Ocean: The Awakening (15 page)

“So you don’t believe me?”

“No!”

“I think you do believe me,” he said.

“Maybe I do. You’re a work in progress, though. Our relationship is a work in progress.”

“Is that right?” He got out of the water and retrieved his clothing, along with hers. She watched his muscular, tattooed form in the low light, felt aroused.

“You’re not peeking, are you?” he asked, handing her clothes to her as she emerged from the water.

“We can lay our clothing on the sand,” she said, “like a beach blanket.” She gave him a long kiss that said everything about what both of them had in mind.

They arranged their things on the beach, then lay atop them and made love in the tropical starlight, with more passion than Alicia had ever experienced. She’d had a boyfriend a year ago on the mainland, but Kimo was her first in Hawaii. She was starting to believe everything he was telling her, as astounding as that seemed. Something seemed very special about him, almost magical. And she could think of no better place to meet a magical person than in this Hawaiian paradise.

After they made love, he held her and asked, “You remember what my mother said at the town meeting?”

“Of course, that the strange events around here are the ocean’s protest against the damage humans inflict on the waters and on sea life. I must admit, it sounded far-fetched to me at first, but a man in the audience said your mother is very spiritual, and that she would know.”

“I have always spent time with the creatures of the sea, swimming with them since I was a baby. When I told my father how I knew from my relationship with the ocean that the living things in it were agitated, he suggested that I might begin to lead the sea creatures, instead of only swimming in their midst. He wanted me to direct them in a major demonstration of natural sea power, driving humans away from the beaches on every Hawaiian island—for just a day—and announcing why it was being done, asserting that people have to change their ways and stop harming the ocean and the life forms in it.”

“You could do that?”

“I don’t know, but I did conduct some successful tests the other day. I’ve heard of horse whisperers, trainers who use bonding techniques to get animals to do what they want. I tried a similar technique on marine animals, stroking them gently and pressing my face up against some of them while humming soft melodies. It actually worked.”

“Wow. You’re a fish whisperer, then?”

“More of a fish hummer, I suppose. To my amazement, some of the animals made response tones to me, as if mimicking my sounds.”

“Obviously, they are trying to communicate with you. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could figure out their languages, their own natural sounds?”

Kimo took a deep breath. “What a monumental task that would be.” He fell silent for several moments, and then his voice broke as he said, “My father never knew I was going to try what he wanted me to do. He died before I could tell him.”

Alicia felt him tremble, and she drew him close to her. “I’m so sorry, Kimo.”

“I still don’t know if I can do what he wanted, on the scale he wanted.”

“I’m sure you can do it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You realize these are highly unusual things you are telling me,” she said. “Here on this romantic beach, after making love and hearing all that, I feel like I’m in a dream, and none of this is really happening.”

“Shall I pinch you?” he asked, touching her arm.

She pushed his hand away, then kissed him. “I believe everything you’ve said. Now I want to know, what can I do to help?” And she really did believe him.

“By promising to never leave me,” he said. Then he told her more, of the strange dreams he’d been experiencing about people involved with the ocean, including the teenage girl he’d seen standing at a barred window, staring sadly out to sea. He told Alicia of the flow of data that seemed to come from the sea, passing through his sleeping brain into the mind of the girl—highly technical, difficult-to-understand information about the ocean. And how the girl kept thinking,
“The ocean is dying. The ocean is dying”.

“Some first names came to me in the dreams,” he said. “Such as for the girl at the window. Of course, I don’t think any of it is real. They’re just dreams, but somehow my mind—so filled when I am awake with worries about the ocean—took a weird path while I slept.”

“How strange,” Alicia said. “I wonder what it all means.”

“I don’t know, only that many unusual things have been occurring recently.” He paused. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“They’re just dreams, Kimo. You’re not going crazy.”

As they sat on the starlit beach they pledged eternal love, then fell silent and held each other.

#

The lovers put their clothes on for warmth from the cooling night air, then lay on the sand looking up at the stars. “It sounds incredible where Moanna is. Maybe I can meet her myself someday.”

