Fire in the Sky (17 page)

They stopped a few bearlengths from
the pelt-den, near a flat area surrounded by tall chunks of ice. Ujurak could see flat-faces coming in and out of the pelt-den in a busy, urgent-looking way. Toklo nudged him and Kallik behind one of the large chunks of ice, out of sight of the flat-faces.

“Good luck,” Kallik said, nosing Ujurak’s side. “I know you can do it.”

“We’ll be ready to come in if you don’t,” Toklo added in his usual reassuring way.

Ujurak nodded. He was too anxious to talk. He was frightened that this would be the last time he looked down at thick brown paws—the last time he sniffed the wind with a brown bear’s nose. But he had to be brave. He had to believe that his mother would be watching and protecting him.

He took a deep breath and thought about flat-faces. He knew he needed to look older than he had the last time. None of the flat-faces here were young cubs, and he didn’t want to be sent away before he could do anything. He felt his body
thinning and his fur shrinking back into his skin. Pale fingers appeared in place of his paws and bare toes replaced his paw-pads on the snow. He stopped being able to feel his hands and feet almost immediately. It was
freezing
out here. He’d forgotten about that part. If he didn’t hurry, he’d freeze to death, but on the other hand, he couldn’t exactly walk into the tent without a pelt on.

Rubbing his arms, Ujurak stared around, dancing on the snow to keep his feet out of it as much as possible. He barely noted the two bears watching him in astonishment. He spotted an empty snow vehicle not far away. Glancing over at the tent to make sure no one could see him, Ujurak darted over to the truck and jumped inside. To his relief, not only were the doors unlocked, but there were bundles of stuff in the back, including a few bags of clothes.

He pulled out a pair of thick gray wool trousers, a dark green work shirt, a warm black coat, thick brown socks, and a pair of solid brown boots. Everything was a little too big for him, which worried him. Was he old enough to fit in here?

Old enough to…what?
He stopped for a moment, thinking. What was he doing? Why was he here? He glanced out the window of the vehicle and saw the large tent set up on the snow. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he needed to get in there. His gaze traveled on to the giant tower in the water. He knew it was an oil rig, and he could tell from the smell and the look of the water that there must have been an accident, and that oil had spilled into the sea.

Is that why I’m here?
Something about the oil rig made his
skin crawl. He instinctively wanted to get as far away from it as possible. That didn’t seem like a normal human way to feel. He had a strange memory of oil clinging to him, coating his fur, but that didn’t make any sense. For one thing, he didn’t have fur.

Puzzled, Ujurak climbed out of the truck and headed toward the tent. He felt much warmer now; the clothes protected him comfortably from the freezing wind. Other people hurried by without really looking at him, dashing to their snowmobiles or carrying cages into the tent. He huddled into the coat, hoping none of them would recognize the clothes he had borrowed.

He hesitated for a moment outside the entrance, then pushed back the flap and ducked inside. A wave of warmth and animal smells hit him, and he stood for a moment, feeling overwhelmed. The tent was full of cages, from one wall to the other, all of them occupied by sick-looking seals or birds, the occasional walrus, and a bear or two. People in green jackets were bent over tables, cleaning oil from feathers and fur and murmuring to one another.

Something jolted inside him as he glanced at the nearest bear. It was huge and white, although streaked with oil stains through its matted fur. It looked old and feeble, and he felt a gnawing sense of pity that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his heart, as if he could identify with the sad old bear.

Because I can,
he thought.
I’ve been a bear. And a seal. And a bird. I’ve been all of these animals.
His head felt muddled, but certain
memories stood out clearly. The smell of the oil brought back some truly horrible ones.

Before he could look around any further, a tall man with dark skin and curly black hair strode up to him, frowning.

“Who are you?” the man asked, stepping between Ujurak and the cages. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I—uh—I’m, I’m Ujurak,” Ujurak stammered. He thought quickly. “My dad works on the oil rig.”

The strange man frowned even more. “Was he one of the ones out here yelling at us the other day? Telling us their job is more important than saving these animals here? Because if he sent you to convince us to let that other icebreaker ship through here, you can tell him it’s not going to happen.”

