Ocean: War of Independence

by Brian Herbert

  After Kimo sent the transmission from shallow water, Pauline Deveaux swam up to him, and provided a theory.

  Pauline, with some of her human facial features and the bright coloration of a rainbow-hued fish, kept her face out of the water and said, “I’ve been thinking about how the whales and other creatures followed Gwyneth’s instructions at first, creating the barricades, and afterward they refused to disperse. It was as if she energized them to take action against human abuses, and then they did something on their own, no longer heeding her commands.”

  “You think the sea creatures are cleaning up the ocean on their own now?”

  “It’s possible. Due to their distance from Hawaii, I doubt if Gwyneth or any of the remote Sea Warriors did this. At least, not knowingly. Remember, though, that the idea to dump human trash back on the beaches was Gwyneth’s; she did it in the Santa Barbara area. What if the whales and other animals she used for those efforts transmitted messages to others of their kind, even across great distances in the sea, causing them to go on litter detail?”

  “But they’re only doing it on their own in Hawaii.”

  “That’s all we know about so far. I think we’d better send someone ashore to find out what’s being reported in the news.”

  He paused momentarily, noting how the glow of sunlit waters highlighted the colors of Pauline’s skin, making it even more strikingly beautiful than usual. And he thought back to the conversation he had with Gwyneth in the grotto, before the capture of Chi’ang and Talbot. She had pointed out that box jellyfish and stonefish began the ocean protest by acting against swimmers on their own, while dolphins and porpoises were also resisting both military and commercial training. Afterward, with the formation of the Sea Warriors, Gwyneth had been at the heart of a big problem—leading whales and other large marine animals to form cordons, and then being unable to get them to disperse. With the latest episode involving trash in the ocean, a pattern was emerging: the large creatures did as a hybrid Sea Warrior instructed at first, but then learned that these were effective ways to fight humans, and did the same things on their own, without any further instructions.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said, “but I agree with your idea of going ashore to find out how widespread the cleanup efforts are. I’ll have one of our lesser-known members dress and do the checking.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that I spoke out,” she said.

  Kimo smiled briefly. “Not at all.” He then selected one of the newer recruits, Waylon Jaffe, and sent him toward Kauai with a waterproof pack containing clothing.

  Later that evening, Kimo received a molecular communication from Jaffe, sent from the waters off the island. “There are beachings of junk all over the world, sir, in every country fronting an ocean, and even on the banks of rivers that empty into the ocean. All kinds of things are being hauled up by sea creatures, even Spanish galleons and piles of treasure in some cases. The animals don’t recognize gold coins or jewelry as having value; to them the objects are like any other human junk that’s been left in the sea over the centuries. In contrast, people are killing each other to get what’s valuable, literally killing each other. The police and armed forces are everywhere, trying to control crowds and criminal behavior.”

  When the news came in, Kimo and the rest of the Sea Warriors were in the water, and all of them heard it. Pauline didn’t say anything, but Kimo was impressed with her mind, and thought he might add her to his leadership circle in the future.

  “Do you know what this means?” he said to his followers. “It means the ocean is fighting back on its own—it’s really fighting back!”

  “Maybe the marine animals can do it by themselves now, and we aren’t needed anymore,” someone suggested, a man’s voice from the nighttime shadows.

  “I doubt that,” Kimo said. “We still need to do our part. There is a lot of work to do. Remember, too, we’re part of the ocean now, ourselves.”

  Dirk Avondale received a message from Kimo just as the garbage he was shepherding reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the wide channel of water separating Canada from the United States. On the way here he had considered spreading the garbage along the Pacific coast of Washington State or Oregon, but that would have risked letting the trash go back out to sea with the tide.

  To avoid that, he’d come up with the idea of heading for the strait instead, timing it so that the tide was going in when he arrived, to make it easier for his dolphins to guide the garbage into the large inland sea of Puget Sound. If he managed to get it all in there, and spread the trash around, it would take longer for it to wash away. Then he was going to set up a patrol of dolphins to make certain it didn’t leave the sound, forcing people to clean up the mess themselves.