He hesitated. “Maybe. Maybe there’s a way.”

They drifted off to sleep, and in Alicia’s arms Kimo began to dream. Once more he saw the faces of the dream-people he’d seen before, and now, in addition to first names he learned their surnames, addresses, and places of work, all over the world. And much more information came to him, about these and other people. Compiling everything in his mind, he now had information on two hundred and eighty-seven persons, instead of ninety-four.

Among the new details, Kimo learned the full name of the teenager at the window: Gwyneth McDaniel—or he thought that was the way he heard it. Supposedly she was being kept against her will at the Kenson Hospital in the English seaside village of Hampington. In one manner or another, everyone on the list seemed to be involved with the ocean in a way that was sympathetic to his own beliefs, including the girl at the window, who had earlier received a flow of data about the ocean, and whom he could again see staring through the bars at the water, longing to escape.

Kimo remained aware enough to doubt all of this new information, just as he had already doubted the contents of the earlier dreams. But as he struggled with the surge of vivid details he felt his awareness splitting. On the one hand he remained convinced that these were all nothing more than dreams, creating an alternate reality that his mind was filling in with information as a means of occupying his troubled thoughts, of giving them a diversion, an outlet. But on the other hand, like waves pounding against a shore and eroding it away, he felt a force trying to convince him that everything was real. For one thing, he had never experienced a series of seemingly related dreams like this, with each building upon the one preceding it.

When the names and other details finished appearing, the sleeping Kimo felt himself rising into the air and looking down on an eerily-illuminated Crimson Cove, as if from an aircraft that was lifting off. He saw himself and Alicia lying on the sand in each other’s arms, and moments later, from a much higher vantage, he saw the specific locations where the various people of his recent dreams supposedly lived and worked. Two of the names were of real people, famous people, and he saw their homes from the air.

Suddenly he sat straight up and pulled away from Alicia. Peering around in the starlit darkness, moments passed and he began to make out the shadow-shapes of the cove as well as of Alicia.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Visible only as a shadow to him, she touched his arm gently and said, “You’re trembling.”

“I need to write all this down,” he said.

She sat up. “All what?”

“After I tell you, you’re really going to think I’m crazy.”

“I doubt that.”

“Alicia, I’ve had another dream, and now I have complete names and other details of the people who seem to be associated with the ocean. I need to write it all down before I forget it. Two of the people are very well known—the environmental activist Napoli Mora and the actress Monique Gatsby.”

“I’ve heard of Monique Gatsby,” Alicia said. “She’s contributed time and money to stopping gill-net fishing, the horrible practice that kills dolphins and other creatures that need to be protected.”

“These dreams are starting to wear me out,” Kimo said. He switched on the flashlight. “Do you have paper and a pen or pencil?”

She rummaged in a pocket of her skirt. “I have a pen I was using to make a sign in the hotel. No paper, though.”

“Well, that’s something. No paper?”

“Sorry.”

“I’m afraid I’ll lose all this stuff in my head.” He removed his shirt. “Quick now, I want you to write the details of my latest dream on my back.” He held the flashlight over one shoulder, pointing the light at his bare back. “And you’d better write small, because my tattoos take up a lot of skin.”

“This pen has a fine point so that I can use it for drawing, but it’s a permanent marker, so it’ll take some time for it to wear off your skin. Maybe a few days.”

“That’s all right. It’s more important not to forget the information. I already know my recent dreams are not ordinary; the only question is, are any of the details correct? I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s all fabricated, but now, with the two real, famous people included, I’m starting to think differently.”

“All right, I’ll do what I can.”

Kimo began reciting the details of each of the people, one by one. He could not spell some of the names or locations, so Alicia had to guess, using phonetics. Writing very small, she filled his back (and the back of his neck) with information, all around the tattoos of the giant octopus on his back and the moray eel draped over his shoulders. He even gave her permission to write on lighter portions of the tattoos, because the pen marks would wear off eventually.

