Excerpt: Evolution

I. Nets

The story is a simple one, although I, Mrrmh, am not sure how to tell it in this one-sided language, especially since it has been a long time since I shared with. I am remembering a day. It was a calm morning, a beautiful time of sunlight and warm streaks through the salty harbor. The children were playing hide-and-seek with one another as usual—I could hear them a ways south of the group of elders, the group of us who had more years. I had 70 years, even then, and now I have 8 more, sad ones. The children were shining black and shining white, rippled the water, jumped up and spyhopped, dove down sending out laughing squeals and clicks. Brrnh could not keep still as he tried to hide among the coral beds, and kept presenting a target big enough to hear the echo from. Lrrh was her usual clever, patient, and quick self, and wherever Brrnh surfaced, she rubbed up against him within a few seconds, laughing with. He would laugh with too, hop up, slap the surface of the water with his tail in an embarrassed way, and move off down the beds of pink again, glancing shyly back at her, hoping for better luck in the next round, and searching hopelessly for a pink bed big enough to conceal his now considerable hovering bulk. The sounds stretched out infinitely through, and the shoreline was clear and clean. Out where we elder ones were speaking with and sunning, the salt water had a pleasant depth. I took a breath and descended, right before it happened.

The descent into ocean depths is quiet and dark, and it presses in on your skin as you go. The caressing salt and sun of surface waters fade quickly as you push downwards, into the deep green-blue iceway. Follow the cold. Your sides and eyes begin to feel the pull of pressure, and you blink, and follow the cold, follow with. Darker: small groups of spiny eels push by, and fancy-finned swimmers displaying reds and golds and bright greens on their necks and backs flick in and out of the calming darkness in pairs and trios. A single sunbeam has penetrated, and you move into it instinctively. You are blinded for a moment, exposed; jellyfish tentacles flow over you, or is it lingering algae twirling like strands of sea hair? You close your eyes and listen. Far off, a murmuring, and some high-pitched singing; nearby, a steady musical hum that comes and goes, accompanying the dull waves of cold salt. Peaceful, full, swaddled in the pressing water around you. Open your eyes. Small vertebrates dart behind shadowy water flower stems, and reappear, their spines flashing neon. A sparkle of small razor teeth, a delicate and intricate dance formation. You move down, down, and the dark turns from brown to black; the tug at your eyes has become comfortable, and you are happy to feel the bands around your body’s bulk, constricting, keeping you safe. You feel sleepy, but your eyes are wide awake and signalling; your body rolls left then right with your wobbling fin, then straightens itself without your conscious motion. Sunlight is an echo cloud of motes next to you, evaporating quickly as you descend further. Cool, cool: now the lower dwellers are beginning to appear, with their soft bodies and large eyes, staring at you before they disappear behind your body. Four hundred feet down. Soft octopus glides by with a flourishing swish that you feel along your dorsal; you move your flukes but cannot see them. Far, far off, a warm glow, fireflies of the sea, the lower sea inhabitants are welcoming you, their bodies full of light, glimmering and blinking out again, tiny neat rows of twinkling lights; you feel the rhythm of your own heart beat, and it fits the twinkling. You blink. Calm. Pressure blankets you, and finally you notice your lungs. Slowly, slowly, reascending for four hundred and fifty feet in a spiraling column, not too fast, calm, buoyed, moving away from the dimming glimmer of the sea depths. It takes little effort to move upwards—just hang, move slowly, look, listen to the thunderous silence around you as you are propelled. The pressing on your ears and eyes already feels natural. Now, shielding your eyes and listening to the sounds of sea creatures near and far, sounds of your pod as they burst along their pathways, you feel the cushion of the water supporting you, inching you up. Black becomes brown becomes dark dusty green, green-blue, then far away you hear your friends’ playing squeals again on the rim of your consciousness, calling you out of your deep sea reverie—

But this time, there was too much motion. Something was wrong—my echoes came bouncing back in chaos, and I heard squeals and screams of distress, not play. Through the hazy green of the water, I began to be able to see—I turned myself to the side, moved my head down. Now I needed to surface. Staying carefully away, in my spiral column, from the troubled area, I hopped up quickly, using my tail to balance me as I hung vertical in the water, pushing my head into the air and filling my lungs. I braced myself, then looked: the scene was no longer a peaceful one, above or below...