“Um,” Ujurak said, confused. “No, he didn’t—I mean, we feel bad about the spill. I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.” He glanced around at the oil-splattered wildlife. “It’s all so horrible.”

His voice broke, and the man’s face softened. “Look, kid, we don’t need any trouble.”

“I won’t be trouble!” Ujurak promised. “My dad won’t mind that I’m here. Truly. There must be something I can do. I’m good with animals.”

The tall man rubbed his chin for a moment, studying Ujurak. “All right,” he said at last. “My name’s Craig. I’m second in command of the international response team, here to help clean up after the oil spills.” He snorted in a way that reminded Ujurak of someone. “It’d be a lot more useful if we could stop the spills
before
they happened, of course, but
no one listens when you tell them that drilling up here isn’t worth it.” He flung out a hand toward a seabird lying miserably in a nearby cage.

“Nobody cares about the gulls and the seals and the polar bears. No matter how many pictures we take or how many reporters we call. By this point, they’re like, ‘Oh, another oil spill, boring. Call us when a celebrity gets drenched in oil,
then
maybe we’ll be interested.’” Craig saw the baffled look on Ujurak’s face and shook his head. “Sorry. This kind of thing gets me really worked up.”

Ujurak couldn’t believe it. Someone who felt the way he did about the oil! “It’s not just birds and seals, either,” he said. He had a vague memory of swimming through dark water that tasted like poison and an enormous beast nearly running him down as it churned through the water. “The beluga whales are really suffering, too. There’s nothing for them to eat and the pollution in the water is making them sick.”

Craig ran one hand through his hair. “Been doing your research, have you?” he said. “What else do you know about the whales?”

“Some of them have been killed by the—” Ujurak hunted for the right word. “Poisonbeast” popped into his head, but he had a feeling that wasn’t the right thing to say here. “The large vehicles that swim,” he finished lamely. “Underwater?”

“Submarines?” Craig asked. Ujurak nodded. That sounded right to him. Craig cracked a smile. “Fancy meeting a sixteen-year-old who doesn’t know what a submarine is,” he said. “Where’ve you been hiding, under a rock?”

Maybe
, Ujurak thought. “This is not my first language,” he explained. Technically that was true. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be, but he knew he’d been something else before he was a human.

“Ah,” Craig said, nodding. “Well, it doesn’t surprise me that the submarines have killed some whales, although they always say they’ll be real careful about their routes and everything.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet, looking troubled.

“It all seems so obvious to us,” he said. “Of course when you disrupt the environment like this, the animals are going to suffer. When you fill the water with poison, everything dies. And we’re all connected, so we shouldn’t think we’re safe just because we don’t live in the Arctic. It starts with the gulls and the whales, but then—”

“Oh my gosh, Craig, did you really find someone who hasn’t heard all your speeches yet?” A cheerful-looking girl bounced up behind Craig and grinned at Ujurak. “Escape while you can,” she said with a wink. “He’ll go on like this for days. Even here, where we obviously all agree with him.”

Escape.
Something about that word caught Ujurak’s attention. That’s what he was here for. Something about escaping.

Craig returned the girl’s grin fondly. “I don’t know what you have to be so cheerful about,” he said. “It’s your future we’re mucking up.”

“No, we’re
fixing
it,” she said, whapping him on the arm. “Look at all these animals we’re helping! We’re making a difference!”

Craig rolled his eyes. “Ujurak, this is Sally. Our perpetual optimist.”

Sally held out her hand and Ujurak shook it tentatively. She had shoulder-length dark hair and laughing dark eyes, and she looked about the same age that Ujurak was in this form. Her smile was wide and friendly, and she laughed easily. She reminded him very strongly of someone—someone close to him—but he couldn’t think who. He couldn’t remember anyone he knew at all.

“Why don’t I show you around?” Sally suggested. “Save you from Craig’s sermons, give you something to do?”

“Okay,” Ujurak said.

Craig laughed. “Guess I can’t compete with that. Just be careful, you two. These are still wild animals, however helpless they might seem right now.” He clapped Ujurak on the shoulder. “And thanks for coming. We appreciate all the help we can get.” Craig lifted the flap and ducked out of the tent. Ujurak heard him calling to someone outside.

