by Mark Wandrey
“Dad, Kray won’t take the bass.”
The orca tossed its head and Matthew felt the distinctive ultra-low frequency feeling of the orca pulsing his sonar. “I saw,” Matthew said. “We’ll have to do some blood tests and see if there’s a problem.”
“There is nothing wrong with the creature,” Kodu’ku said.
Matthew turned back to look at the alien, who was observing the orca. The two seemed to be staring at each other. “My apologies, but how do you know our orca is well?”
“Because he told me.” Matthew shook his head, not understanding. Kodu’ku focused both eyes on Matthew for a long moment, then placed a hand on his head. “Oh, right, you don’t have ready access to these.” He placed another hand on the pendant hanging around his neck. “One moment.”
The elSha reached into a pouch around his waist and removed another pendant and one of the small computers they called slates. Kodu’ku touched the slate a couple of times, closed his eyes, and the slate flashed. He placed the pendant on top of the slate and both flashed red, and then he handed the pendant to Matthew.
“What do I do with this?” Matthew asked.
“Place it near your mouth,” was the reply.
Matthew did as he was told, and Kodu’ku pointed at the orca, which wasn’t looking at him. “Now what?” he asked.
The orca pulsed his sonar directly at Matthew, and he shook his head from the power of it. Then the pendant spoke in strangely-accented but understandable English, “I no like funny fish.”
Matthew’s eyes were open wide in shock as he looked from Kray to Kodu’ku, and back to Kray. “Was that you speaking?” he asked. The pendant he was holding thrummed against his skin, the frequency similar to the one the orca used. In adjacent tanks, several other orca heads popped out of the water. Kray rolled slightly in the water. The move was eerily similar to the way a dog cocked its head.
“Yes, I speak. I like hear you speak me!”
Matthew almost dropped the translator in surprise as he turned to look at Kodu’ku, then he laughed out loud. “Holy shit!” he said, and Kray laughed as well, bobbing his head up and down in an unmistakable nod of his huge head. Terry watched his father, the young man’s mouth hanging wide open and the fish dangling, forgotten.
Matthew knew the world had just changed for him in ways he might never fully understand. He was also more excited than he could ever remember being in his entire life. “I think I’m going to go buy Kray a tuna,” he said. Kray nodded with even more vigor.
* * * * *
Part 1 – The Tower of Babel
Chapter 1
Kaunakakai Elementary School, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
August 10th, 2035
Terry leaned as far forward as he could without falling over and watched the pitcher. The boy glanced at the runner on first base, then back forward. Terry grinned; the pitcher had forgotten he was there. He led off several steps as the pitcher wound up. Terry glanced at the shortstop, who glanced at him. The shortstop’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to yell. Too late.
The pitcher released the ball at the same instant Terry broke into a sprint. The shortstop barked a warning as the ball went tink against the batter’s bat and bounced against the ground, hopping up just enough that the pitcher’s frantic jump for it fell a good half-meter short.
Terry passed the shortstop, tossing a wink to the kid, who snarled a furious curse in Polynesian. He cut around 3rd, his foot just touching the base, and straightened out for home.
“Go, go, go!” the 3rd base coach yelled as he passed, and Terry ran.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shortstop take a shot at catching the 1st base runner. The kid there had to jump a little to catch the ball, and the runner tagged before the 1st baseman came back down. Safe! He made up for missing the tag by making an incredible sideways throw. Terry took two long running steps and dove for home. The catcher reached for the ball, nabbed it, and swept his big mitt toward Terry, who slid just under it.
“Safe!” the umpire called, and the parents of his team cheered.
“Terry Clark scores!” the announcer yelled, and his team came out of the dugout to high-fives.
The game over, Terry and his team were sitting in the dugout, a humidifying fan blowing on the kids as they drank ice-cold sodas. It was the 3rd year Terry had played on the Mokoka‘I summer league, and they were getting good. There were coeds in the advanced group that played all over the islands. Most of his friends played with him, and despite the mid-summer heat, it was the second-best time of the year for him.
