Clodagh about that while you were off helping Bunny sew clothes for her baby.
Clodagh said it was just Petaybee's way of telling us we didn't belong at home right then-that we were supposed to go."
"Hmph," Murel said. "I wish it had just had Marmie tell us to begin with. I liked her way better."
Ke-ola looked from one of them to the other, raising his eyebrows in bewilderment.
Murel explained: "Before we came to the space station, the last day we spent at home was our birthday, and there was a night chant after our birthday latchkay.
Petaybee wouldn't let us into the communion cave."
"It wouldn't?" Ke-ola asked. "Why not?"
"We thought it was mad at us because we'd got into a little trouble with some wolves the day before, when we met Sky for the first time," Ronan answered. "I'm just glad to know now that we were wrong."
"But how did it keep you out?" Ke-ola asked.
Murel found a lump rising in her throat all over again as she told him how they had been unable to follow their family and friends into the cave. The communion cave was the best part of the night chants, better than the food at the latchkay. It was where Petaybee shared its presence with its inhabitants and they opened their minds and hearts to their world.
Ke-ola nodded. He had experienced the cave and it had welcomed him too; it had given him that sense of belonging that Murel and Ronan had taken for granted before it was denied to them.
"We don't know how it did it, exactly. We just couldn't pass beyond a certain point."
"Like a force field?" Ke-ola asked.
"Sort of. Yes, I guess so."
"Wow, that was pretty cold. You guys must have been plenty upset."
"We were," Ronan said, "and when everybody else came out, Marmie and our parents told us we were supposed to go visit her on her space station to go to school. It was all part of this, but they didn't tell us that then."
"Well, they did, actually," Murel amended, trying to be fair. "But I guess maybe we were too young to understand. We didn't believe them. We thought they were making excuses and we were being sent away because we'd been a handful.
Again."
"But that wasn't it at all," Ronan explained. "It was the beginning of getting us ready for what Marmie was talking about. We've got a real mission, like she said.
We're essential, we are."
Murel smiled, glad that Ronan was pleased. For her own part, she had been looking forward to another lovely cold winter undulating her gray-brown seal's body beneath the clouds of river ice. Even with the crisis with Da missing and the volcano erupting, she had enjoyed the chance to swim freely in seal form and explore the previously unknown sea. Still, Ro was right. Being chosen like this was an honor. She should be-was-proud, but she was also wishing it was over and they were returning with everything accomplished, waving at the grateful populace and so forth before running to the river and diving in without so much as a "last one in is a rotten fish."
Later, they shared dreams as they sometimes did. They swam urgently down empty corridors toward a place they absolutely had to find before they-or maybe it was the place-ran out of air. The problem was, they had no idea where the place was or what it looked like. When they tried to search, they were caught in a dizzying galactic spin of anonymous stars. Then the stars turned into the lights on an instrument panel that extended as far as they could see. If they pushed the wrong button, they would die. If they pressed the right one, they would reach the place they'd been seeking. But which one was which? How would they know?
The thoughts they shared when they woke up were almost as confused, the dreams half forgotten, but the anxiety they'd produced remained.
Johnny was in the lounge when they arrived that morning. Ke-ola was talking to him, and the twins knew he'd been talking about them by the way both he and
Johnny looked up at them with carefully blank expressions.
"So," Johnny asked, "how did you sleep?"
CHAPTER 2
THE TWINS TOLD Johnny and Ke-ola as much about their dreams as they could remember, but it wasn't a lot.
"You knew about them, though, didn't you?" Ronan asked Ke-ola.
"The Honu picked up that you were not having a good sleep," Ke-ola admitted.
"Hmph," Murel said, her irritation magnified by the fitful sleep. "Honus should mind their own business sometimes. It's not nice peeking into other people's dreams."
"He didn't. All he said was that you were having bad dreams."
"I'm not a bit surprised myself," Johnny said, "after your conversation with
Marmie yesterday."
"And how did you know about that?" Murel demanded. "Isn't anything private around here?"
"Shush," he said soothingly. "I know because we both talked it over with your parents and Clodagh before ever she spoke a word to you on the matter. It's a great deal to lay on the shoulders of young ones. As for the corridors and stars and strange instruments in your dream, I'm no psychic but do you know what I think?"
They shook their heads.
"Well, I've not a clue about the corridors but I do know about stars and instruments, so what do you say to spending less time in the lounge and more on the bridge so I can teach you-"
"You'll teach us to fly the Piaf?" Ronan asked, going from depressed and disheartened to euphoric and elated at warp speed.
"As much as I can, though she's a very complex ship, is the Piaf," he replied. "But
I can help you learn what many of the instruments are for and teach you to fly shuttles and flitters and such. And the ship's computers are good for more than fairy stories and games, you know. In your dream, so you said, you didn't know where you were going or how to recognize it. The universe, of course, is vast and it's impossible to know everything about everything. But we do know a few worlds fairly well and have collected information on others you might find enlightening.
Perhaps if you learn more about your destination and what we'll be passing on the way, you'll feel better able for your task."
"So," Murel said. "More school, eh?"
"It'd be flying, Mur," her brother said.
"I'd not say school," Johnny told her, "but educational yes. The professional emissaries and ambassadors would call it fieldwork, I believe. And that's different altogether."
She sighed, as if accepting his suggestion reluctantly, because her mood was still dark. In truth, she felt a bubble of excitement rising inside of her. This wouldn't just be study for its own sake. This would be learning things they actually needed to know. "It will pass the time, if nothing else. Swimming in the tank is better than not swimming at all, but it's not nearly as good as swimming in the river or sea at home."
Ke-ola asked, "Can I come too?"
"You can," Johnny said, heartily clapping him on the back. "Come along, all of you."
They accompanied Johnny to the bridge, where he introduced them to each of the crew members by name, listing the person's credentials. The instrument panels surrounding the bridge were almost as intimidating as the gigantic one in their dreams, but Ro was looking at it hungrily now, and Murel could tell he was already trying to guess what each one did. Johnny sat in the command chair and asked the navigator and first officer, Commander Adrienne Robineau, to relinquish her seat beside him, and beckoned Ronan to take her place.
"Commander Robineau, would you be good enough to show Murel and Ke-ola the path our journey will be taking?" he suggested, and to Murel he added, "Next shift you and your brother will change places, but I can't be having you kids replacing more than one of my crew at a time until you've had a few more lessons."
When the commander was seated at the navigator's duty station with Murel on her right and Ke-ola on her left, Murel was pleased to see that her first lesson involved just as many instruments on the panel and stars in the cosmos as Ronan's. The viewport spread from just above the top of the panel and curved high overhead on the ship's bow. The navigation charts were available on an array of screens and scanners encompassing the shallow U-shaped panel that sloped up an arm's reach from Commander Robineau on all sides.