Strings all around, the pod was being overwhelmed. Simians swarmed in and among the children, pushing themselves along. I saw their flat faces and ungainly limbs thrashing, surrounding Brrnh, who was confused and scared. And the simians had made arrow teeth, that ripped into Brrnh’s body. Brrnh was bleeding, crying, thrashing, trying to move away, but the strings would not let him. “Lrrh! Lrrh! Mrrmh! It’s hurting me, sharp strokes! Sharp!” he cried as the gash next to his dorsal fin reddened the water around him. Then, silent, he continued to thrash his enormous body, which should have freed him—but didn’t. The simians crowded around, and I saw that there were many, more than a dozen. Behind them, the wooden skiff, like floating land I had seen before: a device used by the land creatures to venture into the sea. They were very poor swimmers. I tried to think quickly: the elders, where were they? Throwing sounds out in all directions, I found them huddled together a short distance from the float, from Brrnh. I saw that Lrrh, answering her brother’s cries, was hovering, darting in and out of the danger, near the arrow teeth, butted the float, tried to push the simians away, butting against the strings, against their bodies. She was even trying to dislodge the arrow tooth that was in Brrnh, pushing Brrnh physically away from the source of pain, through the cloud of his own blood. I made my way from the outside in: all creatures but the huddled pod members had cleared the area in terror; Brrnh’s cries for help continued, until they were the sound in which I was living. I, Mrrnh, pushed forward, assessing, locating, sending clicks and small songs to soothe the pod members and Brrnh. The simian creatures were inscrutable. Another arrow tooth shot out, this time toward Lrrh—but it fell short, thankfully, and Lrrh continued pushing and butting, using her whole body and powerful tail to clear Brrnh’s attackers away. I cried out encouragement to her, then turned to the frightened pod elders and moved into their range further.

“Look and listen now...,” I began, and they answered me, even though they were petrified, in quavering voices with the right response: “...to the plan I have made in my heart.” I blinked, relieved. We were thinking alike, and this would help: of course, we weren’t thinking alike, I realize when I look back. They were simply hoping. But it had the same effect at the time.

“The children, our children...” I plunged in. “...children of our hearts,” they replied. “...they are in danger now...” and they responded well: “...perilous danger for their lives...” and I “...from the creatures who inhabit the land,...” and they “...who live beyond the strand.” We all took a deep breath, then.

I: The creatures who inhabit the land They: who live beyond the strand
We must follow using our strong tails to push us
We are twelve and they are fewer than twelve
We are strong and they are feeble
We must push our wall forward to meet their wall
We can push through we can move forward
We can push through we can move against them
We can push through we can push them away
(here I paused, waiting for the plan to sink in)
We will be strong/united in our strong/united group
We will take our path and not waver from the path
We will follow our children children of our hearts
We will nudge Brrnh Brrnh of our hearts
We will nudge Lrrh Lrrh of our hearts
We will encourage our children children of our hearts
The creatures who inhabit the land who live beyond the strand
They will retreat they will move back
As our wall advances to meet their wall.

I thought that enough, for a beginning. The pod elders were calmer now, and ready to push forward effectively and together. We lined up in our usual way, spreading ourselves out just enough, not too far away to locate quickly, and brought our wall forward to meet their wall, to free our children from the wall of the simians. We sang back and forth continuously as we went; there were not many creatures alive who did not hear us as we moved forward. As we pushed forward in our power, the sea around us moved. I don’t know why it is said that the sea caresses: it does not. The salt liquid in which we live holds us, surrounds us, presses in gently on us. We caress each other.

We were not very far, really, from the children, and we were very quick. As we propelled ourselves toward them and the attacking simians, we whistled to each other reassuringly: “We are here, to the right and to the left. Our wall.” Picking up speed, we began to muster our courage for the push with. Silence prevailed until the last moment. We assessed the scene: Brrnh’s blood continued to flow, and we could hear his feeble whistles and clicks; Lrrh was thrashing and pushing nearer and nearer the net strings. Those strings were a strange thing: often strands like those are meaningless flotsam, and flow by; but these strings did not allow passage. They were too close, and fastened somehow to one another, like very thick seaweed, even stronger. Brrnh squealed miserably: “I am moving, but not of my will! Lrrh! Mrrmh!” Lrrh clicked and nudged: the arrow tooth, which had entered him close to his blowhole, did not budge—it was buried too deep in his body. The simians floated nearby, some on top of their floating land. The nearer ones sent another arrow tooth into the water, and it came hurtling toward Brrnh’s broad right side this time. Brrnh, already wearying, leaned inadvertently into the arrow tooth, and his body reverberated as it, too, struck deep into his body mass. It was then that I noticed that the arrow teeth had tails of string—the simians were going to pull Brrnh with the strong string wall, guiding his body with the strings. They were in fact moving him already; but where? Onto the land? Into another ocean region? We pod members were much more numerous and swifter than the simians; we could outpace them, certainly, and it would be possible for us to outwait them, I thought. I made encouraging noises to Lrrh, and tried to maneuver our wall toward the pair of trapped children effectively. We could run our bodies against the boat, or overwhelm it with our jointly created waves, and perhaps the creatures would retreat to the shore again. But we would still need to remove the arrow teeth from Brrnh, and disentangle him from the string wall around him. Meanwhile, his blood flowed out into the salt sea around him. All of a sudden, I wondered anxiously how bad Brrnh’s wounds were, and whether the healing place would be sufficient for his recovery. He was only five, only a child.