“You suckered the pitcher big time,” Yui said.
“I saw he didn’t check 2nd very often, even when a runner was on,” Terry said, and Yui winked at him. Yui Tanaka played 2nd base, while Terry was a shortstop. As their positions were next to each other, they’d learned to depend on each other. Last year, the two had discovered their other passion—besides baseball, of course.
“Okay, team,” the coach said to get their attention. “We’re undefeated, so that means we get to go to the All-Island Tournament on O‘ahu next week.” The kids all cheered and pumped their fists in the air. “Practice Wednesday. Make sure your uniforms are clean, and I’ll call your parents to give arrangements for the shuttle to Honolulu.”
Terry raced Yui out to their bikes. They tossed the empty soda cans into a recycling bin and unlocked their bikes. “You hear from Doc?” Yui asked as she took her phone and started her bike.
“Yeah,” Terry said, starting his own bike. “He says to meet him at Kiowea, Pond Place.”
“Oh, cool!” she said.
Terry verified his bike had enough charge. From Kaunakakai Elementary School to Kiowea Park was just over 2 miles. He’d had his bike plugged into the baseball field’s common solar bank, but the weather was a hazy overcast, and thirty other kids were charging their bikes, too. His phone said the bike was good for 3 ½ miles. He made a face as he jumped on and followed her. Yui was already heading down the driveway toward Ailoa Street.
He had a 20-watt panel in his backpack, sure. While they were out with Doc, it would give him a little juice. Probably not enough to get back to the institute, which would mean pedaling up the hill. He could ask Yui to pedal part of the way with him. He shook his head. For some reason he didn’t want to admit, he’d screwed up and hadn’t put his bike on the charger last night. He gritted his teeth and used the electric motor to catch up to her.
The early afternoon traffic along Route 450, Mauna Loa Highway, was busy. August was tourist season, and things had picked up since the aliens moved in. A dozen of them were always coming and going from the institute, and groupies were also always coming and going. Aliens were cool and all, but who wanted to follow a big stinky purple bear around, or one of those monkey-looking Maki? Yesterday, something that looked like an anteater had been talking to his mother. Gross!
Buzzing along at 15 kph, they were soon passing Paddlers, then Molokai Burger. He was hungry after the game and hoped Yui would pull in for a snack. No such luck; she sped on by. One of the Kaunakakai police officers was standing on the opposite corner talking to an elSha about something. He waved at Terry, who waved back. The elSha focused one eye on Terry for a second before pivoting it back to the cop.
Mauna Loa slowly descended to just a few meters above sea level. Terry enjoyed the cool ocean breeze as he nursed his low battery while keeping up with Yui. At one point she looked back at him lagging and waved for him to keep up. He smiled and waved back, glancing down at the phone locked onto the handlebar. Only 10% battery remaining. Crap.
The last of the town fell behind them, and the ocean was just to the left as they rode. Finally a small coconut grove appeared between them and the ocean, and he heaved a sigh of relief. They turned on Kapuaiwa Road as his battery indicator started flashing at 5%. He switched to pedals for the last hundred yards.
The road turned to the right, becoming Pond Place. However, if you went a little further without turning,
there was a dirt turnaround which put you on the beach. There, just off shore, floated an old red and white trawler that had seen better days. A man so suntanned most people would guess he was African-American was sitting on the fantail, messing with gear.
“Yo, Doc!” Terry yelled. The man looked up, shading his eyes from the glare, and waved.
“You want I should bring the skiff over?”
Terry looked at Yui, who stuck her tongue out and shook her head. “Naw, we’ll be right there!”
They locked their bikes and sealed their backpacks, making sure the tape locked in place. The contents would stay dry for hours, maybe days, even underwater a few meters.
“Last one there’s a sea turtle turd!” Yui said and sprinted for the water.
