Spirits in the Stars Read online

  “Yes! Let’s go there now!” Dapple’s calf bounced up again. “I’m hungry!”

  A loud discussion broke out. As he listened, Ujurak spotted Toklo, Kallik, and Lusa looking down at him from the top of the cliffs.

  They’re probably wondering what’s taking so long, he thought.

  As he watched his friends, Ujurak saw some of the white bears coming up behind them. Even at that distance he picked out the huge shape of Unalaq. Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik rounded on them.

  “Stay away from the seals!” Toklo’s roar reached Ujurak down on the ice.

  Gesturing vigorously down into the cove, Lusa added something Ujurak couldn’t hear; he guessed she was telling the white bears yet again about the poison in the water.

  But the white bears clearly didn’t want to listen. Unalaq and Toklo were facing off against each other; Ujurak realized that a fight could break out at any moment.

  A pang of alarm shot through him. I have to get a move on! I wouldn’t put it past Unalaq to eat Lusa!

  Down on the ice the seals were still trying to decide what to do.

  “We have to go,” Splash urged them eagerly. “If we don’t, the poison will kill us all.”

  “And if we do go, the orca will get us,” Shade replied somberly.

  “Well, I’d rather take my chance with the orca than live near that stink anymore,” a young male declared.

  Ujurak tried to think of what more he could do to stop the seals from hesitating. I could turn into a flat-face and attack them. . . . No, too complicated. He thought of drinking the poisoned liquid himself, to prove that that was what was making them sick, but he knew that he might never recover. And it would take too long. . . .

  Somehow he had to prove to the seals that they weren’t dependent on the flat-faces. Then they would have the courage to move to a new home.

  Turning back to the seals, he felt his heart sink as he saw Shade and some of the older seals clustered around Dark.

  “I know of seals who used to live in that bay he told us about,” Shade was saying. “They were driven out by walruses!”

  “There are no walruses there now,” Ujurak assured him, hurriedly hauling himself across the ice to join the group. “It’s perfect!”

  “So you say,” an older female retorted. “I don’t want to risk it.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” Ujurak tried to force down his desperation and speak calmly. “Plus you could learn to defend yourselves against an orca attack. Or a walrus attack, if they ever came back.”

  Silver let out a scornful grunt. “And how do you suggest we do that?”

  “You could . . .” Ujurak thought rapidly. “You could swim into shallower water, where the orca couldn’t reach you. You could hide under rocks. Or—” A picture suddenly flashed into his head. “You could make a wall of seals, all thrashing and impossible to catch. Fight back against the orca, together!”

  He was encouraged to see that Dark was looking interested, his hostility gone. But Shade and the others were still shaking their heads doubtfully.

  “Why should we do that?” Shade asked. “We’re safe here because of the no-swims. The orca don’t come near us.”

  Then an idea came to Ujurak.

  “I think you ought to consider moving,” he told the seals. “I think you should have faith in your own strength. But I don’t want to argue with you anymore. It’s time for me to move on.”

  He could see that Dapple and Splash looked disappointed, but most of the seals seemed relieved, and he heard Silver mutter, “Good riddance!”

  Dark gave Ujurak a dismissive nod and waved one flipper. “Thank you for coming. We will think about your words.” But the tone he used convinced Ujurak that once he was gone, most of the seals would do their best to forget about him.

  Ujurak slid back into the breathing hole. He could feel his friends’ stares of disappointment from the cliff top when they saw that none of the seals followed him.

  With a flick of his powerful body, Ujurak headed for the mouth of the cove. He reflected how strong and graceful his seal shape was in the water, when he had felt so awkward on land. He was aware of other seals looking at him suspiciously as he swam past.

  Ignoring them, Ujurak swam out of the cove, diving deeper and deeper until the water was black around him and there were no more seals. He listened for any other signs of life, but there was nothing. Pushing away a sudden pang of desolation, he pictured an orca in his mind, making it as clear as he could: the powerful black-and-white body, the sleek shape, the jaws with their rows of spiny teeth.

