Anne McCaffrey - Twins of Petaybee 01 - Changelings

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CHANGELINGS
BOOK ONE of
The Twins of Petaybee
ANNE
McCaffrey
ELIZABETH ANN
SCARBOROUGH
BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK
Changelings is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are the products of the authors' imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 0-345-47002-8
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
www. delreybooks.com
246897531
First Edition Book design by Simon M. Sullivan
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MARY, KE-OLA, AND KEOKI POQLE
We'd also like to acknowledge the contributions of Lea Day for her memories of Hawaii and her
research of both print and televised sources
of information about volcanoes, otters, seals, and sea turtles.
Richard Reaser provided valuable feedback and inspiration as well as
consultation on scientific matters, while Andy Logan provided dinner.
Mary, Ke-ola (the hula consultant), and Keoki Poole provided valuable
information about Hawaiian culture, language, and customs and
generously shared their own resources with us.
Prologue
Petaybee was changing. It was always changing. The quakes I and eruptions, avalanches and
slides, great winds on land and sea, even the ebb and flow of the tide, brought about
fundamental changes in the planet's surface, in the way it was. The people who lived on
Petaybee knew and accepted this. If it had not been for the changes, jump-started and
accelerated by a terraforming process begun only a few decades before, no one would have
been able to live on Petaybee. The people made songs about the changes, celebrated them.
Their planet, once a cold ball of cosmic rock, was an awakening giant. Each shift, slide,
rumble, storm, or explosion was a sign that Petaybee was stretching, growing, continuing to
re-form its being into something even grander than it already was. The people and their songs
celebrated the changes.
A lot they knew.
If they had bothered to ask their sentient planet just once how Petaybee felt instead of always
bringing their own hopes and fears,
joys and sorrows, into the communion caves where they spoke to the planet and the planet
responded, Petaybee would have told them that it sometimes hurt.
All of that grinding of plates, cracking the surface, sloughing away here, washing away there,
pushing some bits out and pulling others back, could be painful. Most worlds could take
millennia to do what Petaybee did in hours, days, weeks, at the most, years. It was really quite
a hectic pace, all this change in such a short time, and Petaybee was not always sure just what
was happening to its great self or why.
The planet did know that its function was to be a home for its creatures, its two-legged, four-
legged, winged, shelled, finned, and flippered fauna; its leaved, flowered, vined, barked, or
grassy flora. It not only made homes for these life forms, it helped them adapt to its
conditions so that their fragile husks did not die. The cycle of life formed by all of these
living creatures fed Petaybee's vitality even as the planet nourished them. The two-leggeds
who had become part of Petaybee's own great being returned its care by keeping the more
destructive members of their species at bay, in space, away from their world.
No one was allowed to drill into it or set explosions on its surface to take away bits of its
body it might have a use for later. If life was taken, it was replaced by new life.
Though a small planet whose surface consisted of little more than two ice caps and a sea
between them, Petaybee had nevertheless made a lot of progress since its terraforming.
But it wasn't enough. Petaybee had to—had to—make other kinds of places where more life
forms could live. There was too much sea. Too much ice. If there were warm places, dry
places, where life could begin, that life could become part of the cycle too and would add its
own special gifts to its world. Though Petaybee was a world that could, as humans
understood it, think, this idea was not a thought or even a true idea as such. It was a
compulsion that expressed itself as a buildup of pressure in one particular
area. Here. Land belonged here. The sea felt particularly empty and limitless at that point, but
moreover, Petaybee actually felt as if it contained a continent within its core. A continent that
belonged in this place where now waves rolled on and on. Some shoreline was needed. Some
beach. And eventually, some trees and flowers, perhaps, other plants and animals. Yes. As
industriously and deliberately as a two-legged dweller might move the furniture inside a
house, Petaybee began rearranging its own interior to create what belonged on the surface.
This was not easy, even for an entire sentient planet with a sense of purpose. The landmasses
were too far to move them to the empty spot without destroying all of the other life. Besides,
the ice would melt and upset everything. The only efficient way to get land in the right spot
was to bring it up from the inside, up through the bottom of the sea. And so Petaybee hacked
and coughed and spewed and spewed and shot its red hot inner essence up into the sea bed,
where some of the minerals within the hot sulfurous gas and magma turned into hollow rock
towers that became chimneys for other eruptions.
As the hot vents opened like red mouths, Petaybee swallowed great gouts of seawater. It
mixed with the minerals in the molten rock, then, superheated and full of nutrients, it shot
back into the sea. When it cooled, it was a warm nutrient for new life. New species of plants
and animals sprang up all over. They were not bothered by the sulfurous waters, but thrived
in them. Petaybee thought this was as it should be, but then, Petaybee had a very large view
of things. It took no particular notice of the other life forms lurking near its new cauldron, the
ones not of its own creation.
