Free Maelstrom by Anne McCaffrey

to believe he could have been correct, Cally had the right of it,” she said. “There don’t seem to be any other survivors.”
    “The Honus feel that there are, Madame,” Ke-ola said, although it sounded as if he had begun to believe that the Honus might actually be wrong for once.
    “Very well,” she said. “But one more dive only before we return to the ship. Everyone is tired and hungry and the operators tell me the diggers need refueling and cleaning to maintain their efficiency.”
    This time, however, the diggers were not needed. Instead of narrowing to a root-choked wall, the stream broadened and deepened.
    Hmmm, I think this must be where the sonar comes in,
Murel said.
    I wish we’d asked more about it when we were home with Dad,
Ronan said.
If we were full-time seals living in the ocean, we’d have been using it already.
    If we were full-time seals living in the ocean, we wouldn’t be here,
she pointed out.
    True. I think maybe this is how it goes. There are supposed to be songs, I think. Individual songs.
    He made a noise that was somewhere between a snore and a belch and a little like a growl.
Like that,
he told her, and did it again, modifying and modulating the tones.
    Oh, those noises!
she said.
Like the ones we used to make under the river ice. I never paid much attention to them before. I thought they were just what our vocal cords do when we’re in seal form.
Confined during their earlier childhood on Petaybee to nearby rivers and streams where they went only for short swims, they were so familiar with the territory, they had been under the impression that their memories let them know where they were and approximately what things looked and felt like. Even during their brief time in the ocean, they’d relied mostly on vision to find their way.
    But now that they wanted to learn to use their sonar properly, they found they’d been using it all along, far more than they’d previously thought. In this alien underground territory where they had no idea what was coming next, the seal sounds they made bounced back to them from shapes of various densities, rather like echoes. Once they were aware of it, they didn’t need much practice interpreting the echoes. Their seal senses recognized the signals so they “heard” how deep and wide the water was, how far they were from the bottom and the walls of the passage. The solid surfaces of the canal were many body lengths away from them.
    That’s all?
Ronan asked.
A big flooded cavern. I’m disappointed. I understood we would be able to tell where the fish were and even plants and things. All I’m getting is these walls.
    I don’t think there are any fish down here, or anything else except more roots,
Murel answered tiredly. She would have enjoyed a nice juicy fish right then.
    And then, suddenly, there
was
something else. Something unfamiliar. If it was a fish, it was a very large fish.
    Murel sent a mental call to Sky.
Come back,
she said.
Stay close. We are not alone.

CHAPTER 8
    S KY DIDN’T NEED to be told twice. In fact, he didn’t need to be told once because before Murel’s thought was finished, he was back beside her, keeping himself safely shielded between her and Ronan.
    Back, back, river seals,
the otter told them.
Something is there. Something large and hungry.
    As if they needed proof, they felt a disturbance in the water, ripples piling against them as something swished back and forth in the water beyond, back and forth, back and forth, relentless, sinister, blocking their way forward. In the dark cool silence the water broke as the something sliced through it with great and churning force, leaving a broad turbulent wake behind it.
    It’s really big,
Ronan said finally.
Much bigger than us. Bigger than Ke-ola even.
    Yes, I feel that too.
    Hundreds big,
Sky agreed.
Eats otters, river seals, Ke-olas, and Honus.
    Not if we don’t give it a chance,
Ronan said, and flipped over in the water so he was headed back the way they