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and the vicious jaws of the orca gaping to drag Nisa down. “I’m fine … it’s just … it looks as if there might be orca down there.”
    Lusa pressed comfortingly against her side. “Look how narrow the cracks in the ice are. Even I could jump across those. We probably won’t need to swim.”
    â€œAnd if we do, we’ll deal with the orca,” Yakone promised.
    â€œYou have seen orca before, haven’t you?” Toklo broke in irritably. “They’re not that easy to deal with.”
    Without giving Yakone the chance to reply, he headed down the slope; Kallik and the others had to trail after him. Kallik remembered that the last time they had encountered orca, Ujurak had been there to help them, turning into an orca himself to drive the great whales away. He wasn’t here now, and she had probably made Toklo angry by reminding him.
    But we can’t examine every word before it comes out of our mouths just in case it upsets Toklo , she argued silently. He’ll have to accept that Ujurak isn’t coming back, just like the rest of us.
    When the bears reached the edge of the sea, Kallik was relieved to see that the ice floes were bigger, and the cracks narrower, than she had thought when she’d seen them from the ridge. Lusa was right: It would be easy to leap from one to the next. Her fears began to recede a little, though she still kept a sharp lookout for the telltale fin of an orca cutting through the waves.
    Yakone was scanning the water carefully, too. “I was hoping there might be seals, or fish,” he explained to Kallik. “But the sea seems empty.”
    Kallik shuddered. “Maybe the orca have taken all the prey.”
    â€œThis is getting to be a hungry journey,” Yakone commented.
    â€œThey all are,” Lusa grumbled.
    For once, Toklo let Kallik take the lead as they reached the shore. She listened for a moment before she set paw on the ice, studying the sounds the broken floes were making, the noise of the waves slapping around them. She chose the chunk of ice that sounded heaviest in the water, the least likely to break up again under the weight of the bears. She gathered her haunches underneath her and jumped as far from the edge of the ice as she could. It tipped and rocked beneath her, but she stayed crouched down, and she was close enough to the center to avoid sliding into the dark green water around the edges.
    â€œFollow me closely,” she called to the others. “Keep away from the edges, and stay low. The ice will move, but you should be okay.”
    She noticed that Yakone hung back and waited for Lusa and Toklo to jump first. Kallik guessed Toklo wouldn’t like feeling that the white bear was watching out for him, but he had to accept that Yakone was better suited to this part of the journey. Lusa couldn’t jump as far as Kallik, but her weight was less, so the ice rocked less disturbingly. The little black bear stayed on her belly and wriggled over to join Kallik in the middle.
    Toklo took a short run up and leaped so far that he almost flattened Lusa. The floe jerked in the water and waves slapped against the sides, but the bears huddled together and the ice quickly steadied. Finally Yakone jumped on, spreading his weight evenly among his four giant paws and only blinking when the ice lurched to one side.
    â€œThis is not going to be easy,” Lusa commented between gritted teeth.
    â€œThe ice will be more solid as we get away from the shore,” Yakone assured her. “And you’ve done great so far. Follow me to the next one.” He slid cautiously toward the edge of the floe; Kallik and Toklo shuffled back to balance his weight. There was a jerk as Yakone sprang onto the next chunk of ice, but Lusa headed determinedly after him, grunting with concentration as she jumped over the gap.
    â€œYou go next,” Kallik told Toklo, spreading her paws farther apart to steady the