Until that point, the planet's creation had blossomed in relative obscurity—the people had
neither navy or civilian fleets, no boats, in fact, but those used for subsistence fishing and
hunting. Fly-bys were rare. There was no satellite surveillance. Once, a seal had swum by,
pausing to observe the volcano's birth with interest. But he was on his way elsewhere. Only
now, with the newest of the life
forms in place, was Petaybee's work monitored, though it was done so unobtrusively that the
preoccupied planet took no notice.
Gradually, the lava built up the floor of the sea around its chimneys. It was good, but too
slow.
Heaving and squeezing, Petaybee pushed magma and gas up through the center of the
elevated sea bottom. Once the pressure built up, it would blow a hole big enough to gush
rivers of lava out into the sea. It would build up and up and up until it rose above the waves,
then begin spreading out until it was a new place, a new home. Though it would be hot and
hazardous at first, the seawater and air would cool it until it too was a warm place for life to
flourish.
Though volcanoes had created landmasses on Petaybee shortly after terraforming, it had
happened very quickly, while the planet was barely awake. This new volcano, this new
island, was a conscious effort, Petaybee's greatest work to date. But work it was, a lot of
work. As birthing mothers everywhere knew very well, the process of bringing life into the
world was called "labor" for a reason.
CHAPTER 1
The Shongili twins gave almost simultaneous burps of repletion—the boy on his mother's
shoulder and the girl on her father's—and were carefully laid on their backs on their fur-lined
cots. Sean and Yanaba made no move to leave the nursery, unable to leave the sight of their
offspring, safely delivered just a few hours earlier. The babies looked up at their parents, their
dark pewter eyes as brightly focused as those of any bird. Each already wore a soft crown of
deep brown downy hair, but Yana would have been hard pressed to decide whose nose or
cheeks they had. Everything was still rounded and squashy, unformed and utterly adorable.
Even their contented gurgles sounded for all the world like the chortle of a small and active
brook swirling among stones.
"Listen to them," Yana said fondly. "They sound as if they're laughing." Then, "I thought it
took longer than that for babies to do things like laugh."
Sean shrugged. "Babies who are always and entirely human perhaps. But a selkie's
development is a bit different. Faster in some
ways. I don't recall when exactly I developed what, but I do recall being aware of my
surroundings almost at once. But as to the details, well, too bad my parents aren't still around
to advise us."
But Yana, lost in wonder at the perfection of her children, answered him only with a dreamy
glance. "It's almost too much joy for one person to bear," she murmured, feeling tears come to
her eyes.
Sean took her in his arms. "Then let's share it. I smell food, and you're still feeding two—one
at a time." He gave her a hug and a cuddle and, one arm draped on her shoulders, propelled
her gently toward the door of the cube they had hastily attached to one side of the cabin to
serve as a nursery. It was spare and spartan except for the furred cots, for it was the custom in
Kilcoole to refrain from giving expecting parents items for their unborn children. A supersti-
tion really, but since Yana, before conceiving, had thought herself well past childbearing age,
it seemed wise to encourage every sort of good luck.
As Sean opened the door, Nanook, his black-and-white track cat, and Coaxtl, his niece Aoifa's
snow leopard, slid into the nursery. Nanook took a place under the boy's cot, while Coaxtl,
after one long look at her charge, flopped beside the girl's.
"The sentries are on the job," Sean said, and continued to push his wife to the door.
"I just never thought I'd have children," Yana said, looking back over her shoulder at her
twins even as Sean closed the door behind her. He left it slightly ajar so they could hear the
babies if they cried out or if one of the cats needed to go out or get their attention.
No smells had been able to penetrate the cube from the main part of the house, Yana's old
one-room cabin. Now, however, delicious odors of pepper and snow onions, roasting fish and
unidentifiable savory spices, wafted from the stove. Over it stood the substantial and
comforting bulk of Clodagh, the village's shanachie, singer of songs, bearer of culture,
rememberer of history, settler of disputes, healer of wounds, and dispenser of medicines. She
had also served as Yana's midwife.
"It's about time," Clodagh said, closing the lid of the pot she had been seasoning. "I thought
you'd never think of yourselves. Now, sit and eat. And Yana, use that longie thing," as she
pointed a ladle at a chaise longue that had recently made its appearance in their home. There
was no proscription against giving an expectant mother a gift for herself. The chaise, which
took up a good half of the wall next to the woodstove, had seemed too large and in the way
before, but now Yana found it inviting. "Get your feet up and relax. As much as you can, that
is," she added in an affectionately derisive tone.
