
Nola nodded. “His mother had planned to live down here with us, but unfortunately her death was real.”
Pua made a handsign, and Keha bumped a snowball into the pool. Nola glared at him. Pua quickly fished the ball out and set it aside, on bare stone. Its short immersion in the hot water had left it sticky. Pua clicked her approval of Keha's “accident” against the side of the pool.
“I'm going to have three babies at a time,” Pua said. She tapped her nails on the stone again, under the water so Nola wouldn't see or hear. She felt an immediate answering vibration through the water. It was Pili. Finally. She had been afraid he wasn't going to get there before Nola made them get out of the pool.
“I'm going to teach them all how to find their own snowballs,” she said to cover her answering tap, “so they'll have plenty whenever they want them.”
“They'll make an awful mess,” Keha said in a perfect imitation of Auntie Nola.
Pua laughed. “Oh, Keha, you're so smart.” She reached out to tickle him. He collapsed and rolled and fell right into the pool. A handful of snowballs tumbled in with him.
Nola jumped up. “Keha, get out of there. Right now. Warden, don't you go anywhere near him!” The warden backed away.
“Auntie Nola! Let me in!”
It was Kiki, right on schedule.
The gate rattled, and Kiki called again. “Open up. I want to come in. Jaime said there were snowballs. Auntie Nola!”
“Get those damn snowballs out of there, Pua,” Nola ordered. “Keha, help her, then get out of the water.”
“Open up!” Kiki called.
“I'm coming, Kiki. Stop yelling.” Nola turned toward the gate.
“You are so smart,” Pua whispered into Keha's ear. “You and Kiki both.” He giggled, and reached out to sweep the rest of the snowballs into the water. Pua scooped up a handful and motioned to the mountainlady.
“Follow me,” she whispered.
“Stop hanging on the gate like that, Kiki,” she heard Nola say. “I can't get it open until you let go.”
“What—”
“Do you want to get out of here or not?” Pua whispered. The warden's eyes widened.
Pua lifted Keha back out of the pool so he could help delay Nola further, then dove straight down through the warm water. The warden followed, close at her side. At three meters, not quite at the bottom, a plastic safety grill covered the pool's outlet pipe. Pua peered through it and saw by the faint light from above that Pili was waiting on the other side. He grinned and waved.
Pua quickly passed him some of the fast-melting snowballs. They were already soft and pliable. She pressed the remaining snowballs over the plastic hinges of the locked grill. Pili did the same on the opposite side.
The mountainlady looked surprised, but caught on immediately. She scooped together other snowballs as they drifted down from above, and added them to those already covering the hinges. The water surrounding the hinges began hissing softly. The mountainlady spread the melting sap more evenly, glanced up, then tested the grate with a yank. It shifted slightly.
Pua motioned her to one side, so they could both twist their fingers through the grate. They braced their feet and pulled, hard. Pili hit the grill at the same time from the other side, and it snapped open, sending the warden tumbling into the smooth rock wall. Pua saw her grimace.
Pili slid out of the pipe, touched Pua's cheek in greeting, then turned and disappeared headfirst back into the narrow hole.
Pua felt a splash from above. Keha, she judged from the size of its reverberation. He was providing one last distraction.
It occurred to Pua suddenly that the warden might not fit into the small pipe. But it was too late to stop. She urged the woman after Pili. The warden gritted her teeth, shut her eyes, and squeezed herself into the pipe. Her wide shoulders just fit; they brushed along the sides.
A second, much larger shock vibrated through the water, and Pua hurried after the warden. She slid into the pipe feetfirst, ready to fight with her hands if she had to; but Auntie Nola's face appeared at the hole just as Pua wriggled beyond the length of her long arms.
Nola was much too big to follow them through the pipe. She shouted an Earther's curse after them instead.
Turning in the narrow space was impossible, so Pua scooted backward as quickly as she could. At the first bend, she crouched, turned, then sped forward after Pili and the warden. Just beyond the turn, the pipe opened into a larger, natural channel.
The water began to cool, and then to grow cold. Pua felt the tug of strong currents ahead and heard Pili whistle as he exited the channel. She hoped he would remember to hold onto the warden as she followed him into the main cold-water tunnel. She was not sure the woman would be able to handle being
swept by the current all the way through the barrier reef. Even with light, and gills to provide oxygen, the warden would be hard put to remain calm through that.
It was strange how a woman so otherwise brave could have such a deep fear of this one thing. It made Pua wonder if she, herself, held such a fear; if there was some great terror hidden inside her that she had never had to face. Or maybe I've already done that, she thought. She shivered as she remembered the barren, miscolored sea outside the Earth recon station.
Pua passed quickly through the protected side channel where she sometimes brought the older kids to play when Nola and the other adults were too busy to notice. There was a small pocket of air high up in the coral, kept fresh by the gentle oxyworm that Pili had coaxed into attaching itself there. Pua thought about taking the warden there to give her a respite before the trip through the main tunnel, but decided in the end that it was better to just get it done all at once.
When she reached the hanging slime-mold barrier that hid the channel entrance, Pua squeezed through the rubbery layers carefully. No use marring the camouflage if it wasn't necessary. It looked as if Pili and the warden had passed through the mold wall just as carefully as she. They had left no sign of their exit.
Pua saw them as soon as she was through the slick, shimmering barrier. She swam to the mountainlady's side and slipped an arm around her waist. The water was terribly cold. The deepwater pipe was uninsulated at this depth.
Pili was holding the warden from the other side and bracing them both against the strong current with a grip on one of the pipe struts. There was just enough light from the molds and their own effervescence to show that the warden's eyes were wide with only partially controlled terror.
Pili pointed upcurrent toward the nearer exit into the open ocean. Pua shook her head and pointed toward the inner reef. They had to get the woman out, but it was better to get it all done at once than to have to bring her back through later. The surf was too rough to take her over the top, and the pass was a long way away.
Reefsong Page 26