  Before answering Kimo, Dirk needed to pay close attention to guiding the floating garbage into the strait (while keeping the trash near the American shore and away from Canada). As he did this, he thought about the status request he’d received from Kimo, along with a strange additional question—a question that became even more intriguing when he noticed the American shoreline cluttered with the rusting hulls and superstructures of ships and derelict pleasure boats, along with old automobiles, an airplane, a helicopter, and truck tires, all encrusted with barnacles and green seaweed, and appearing to have been dredged up from the water recently and deposited on the land. The reason for this was exactly what Kimo was asking about, but Dirk had no more idea of why it was occurring than the Sea Warrior leader did.

  On the shore, Dirk recognized the broken half-hull of a World War II cargo ship, and thought it might be one of the early-war vessels he’d read about that had faulty welds and broke apart in stormy seas—before the construction quality improved. A spectrum of human history was represented on these shores, thousands and thousands of stories behind the objects that had been left in the sea.

  As he passed Port Angeles he saw a number of giant octopuses gathered near the shore. Working together, they lifted a long steel beam, swung it around and hurled it ashore. The animals went underwater, and moments later four giant squids surfaced, carrying chunks of concrete that they tossed onto the land, before going out and diving underwater.

  When Dirk’s sea of floating plastics and other garbage rounded Port Townsend and turned south toward Puget Sound, he sent a reply to Kimo with a status report on his mission—while also saying he didn’t know why junk was being coughed up on the shores, along with information on what he was seeing here.

  Then he swept southward, spreading trash on the shores of Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia, and all the shoreline communities near them. Before leaving, Dirk left a hundred dolphins to patrol the waters on the north end of Puget Sound, ensuring that the garbage did not wash back out to sea.

  ***

  Chapter 8

  The following day, Kimo swam to the island of Molokai to see Ryk Mahana, a former student of Jimmy Waimea. A technology whiz, Mahana owned a computerized, fully-automated pineapple farm. He had spoken with Jimmy in recent weeks, offering to help the cause of the ocean in any way possible, and said he had a secure computer available, with internet access. Apparently, Mahana knew how to send e-mails through a maze of overseas routers, so that it would be time-consuming and nearly impossible to trace where a user was when he transmitted messages, or when he received them. That should enable Kimo to communicate with the U.S. government, and then make good his escape into the sea.

  Jimmy knew Mahana well and trusted him implicitly, so Kimo had full faith in him too, and no concern that it might be a trap set for him. Even so, he needed to be exceedingly careful, because of the terrorist designation of the Sea Warriors, and substantial rewards that had been posted for them.

  For the underwater swim to Molokai, Kimo took Pauline Deveaux with him, and a couple of ichthyologists in the membership, Bruce Pleiades and Natasha Medvedev. Just as Pauline had become a colorful, human-sized reef-fish, these fish experts had morphed into exotic-looking sea creatures while retaini
ng aspects of their original appearances—Pleiades looked like a humanoid mahimahi fish with a blue stripe from head to tail, while Medvedev was long, yellow and slender, like a banana trumpetfish with human facial features on her snout.

  The four of them communicated underwater on the way, discussing what Kimo was going to do next. There were certain complications. Kimo had put the President of the United States on notice that he had twenty-four hours to cease all hostile actions against sea-creature blockades, or the United States would suffer additional attacks. During that period, however, the creatures of the ocean appeared to have taken it upon themselves to go on a massive, worldwide “litter detail,” moving junk onto the land that humans had dumped in the ocean and connecting rivers.

