“I feel dizzy,” Ujurak wheezed. “The poison—”
She peered at him closely. “You probably just need air. How long has it been since you breathed?”
He realized she was right and felt foolish. The poisonbeast had frightened him so much, he’d forgotten about needing to surface to breathe.
“Come on,” she said, swimming up toward the light that shone dimly far over their heads. Ujurak followed her, happy to leave the poisoned water and distant thrumming.
“Uglu! Uglu!” Ujurak heard clicking and squeaking up ahead. It sounded like a crowd of beluga whales, all of them calling the same name. “Uglu!”
The female put on a burst of speed and led him up through the water, breaking the surface at a breathing hole in the ice. This one was much larger than the holes the seals used, and there was a whole pod of whales resting in it. Endless stretches of ice glittered around the hole, curving into tall frozen shapes and covered in a light dusting of snow. The sparkly, hard-edged, nearly blue whiteness was striking against the soft, squeaky, gray whiteness of the whales.
Ujurak blew out a spout of water and took a breath of cold air. He saw an old, painfully thin whale flopped halfway onto a floating chunk of ice, basking in the last rays of the sunset, and he realized that it was nearly nightfall. The silvery moon was already sneaking over the edge of the sky. He had a strange feeling he was supposed to be somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where.
“He was all alone!” his new friend was telling the other whales in squeaks and whistles. “The poisonbeast was about to attack him! But I saved him. He didn’t even know about them.”
“Wow,” said one of the younger whales. “You’re a hero, Uglu!”
Uglu flicked her tail. “I’d better get back down there. Pukak might need my help, too.” She took a deep breath, nodded good-bye to Ujurak, and dove back into the ocean.
Ujurak saw a pair of older whales exchange mournful glances. Several whales crowded around him, clicking and whistling curiously. Three young whales that had been spitting water at one another stopped playing and hurried over to prod and peer at him. He was surprised to find he liked their playful poking; it felt friendly and comforting instead of intrusive.
“Were you really that close to a poisonbeast?” one of them asked. “Wasn’t it so scary?”
“Oh, yes,” Ujurak replied. “They’re horrible.”
“Where are you from?” a male beluga squeaked nosily. “What’s the hunting like where you’ve been swimming?”
“Where’s the rest of your pod?” a young female chimed in.
“I…I’m not sure,” Ujurak stammered, trying to think. He couldn’t remember anything before the poisonbeast. Would the whales believe him if he told them that?
“I’ve come a long way,” he said finally. “I let a current bring me here, because the hunting was not so great where I was…uh, before.”
“Well, it’s not much better here!” said the same male. “You’d probably be better off going back there!”
“Oh, don’t be rude,” said one of the older whales, nudging the young male aside. “Let the poor thing rest. You can pester him with your questions later, if he’ll let you.”
“Whatever,” said the young beluga, splashing Ujurak with his tail as he swam away. The others drifted away as well, whispering to one another and peeking at him curiously over their tails.
“Don’t mind the young ’uns,” said the old whale. “Their world is different from the one I grew up in. I’m Kassuk, by the way.”
“I’m Ujurak,” answered Ujurak, grateful to be spared any more awkward questions. “Why did Uglu leave so quickly?”
Kassuk sighed. “Poor Uglu. She lost her calf, Pukak, not very long ago. He went out hunting and never came back, and now she goes out every day searching for him.” The old whale stirred the water with one of his flippers, looking sad. “We all know he must be dead by now. A young whale like him would never have survived on his own. He probably strayed too far into poisonbeast territory and one of them killed him. But Uglu won’t accept it. She doesn’t even hear us when we try to talk to her about it. She just keeps searching.”
“Pukak,” Ujurak echoed. “That’s what she called me when she first saw me.” He was hit by a wave of grief for the mother endlessly searching for her lost calf.
“She’ll be back soon to sleep,” Kassuk assured him. “You can stay with us for the night if you want, and search for your own pod in the morning. Or if you need to, you can stay with us. You don’t look like you’d cause much trouble.” He flicked a small spray of water at Ujurak in a friendly way.