As she reached his waist with the list, Kimo kept providing details, which she then continued around the side of his torso, up it, and then across his chest (where he had no tattoos), and onto his arms, all around. He even had to remove his trousers so that she could write on his legs and on the tops of his feet.

Laughing at how silly the situation was, they tried to get all of the information down without Kimo having to remove his shorts. When they ran out of space on his exposed skin, Alicia wrote the rest of the names on her own legs and stomach, just as the flashlight charge began to give out.

When she was finished, the light flickered off, just as dawn approached.

She said to him, “You told me your father wanted you to shut down all the major Hawaiian beaches for a demonstration, and names have been coming to you in dreams, supposedly of people who are involved with the ocean. What if—and this sounds really weird—what if all those people are supposed to help you shut down the beaches?”

Her comment stunned him. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem possible, but so much has happened, so maybe–“

Alicia was excited. “If these are all people who have important skills and sympathize with the cause of the ocean, we could contact them and see what they can do to help you.”

“You mean before I try to shut down the beaches?”

“Yes.”

“After the first two dreams, I assumed they were nothing more than worthless mental excursions, that they were not real—so I didn’t say anything to Moanna about them. Now I’m wondering if they could be real.” He paused. “I need to ask her about this.”

For a long moment, Alicia didn’t say anything. Then: “Yes, the Sea Goddess.” She laughed. “I feel like I’m in a dream, too. But before you contact her, maybe we should investigate some of the details in your dreams, and see if they are accurate. Then you could go to Moanna with more information. Just because there are two famous names on the list doesn’t mean anything, because you might have learned things from publicity about them.”

“You’re right,” Kimo said, putting his shirt and trousers back on. “I think we should do our own research first, and then I will ask Moanna what to do.”

In the wee hours of the morning, as dawn spread soft light across the cove, Alicia and Kimo hurried back along the trail.

***

Chapter 28

“This seems to be more than you can grasp,” Governor Heinz Churchill said. He and his wife, Fuji, had ridden bicycles from their home in Honolulu to the Tamoa Oceanography Institute where she worked, a glass-walled building with a commanding view of the city and harbor. With their busy schedules, neither of them had been getting enough exercise, and bicycle riding and hiking were among their normal pursuits. But these were not normal times, they realized, not by any stretch of the imagination. They had barely been able to fit this ride in.

“More than I can grasp? What do you mean?”

The aging Governor was breathing hard from the uphill climb. “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. I meant to say that this situation with ocean animals is bigger than
any of us
seem capable of understanding, even qualified experts such as yourself. We have Navy personnel working on the problems involving our dolphin training program and the other disturbing events in the Wanaao area, but we all have to remain low key to keep from panicking the tourism industry, and to maintain our own military secrets.”

She smiled thinly. “So you didn’t mean to insult me individually, only as part of a broad-spectrum of condemnation?”

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose, but I was being equally critical of myself and of American military experts. Remember, I spent most of my adult life in the Navy, and I’m still close to them.”

They put their bikes in a rack for employees and visitors, didn’t bother to lock them because of the security on premises. Then, inside the high-walled, mirrored lobby, they climbed the stairs to the second floor and entered Fuji’s outer offices.

The slender Asian woman spoke briefly with her male secretary, then led the way into her office and closed the door. “He’s ordering sandwiches for us from the company café,” she said. “I know what you like.”

“Good.” He glanced at his watch. They had almost an hour and a half before the others arrived—Admiral Nelson Parté of the Third Fleet, along with other U.S. Navy brass and two high-level scientists from their ocean-research division. Up until now, Heinz and Fuji had mostly conferred with them by telephone, e-mail, and video conferencing. This would be the first face-to-face meeting with these key parties since the crisis began, to discuss what to do.

As head of this privately funded institute, Fuji Namoto had an office with an even more spectacular view than that of Governor Churchill at Pearl Harbor, with hers featuring Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head, and the classic old Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

For several moments, she stood at the window gazing out, toward the sea. A head taller than she was, Heinz stood beside her.