Major Yanaba Maddock-Shongili was quite willing to assume the seat and stretch her legs.
Her overtaxed muscles carried her that far mostly because of Sean's support. He rearranged
her feet a trifle and sat on the end, folding his arms over his chest and giving a sigh.
"Don't you dare look at your desk," Yana said sternly.
"Even from here I can see the pile of orange flimsies, and they mean urgent."
"Nothing is so urgent as feeding the pair of you up," Clodagh said staunchly, "and there really
isn't anything that damned pressing that someone else can't handle or defer—preferably until
next year."
"But those hydroelectric engineers were supposed to touch down today . . . and you know
how eagerly Sister Igneous Rock is awaiting them." Sean referred to the planet's geological
expert and its self-proclaimed acolyte. The woman and her fellow would-be Petaybean cult
followers had surprised Petaybee's longer-term residents by turning out to be quite useful
once they discovered they could be of more service to Petaybee practicing their hard-science
specialties instead of their misguided attempts at theology.
"Iggierock has 'em and she's dealing with them." Clodagh gave a deep chuckle. "She's near as
good as I am ... at some things. But this stew will give you much-needed energy. And we've
more urgent matters to consider, such as the babies' naming song and the latchkay. I'm
thinking that tomorrow will be none too soon, if Yana can make it back to the lodge and the
communion cave to properly introduce your young by name to their people and their world."
"She can and she will, if I must carry her," Sean said fondly.
"I can handle it," Yana said. Fortunately, those aching muscles of hers were well toned and
trained from her years in the Company Corps. "It's the babies we'll need to be carrying."
"Good,' Clodagh said. "All of Kilcoole has been waiting for these young ones, but there's a
time and place for their gawking and well-wishing and filling your house up with doodads for
the babbies. The sooner the better, though. Have you thought of what you'll call them at all?"
She dished up three huge bowls of her concoction, and after serving the new parents, she
pulled up one of the new spare chairs to the new huge kitchen table they'd been given by
friends who evidently thought they were going to have dozens of children instead of just two.
Clodagh passed rolls just out of the oven, and steaming through the white napkin she had
covered them with.
Yana chewed quickly but deliberately, thinking hard. "Of course we've thought about it, but
now that they're here, no name seems special enough. Among my mother's ancestors, you
know, babies weren't named right away. High infant mortality rate was one reason, but also,
her people believed a child didn't get its soul until the first time it laughed."
She and Sean looked at each other over their full spoons and smiled. "Which they've already
done, and them only a few hours old," Sean said. "I can tell they're going to be quick, but
then, it's well-known that all of the children born to my side of the family are very
precocious."
Yana made a face at him. "Oh, in my family too, but our babies are also taught to be modest."
"You two are too giddy by half!" Clodagh mock-scolded, shaking her spoon at them.
"Naming is a serious business. It should fit the baby's bloodlines—perhaps we could have
names from your mother's people, Yana. There'd be a bit of novelty. It should also tell the
world what the child is all about."
"This world knows what the children are about," Yana said. "It's responsible for their selkie
nature, after all—well, it and their father," she added with a roll of her dark eyes at her
husband. "And how advisable it is to tell the rest of the universe about that is debatable."
"No debate about it," Sean said in a tone that brooked no argument. "The universe at large
does not need to know that our children mutate into seals when they submerge themselves in
water any more than it needs to know that the kids inherited that trait from me."
"Well, the names don't need to come right out and say, Tm a selkie,' " Clodagh said. "But they
should, for instance, indicate that these children have an affinity for water."
"Born for Water," Yana said with a swallow of soup.
"What?"
She gestured with a piece of roll. "I'm just thinking perhaps we should call them after the
Hero Twins my mother's ancestors revered, Born for Water and Monster Slayer. Except at the
moment they both seem to be Born for Water and it isn't yet clear who would be Monster
Slayer."
"My money is on the wee lassie," Sean said. "She's got something of the look of you in the
glint in her eyes and the set of her chin."
"She's barely got a chin," Yana said, shaking her head. "No, I think we'll have to go with the
Irish side of my family this time. Here in Kilcoole where you're all Irish and Inuit, they'll
blend in better with the other children that way anyway. Besides, among the Dine—my
mother's people—girls all have war names like mine, and war is the last thing I want my
daughter named for. Water's a bit difficult too. The sacred land of Mother's people had very
little rain, or standing water either, and so they were extremely short even on fish, not to
mention seals and selkies."