“Thank you,” Ujurak said. “I’d appreciate that.” He didn’t know where else he could go to sleep, and he felt safe here, surrounded by so many other whales.
In the glow of the moonlight, Ujurak saw Uglu come swimming up from the depths to join them. Her small round eyes were unreadable in the silvery light; she didn’t look as if she’d found anything to give her hope, but she didn’t look grief-stricken, either. Did she really believe her calf was still alive, somewhere in the distant black water?
The pod gathered into a close knot, huddled together on the surface of the water. Soon most of the whales were asleep. Ujurak stayed awake for a while longer, trying to pull something from his memory. The poisonbeast and the rock-eating creature had frightened him, but he felt as if there was something more he knew about them, if he could only dig it out of his mind.
Before he could, however, he felt his thoughts drift into calmness with the lapping waves, and soon he was asleep, too.
The next morning, Kassuk and a few of the young whales took Ujurak hunting with them. He felt bubbles of joy rising in his chest as he helped them herd schools of silvery fish together. When there were so many fish trapped in one place by the other whales, it was easy to swoop in and catch at least a few of them in his mouth. Still, he could see why the pod was worried. It was difficult to find a school with enough fish for all of them, and several had that dull, sickly sheen he’d noticed in the ones near the rock-eating beast.
He asked Kassuk about it once they were back at the breathing hole, letting the early slanting sun soak into their pale skin. “Is it this hard to hunt everywhere?”
Kassuk sighed. “It is now. It wasn’t like this when I was a calf. You couldn’t move for fish then. Some of the whales think we will run out of food altogether soon. There’s a sickness in the water, thanks to the landwalkers.”
“No!” Ujurak cried, starting to panic. He twisted his body, sending a wave of water cascading onto the ice beside them. “There must be something we can do!” He had to stop these landwalkers, whatever they were; they had put his friends, his pod, his whole kind in danger! He had to save the water and the whales and everything that lived out here.
But how? There must be a way; he had known about it ever since he first dove into this water—whenever that was. How many seasons had he been here? He shook his head, trying to remember. There was someone to help him…wasn’t there? He had a feeling that he wasn’t alone, but that didn’t make sense. There weren’t any other belugas with him when the female found him. And even if he did have friends somewhere, what could they do against all the flat-faces and firebeasts and poisonbeasts and oil-sucking things in the world?
Kassuk gave him a confused look. “What do you mean, ‘do’?”
“We can’t change the tides,” put in another whale. “The sickness is like the currents—it just is. Whales will learn to live with it.”
“Or die,” an old male said gloomily.
But I’m not a whale, Ujurak thought suddenly. A shiver of realization ran through his skin. He wasn’t a whale; he hadn’t swum here from a far-distant pod. All he could remember was that he should have fur and claws….
I’m a BEAR!
Maybe whales couldn’t do anything…but maybe bears could.
His flesh prickled as if fur might come bursting out of it at any moment. He needed to be back with his friends.
His friends. Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik appeared in his mind like a bolt of lightning. He’d forgotten about them again!
“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Ujurak said to Kassuk, ducking away. “I left someone—they’re waiting for me. I’m sorry.” The old whale nodded, looking surprised, and Ujurak dove into the sea again, beating his tail to swim faster.
The dark cold water closed around him, and he tried to think of nothing but bears. Don’t let me forget again. I have to get back to them before I forget…while I still know that I’m a bear. He wished he could swim even faster. How long had he been gone? He couldn’t keep changing shape like this. One day he’d forget altogether, and end up trapped in some other animal’s body.
I’m a bear! he roared inside his mind. I won’t forget…. I won’t forget…. I won’t forget….
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lusa
“Wake up!”
Lusa covered her nose with her paws and groaned.
“Lusa! Wake up! Come on!” Toklo prodded her again. Through her half-open eyes, Lusa could see light through the walls of the snow cave, so she must have slept through the night. But it didn’t feel like long enough. She was still so tired.
