Merfolk on Mars

Chapter 21

My muscles tensed up as we approached the water, although the shuttle was slowing down very smoothly. It gently splashed into the surface. The low gravity still sent massive waves rolling away from the ship.

We all got to our feet, and Isla reclaimed the stone. The boys grabbed their chainsaws and dove into the water ahead of us. Isla and I followed. A shimmer of heat gave me my tail back. I twirled around, simply relishing the feeling of water flowing over my scales.

"Why isn't the ship leaving?" Corvus asked.

"It takes a few minutes to reverse whatever magnets it's using," Isla replied. "Thankfully, Sealantis is so much smaller than Mars, so we don't need a launcher to give it enough thrust to get free of the gravitational field."

I decided to take her word for it.

We waited where we were, and it wasn't long before it started to lift away from the water. It gained speed as it returned home.

I eyed up the glowing stone in Isla's arms. "Let's get that thing back where it belongs." Especially before it decided to glitch again.

We began swimming as fast as we could to the pedestal. Beryl was lounging on the sandy seafloor but quickly headed toward us when she spotted us.

"You made it back!"

"Yep!" I told her, watching Isla put the stone back in its place.

She paused before asking me, "Why does Arai have a slinky in his hair?"

He tugged at it, but it was still firmly tangled.

I shook my head. "It's a long story. You're good at styling hair. Do you think you can get it out?"

Her ability to make her hair stay in any style she chose was almost magical. Although, I wasn't sure if she had ever encountered a knot before. It wasn't something we usually had to worry about. Although, judging by how a few strands of hair were already floating free, the salt water might be undoing the unintentional magical knot now that the stone was back in the water.

"I can try," she replied doubtfully. She swam over and began trying to untangle the metal from Arai's hair.

"Did anyone come looking for us?" I asked her.

"A couple of people, but I distracted them so well that they immediately left!"

"Good job! How did you do it?" The best way to praise her would be to ask for the fine details and compliment her choices. If she happened to get excited and tugged on Arai's hair a few times, it didn't really bother me.

"Oh, it was simple! I told them that you were practising your singing over here!"

I closed my eyes and counted to five. "Oh."

"It worked really well! They all decided to go somewhere else!"

"I bet..."

She frowned at the slinky. "This is worse than one of those IQ puzzle toys. Can I use his chainsaw to cut it?"

"Uh, that may not be a good idea." The chainsaw was possibly heavier than she was – I doubted she could even swim with it. "I think we'll go return these weapons and use one of the coral trimmers to cut through the coils."

"The fewer questions, the better," Arai muttered. "If any adult sees us with these chainsaws, they'll immediately make us cut down more kelp."

Considering the slinky was still in his hair, the adults would probably assume we were playing some sort of game. Then probably put us to work, slinky or no slinky.