She stopped with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "I just had a thought. Will the babies be
transforming every time they get into
water? Any water? If so, I'm going to have a fine old time trying to bathe them and it won't be
easy keeping their nature a family secret."
"I used to have the same problem," Sean grinned. "Until I taught myself not to fur up the
moment a drop touched me. But I had no da to show me the way, and they do. Meanwhile, if
you need help with the family secret, well, we've plenty of family here who know all about it.
They'll help. And the four-foots will watch to make sure no outsiders come close enough to
learn more than they should."
"You say that, Sean," Clodagh said, speaking quietly into her soup bowl, "but there are
outsiders who've seen you change, and one of them may take it upon himself to wonder if the
twins inherited the ability and need studying." She looked up, her moss green eyes fathomless
and deep as one of Petaybee's many artesian springs, seeming troubled. She hated bringing up
such worries on what should be a flawlessly happy day. "You know how much scrutiny this
planet is under."
"Well, how the hell could they possibly interfere with my family peculiarity when Yana and I
have the final say as governors of this planet?" Sean asked.
Clodagh shrugged.
"As long as the four-foots are their guards, no one will get near them," Yana said with far
more conviction than she felt. "And Nanook and Coaxtl will keep them from being seen,
won't they?" A nervous tic started in her cheek. She rubbed it. "Will the cats follow them into
the water?"
"Yes," Sean said positively. "If the little ones elude them long enough to get near water,
Nanook and Coaxtl would follow them into the mouth of a volcano if necessary. The cats do
converse. We just have to make it plain to them how dangerous it would be for the kids to be
caught half in, half out. Like I was."
"We'll hope they don't take arrows in their anatomy to induce such a condition," Yana said,
referring to what was nearly a mortal wound for him. "And I thought leading training troops
on landing
parties for the Company Corps was a heavy responsibility!" She shook her head as if to clear
it. "We're borrowing trouble. It's not as if shape-changing is a viable occupation."
"Oh, selkies would be real useful on water worlds," Sean argued.
"Yana's right, Sean. There's trouble enough right here and now without borrowing any,"
Clodagh said in a cajoling tone. "Don't fall into that water until the ice breaks up. For now
your biggest problem is to decide what these babes of yours are to be called. I will think on it,
remember the stories of our peoples, see if there's some appropriate names there. You and
Yana should sleep while you have the chance. The cats can't take care of all the needs those
babes will have."
The drumming began shortly after sunrise. Inside the nursery cube, the twins opened their
eyes to the brightness pouring in through the piece of sheeting that covered the cube's single
small window. The babies whimpered and wiggled.
Nanook's ears were the first part of him to wake up. They pricked to attention. Coaxtl's tail
lashed restlessly before the snow leopard stretched a sleepy paw. The kits had awakened.
Both cats stretched and rose, poking their noses over the sides of the cots.
"Rrrow," Nanook told his friend. "I'd cry too if I smelled like that. Where are those humans
when you need them?"
"These cubs leak," Coaxtl agreed. "And they've got these things tied around their haunches to
hold the leakage in. One wonders how humans come up with such ideas. This arrangement
keeps the nest clean but the cubs dirty."
"Sean would not want his kits to be dirty," Nanook said.
"Can one pull these haunch harnesses off so one can clean them?" Coaxtl inquired.
"Yes, they are meant to be removable. But take care with fang and claw. We want to remove
the harnesses only, not the kits pelts. Humans, lacking proper coats, have very sensitive
hides."
Nanook's nose touched the kit's leg as he grasped a pinch of cloth in his teeth. The kit stopped
whimpering. He looked at it anxiously lest it was merely saving its breath for a good howl,
but it was staring at him, wide-eyed and curious. Disconcerting, these human younglings,
born with their eyes all open and gawking.
"Hee," the kit said aloud, quite distinctly giggling.
"Hee," the female kit echoed, pumping a plump fist in the air.
Tickles, one of them—the female?—said.
Ma? the other inquired.
No, child, I am Nanook, your keeper. Your mother sleeps. And this one is Coaxtl, also your
keeper.
'Nook. Nanook realized suddenly that the boy's more advanced utterances were mental and
that it understood as well as transmitted thoughts.
Co'. The female kit was also transmitting thoughts.
Co-ax-tl, the snow leopard said with a dignified fluff of his tufted cheeks. You may as well get
it right to begin with, youngling.
Co'.
Nanook sat back on his haunches. The harness was too close to the tender skin. "Don't growl,
leopard. They will learn. When I was their age, my mother had to lick me to teach me to do
what they've already done in their harnesses."
Coaxtl sat back too. "This harness removal is for those with thumbs. The drums call. The time
has come to wake the parents. They can cope with haunch harnesses."