“Lusa, please!” Toklo barked. “I’ve been trying to wake you for ages. Ujurak is back!”
“Oh,” Lusa said, struggling to open her eyes all the way. She tried to sit up and nearly fell over. Her paws felt like heavy useless fish at the ends of her legs. “Is he all right?”
Just then Ujurak came bundling into the cave with Kallik right behind him, shoving him inside. His fur was soaking wet and he was shivering, and his eyes looked strangely unfocused, as if he were watching something inside himself instead of seeing his friends.
Kallik and Toklo crowded around Ujurak, ushering him into the center of the cave next to Lusa and curling beside him to warm him up. With a grateful sigh, Lusa lay back down and rested her head on her paws. Even Ujurak’s cold, wet side pressed against hers didn’t make her feel more awake.
“Where did you go?” Kallik prompted. “You were gone for so long!”
Ujurak stared down at his paws. “I was with a pod of other whales. I mean…a pod of whales. Not like me. Not bears.” He sounded almost as tired as Lusa felt.
“Did you see any seals down there?” Toklo asked. “Are there any breathing holes close by?”
“What was it like under the ice?” Kallik pressed, her eyes filled with curiosity. “Were you scared? You didn’t see any orcas, did you?”
“Did you like being a whale?” Lusa murmured through a yawn.
“It must be great to be able to swim so far,” Kallik said wistfully. “And to stay underwater for that long…I bet you saw all kinds of things bears never get to see!”
Ujurak shifted on his paws. “I prefer being a bear,” he said.
As the others kept pestering him, Lusa let herself start to drift off again. It was so cozy in here…so warm, and comfortable, and she was so tired….
“LUSA!” Toklo shouted.
Lusa jumped awake. Her friends were gone, and she was alone in the cave, except for Toklo’s grumpy face poking back in through the entrance.
“What is the matter with you?” he growled. “Come on, the sun will wake you up. Get out here.”
With a huge sigh, Lusa struggled to her paws and followed him out of the cave. She was surprised at how far up the sun was in the sky—it was at least halfway to its highest point. They must have stayed in the cave to warm Ujurak up for a while, although Lusa had slept through it all. She swung her head around to look for the small brown bear and saw him standing not too far from the crack in the ice. His head was bowed, and for a moment she worried that he might dive back into the dark water.
“He won’t say if he saw any seals,” Toklo grumbled. “Or if there are any we could hunt around here. Absolutely useless.”
“That’s all right,” Kallik said, sniffing the air. “I smell prey!” She nodded toward the sun.
“Come on, Ujurak!” Toklo called. “We’re not going to get wherever you want us to go by standing around and staring into the water.”
Lusa chuffed with laughter, but Ujurak just blinked, then turned and shambled up beside them. His paws crunched on the ice, and the shadows of the snow piles around them rippled across his brown fur.
“Cheer up, whale-brain,” Toklo said, nudging Ujurak’s side.
“Whales have perfectly good brains,” Ujurak retorted. He shook his head. “I mean, not as good as bear brains, of course.”
“Well, of course!” Toklo said. He sprang after Kallik, who was already trotting up a long snowy slope in the direction of the prey scent. Ujurak and Lusa followed more slowly after them.
The bright sun warmed Lusa’s fur and did make her feel a little better, although she could tell that she’d still be able to fall asleep in a heartbeat if she had the chance. Her paws churned through the snow as she tried to keep up with the others. In the lead, Kallik kept padding faster and faster, as if she knew for certain there was something ahead of them. Lusa couldn’t smell anything, but she was concentrating too much on staying awake to argue.
Toklo’s question echoed in her mind as snow and ice crunched underpaw. Was there something wrong with her? All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep. She’d never felt like this before, not even when they were traveling much farther every day, through the mountains and across vast plains where the grass rippled like water.