“Damn it!” Terry yelled, jamming his finger onto the LOCK icon for his bike. He stuffed the phone into his front pocket, zipping it as he ran, and somehow got his backpack in place, too. Despite her head start, he was a better sprinter, and by the time her feet hit the water, he was only two steps behind her. Almost in tandem, they lept into a wave just as it reached them.
In the water they were equals. Try as he might, though Terry was unable to catch her before she made it to the boat’s transom one stroke before he did.
“You’re a sea turtle turd!” Yui crowed as she flipped up onto diving deck.
“Shut up,” Terry mumbled.
“Sorry, what? Did you say I won?”
“You kids knock it off,” Doc said.
Terry looked up at Doc, who was now on the flying bridge. He didn’t know how old the man who called himself Doc was. Maybe sixty? Who knew? Terry knew he’d lived in Hawaii all his life, growing up in the warm Pacific waters. He thought maybe Doc was a doctor of some kind. He’d met the man and his ship on a fishing charter their family had taken the year they’d arrived on Molokai. He was average height for most adults, with a thick body and heavily-muscled arms. Despite his age, his abdomen showed a fully-defined six-pack that made Terry hope he looked that badass when he grew up. The shaved, bald head was cool, too, but his mom wouldn’t let him shave his own head.
Charters were his main source of income. Mainly fishing, but also diving. It had been Terry’s introduction to diving, and probably the most exciting moment in his life. After they’d moved to Hawaii, the excitement of surf and sun quickly wore off, and it became just another place to live.
Then he dove underwater with a scuba tank, and everything changed for him. It was like being on another world, another universe. He could glide like a bird in a reality full of infinite variety. Each moment revealed another new thing—a new fish, a new coral formation—anything was possible. Since the first time, he’d spent every moment he could steal underwater. He’d even introduced Yui to it as well. Through it all, Doc had been his guide and teacher.
“Good baseball game?” Doc asked, messing with the boat’s controls.
“Yeah,” Terry said, “we won.”
Doc nodded and hit the starter. The boat looked old and worn, yet it started with the roar of a well-maintained machine. “Let’s dive.”
* * * * *
Chapter 2
PCRI, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
August 10th, 2035
“Did you hear me?”
Matthew looked up from the display and noticed his wife standing by the door to his office. He bit his lip and tried to remember; she’d been saying something? “Terry?”
“Yes, Matthew, our son?”
“I know he’s our son,” Matthew said, making a face.
Madison crossed her arms under her breasts and glared. Matthew’s expression went away. “That’s the first step, now you can tell me where he is? His game was over two hours ago.”
Matthew looked back toward his office window to see the sun falling toward the horizon. He looked back at the display—an alien-manufactured, true 3D holographic display known as a Tri-V. It showed the anatomical makeup of a cetacean’s brain—an orca, to be precise. The images were like the Tri-V, thousands of times better than anything that had existed on Earth prior to the aliens’ arrival. The image called him with its siren call.
“Goddamn it, Matthew Davis Clark!”
Oh, shit, he thought, and his head spun around. “Uhm, I think he went scuba diving.”
“And I thought we were going to talk about whether he should be diving with that man. Terry wants to shave his head to look like him.”
“I think we’re safe. I checked on Doc with Kaunakakai PD.”
“What did they say?” She walked over to stand next to him, her own attention drawn to the anatomical model.
“He’s fine,” he said. “Vincent ‘Doc’ Abercrombie has lived on Molokai his whole life, except when he was in the military.”
“Military?”
“Yeah, a Navy SEAL, apparently. He was injured on a dive and medically retired. The boat belonged to his brother, who was killed in a traffic accident while Doc was in the service.”
“Oh, wow,” she said, looking back at him.
He nodded. “Terrence is quite safe.”
“He wants to be called Terry, you know.”
“I know,” he said, then shook his head. “I don’t understand why, though.”
“Because he’s an independent being, Matt.”
Matthew’s head came around in annoyance. She was grinning ear to ear. “Okay, fair enough.” He touched a control and the Tri-V changed to show a device hovering next to the brain. “He said he’d be back before dark.”