CHAPTER 2
JUST in CASE a seventy-five-pound track cat standing over her was not enough of a hint that
she should wake, Sean was saying, "Yana, love, it's time to rise. The drums have begun and
the babes are hungry again."
"Yes, I got that idea," she said, looking up into Nanook's black-and-white marked face before
Sean shooed the cat back to the floor. He had been so good, getting up to change the babies
during the night and tucking them in with her so she could breast-feed without disturbing her
rest unduly. She attempted to roll out of bed with her customary agility, only to find it sadly
lacking. The birthing had not felt too traumatic, thanks to the underwater method Clodagh
had employed to ease the way of the children into the world. But what pain had been spared
her yesterday seemed to be catching up with her now.
A muted buzz went off in the adjoining cube, which was the main office of the Shongilis.
Sean paused halfway to the nursery cube, waiting until a second mechanical noise clicked in.
"It's working?" Yana asked in surprise. This was not the latest or most up-to-date answering
machine, but it was the one that worked on their planet. They all listened for a second click,
and then a red light appeared on the bar above the door into the cube, indicating a message
was waiting. More efficient communication was one of the "improvements" that almost had to
be implemented with all of the attention—most of it unwanted—Petaybee received from off-
world interests. One com shed could no longer handle all of the messages, now that Intergal
communications had pulled out when Space Base was dismantled. The landing area and
fueling station had been left intact, and for a small consideration and a trade agreement
regarding the fuel for visiting vessels, Kilcoole was allowed to retain it as a civilian
concession.
"That thing can wait," Sean said. While recognizing the need for the "labor-saving" device, at
the same time he resented its intrusion into what had once been their comparatively peaceful
life. "I'll help you with the twins."
First he had to help her hobble into the "nursery." Coaxtl looked up, yawned, stretched, and
padded out. One's shift was over, one presumed. Nanook joined the snow leopard, and the
two stood by the door until Sean retraced his steps and opened it for them to go out.
The blast of cold air that blew in when the cats departed chilled the overheated room that had
been so efficiently warmed by the woodstove and the hot burning Petaybean alder wood. The
nursery cube, like the office cube also attached to the cabin, had its own temperature and
humidity-controlled environment, which was why they had chosen it for the twins, in spite of
its lack of the individuality that characterized Petaybean dwellings.
Both twins were wide awake and smelly. The little girl held up a fist full of white fur. "Coaxtl
got too close to you, I see, my little Monster Slayer," Yana said, pulling off the dirty diaper
and cleaning the child with the moistened moss compresses Clodagh recommended for the
job. "You need to choose your monsters more wisely, though, my love. Coaxtl is a friend."
"Hee," the little girl said.
"Hee," echoed her brother, spraying his father with urine the minute the diaper was removed
and air touched his skin.
"Here now," Sean said. "I think your mummy said your role model was called Born for
Water, not Born to Water!"
"Hee," the baby said again, so of course his sister had to say it again too, so as not to be
outdone.
Sean held the boy and walked him around the cabin, talking to him while Yana fed her
daughter. Then they switched babies. Finally the little ones were fed, changed, rediapered,
and swaddled in clean furs.
Yana had finished washing up and pulled on a pair of old uniform trousers and a fleece top
when someone knocked on the door.
She opened it to admit Bunny Rourke, Sean's niece and her closest friend since she had first
arrived on Petaybee. Beside Bunny was Aoifa, Bunny's sister. Coaxtl considered Aoifa her
two-legged cub.
"Clodagh said we should come to help with the babes while you and Sean get ready."
"Clodagh's reputation as a wise woman is richly deserved," Yana said thankfully. "You
missed the messy bits for the time being, but they can use distraction for a moment."
With the help of the girls, the entire family unit was ready to mobilize within an hour. Yana
and Sean carried the twins, while the girls followed with their changes of diapers, their
packets of moss wipes, and extra furs in case the twins messed the ones they were wrapped in.
"We look more like an expeditionary force than a family," Yana remarked.
Sean smiled. "You've not been around all that many families up till now, love. Families with
new babies can make expeditionary forces seem underpacked."
"Good thing we brought the snocle," Bunny said. "And a curly coat to carry the gear."
"Have packhorse will go next door," Yana quipped when the girls loaded the supplies on the
shaggy little Petaybean horse with its thick curly coat. Sometime during the night it had
begun to snow. A blanket three or four inches deep covered the well-tramped path to the river
road. Snow still sifted down from a light pewter sky. Soon the sun, which had just risen,
would be setting again.