“So you probably saw the smaller tents outside.” Sally started talking as soon as Craig was gone. “That’s where we sleep, or at least, take turns sleeping—we’ve been so busy in here, we can’t take much of a break. All these animals need to be cleaned and fed and tranquilized again, plus of course we’re still figuring out where to take all of them once they’re healthy enough to be released back into the wild.”

“You’re going to release them into the wild?” Ujurak asked, surprised. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d thought the humans were going to keep the animals locked up forever.

Sally gave him a funny look. “Of course. What else would we do with a bunch of seagulls and walruses?”

“Um,” Ujurak said. “I don’t know.”

She took his arm and tugged him forward, pointing to a seal in one of the cages. It looked up at them with large, limpid black eyes. Oil clung to its gray flippers and long whiskers. “Look at that poor thing,” she said. “She was just swimming along, minding her own business, when a bunch of oil got dumped on top of her. You should have seen her when they brought her in! She was slick with oil from head to tail. It’s amazing she could breathe at all. She wouldn’t have survived if we hadn’t put her straight into some warm water and cleaned her off. We still have some work to do, but she’s looking much better now.”

Sally crouched and pulled a silver bowl out of the bottom of the seal’s cage. “Want to feed her?” she offered. “It’s easy.”

“Sure,” Ujurak said, feeling a little more confident. Sally acted as if it was absolutely natural for him to be here, and it made him feel as though he could actually help. She showed him where they kept a cooler of dead fish on ice for the seals. He took one between his fingers and dropped it through the bars of the cage into the seal’s mouth. She swallowed it and made a low barking noise.

“Aw, she said, ‘Thank you!’” Sally said, beaming.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure she said, ‘Another! At once!’” Ujurak explained.

Sally started laughing. “That’s hilarious!”

Ujurak took another fish and fed it to the seal, trying to hide
his expression. He wasn’t used to being called funny—especially when he hadn’t meant to be. He’d actually understood the seal’s language, and that’s what she had said.

“Oh, let me show you the weirdest one we found!” Sally said, pulling his elbow to steer him around. She guided him past the large polar bear and pointed to a smaller cage a few feet away, closer to the center of the tent. “Check it out. That’s a
black
bear!”

Ujurak looked at the small black cub curled up inside the cage, and his heart nearly stopped. He
knew
her.

It was Lusa!

That was who Sally reminded him of, he realized. She had the same bright, happy spirit as Lusa. His memories came flooding back. He was a bear—a brown bear. He was here to free Lusa. Toklo and Kallik were waiting outside. That’s what he was here for. And his mother was somewhere above, watching over him.
Hang on to that
, he reminded himself.

He remembered the last time he was a flat-face, and how much smaller he had been. He felt more confident now, more comfortable inside his human skin. He wondered if that was because he was in the shape of an older flat-face this time, or if it was because he could remember some of the things he’d learned before.

Lusa stared at him through the bars, her eyes bright and startled. He wondered if she recognized him. He stepped toward her, thinking he should say something to her in bear language and let her know who he was and that she was safe now.

“Hey!” Sally said. She caught his sleeve and yanked him back. “Don’t get too close! You heard what Craig said. She’s a wild bear. I mean, I know she’s wicked cute, but she could still be dangerous.”

So could I,
Ujurak thought.
I’m a wild bear, too
.

“Sorry,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Sally said, smiling again. “I’m a little bit in love with her myself. Isn’t she the cutest? We totally thought she was a polar bear when she came in all covered in oil. That’s until we started scrubbing, and her fur stayed black! We have
no idea
what a black bear is doing out here on the ice. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense at all. The poor baby must be so hungry and confused.”

“Can I feed her, too?” Ujurak asked.

To his disappointment, Sally shook her head. “No, only Tara and Erica are allowed to handle or feed her. They know what they’re doing. We can work with the animals that are less likely to claw our faces off.”

Indignant, Ujurak nearly said, “Lusa wouldn’t do that!” But he caught himself just in time, and nodded instead. “Okay.” He’d have to find another way to get close to her.