She couldn’t tell the others. If she was sick, it would ruin their whole quest. But how could she save the wild when she could barely put one paw in front of the other? Lusa gritted her teeth. She would keep going, no matter what. She’d come all this way; she wasn’t going to let a little sleepiness stop her now. She’d just keep walking and hope that her friends didn’t notice.
Immediately in front of her, Toklo was moving much slower than the day before, checking the ice every few steps to make sure it was firm underneath him. He seemed less interested in taking the lead today, although Lusa was sure that if Kallik didn’t find prey soon, that would change.
The sun slid slowly down the sky, casting longer and longer shadows across the snowy landscape. Lusa watched a few clouds amble from one edge of the sky to another. Her paws began to ache, and her eyes itched from the brightness of the sunshine on the snow. They’d been walking for ages. Lusa found it hard to imagine that Kallik had really smelled something this far away. Her stomach growled sadly. She’d so wanted her friend to be right this time.
“Here!” Kallik suddenly called from up ahead. “Look what I found!”
Lusa dug her paws in and sprinted over a small hill of snow. She slid down the other side and nearly crashed into Ujurak, who was standing with his head raised, staring at the edge of the sky where bright blue met shimmering white ice.
Next to Kallik’s paws was a breathing hole…and lying beside it was the half-eaten carcass of a seal!
Lusa gasped. “Kallik, that’s amazing!” She turned to look back at where they’d come. The cave where they’d slept was skylengths away now. “How did you smell it from all that way?”
Kallik shrugged and scraped her claws across the ice. “It’s a lot easier out here where the ice doesn’t muddle up my nose the way earth and trees and plants do,” she said.
“That is really impressive,” Ujurak said admiringly.
Toklo just grunted. He lowered his head to sniff the carcass, then turned to look around suspiciously. “This smells like another white bear,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” Lusa said, casting a nervous glance at the hill behind them. “Some bear must have left it here. What if it comes back?”
“Are we invading their territory?” Toklo asked. His brown fur bristled across his back. “Not that I’m afraid of fighting another bear for food! I say it’s their loss! It’s just…uh…white bears can get very…big.”
“There are no territories on the ice,” Kallik said, tilting her head at him in a puzzled way. “Everyone takes what food
they can get. Sometimes it means frightening away a smaller bear, if that’s what you have to do—when I was on the ice with Nisa and Taqqiq, we were scared away from food more than once!”
“Makes sense to me,” Toklo agreed. “If a bear was silly enough to leave food out in the open, they’d better expect someone to take it.”
Lusa’s ears pricked with alarm. She remembered the size of the white bears at Great Bear Lake. One of those might come along and chase them off at any moment? She didn’t like the sound of that! She was much smaller than any of those bears. She’d probably make just as good a meal for one of them as the seal lying on the ice in front of her.
“Well, let’s not wait for whoever caught this to come back,” Kallik decided. She bent down and tore off a piece of flesh. “Try it!”
They all crouched and began to dig in, although Lusa kept an eye out for angry white bears who might be returning for their prey.
“It’s good!” Toklo said, sounding surprised. “Fattier and greasier than a rabbit or a squirrel, but that’s all right by me. It tastes kind of like fish and kind of like meat at the same time. Doesn’t it, Ujurak?”
Ujurak nodded as if he wasn’t really listening. His jaws worked as he chewed. “We’re lucky Kallik found it,” he mumbled around a mouthful. Lusa wondered if he was trying to remind Toklo of how much they needed the white bear’s guidance out here.
She picked at the chunk of flesh she’d ripped off. She was excited about finally having food, but the rich, fishy smell was overpoweringly strong. When she bit into it, the dense, chewy fat nearly made her gag. It felt like eating heavy, fish-smelling slugs, all slimy and fatty in her mouth. She wished she could have fresh berries or grubs instead, but of course that was impossible out here. And she had to eat, or she would starve.
“Don’t you like it?” Kallik fretted. “Just imagine it’s a plump rabbit.”
Lusa bit off another mouthful. “Mmm,” she said, pretending to savor it. “You’re right, it’s just like rabbit. Um, only better!”