Aoifa led the horse, while Sean and Yana—who were clad in parkas, snow pants, hats,
mittens, and mukluks—squeezed themselves and their fur-wrapped offspring into the snocle
beside Bunny.
Smoke poured from the smoke hole of the latchkay lodge, a great plume among the pinion
feathers emitted by the chimneys of Kilcoole's other houses. In front of the lodge, men stirred
soups and stews in sterilized fuel drums over open fires. The smells didn't travel far in the air,
which was so frigid it froze the hairs inside people's nostrils.
The drums drowned out all other noises now, calling the people together. Their beat was so
strong the snow seemed to fall in time to it.
The babies wiggled in their parents' arms, wanting to see what all the noise and fuss was
about. The thing in which they had been squeezed, the thing that roared and slid, stopped, and
suddenly they felt cold air rush in through their furs. It felt wonderful!
Strange and familiar voices mingled all around them. Their parents walked forward until the
cold went away and the babies were enveloped in great warmth and felt themselves being
passed from their parents to other people. When they were handed back, their furs were
removed and their mother had changed from the furry beast she'd transformed into outside
back to the soft-slender-dark-haired-sweet-milk-smelling giver of food and cuddles who
spoke to them in long utterances and smiled often.
Many faces peered down at them, touching their cheeks and chins, toes and fingers, all of the
features of their land shapes. People spoke in odd voices that had "ooo" sounds.
They had slept well and were as curious as the cats who prowled among the people sitting and
standing in the hall. The drums stopped for a while as people ate. During the eating, several
people stood and spoke, saying things that seemed to make their mother happy.
Then they were both in their father's arms as the one drum began again and their mother stood
and danced with other mothers, a slow pacing dance around the center of the big space. Father
spoke to them then. He was easier to understand than anyone else, and half of what he said
was inside their heads, his meanings confusing and mysterious but clearly important clues to
what lay before them. His silvery eyes shone happily down at them as he spoke, and his voice
held a lilt of laughter and good feeling.
"Children, we are at your naming latchkay. What's a latchkay? I'm glad you asked. The
people of our village and I come from two peoples of Old Earth—the Inuit and the Irish.
When something wonderful or important happened, the people would gather to eat and speak,
dance and sing together. Among the Inuit, this was called a potlatch. Food and gifts were
given to all. Among the Irish, it was a kay-lee, where there was much music and food and
drink. We on Petaybee celebrate our occasions with something that mixes the two customs
and we call it a latchkay. At this one, people will give us gifts for you. When you are five, we
will hold a latchkay to redistribute the baby gifts you no longer use, and you will add gifts of
your own to ones we make or barter for. Today your mother and I shall sing and dance with
you, and everyone will suggest names and explain why they are good names. Clodagh will
probably come up with the best ones. Clodagh was the lady you both saw yesterday, before
you saw your mother's face or mine. Your mother has finished dancing now and it is my turn.
Any questions?"
"Hee hee," the twins said. Then," 'Kay."
But their father, passing them to their mother again, didn't hear.
Then Father picked Her up and mother picked Him up and they all danced, a happy jiggly
rhythm such as the parents had used to put them to sleep. Two drumbeats, twin hearts, moved
the people up and down, back and forth, up and down.
After that there was some more fun. Mother and Father sat down, each still holding one of
them, and a round lady not Clodagh brought bright-colored soft things with shiny little round
things in pretty patterns all over the front.
"Thank you, Aisling," Mother said. "Carry pouches are exactly what we need. Now the twins
can see what's going on too." Mother handed Him to Father and stuck her arms into the bright
soft thing she said was "kind of a cobalt blue." Father handed Him back to her, and she put
Him into the thing, so that His legs were apart but stuck through the front, His middle held in
by the strip with the shiny round things that sparkled in the light, and His head, though
cradled between Mother's food-givers, faced forward. He could see everything! Everything!
Father handed Her to Mother too. Mother had a hard time hanging on to Her, because She
wanted to see too and tried to twist in Mother's arms. Mother's cuddle wasn't as comfortable
as usual because He was in the way.
But Father put on his new soft bright thing, which he said was "Hot pink, not my color, but
Hers," and then She too faced forward.
Thus they were able to see all of the gifts. Soft warm things, not furs, for covering during
sleep. Moss wipes and haunch harnesses, as the cats called them, though Mother and Father
called them diapers. Small versions of Mother's fur-faced thing that made her big when she
went outside. Other things like that, garments, clothes, they were called, that their parents
held against them or stuck over their arms and legs a little ways to show.
The pile in front of them grew and grew until they couldn't tell one thing from another. Then
two men came forward, "Seamus" and "Johnny." If the first thing was the best so far, these
last things
were best too. They brought between them a cot surrounded by a box that had images of
fishes swimming all around it. The bottom had things they took off and put on again.
