According to legal filings, Keke Pohaku asserted that he had paid his property taxes promptly for years, but officials took the position that he was in arrears on part of it and sold his land to the Ellsworth Ranch for back taxes.
She stared at the amount of the disputed tax: $ 72.37. An “astute” deal indeed! To Alicia, it looked like her great-great grandfather had stolen the property—and claims by the Pohakus over the years asserted exactly that and worse, insisting that a fraud had been perpetrated against them, and that an official was bribed to alter the records.
Fraud? she wondered. Did that really happen?
Carefully, she read some of the legal counter-claims that had been filed by Ellsworth-family attorneys over the years, a blizzard of paper. She flipped through the documents, located the court rulings. In each case, the judges ruled in favor of the Ellsworths, saying the Pohakus did not have receipts for their tax payments (which were always made in cash), and that no proof of fraud had been presented.
Next she found the latest claim by Tiny Pohaku, and the responses of her grandfather’s attorneys to it, along with a recent court order, throwing out the claim and ruling once more against the Pohakus.
By early afternoon, she had missed her lunch, and was beginning to feel hungry and thirsty. She’d been here for more than three hours, and had been so engrossed in the documents that she’d lost track of time.
Hearing voices behind her, she turned and was surprised to see Kimo Pohaku at the front desk, talking with the clerk. Kimo, the same man who had rescued her at Olamai Beach. He was looking at her now, and obviously recognized her.
Alicia reddened, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. Quickly, she closed the files, and left them on the corner of the table as she had been instructed to do.
She used the restroom in an effort to elude him, but when she finally exited the building she found him sitting on a bench, waiting for her. He had been reading a book.
“I’d like to apologize for the way I behaved the other day,” he said, closing the slender volume and rising to his feet. “I shouldn’t have been so rude to you.”
She smiled as she looked into his hazel eyes. “You saved my life. I could never be angry at you.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that. You don’t know how irritating I can be.”
“Well, you’re not being that way now.”
“What brings you to City Hall?”
“Oh, nothing special. What are you doing here?”
“Renewing my business license.” He beamed proudly. “I operate a successful food market.” Then, with a sheepish expression, he admitted, “Actually, it’s a little fruit stand on the Wanaao Road. I have the third stand past Kawa’iki, on the way to Lani Falls. A little red building with pineapples painted on the walls.”
“Yes, I think I know it,” she said, though she wasn’t sure if she did. “Maybe I’ll stop in and say ‘Hi’ someday.”
She found him very attractive. Aside from his boyish good looks and muscular build, Kimo had a kind, compassionate way about him, and a gentle tone to his voice.
“We have special prices for you, as kama’aina,” he said, “not the prices I charge tourists.”
“Thank you, but I am not kama’aina; I am not native-born.”
“Don’t go on the dictionary definition. We extend the honor to newcomers who move to the islands and set up homes here.”
“So, my grandfather is kama’aina too? You didn’t seem to like it when you found out my name.”
Kimo hesitated, but said, “Yes, he is kama’aina too. It’s just that….”
“You don’t need to explain. My grandfather told me about the quarrel between our families.”
“That should not mean that you and I cannot be friends,” he said.
She smiled warmly. “I agree, and I’m pleased to hear you say that, my gallant rescuer. Well, I must be going. It was nice to see you again.”
He looked sad for a moment, then brightened. “Would you, would you like to go out with me sometime? We could ride my motorcycle to the top of the volcano, where the views are spectacular. Have you been up there?”
“Yes, by car.”
“I know special places, little-known trails. We could picnic up there.”
She had not agreed to go yet, but did feel an obligation to him for rescuing her, despite the awkward scene when he discovered her family name. He seemed like a pleasant young man, and she liked him.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“The volcano sounds nice, but why don’t we go up by horseback instead? We have horses at the ranch. Can you ride?”
“I’ve ridden some, but wouldn’t your grandfather object? I am a Pohaku.”
“If he does, I will inform him that you are no more at fault for what your father has done than I am at fault for the actions of my grandfather, or of his father or grandfather. That’s why I came to City Hall, to research old land claims.”
He looked stunned. “And what did you discover?”
“We’ll talk about it sometime.”
Kimo smiled a little. “Maybe that would not be such a good idea?”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“So, why don’t we write a new page for our families?”
“I would like that.”
They set a time and a place to meet. She would pick him up by car on the Wanaao Road, and drive him to the stables….
Returning to the ranch late that afternoon, Alicia had intended to pick up her surfboard and catch some of the six-foot waves she’d seen breaking offshore. But before she could do that she saw Fuji Namoto trudging up a trail from the beach, wearing a black, one-piece swimsuit and scuba equipment.
“Look out there,” Fuji said, pointing at the water. She was breathing hard.
Alicia saw a broad expanse of rippling water, with numerous small, yellow-and-black fish breaking the surface.
