Ocean: War of Independence (10 page)

But that did not happen. Filled with sadness, they swam upward, ascending toward the sunlit surface of the sea.

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Chapter 12

Alicia found her grandfather on the arched bridge in the hotel gardens. He wore a lightweight white suit, was leaning on the railing, gazing down at the carp pond.

“Good morning,” she said.

He straightened and smiled. “Alicia!”

The old man had good color in his face, and she was relieved to see that he looked much better than the last time she’d seen him. She complimented him on his beautiful tie, which had colorful pictures of reef fish on it.

With all of her responsibilities, Alicia had a great deal on her mind, but she didn’t want to lose touch with her grandfather, especially now that he was giving his ranch land to the Hawaiian people, and directing a large portion of his other business profits to the welfare of the ocean. Before that, she’d thought he would never change, that he would spend the rest of his days being miserly and accumulating as much money as he could. She’d been disappointed in him, and had begun to be ashamed of the Ellsworth name. But no more.

After they embraced, the elegant old gentleman escorted her on a walk through the gardens. Everything looked normal to her in this tropical sanctuary, with the team of Japanese gardeners tending to rare orchids and other exotic plants, and sunburned guests enjoying the grounds.

“I’ve been worried about you,” he said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you made it through all the turmoil, and that the result was so favorable for the cause you love so much.”

“Thank you, Grandfather. I was worried about you, too, but you look great now.”

They talked about the business profits he was going to direct to ocean welfare, and the ranch land he was giving away to the native people. Then he said, “For the first time in my life, Alicia, I have something to look forward to each day that does not involve my own selfish interests. I appointed Kimo’s mother—actually, his adoptive mother—as the trustee of this property. She’s working with locals to set up a cultural center on the land, to honor Hawaiian traditions and history.”

“That sounds nice. I’m very proud of you.”

He beamed. “They take ownership at the beginning of next month. It looks like they’re going to keep the hotel and resort going.”

“The aquatic park is a problem,” she said. “Under the Declaration of Ocean Independence, some research operations will be permitted, but only under strict Sea Warrior control. There can be no more dolphin shows, or tanks to hold sharks, jellyfish, seals, and other animals.”

“I’m aware of all that, and there’s no conflict about it. Ealani and her associates are adamant that marine animals should not be kept in captivity, and they don’t even want to do it for any permitted research purposes.”

They followed a cinder path to the beach, and stood on a black lava ledge, gazing out at the glittering aquamarine sea, with incoming waves slapping the rocky shoreline and shooting sprays of white water high in the air. Alicia felt the mist on her face.

“It’s so incredibly beautiful here,” she said, “so spiritual.”

“The Hawaiian people are the best caretakers of this land, Alicia, just as you and your friends hold stewardship over the seas.”

Wearing a black Sea Warrior swimsuit, Kimo waded out of the water and stepped onto the sun-warmed cinder beach of Crimson Cove. The beach was empty; no sign of Alicia or Gwyneth yet. They were supposed to meet him here, as they had been doing regularly in the past couple of weeks, to confer and improve their ability to work together.

It was mid-afternoon, and he had just swum here from Honolulu, where he’d met with Fuji Namoto in the resurrected Sea Warrior office that she managed. Fuji was coordinating worldwide fund-raising efforts for the organization, and was arranging with the U.S. Postal Service to have them develop stamps bearing the images of marine animals, as well as picturesque vistas of the ocean and various seashores. Her idea was to add a few pennies to the normal postage rates, with the excess going to the Sea Warriors for ocean-related causes.

More than a hundred associates worked with Fuji in the office, some handling public relations, others coordinating activities with various environmental organizations. Thus far there had been no formal recruitment outreach, because Kimo, Alicia, and Gwyneth were not yet certain how Moanna had handled the process of converting human beings into hybrids that could live in the ocean.

He saw Alicia approaching now, walking from the trail onto the beach. She wore blue shorts, a white blouse, and sandals. Reaching his side, they sat on a natural lava bench to wait for Gwyneth. Kimo reached out, held Alicia’s hand. Since that magical, moonlit night when they made love here, there had been too little time for their personal relationship. The immense and all-consuming cause of the ocean had come first, and both of them knew that was how it had to be, how it should be.

She looked at him, and they shared a long, tender kiss. Finally, Kimo pulled away, looked into her blue eyes, and smiled. “There will be time enough for us someday. I know this because we’re going to live for a long, long time.”

She grinned, and rose to her feet, pointing out at the water, “There she is!”

As Alicia watched, Gwyneth swam in as close as she could. Then, in shallow water, the three of them talked.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Gwyneth said, “but I do have some good news. At last, the whales in the cordons around the islands are responding to my commands. They’ve disassembled around the islands of Oahu and Kauai, and other large-bodied animals have scattered with them—with the exception of the plesiosaurs. I intentionally left them swimming around Oahu, and patrolling Pearl Harbor. Our ferocious-looking sea monsters will remind people—and especially the Navy—that we mean business. And if you look out there –“ she pointed– “you can see the barricade around Loa’kai is starting to break up, too.”

Alicia saw several whales turning away from the cordon and swimming out to sea, spouting water through their blowholes….