"Rockers for in the house,'' Johnny said. "Runners for sledding them over the snows," Seamus
said. "Wheels for when it's dry," they both said, attaching round things to the front and back
and taking them off again. "And when you're near water and you don't want them in it, use
nothing at all on this and it will float tight and dry as any boat."
Best of all, it was not one cot but big enough for two. Mother and Father laid the twins
together in it, so they could see each other and snuggle together. It was very nice but the
twins did not let them get away with it, of course. Sleep could not come without food.
Before the latchkay adjourned to the communion place for the Night Chants, the singing was
interrupted by the howls of the dogs tethered outside and answered by dogs running toward
them. The lodge's doors were flung open and three figures, heavily covered in fur parkas,
snow pants, and boots, stamped inside. Bunny and Aoifa Rourke, Diego Metaxos, and young
Chugiak rushed out to tend to the newcomers' teams.
"Friends, we're so pleased you've come to honor these children and their parents!"
The first person, now stripped of his parka, was a small dark-haired man. In his plaid shirt and
snow pants, he walked in among the celebrants and said, "We are not the only ones to honor
them! For weeks the seals have been gathering along the beach, thick as snowflakes. Dolphins
and whales come too in great profusion, not to their killing grounds but near our settlements,
as if waiting for something to happen. Then yesterday the ice began to crack and break up as
if it were spring. Finally, a giant wave came rolling in and crashed onto the shore, carrying
fish and other creatures, some we have never seen before, and washed away half the village.
We
heard twins were born here in Kilcoole at the same time the wave rolled in, and the three of
us, who have the fastest teams in our area, were sent to greet the children and bring them
naming gifts."
The twins, seemingly oblivious to the noise, were asleep in their new cradle when the coastal
people arrived, but by the time the visitors stood dripping melted snow from their hair in front
of Sean and Yana, the little ones had awakened again.
One man pulled out a length of string and began making figures with it a few inches above
the twins' faces. "A story string to amuse them and help them trap the best stories in its net. It
is made of good strong synweb too, so they can use it to snare rabbits if they want."
The next person, a woman, handed Yana two knives: a dagger, and a blade that looked as if it
were a quarter cut from a circle, the point removed and replaced by a bone handle. "A hunting
knife and an ulu, so they will never go hungry or cold."
The third person, also a woman, handed Yana a large-eyed steel needle with a cutting end.
"My mother always said a needle was the true magic of our people because without a needle,
we would not be able to make the clothing we need to survive. Actually, my mother wanted
me to bring you her old treadle sewing machine, but there wasn't time to load it, even if there
had been room on the sled."
Yana and Sean laughed and thanked them all.
The baby girl reached up and snagged the story string in her tiny fingers.
The man who had been demonstrating its use beamed.
Then the food was served, musicians brought out their rusty instruments, and people began
dancing the reels and figure dances from long ago, separated by occasional waltzes.
Marduk, the orange and white striped cat who had adopted Yana when she first arrived at
Kilcoole, hopped into the cradle and wrapped himself around the twins' feet, purring when a
baby hand patted his magnificent bushy tail. Nanook and Coaxtl reappeared
and sat on either side of the cradle. Nanook looked expectantly up at Sean.
"I think that's my cue to ask the mother of the honorees to dance."
Yana was still sore and stiff from sitting so long, but the happiness of the occasion gave her
something only a little less earth-bound than wings. Taking her husband's arm, she slid to the
dance floor and they half waltzed, half polkaed to the plunk and wheeze of instruments that
had been frozen and thawed many times and played through many latchkays.
"This has all been a lot of fun, Sean," she said. "Exhausting, but fun. But even though
everybody's had suggestions, I still don't know what to call the kids. Do you?"
"Not really. I sort of liked Seamus and Siobhan, but it's a bit too much like Sean and Sinead,
and we're not even twins."
"Aisling suggested Murray, which is a sea name, I'm told, and Mairead, but that's not a water
name. Muriel is, but I'm afraid we'd confuse them. Murray and Muriel sound awfully close."
She dropped her voice so he could barely hear her above the drums. "To tell you the truth, I
think those alliterating names for twins are just a bit on the cutesy side."
"It will come to us, love. There's still the Night Chants."
Shortly afterward everyone took a break in the festivities while the dog teams of people from
distant villages were hitched up again, the little curly coated horse was loaded with the gifts
to be deposited at the cabin on the way, and local people returned home and hitched up their
dogs or saddled their curly coats for the trip to the hot springs where the Night Chants were
held.