  Pain rippled through him. Ujurak had only once before transformed from one creature to another without becoming a bear again in between. That was when he had changed from an orca to a tiny fish, to save himself from the vicious creatures who were attacking him.

  With danger so close, he had changed almost without thinking. Now he had time to think about how hard it was to tear his mind away from everything that made him a seal and plunge into the thoughts and being of an orca.

  Not a small hunter of fish anymore . . . a huge hunter of seals. No more fear . . . I’ll be stronger than anything in the sea!

  Ujurak gasped as the pain of his transformation suddenly intensified. His body stretched and expanded, and water churned around him as he took on the shape of the orca. Sensations rushed over him; the water was full of the smell of prey. He visualized warm, fat seals, tempting mouthfuls of fur and flesh. His jaws gaped in anticipation.

  No!

  Ujurak dragged his mind back, clinging to his knowledge of who he really was, and focused on what he had to do. As he powered through the water, back toward the seals, his senses told him that the water was tainted. He knew it was a bad place for hunting, but the instincts of the killer whale were so strong that they were overriding that knowledge. His mind drifted, his awareness slipping away and sinking into the orca’s overwhelming urge to kill and eat.

  Suddenly grunts and squeals of panic surrounded him. Bodies thrashed past him, and he realized that the seals had spotted him. Ujurak darted toward the nearest of them, all his senses screaming for food.

  No . . . I’m a bear . . . a bear. . . .

  With a massive effort Ujurak swerved away. He knew that he wasn’t there to hunt. Instead he had to scare the seals into defending themselves. But his belly was hollow with hunger, and the seals smelled so good. . . .

  Thud!

  Ujurak’s body rocked as a seal slammed into him. Then another. Then a whole line of them. His whale mind shrieked in fury, braced to fight back, wanting to teach these miserable bits of food a lesson. But his bear mind rejoiced.

  Yes! The seals are defending themselves!

  Through the blurry, stinking water Ujurak made out Dark, directing his community of seals. Sharp satisfaction shot through him as he realized the head seal was using the suggestions he had made. Splash chivvied the calves and the smaller seals into shallow water or the cover of rocks, while Dark, Silver, Dapple, and the others formed a line and hurtled toward the whale’s flank.

  They were too fast for Ujurak to turn and face them. The line of seals crashed into him with their blunt noses, and the shock of their heavy bodies made him roll in the water.

  Surrendering to his whale instincts, Ujurak recoiled and snapped at them, but the sleek seal bodies evaded his jaws and re-formed the line to attack him again. Driven back, Ujurak’s fear of the shallow water stopped him from following them.

  Water thrashed around him as the seals darted in again and again to strike his body. At last Ujurak turned, swimming away into deeper water. As the blackness closed around him, the scent of prey cleared from his nose, and he became fully aware of himself as a bear.

  Let’s hope I’ve done enough. I can’t do any more.

  Ujurak swam around the entrance to the cove and headed for some rocks. Relief flooded through him as he returned to his familiar bear shape and clambered out of the sea. Every muscle in his body was aching as he padded up the beach a
nd found a spot where he could scramble up the cliff.

  Lusa, Toklo, and Kallik were still peering over the edge, looking down at the seals. The other white bears had disappeared. His friends must have convinced them to go. As Ujurak trudged up from behind, Lusa spun around, her eyes stretching wide with surprise as she spotted him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Are you giving up? Did you get attacked by that orca?”

  “No, that was me.” Ujurak flopped down beside her, unable for the moment to answer her urgent questions.

  Kallik swung around to stare at him, almost dislodging Kissimi from her shoulder fur. “Are you crazy? Now they’ll never leave if they think there’s an orca waiting for them out at sea!”

  “Wait,” Toklo said, before Ujurak could respond. The big grizzly was still staring down into the cove. “Something’s happening.”