“Butterflyfish,” Fuji said. “When I was diving, thousands of them swam toward me very fast—a huge school of them—and they only veered off at the last possible second. I was terrified. My pulse is still racing. They were hostile, didn’t want me in the water. I lost a bag of specimens I was collecting from the seabed.” She patted her shoulder, where an underwater camera was attached. “I got it all on video.”
Alicia gazed at the flurry of activity. Gradually, the water settled down, and the gently lapping waves looked as they always did, as if nothing had occurred at all.
***
Chapter 16
In the past few days, Gwyneth had been wondering if she should invite Dr. Halberton to learn more about her cherished secret world. He seemed like a very nice man, and she wanted to trust him.
Thus far she had only provided him with a couple of clues, and he’d been excited by them. The afternoon before, he’d said to her, “What does a blue circle mean? And ‘H2O’? A blue circle of water? Or, a circle of blue water? Do you mean the ocean that makes up most of the world? Is that what you’re trying to say? You do have a picture of a whale on your wall.”
She had not answered, but had been impressed that he’d interpreted her clues correctly, and had come up with the correct answer, though it was no more than a framework on which to hang much more significant information, if she chose to do so. But should she go to the next step with him? Could this doctor be trusted with what she had to say about the ocean, her dire predictions? He seemed to be concerned for her and well-intentioned, but what if he didn’t do the right thing with the precious information? What if she wasn’t taken seriously?
Gwyneth didn’t think the information she had developed, and her calculations, would alert national security authorities against her if it got out, or cause anyone to harm her. But in the wrong hands, the ocean information could be interpreted as further “evidence” that she was not of sound mind, and that she needed to be medicated more or sent to another, even more draconian facility. At least she was beginning to understand this place, and getting used
to it. She had developed a regular routine, some aspects of which she actually looked forward to—such as kicking a ball around the exercise yard and chasing it wherever it went, within that enclosure.
Today she had eaten her cafeteria lunch quickly and had hurried out into the exercise yard, noting the staff attendant who shadowed her, a man in a gray smock who watched her all the time when she was out of her room, making notes about her in his hand-held electronic device, taking pictures of her sometimes, and transmitting all of it to his superiors. She had not seen Dr. Halberton today, and his normal visits to her had been replaced by nurses and an elderly instructor in math and the physical sciences, a woman who knew far less than Gwyneth about those subjects.
The weather was brisk, as cold as it was on many mornings when she came out here after breakfast, although the courtyard-like area did provide some shelter from the winds. Today she wore warm trousers, a sweater, and a jacket, along with dark sunglasses, because the sunlight was bothering her. She’d heard a doctor say that autistic people didn’t like bright lights, but this was something she did not always feel. At times, she enjoyed being in sunlight without hiding from it behind dark glasses. It made her wonder about the diagnosis of autism that had been placed on her, a diagnosis she carried with her like a stigma.
On the grass of the compound, there were a number of rubber balls of different sizes and colors. One was blue like the ocean, but to confuse the people monitoring her, she selected one that was yellow instead, and gave it a hard kick that sent it airborne for a good, satisfying distance. It bounced off one of the stone walls and caromed wildly to one side, where she chased it.
As she was playing, she noticed a young patient who had smiled at her that day in the cafeteria, though she’d heard others saying how foul-tempered he was, and emotionally unstable. Now he was striding around a track at the perimeter of the yard, being monitored by another attendant; a big, burly man who might have a weapon under his smock. Gwyneth wasn’t sure what the young man’s mental diagnosis was, but did know his name: Beavan DeLorean. Tall and heavy, he had a cherubic face, but the eyes were dark and distant, suggesting torment and perhaps even electroshock therapy—a cruel and primitive treatment that Gwyneth feared herself, for the harm it would surely do to her wondrous mind.
Again, DeLorean smiled at her, and waved casually, then continued on his way, finally going through the main doorway that led back into the building.
Gwyneth almost felt free when she was running in the compound, at least as free as she could physically, because for the most part it was her physical self that was confined and controlled—and it was her mental awareness that she kept away from people, to the extent possible. Yet her mind contained important information, things she could not keep to herself forever, things that she should not keep to herself. Too much was at stake. The planet was at stake, because if the ocean was imperiled, the Earth itself could die. Almost 71% of the world’s surface was ocean, containing around 97% of the water supply. Plant forms growing in the seas provided more than 50% of the oxygen on Earth.
The ocean was deep—an average depth of around 12,000 feet worldwide, with marine life forms at a range of depths, all the way down to 35,800 feet in the Mariana Trench. Gwyneth had run mental calculations to determine what a huge volume of water there was in the seas, in comparison with the space available for life on land. She had also calculated damage from oil spills, sewage dumping, toxic waste dumping, plastics in the water, and other human intrusions, and could predict approximately how many marine animals would die in the coming year, and beyond.
Sadly, tragically, the ocean was dying. Of that, she had no doubt. She had run the data and calculations in her mind over and over to form projections, processing it all as if she were a supercomputer, and then reprocessing it, coming at the subject from different angles, from every conceivable angle. Within a margin of error of two years, she knew when the ocean would die, losing its oxygen and going sterile, after which the world would essentially end, because most life on the planet would die without healthy seas.
