Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

anxiously. “He was here, and suddenly he wasn’t. How can a huge orca vanish like that?” She hesitated, then went on in a rush. “Suppose he’s dead; then how will we know which way to go?”
    “He’s not dead!” Toklo growled obstinately.
    Lusa’s voice rose to a wail. “Then tell me where he is! Ujurak! Ujurak!” Her voice rang out across the ice, but there was no response. “He’s not coming back,” she choked out at last. “What are we going to do?”
    The numbness of grief crept up on Kallik as she realized that Lusa could be right, but she fought to hide it from her friends. Still, she couldn’t make her paws move; continuing their journey would be to accept that Ujurak was dead. And what will he do if he comes back and finds we’ve left him alone on the ice?
    She cast a glance at the channel, to see the orca finally giving up their search and beginning to glide away. At the same moment she heard a splash from the opposite direction, followed by huffing and puffing breath.
    Sudden hope pierced Kallik, sharp as a shard of ice. Turning, she saw Ujurak a few bearlengths farther down the channel, pulling himself out of the water in his bear shape.
    “Ujurak!” Lusa squealed, bouncing toward him. “You’re okay! Where did you go?”
    Ujurak plodded up to his friends, water streaming from his pelt. “When the orca attacked, I turned myself into a tiny little fish,” he explained. “I swam down into the dark water and hid under the ice until the orca left.”
    “That’s so clever!” Lusa marveled.
    Ujurak let out a huff of satisfaction and flopped down on the ice beside Toklo, who pushed his snout briefly into his friend’s shoulder fur. “Thanks,” Toklo muttered. “Those stinking whales would have finished me off without you.”
    “You’re welcome,” Ujurak murmured.
    He sounded exhausted after his battle, and Kallik realized that he couldn’t go any farther until he had rested. Besides, the short day was drawing to an end, the sun going down behind a bank of clouds in a murky red glow.
    “Let’s make a den for the night,” she suggested. “We can go on in the morning.”
    None of the others argued with her. They were exhausted, cold, and hungry, and it was all they could do to scrape out a rough den in a nearby snowbank and curl up together in a mass of wet fur.
    Kallik felt herself drifting in darkness, unbroken except for the shining shape of Silaluk stretched out above her, paws reaching toward her in welcome. Kallik drew in a breath of wonder, feeling that she could gaze at the vision forever.
    “Don’t give up,” the star-bear said, speaking in the voice of Kallik’s mother. “You were very brave today. Do you understand now why I would never have left you in the water? You wanted to save Toklo; I wanted to save you.”
    Kallik blinked, confused but feeling warm and safe. Is she Silaluk or Nisa? she asked herself. And does it matter?
    “I understand,” she murmured, reaching up to touch noses with the huge starry bear. “Thank you.”

Chapter Four
    Lusa
    As soon as Lusa curled up in the den, she closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. Instead the events of the day repeated themselves endlessly in her mind. She thought she would never forget the terror of swimming away from the orca, her struggles to pull herself onto the ice, and her gratitude and relief when Kallik boosted her up. She remembered her bewilderment when Ujurak vanished, and her joy when he reappeared in his familiar bear shape.
    At last Lusa sank into sleep, but even then she couldn’t rest. She thought she was thrashing in dark, icy water, banging her head against an endless roof of ice. Huge shapes swarmed around her; she caught the flash of cold eyes and spiny-toothed mouths gaping to tear her flesh. Her senses started to spiral away in terror.
    Help me! Someone help me!
    Then Lusa felt something nudging her from behind, propelling her through the water. A moment later she broke out into open air.