  Yet because this marine-animal activity was worldwide, and not directed solely at the United States (and because it did not interfere with any military operations), Kimo intended to insist that he had not taken overt action against the United States during the deadline period. It would be walking a fine line, and as part of it (Pauline’s suggestion), Kimo could not admit he had no responsibility for the massive ocean cleanup operation, because that would only weaken his position. Instead, he had to bluff his way through, acting as he had orchestrated the huge effort, and as if he had many more Sea Warrior members than there actually were, which was almost seven hundred.

  He waded ashore on the south side of Molokai, not far from the town of Kaunakakai, leaving his companions in the water to await his return. Changing quickly into khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, Kimo walked a mile outside of town and located Mr. Mahana’s modest, metal-roofed home just off the main road, at the edge of the pineapple farm.

  Ryk Mahana opened the front-door screen, just as Kimo reached the porch. Coming out with a smile, the young man had a scholarly appearance, with round spectacles and intelligent eyes. He spoke in a cultured, sonorous voice. “So pleased to be of service to you.”

  “The ocean is most grateful to you,” Kimo said.

  “Yes, a terrible injustice has been done to the seas, but I am pleased that you and your brigades are turning things around. I absolutely love the idea of hurling humanity’s trash back at them and making them choke on it! Was that your idea?”

  “It was not my idea, but that doesn’t matter, one way or the other. Sea Warriors should not think in terms of individual achievements and credits; rather, we need to think more in terms of community—in this case, the ocean community.”

  “Yes, very laudable.” Slightly taller than Kimo, Mahana held the screen door open. “Come in, please come into my humble home. Would you like some cold mango juice?”

  “That sounds nice. Yes, please.”

  Mahana smiled. “Of course, I can make pineapple juice as well, but I get a little tired of it.”

  “I understand. Mango will be fine.”

  While Kimo waited in the small living room, he looked around and saw Mr. Mahana’s desktop computer on a table. It had two oversized flat screens, side by side. A printer and backup hard drive sat next to the computer modem.

  As the young man returned from the kitchen, carrying two tall glasses of juice, he motioned toward the computer. “Please, I know you must be anxious to send your message. I read in the Honolulu Mercury News that you’ve been giving the President deadlines and ultimatums. It’s about time someone did that—other than his wife!”

  Kimo took a long sip of the cold juice, savored its fresh sweetness. It had been some time since he’d tasted something so delicious; it certainly was more flavorful than the plankton, urchins, and shrimp he’d been eating while in the sea.

  Placing the glass safely away from the computer to keep from spilling juice on it, Kimo sat down at the keyboard. As he made contact with the cushion of the chair, the screen lit up.

  “It’s butt-activated,” Mahana said with a giggle. “Your weight sent a signal to the machine. It’s ready for you to type a message to Jimmy Waimea. I even have his e-mail address ready for you, and all of the circuitous routing is set up, going through Australia and Eastern Europe, then through Iceland and Uruguay, to prevent anyone from figuring out where you are.”

  “Very good. I appreciate that.”

  As Kimo typed slowly, using the hunt-and-peck method, he saw many words change spelling immediately, as the word-processing program corrected him. He’d never been a good speller.

  “Hey, Cousin Jimmy,” he wrote. “It’s Kimo, on the internet connection we discussed. What have you heard from the President?”

  Two minutes later, a reply appeared on the screen: “Hey, right back at you, Cousin Kimo. I’m in a Washington, D.C. hotel, waiting to catch a flight home tomorrow. President Vanness has not returned my calls, but he delivered a major speech to the American people today. Presumably, that includes you. He says that he has no choice except to cease all aggressive operations against the cordons of sea creatures and the Sea Warriors, and to show his good faith, he’s taking the further measure of removing your organization from the list of terrorists, and is dropping all charges against you and the other members. It looks like a complete victory, Cousin!”

  Kimo typed back: “If he can be trusted.”

  Jimmy: “You’ve got public opinion on your side, more than sixty percent favorable now. You could run for President and win!”