  Together all the bears gazed down. Ujurak saw that the seals had bunched into a tight group and were gathering at the mouth of the cove, their dark bodies circling below the ice. The seals still on the surface slipped one by one into breathing holes to join their companions. Every so often Ujurak spotted Dark popping his head up, barking at them to hurry.

  “They’re leaving!” Kallik whispered in relief.

  Ujurak could hardly believe what he was seeing. Though he was battered and exhausted from his fight, he felt that every ache was worth it. “They know now that they are brave and strong,” he murmured. “They know that they can make their own safety without relying on the no-swims.”

  Toklo let out a grunt of astonishment and gazed at Ujurak as if he thought his friend was crazy. Ujurak was too tired to explain.

  Together he and his friends stood on the cliff and watched the last seals vanish; Ujurak pictured them swimming beneath the ice until they reached their new home in the bay.

  “It will be a while before the seals are free of the poison inside their bodies,” he said, “but it will happen in time.”

  “Then the white bears will be able to hunt without getting sick.” Lusa’s voice was full of satisfaction.

  A pang of conscience shook Ujurak like a gust of icy wind. When he’d been in seal shape, and even more as an orca, he had begun to respect the seals. Was I right to send them to a place where the white bears will be able to hunt them more easily?

  But Ujurak realized that the bears would hunt the seals no matter what he did, wherever they lived; that was the way the world worked, just as the seals ate fish and the orca ate seals and bears.

  At least we’ve given them the chance to lead healthy lives.

  Ujurak gazed up at the gray sky, wondering if his mother, Ursa, was watching. It has begun, he told her silently. We are fighting back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kallik

  “So from now on the seals will be living in the bay beyond the steep gorge,” Lusa explained. “You’ll be able to hunt them safely there.”

  Aga and the other white bears were pale shapes in the twilight. Kallik watched them anxiously as Lusa finished her account of how she and her friends had managed to move the seals.

  Will they believe what Lusa is telling them?

  Aga nodded slowly as Lusa finished speaking, but Kallik saw that her eyes were wary. “This tale is strange to me,” she said at last. “But I am willing to hear the words of Tungulria.”

  “Well, I’m not!” Unalaq pushed forward to stand at the front of the crowd of bears, next to Aga. “I can’t believe they just walked in here and interfered with our hunting! We should drive them out now!”

  Kallik’s belly lurched to see the threatening look that Unalaq gave the small black bear. But Lusa faced him bravely.

  “Fine!” she snapped. “Don’t bother to thank us for saving your lives!”

  Unalaq opened his jaws for an angry retort, but Aga silenced him by raising a paw. “No bears will be driven from this island,” she announced. “Especially not when we have waited so long for Tungulria to come.”

  “But what do we need to do now?” Illa asked. Kallik could tell that the young she-bear was puzzled rather than hostile. “If we move over to the other bay, how will that help? The seals are still poisoned.”

  “That’s right,” another bear muttered in the background. “I like my den here. I don’t want to leave.”

  Kallik listened anxiously as the white bears clustered together, casting doubtful glances at Lusa. What would happen

  if they agreed with Unalaq and decided not to believe Lusa?

  “Yeah, but if the water’s poisoned here . . .” another of them began.

  “We know it’s poisoned. Haven’t you smelled that stuff? Yuck!”

  “I was really sick until I ate that moss, but I feel fine now.” That was Yakone. “I say we should trust them.”

  Kallik focused her attention on Aga. Her decision was the one that would count. Toklo and Ujurak were watching Aga closely, too, while Lusa held the ancient she-bear’s gaze without flinching.

  She knows Aga will listen to her because of the prophecy about Tungulria, thought Kallik.

  Pride in her friend’s courage coursed through Kallik, but all the while it was battling with her longing to return to Kissimi. She had hidden the cub in the shallow hole in the valley where she had placed him the first time she and her friends had gone to talk to the white bears. She knew he would be safe there, but her need to be with him was like a constant tug on her fur.

  Did my mother feel like this? Kallik asked herself. How terrible that she had to die and be separated from her cubs forever!