The drummers arrived ahead of everyone else so that drumbeats greeted each new party.
Yana as always was struck by the beauty of the hot springs. You saw the steam first, rising
above the snow, and then, between ice-encrusted banks, the curtain of water pouring from the
top ledge into a deep pool that cascaded into a second, then a third pool, the
water through the steam like jewels behind a sheer veil. That this was the place where she had
first made love with Sean and only yesterday birthed her babies added immeasurably to its
beauty for her. But the most powerful enchantment it held lay beyond the waterfall, in the
communion place.
People stood aside to allow Yana, Sean, and the twins to slip into the cave behind the upper
falls. Clodagh was there ahead of them and, surprisingly, the three newcomers from the coast.
Soon the cave was crowded with the bodies of neighbors and friends. Yana was a bit
surprised to realize that all of these people were from Petaybee, most from Kilcoole. None of
their offworld friends were here. She wondered if the naming ceremony wasn't hastened in
order to prevent the attendance of offworld folk. It seemed a bit discriminatory, especially
when some of them would never have survived some recent events without the help of those
friends.
When everyone arrived and settled, Clodagh said, "Desmond here is the shanachie of his
village. He heard how we were looking for sea names for the babes and said he has a song to
share."
Desmond spoke so quietly everyone had to be still to hear him. He also seemed to be well
aware of the special nature of the cave.
"The seals came to remind me of my mother's song from her mother. The song she sang in its
original tongue, so I will tell you about it before I sing. It tells of a lonely widow who had lost
her husband and her only child to the sea. Every day she walked the beach and watched the
seals play. One day when she could not go to the beach because of the rain, a strange mute
girl came to her door to be her daughter. The woman called her Murel, Bright Waters, and for
seven years the mother and daughter lived together. Then one day when they walked the
beach, a seal called from just offshore. 'Ork ork ork!' he cried. 'That is Ronan, the little seal,'
the woman told the girl. But the girl knew already. 'Ork ork ork!' she cried, and the widow
knew it was time for her daughter to return to the sea."
He then began singing quite a long song in a language that bore only a distant resemblance to
the Gaelic people sometimes sang.
Yana didn't pay too much attention, after the translation, because she was pondering the
names of the seal children, Murel and Ronan. Bright Waters and Little Seal. They had a ring
to them that she liked. Of course, when the kids got older, she supposed she'd have to figure
out how to change the boy's name so it meant big seal, but that could wait. She exchanged a
look with Sean over the heads of the twins. By the bioluminescence that made the stone cave
walls glow softly and the water wall glimmer, he smiled and nodded.
The cave was warm and cozy, and the bioluminescence had begun to scribe patterns on the
cave walls. Desmond's song had a bit of a drone, but the children all liked it when he made
the seal sound, which seemed to figure in the chorus. Her own children were no exception.
With every ork, the babies squirmed, and for the first time ever she wished the ceremony over
and them back at home.
When the song was done, Clodagh turned to them, smiling, her brows raised in question.
"You have the names then, do you, Yana? Sean?"
Vina and Scan nodded once to each other. Then Sean took the little girl from Yana's arms and
held her out to Clodagh, who had taken a place of prominence in front of the waterfall. "Right
then, pet," Clodagh said softly to the baby. Then she raised her head, her voice still quiet and
calm enough to keep from alarming the child but carrying above the roar of the waterfall to
everyone in the cave. "People of Petaybee, and our beautiful home, here is Murel Monster
Slayer Shongili born to us to live among us."
Yana had been struggling to pay attention but now her eyes snapped open in dismay. "I never.
. ." She began to say that she had not seriously meant for Monster Slayer to be part of her
daughter's given name, but Clodagh was passing Murel Monster Slayer Shongili to Aoifa,
who sat next to her, and accepting Yana's son.
"And this fine one here, people of Petaybee, is Ronan Born for Water Shongili, born to us to
live among us."
But as she turned to hand Ronan to Aoifa, who had been trying to pass Murel to Bunny
Rourke, sitting beside her, Aoifa fumbled. That seemed to be the chance Murel had been
waiting for. With a fishlike twist, the infant spurted from Aoifa's grasp and into the waterfall.
摘要：

CHANGELINGSBOOKONEofTheTwinsofPetaybeeANNEMcCaffreyELIZABETHANNSCARBOROUGHBALLANTINEBOOKSNEWYORKChangelingsisaworkoffiction.Names,characters,places,andincidentsaretheproductsoftheauthors'imaginationorareusedfictitiously.Anyresemblancetoactualevents,locales,orpersons,livingordead,isentirelycoincident...

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