  Kimo: “I doubt that. It’s not what I want, anyway. All right, you can print my response in the paper. Let the President know we appreciate his gesture, and in the next few weeks we’ll be in contact with him, specifying a new international law of the sea, which will stipulate the very limited circumstances under which the United States—and the other nations of the world—may and may not use the ocean. We will prepare a formal document that all nations must accept, the Declaration of Ocean Independence.”

  Jimmy: “Bold move, Cousin. Keep pressing ahead while you have the advantage. Great job! The family is proud of you!”

  Kimo: “Thanks, Jimmy. Signing off now, with gratitude for your important contributions. Tell Ealani I’ll be in touch with her after the first edition of the declaration is completed.”

  Since hearing about the death of his grandson, Preston Ellsworth had been grieving. The young man’s life, once so full of potential, had been utterly wasted, lost in a storm of bad decisions.

  Yet the old man knew he had made a lot of his own bad decisions—and the realization had caused him to rearrange his priorities. Much of his thinking was wrong before, and now he wanted a second chance at life, a second chance to do what was right. Jeff could no longer correct his own bad decisions, but maybe Preston could.

  Up until now he had held many beliefs that seemed to conflict with one another. For one, the logical side of his brain told him that the native Hawaiian spirit world—the volcano-goddess curses and all the rest of it—was pure bunk, while the emotional side told him that it could actually be true. Now he felt his belief system shifting, away from his western prejudices. Maybe Ealani and her companions actually had done something extraordinary to save his life, tapping into the power of their spirit world.

  And if she had helped him in that way, what should the purpose of his life be?

  Hesitantly, feeling ill at ease but pressing ahead anyway, he stepped out of his Jeep and walked slowly toward the front door of the simple Hawaiian shack, made of scrap wood and lava rock, with a patched metal roof. He’d seen hundreds of similar structures as he drove by them, but had never come this close to one. It was mid-morning and he had not slept well; he had not shaved, so a gray stubble of beard remained on his face.

  Half hoping no one was home, he walked onto the creaking wooden porch and rapped on the front door. He heard someone inside, and a woman’s voice, in a Hawaiian accent. “Just a moment, please.”

  When Ealani Pohaku opened the door and stood behind the screen, she looked surprised at first. She wore a floor-length muumuu with colorful flowers and birds on it. After a moment, a gentle smile warmed her face, and she said, “Mr. Ellsworth! Please come in. I ju
st made a pot of strong Kona coffee. Would you like a cup?”

  He felt tears welling in his eyes, and nodded.

  She led him through a small front room to the kitchen, and motioned toward a tiny table that had two chairs. The coffee smelled good.

  “I doubt if you ever expected to see me here,” Preston said, looking at a mat that only partially covered the dirt floor.

  She poured the dark beverage in a mug that had the image of a humpback whale on the side. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “If you had not come here on your own, I would have invited you.”

  “Dr. Chandrapur says I made a miraculous recovery from a serious head wound that would have killed most men my age.” He slid the mug toward himself, but didn’t lift it. Then, looking at her intently, he said, “My injury should have been fatal, and I have a feeling that my high-priced doctor didn’t have a prescription for what really cured me. Thank you for caring so deeply, Ealani. Thank you for saying blessings over a man who did not deserve them.”

  “We are all products of our cultures, and our backgrounds. You are not a bad man. Not at all. I understand you only did what you thought you had to do.” The large woman took a sip of coffee, looked at him pensively.

  “I don’t think your husband would have agreed with that.”

  She nodded, and smiled ruefully. “Maybe not.”

  “Your son has made quite a—pardon my pun—quite a splash in the world. He’s accomplished so much that I can’t help being impressed. He’s a remarkable young man. You must be very proud of him.”

  “I am. And your granddaughter has been with him all the way. Come to think of it, she’s been making waves herself!”

  The old man chuckled, and imagined his eyes must be twinkling with delight. “Mmmm, yes. A rumor reached me that they plan to marry one day, a unique ceremony held in the water, attended by their special friends.”