“In the past,” she said, “I used to enjoy looking out at the large pleasure boats anchored just offshore, thinking of how picturesque they were. Lately the opulent watercraft have seemed different to me somehow, even menacing. Look at that huge motor yacht, for example.” She pointed to a craft that was anchored farther out than smaller power boats and sailboats, which were closer to shore. “It must be owned by a trillionaire, a yacht so big it’s a ship, not a boat.”

He nodded. “It’s big, all right, worth tens of millions of dollars.”

“I’ve been thinking about what that Hawaiian woman said at the town hall meeting.”

He scowled, remembering that his friend Preston didn’t like the Pohaku family. “The large lady in the back of the church?”

“Uh huh. She said that humans have been polluting and otherwise harming the ocean for so long that sea creatures might be rising up against us, in a protest against careless, self-centered human behavior.”

“Nutty talk, don’t you think?”

“I’m not so sure. If she’s right, the creatures of the ocean don’t want people to operate yachts like that on the water. Just imagine the pollution that floating monster dumps in the ocean as it goes from port to port. Then multiply that by the millions of power boats on the planet, big and small. And add in all of the merchant ships and the vessels of navies around the world, including ours. The pollution from all those sources—with leaking fuels as well as sewage and garbage dumping at sea—has to be mind-boggling. It’s a wonder the ocean isn’t black with goo, and I’m sure it would be if not for the natural cleansing action of tides, currents, and other aquatic elements.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Ealani Pohaku.”

“But she may have a point. No sane person can deny the damage humans have done to the ocean, damage that continues as we speak. Yet because the ocean cleans up some of the mess naturally, and a lot of the gunk and junk sinks to the bottom—and the ocean is deep—we don’t always think about the harm we’re causing. Out of sight, out of mind. But dead porpoises, dolphins, and coral are washing up on the shores, and other bad things are happening, especially in an area of the Hawaiian Islands that the sea creatures seem to have selected as a focal point. How many incidents have there been in the Wanaao area?”

“Nine in all, at least that I’ve heard about.”

“And elsewhere?”

“Three reports around the islands, and the situation with our Navy dolphins here in Honolulu. It seems to be confined to Hawaii so far.”

“Assuming that Wanaao has it worse than anywhere else, what is it about that area that’s causing the phenomenon? It’s not a magnetic disturbance or abnormal tectonic activity; we’ve investigated those possibilities and others, and nothing has been discovered out of the ordinary. What is it, then? What is it about Wanaao that’s unique?”

“Something we’re missing, obviously. It’s a helluva mystery.”

“Yes it is,” Fuji said, “and I don’t like it. I have a dark feeling that it’s going to get worse.”

“You could be right.”

They ate their sandwiches and then participated in the meeting with the other naval officers and scientists—a session consumed with reports of unusual marine-animal activity, and nothing to explain the anomalies. The information was being compiled into a report that would be sent to the President of the United States. He had heard about the abnormal events, and had ordered more details, and regular updates.

Later that afternoon, as the session concluded and Admiral Parté and the others were leaving, Heinz thought of how they had agreed on more tasks to complete, and additional scientific avenues to explore, but he had the feeling that they were no closer to an answer than before, and no one knew enough to ask the right questions. All of this was upsetting his wife a great deal—so much that she said she was going back to Loa’kai Island and Wanaao Town in a few days, to perform her own investigation. Other ocean experts were going to the area as well, so Wanaao would receive plenty of attention.

At the meeting, Fuji had asked a question that resonated in his mind: “How could creatures of different species seemingly act in concert? Had human behavior incited them, as suggested by the native woman in Wanaao Town, or was something else going on? Could it be a virus that crossed species, maybe a virus caused by the dumping of organisms in garbage?”

Heinz felt as if the things people were considering were only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the ocean held countless more secrets than anyone could ever fathom. He wondered what his wife would discover.

***