She knew all of this without any doubt.
The various life forms occupied niches, integral parts of a planet-wide ecosystem of land, air, and water. The seas were already perishing in sections, their oxygen levels depleted, and as this occurred, the original organisms that lived in those dead zones either died or moved away. Already, there were hundreds of ocean wastelands around the planet. For a time, replacement organisms would move in that did not depend on oxygen, such as jellyfish or chemical life forms. But ultimately, the living organisms would all cycle down and vanish, as the environmental niches—with all of their complex interactions of predators and prey—were wiped out. No matter how she examined the data, she saw an avalanche of species die-offs occurring, inevitably resulting in the extinction of all ocean species.
There were already signs of that apocalyptic future, dark and ominous signs. From the mysterious flow of data into her mind, she knew the exact life and death statistics on every species in the ocean, from the whales to the krill they ate, to even smaller organisms—and the numbers were not good. The trends were frightening.
Some life forms—perhaps the hardiest chemical organisms around deep volcanic vents or bacteria on the seabed, or amphibians that could take refuge on the land—might survive and begin the march of sea-creature evolution again if oxygen ever returned to the water, spanning millions and millions of years. But it would be even more difficult for them than it had been for their ancestors because of the damage done to the waters by humans. Nature had a way of healing itself, but there were limits to what it could accomplish.
All the seas of the Earth would die within the next two hundred years. It was much bigger than the signs that other people were noticing, such as dying coral reefs and fish species going extinct in modern times. And more than the survival of the fittest.
This was much, much bigger.
Secretly, Gwyneth went through additional calculations now as she ran around the exercise yard, kicking the yellow ball, but not laughing, not releasing the mounting stress she felt inside, the immense burden of responsibility for the information that had been entrusted to her. She felt like a caretaker of the vast amount of data, and, ultimately, of the ocean itself. All of it was in her safekeeping. She ran faster and faster around the yard until she had trouble breathing, while her mind kept speeding through its complex, disturbing cycles. Her emotions ran wild, from sadness to frustration, and increasing anger over what human beings had done to the beautiful waters of the planet.
Wherever humans go, she thought, they leave filth and destruction in their path. Humans are pigs.
As she stopped and took long, deep breaths to recover, she noticed two small gray gulls gliding toward her, and they landed on her shoulders, one on each. She saw their round, nervous eyes next to her own, and the beaks that could injure, or even blind, her. But these were friends, non-threatening.
Rummaging in a pocket of her jacket, she brought out a folded piece of bread, salvaged from lunch. She broke it into little pieces, which she fed to the birds, watching them grab the morsels eagerly, and actually share the treat. Finally, when she gave them the last of the pieces, the gulls flew off with food in their beaks, perhaps to share with others, or to find some water to wash it down. One of the remarkable things she had learned was that these shorebirds could drink saltwater without ill effect, processing it through the specialized organs of their bodies. It was but one of the many marvelous things she had learned about the ocean.
Hearing a bell ring, marking the end of her exercise period, Gwyneth left the ball and walked toward the double doors that led back into the building. Glancing back, she saw the attendant keeping pace with her, and then turning away when she reached her room and entered. The door locked automatically when it closed behind her.
Inside, she removed her sunglasses and saw Dr. Halberton awaiting her. He sat at the table in the center of room, with a tablet of paper and a thick
black-lead pencil in front of him. “For your lesson today, Gwyneth, I want you to draw as many images as you can think of. Whatever pictures come into your mind.” He motioned for her to sit with him.
Gwyneth nodded, but hesitantly. Taking a seat across from him, she felt like she wanted to tell him more, yet she was not certain how to phrase something so momentous, or whether to use words or symbols. So the teenager took the pencil, but just sat there with it, thinking, struggling to come up with a way of putting a thought into a word or combination of words, or a picture. A stream of images came to mind, but none were satisfactory. None of the pictures in her mind quite represented the next level of information she wanted to pass on to him—information about the ocean, and where it and the world were headed.
Sometimes pictures were easier for her, especially when she created symbols such as the blue circle representing the planet’s ocean, or wrote the formula for water. But this time the autistic girl was able to visualize words easier, and she envisioned them flowing across a page. They were her words, in her own private system, but would not come in any order that she could express coherently to others. They would seem jumbled to anyone hearing them, even to this doctor who was trying to help her, and who had been so perceptive in the past.
Finally, the teenager shook her head and put down the pencil, then looked at him apologetically. She found herself unable to convey anything more to him, not an image of any sort, nor a sound, nor any form of a clue.
***
Chapter 17
Alicia had her own car, a small Japanese import, but it was at the repair shop getting its steering and wheel alignment repaired, damage caused by the rough Wanaao-area roads. The Ellsworth Ranch had a small fleet of Jeeps available to her in the interim, all kept in good repair in the maintenance shop, adjacent to the horse stables.
Ocean: The Awakening Page 9