“What about dinner?”
“I admit, I didn’t think about that,” he said.
“Well, I did. I saved him some.” She put a covered plate on the desk. “Saved you some, too.”
“You’re awesome,” he said. The cover popped off the plate and the delightful smell of roasted fish and vegetables filled his nose. “Oh, yummy.” He grabbed the fork and took a greedy bite. “I forgot.”
“Of course you did,” she scolded. Again, her face didn’t show any anger. She pulled a chair out and sat next to him. While he devoured the food, she slid the alien computer over to herself. The device was no bigger than a normal tablet computer, though it was anything but normal. Less than five millimeters thick and completely transparent, the aliens called it a slate. The Tri-V was projected from it, and it didn’t move a millimeter as she slid it over. The slate instantly compensated, keeping the image frozen in space.
“Such amazing casual technology,” she said, shaking her head.
“Casual, sure,” he said between bites. “That ‘casual’ tech cost 200 credits.”
Madison whistled. “Two million dollars for what the aliens consider a ubiquitous toy.”
Matthew shrugged. “Translators are 150 credits each.” He looked at the translator sitting on his desk. The institute now possessed three of them—all on loan from the Logoo Syndicate, the alien organization Kodu’ku worked for—in exchange for engineering assistance developing aquatic life-support systems.
“Looks like you have it worked out,” Madison said and pointed at the display.
“I think so,” he said. “The file we got from the Science Guild helped. The race known as Selroth have brains amazingly like cetaceans. I looked on the Aethernet and found these.” He reached over and clicked the slate. The orca brain was replaced with a tiny technological device. Popup explanations of various components appeared. “They’re designed for the Selroth, but were apparently rejected for use.”
“Rejected?” she asked. “Why?”
“The customer didn’t like the size. These are apparently large for a Selroth.” He clicked again, and the device was rendered next to an orca. It was almost invisible. “Obviously it won’t be a problem with our orca.” He glanced at her. “Probably not the bottlenose, either.”
“Then you’re thinking about both?”
“Why not?”
“The question is, how much?”
“They’re listed as scrap. Fifty of them for 15 credits each.”
“Seven and a half million, Matthew,” she said, doing the math. “Where are we going to get that kind of money?”
“What would someone pay to talk to a dolphin?” he asked.
“Matthew!” she exclaimed. “You’re talking about an amusement park! That goes against everything we’ve worked for.” She pointed back toward the tanks. “All our cetaceans are rescues, for God’s sake!”
“You don’t think I know that?” he snapped. She shot him a sharp look, and he calmed himself. “Look, don’t think of it as a side show, think of it as education.”
“I’m not feeling it,” she said.
“You don’t think Joe Sixpack would leave here with a better understanding of why we should take care of the oceans after talking to someone who lives in them?”
“You think Joe Sixpack will sit and be lectured by a fish?” She said the last with a decidedly sloppy but recognizable southern accent to emphasize her scorn.
“No, of course not. We’d have to have some fun with it. I bet the dolphins will have a blast. It’s a small price to pay to advance cetacean sciences a hundred years in just months! Think of how much we can learn.”
“I know as well as you,” she said. “If you recall, our PhDs are the same.”
“Of course,” he said.
“But still, how do we earn over seven million dollars without first having our talking dolphins or whales?”
“I talked to the Bank of Hawaii,” he said. “They’re willing to see a demonstration.”
“We can’t demonstrate anything without the machines first.”
Matthew reached into a drawer and removed a metallic box smaller than a pack of cigarettes. She gasped when she saw the alien writing on it. He pressed a release and it popped open, showing the exact device displayed on the Tri-V.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“I dug into our bank account,” he admitted.
“Matthew,” she hissed, “even one is $150,000!”
“I got it half price, as a sample.” He swallowed. The $75,000 was almost the entirety of their savings, including Terrence’s college fund. “We’ve always been committed to the institute, right?”