For some time now, whales, giant octopuses, giant squids, and other sea animals had been removing garbage from the ocean on their own, working in a frenzy with no supervision from the Sea Warriors. They’d been bringing up shipwrecks, plastics, anything they could handle that did not belong in their domain, and depositing it on the shores of every ocean-facing nation.

The largest sunken ships still remained on the seabed—vessels that the creatures had not yet brought to the surface, possibly because the hulks were too big. These included famous passenger liners, along with oil tankers, cargo ships, aircraft carriers, battleships, and old armor-clad vessels from the numerous, endless wars of humankind.

All the while, human cleanup crews had been working to clear the messes from the shores, hauling everything inland. At most of the major shore sites around the world, police and military forces monitored the activities, in some cases grabbing valuables for themselves, such as rare gold coins, jewels, and antiquities, and occasionally demanding bribes. Some of the metals and plastics were being recycled, and many people were becoming wealthy from the cleanup operations and associated business enterprises.

Around the world, additional species were taking action on their own. In Japan, Europe, and the United States, jellyfish were jamming their diaphanous bodies into the intake pipes of coastal nuclear power plants, preventing cooling seawater from entering the plants, and forcing the operators to take the systems offline. In the tropics, reef animals were stirring up the seabeds whenever glass-bottom boats full of tourists came near, preventing them from seeing much of anything through the murky water. And in the Arctic, walruses were attacking hunters who were trying to kill harp seals, forcing them to give up the effort.

“What about the whales that have been involved in blocking San Francisco Bay, and in ocean cleanup operations around the world?” Alicia asked. “Have you gotten any of them to respond to you?”

“I haven’t made the attempt yet. It’s only in the last few hours that I began to exert some influence over the whales in the Hawaiian barricades, and once they responded to me, so did the other animals, all of them leaving the cordons when the whales did. We know the whales have been leading the cleanup operations, and it looks like they’ve also been the leaders in refusing to break up the barricades, so I’m very hopeful. The animals are doing good work, but it is worrisome when they go off on their own and do such things.”

“Yes it is,” Kimo said.

Alicia scowled. “As I said the last time we were with Moanna, we still have a lot to learn. We also have a great deal of work to do, and need more recruits to help us, but we still don’t know how she accomplished the transformations.”

Floating on the surface, Gwyneth said, “I’ve been combing through the vast amount of data in my brain, gathering clues and passing them on to both of you, but I don’t think we’re making much progress in figuring out the process she used.”

Thinking hard, Alicia said, “The last time we saw Moanna, she told us we would ‘have the responsibility for creating thousands of new Sea Warriors’. Some things she said are crystal clear in my memory, the exact words, but I didn’t always fully understand. For example, after I was transformed deep underwater, she said to Kimo and me, ‘…if you bear children they will already be transformed because of the genetic design I have placed in your bodies, and so too with the children of other hybrids’. What did Moanna mean by that? Are we left only with the possibility of creating new hybrids by interbreeding Sea Warriors? Or, can Sea Warriors breed with normal human beings and still produce fully functioning, hybrid offspring?”

Alicia paused, mulling over the mystery. “I realize now that she did not specifically say that a hybrid needed to breed with another hybrid for this to happen, but that was certainly the implication, since she was addressing me and Kimo. It’s strange, very strange. We are left with too many questions.”

“All I see are dead-ends in trying to figure out the transformative process,” Gwyneth said, “and I don’t know what to do next. Moanna does not seem to have passed the technique on to me—a technique that she most certainly had herself.”

“This is all very puzzling,” Kimo said. “I think we should go down to the place Moanna died, and see if we can find some inspiration.”

They all agreed, and swam out to deeper water, then dove straight down.

Reaching the depths of the ocean, they used their magnetic navigation systems, and their ability to see in even the darkest regions, to locate the exact place they’d last been with Moanna.

On impulse, Alicia suggested that they gather in a circle over the spot. In a gray haze of water, she made out the assorted shapes of rocks, colossal clams, and other objects on the seabed.

“Close your eyes and let your minds relax,” she said, “and we’ll just float here for a while.”

Moments passed, and soon Alicia lost track of time. She felt her mind floating with her body, and became conscious of an increasing synchronicity with Gwyneth and Kimo. They all held hands, and Alicia realized that their thoughts were locked together, and their combined energy was stretching across the ocean, farther and farther.

The sea around them began to glow, softly red at first and then brighter. The water temperature grew warmer against Alicia’s skin, and she realized that she could see a very long distance through the sea, all the way around the planet and back to where the three of them were. They could fan this vision out and look in any direction, as far as they wanted. They could also hear underwater over any distance, any marine noise they wanted to pick up, if they chose to focus on it.

Critical new data flowed into their collective mind and coalesced there, telling them exactly how Moanna had transformed human beings into hybrids. Alicia, Kimo, and Gwyneth felt tremendous excitement at this, and in their expanding awareness they could observe, hear, smell, and touch every molecule of seawater on the planet, and every marine organism that lived in those waters.

Then another thought formed, a sacred revelation.
We are all the seas on this planet. We are Ocean
.

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