  “It’s not far to the new hunting ground,” Toklo began, stepping up to stand beside Lusa. “Just follow the cliffs until you get to the gorge. The bay is on the other side. Then—”

  “We know our own island, cloud-brain!” Unalaq interrupted.

  “Then you’ll need to wait a while until the seals are free of the poison,” Toklo went on. He glared at the big white bear but otherwise ignored him. “Meanwhile you should be careful to just eat seals that smell of clear water and nothing else.”

  Aga shook her head uncertainly. “How long will that take? And what are we going to eat in the meantime?”

  “You’ll have to hunt other prey,” Lusa replied. “If you like, we’ll teach you how to catch a musk ox.”

  “What?” Unalaq let out a snort of contempt. “A puny scrap of fur like you, killing a musk ox? I’d like to see that!”

  “You can see it.” Toklo took a pace forward and confronted the big white bear, showing his teeth. “I’ll lead a group of you and show you.” Dipping his head respectfully to the old she-bear, he added, “With your permission, Aga.”

  A touch on her shoulder made Kallik jump. She had been so busy thinking about Kissimi that she hadn’t noticed Yakone padding quietly up to her. Even though she was glad to see the bear with the reddish pelt, she found it hard to drag her thoughts away from her cub.

  Kallik turned to Yakone and dipped her head politely. “Hi. I’m glad you’re feeling better now that—”

  She was interrupted by a huffed complaint from Unalaq, and Aga’s sharp voice reprimanding him.

  Yakone’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Sometimes Unalaq doesn’t know when to keep quiet!”

  “At least he listens to Aga,” Kallik responded.

  The amusement faded from Yakone’s eyes, and he shook his head uncertainly. “I’m not sure how much longer Aga will be in charge,” he said. “She’s growing old and frail—frailer than any other bear on the island. Besides, she might not want to go on being leader now that the prophecy about Tungulria has been fulfilled.”

  “I don’t understand all that,” Kallik told him, a powerful sense of strangeness sweeping over her. “Has Aga really been waiting for Lusa to come?”

  Instead of answering right away, Yakone gestured with one paw, drawing Kallik away from the group of bears gathered around Aga. He led her to the crest of the hill, from where they could look down over one side of the island. The snow-covered hil
lside fell away in front of them as far as the cliff edge and the frozen surface of the poisoned cove. By now night had fallen; lights glimmered in the no-claw denning place, and stars glittered in the sky, though there was still no sign of the dancing spirits.

  “It’s weird,” Yakone murmured. “White bears have always eaten seals. It’s hard to accept that they were making us sick.” He fell silent with a sigh.

  Kallik nodded sympathetically. She remembered how her mother had taught her and Taqqiq how to crouch beside a breathing hole and wait for the seal to appear. None of them had ever dreamed that seal might not be good to eat.

  “We white bears have been getting sick for a long time now,” Yakone began again. “Ever since the pale no-claws came to the island. At first we thought the sickness was a curse from the Iqniq because we hadn’t chased the no-claws away.”

  “But chasing them away would be too hard.” Kallik touched the young male’s shoulder sympathetically with her snout. “No-claws go where they want.”

  Yakone nodded. “But then Aga had a dream,” he went on. “The Iqniq came down to the ground and told her that we had to wait for a black bear, Tungulria, who would save us.” He sighed and glanced away from Kallik, staring at his paws. “Not many of us believed her,” he confessed.

  “I can understand that. I don’t suppose any of you had ever seen a black bear before!”

  “None of us had,” Yakone agreed. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the four of you coming across the ice.” He hesitated, then added, “Has Tungulria done other special things before now?”

  Kallik stared at him, not sure how to reply. In one way their whole journey had been special. I’m traveling with black and brown bears, for a start! But she didn’t think that was the kind of answer Yakone wanted.

  “I think we’ve all come here for a reason,” she responded thoughtfully. “Moving the seals was part of it. Maybe we each have our own role to play.”