Search Worlds Without End

It was a world of ice and snow - a planet that just supported life and that had been terraformed from frozen uninhabitable rock.The people of Petaybee were hardy, self-reliant, friendly - and also very secretive.

Major Yana Maddock, medically discharged from the service, was shipped to Petaybee in the hope that her burnt-out lungs might just recover in the icy air.And at the last moment, she was given a special commission.Unauthorized life-forms had been seen on the planet and, more seriously, geologic survey teams had vanished into nowhere, the odd survivor being discovered abandoned and insane.It was Yana's task to infiltrate Petaybee society and find out who - or what - was causing the eerie events on the planet.

She discovered a primitive ice-bound community of extraordinary people - people who possessed some mysterious quality of surviving - and people who Yana discovered she both liked and revered as she found herself becoming one of them.

The miraculous and mysterious world of Petaybee was to be investigated. No-one - no-one outside Petaybee, that is - could believe that the planet was a living, breathing sentient entity, that every plant and animal was in symbiotic communication with the spirit of the Petaybean world. Matthew Luzon was one of the investigators, an arrogant, wily, manipulative man who didn't believe there was anything in the universe that couldn't be controlled by hard scientific methods. His plan was to crush Petaybee, strip it of its mineral assets, and subdue or destroy the inhabitants.

Major Yanaba Maddock - who had been sent to Petaybee to die, but who now understood its secretive curative powers - with the help of Sean Shongili, Clodagh, and all the gifted ones of Kilcoole, was determined to fight for their world.

It was a battle in which every human, every plant, and every secretive telepathic creature - most especially the famous orange felines of Petaybee - was to be put at risk. Luzon was determined to destroy them - whatever the cost.

At last the living, breathing, sentient world of Petaybee was about to become a recognized and independent planet. Colonel Yana Maddock, now married to Sean Shongili, was bidden to the meeting on Gal Three to give testimony and discuss the future of the miracle snow and ice world where every human, animal, and plant lived in harmony with the entity that was Petaybee itself.

But their arch-enemy, Matthew Luzon, who had been humiliated and nearly destroyed when Petaybee took her revenge on him, had still not given up his designs on the rich, varied, and unusual world. He was determined to destroy its chances of autonomy.

And so Petaybee found itself swamped with visitors, hunters eager to kill the wildlife, merchants and scientists ready to strip the land, and religious malcontents wanting to 'talk' to the planet. And then Yana - pregnant with her first child - was kidnapped by the infamous and enigmatic pirate, Onidi Louchard - and Yana's ransom was to be the world of Petaybee itself.

Power Play is the third in the sequence of novels about the world of Petaybee, the first two volumes being Powers That Be and Power Lines.

In Powers That Be, Power Lines and Power Play bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee. In Changelings, the first of a new series of novels, they return to Petaybee. Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili are the twin son and daughter of Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili. Born on Petyabee, their destiny is deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet's creatures - such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.

But the twins' bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes how curious Ronan and Murel are to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent - and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.

Meanwhile Petaybee is changing - and much faster than an ordinary planet's natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries - and the potential for disaster.

The Shongili twins, Ronan and Murel, accompany their friend Marmie on her luxury space craft Piaf to rescue their friend Ke-ola's family from an uninhabitable planet. They arrive to find the planet in the midst of a terrible meteor storm and when they go down to the surface find that the survivors have taken refuge under ground. Ronan and Murel change into seal form and find the survivors and their totem animals or aumakua, the giant turtles, or Honu, and the sharks.

Back on Petaybee the twins, in their seal form, escort the Honus to their new home in the middle of the ocean. They also want to warn the otters and seals about the sharks. It is a long journey and Murel falls asleep and gets separated from the rest. She is surrounded by a pod of Orcas who, thinking she is a normal seal, try to eat her. Before they can do so she is caught up in a whirlpool caused by the volcanic activity in the area, as is Ronan, who had swum back to try to rescue her.

They are rescued from the whirlpool by the mysterious deep sea otters and taken into their shielded city on the ocean floor. While their leader, Kushtaka, is talking to them her son Jeel sees the sharks and goes to inspect them, Murel races after him but is too late and Jeel is killed.

Meanwhile Marmie and her crew are arrested on trumped up charges of kidnapping Ke-ola's family and taken to Gwinnett Incarceration Colony, along with most of the survivors they rescued.

When Murel and Ronan return to their family and discover that Marmie has been arrested and the Piaf impounded they realize they need to get off the planet and go to her rescue. While staying with Kushtaka they were told that the deep sea otters were not just otters but beings from outer space who had hidden in the depths of Petaybee's oceans for years. Now that they have been discovered they plan to leave, the twins persuade Kushtaka to take them with her and to help them rescue Marmie.

In Deluge the selkie twins, Ronan and Murel, leave Petaybee on a mission to help rescue their friend Marmie, who has been falsely arrested on the orders of a corrupt Colonel. However, the Colonel has more power in the Company than they realized and they end up being imprisoned themselves and taken to the Gwinnet Incarceration Colony. There they have to try to evade the clutches of their old adversary Dr Mabu, an unscrupulous scientist who wants to study their unusual shape-changing ability, and doesn't care how much pain her experiments cause them.

Meanwhile, the powerful and avaricious Company is making another attempt to take over the world of Petaybee for its resources, and the twins parents, Yana and Sean, along with the entire planet, must fight for the independence of their sentient world once and for all...