Crazily into her mind lurched another question. Where did that phrase come from? Killer whales didn’t haunt these seas. Keiki Moana had doubtless seen them on documentary programs and such, but why had their name entered the language, and as a word for evil? For centuries, her own race had pitied and protected what big cats remained.
Was the forebrain of the seal-folk so new and thin an overlay that an inborn dread of beasts which had preyed on their ancestors still dominated it? Then what other instincts also did?
“Metamorph” was an easy word to say. Was it that easy a thought to think? A strain of organisms in which the DNA had once been modified to bring forth something never seen in nature—Microbes that decomposed or sequestered toxic wastes. Trees with sap that was fuel. Exotic animals. Talking animals. Lunarians—But when you change the body like that, what changes do you make in the mind? The soul?
Maybe it was only that certain Keiki had wandered far north, unbeknownst to humans, and brought back tales of orcas. Or maybe not. How little she really knew of these people, her friends and fellows in the Lahui Kuikawa.
No matter yet, surely not if murder went on any longer. She forced steadiness upon herself, recited the Tulip Mantra seven times, felt the painful tension leave her back and the trembling leave her hands. “Major Delgado, por favor,” she said at the phone, in mainland Anglo. A man’s pale countenance entered the screen. “I’m coming, top speed. But can’t you get this under control?”
The officer in charge of the Peace Authority’s investigative team bit his lip. “We’re trying,” he grated. “They don’t listen. Do they understand?”
“Maybe not. More and more of their younger ones have little or no direct contact with us. But what’s happening?”
“At the moment, a standoff. See.” Delgado swept a scanner around, and Aleka saw.
His party’s craft, a small submersible with an observation turret, lay near the edge of a biorange. To starboard, the green, loosely woven mat of vegetation reached beyond sight, rippling to waves and currents, drinking light, weaving atoms together into material desired by its designers—in this case, Aleka knew, anticarcinoma virus base. In the offing an attendant glided about, agleam, oblivious of everything but its duties, a versatile machine with a program capable of some learning and much adaptation, nevertheless just a robot and unaware.
To port, blood streaks curled luridly bright. Repeated bursts of foam showed where a body plunged or broached or slapped the water as if it were the enemy. They circled the vessel, those shapes, around and around, more than Aleka had imagined, two or three score. The clamor out of their throats reached her faintly over the phone, hoarse and harsh. Del-gado’s team had spaced themselves along the rails, ten men and women in blue field uniforms. Each pair of hands gripped a firearm.
The view went back to the commander’s face. “I’ve called on the amplisonor for peace, again and again,” he said desperately. “They pay no attention. They’re no real threat to us, of course, but—What should we do? Submerge? Leave the vicinity?” He tautened. “We can’t let them suppose they’ve won, those lawbreakers.”
“Hang on,” Aleka said. She tapped for her location. It appeared on the pilot board. “I will be there in about ten minutes.” She drew breath. “What exactly went wrong? Por favor, begin from the beginning, senor.”
In the world beyond Hawaii she had learned the value of courtesy, even carefully measured deference. Besides, her brief meeting with him had given her the idea that this was a decent man. If his task put him at odds with her, that wasn’t his fault; and today they could join to fend oif more deaths. They must!
He nodded. “Ciertamente. On our cruise we’ve found considerable evidence of widespread violation, especially ecological; but you can hear the details later, when we enter our report. However, we saw nothing so blatant as here, where we’ve come on that band of seals—uh, metamorphs—openly plundering fish, kinds offish necessary to the health of the range. You probably know which I mean.”
Aleka did. They weren’t the little darters developed to eat parasites, they were the grazers that kept the sea plants well pruned: fat, sluggish, temptation incarnate.