We flew forward as a wall, in force, toward the struggling children and the floating land that lacked prey. There is nothing, really, that can withstand us when we form this way, determined and united with—and yet, as we clicked to determine more exactly the nature of the challenge before us, those strings were able to deceive us. I can only explain it that way, because we did not know at that time how to break through such strings, as we do now. They sounded opaque to us. I blame myself now for lack of curiosity, lack of experimentation: but at that moment, the signal meant to us that we could approach but not break through. All twenty-five of us had flashed our dorsal fins; the boat was firmly surrounded, and the simians must have wanted to retreat. We would not allow them to leave, however, before they returned Brrnh to us. That is what we thought together. I thought further about action when the others reached us to help. But first we would simply follow with. We were staying near. Everyone reached out to comfort Brrnh, and we spread our distress signals out into the miles of ocean around us, hoping for additional forces. The sun stood high in the sky.

We had expected the floating land to head toward the strand, but that is not what happened. I remember well our growing surprise as the little float dragging the bleeding Brrnh with the two arrow teeth still stuck in him, the poor child trapped inside its nasty strings, continued throughout the long afternoon and evening to head south. Lrrh continued to swirl around Brrnh, murmuring and singing, calling out at times.

When the sun was almost below sea-line, and we had been nudging at the strings, comforting Brrnh, and sending out distress calls for hours (everyone understood with that we would be following with during the night as well if necessary), a responding call heartened us: here was another whole pod, the one that Jnnh belonged to, which would make Lrrh very happy; the family was forming its wall, preparing to join with. We spread out to greet the newcomers, lining up with our flukes toward the sea bottom and our heads popping up out of the water, hovering in strength—we completed the moves in joy and relief, and they returned our greeting cordially, spreading themselves out and bobbing and hovering to show their good will. Then, three of my own daughters went to escort the visitors, whom we recognized as a group we fed with for some time, about two years ago, led by Ullrh, only fifty-odd years old but with the powerful mind of a leader of eighty. The new family was twenty strong, with four children under five among them. We all spoke and responded excitedly, explaining the situation more clearly. Ullrh was quiet, listening more than answering or initiating, thinking. Finally, she joined song:

Ullrh: Look and listen now We: to my story, to my story
We have brought our wall to help to help in the work begun
We offer our friendship and help steadfast and strong friendship
We favor the plan the plan we have in our hearts
We are strong and they are feeble
We will push our wall forward to meet their wall

and then, a practical matter:

The light of the sun is vanishing for the night, for the night
We have fed today on salmon have feasted today on chinook
We have found the fish there* where cold currents flow
And we will feed after the sun after the light of the sun vanishes
We will bring food bring salmon, bring tuna
We will nourish** will bring food
We will remain we offer our friendship and help
We will remain we will push our wall forward

I felt a murmur from the side, and realized that Lrrh had moved off with Jnnh for the moment and was squealing and clicking quietly, explaining in a more personal way to her friend Jnnh the whole tragedy. Jnnh pressed calmly against her, rubbing and caressing, as they conversed. I decided to let the young ones be, so they could build their strength together. We had time.

And then suddenly, we had no time. The little skiff, the floating land, that was dragging Brrnh with it, made a monstrous, intense, high-pitched noise that reverberated throughout the sea canyons and gullies surrounding us, and then the simians’ little piece of wood began to move very quickly—with Brrnh in tow, in its nets. It was not moving to the shore, however: the simians were propelling it south into the outer ocean. What could we do but follow? Some of the new family members, as promised, were off hunting to bring food to all of us, who had been there without eating for more than six hours now, and were exhausted with the effort of tracking the skiff. Jnnh and Lrrh were still whistling softly with one another, rubbing each other, comforting. In the knowledge that we would be cared for, we forced our bodies forward once more, forming our wall, and heading out into the vast ocean in the wake of the skiff. If we had known how far away from our home it would lead us, some of us would have wavered; but our thoughts were focused on freeing Brrnh, which still seemed possible.

Brrnh himself had stopped struggling, and simply lay inert in the nets, gasping in air when necessary, floating on his side or however the nets would allow him to position himself. Every once in a while, he gave a little moan. He was still losing blood, but at a slower rate. Lrrh and Jnnh swam over periodically and murmured and called quietly with him, trying to rub up against him to comfort despite the rough netting—they moved to his left side to avoid the arrow teeth, whose roots were still steeped in Brrnh’s blood. Brrnh must have been glad they were there, but he spoke very little with.

It was the longest night I have lived through in my long life. It was not difficult to keep up with the boat, but it was tedious and took us ever further away from our home feeding grounds; we were hungry and worried. The family of Ullrh sustained us all with their food gathering, gentle but spirited singing, and reassuring nudges and rubs. The night was a series of stops, starts, pushes with the wall, and meager but welcome feeding sessions. As I gulped down several fish herded toward me by Ullrh, I wracked my brains: how to free Brrnh from the nets? Now I would be able to use the tools of my body to do so: but then, it was a puzzle, for the nets, while composed of string of some kind, had no opening that we could find, no point of entrance. Brrnh had dived down repeatedly when first trapped, only to find that the net extended under him. The netting seemed impenetrable, and rose like a literal wall to the surface of the water, and perhaps beyond—neither we nor Brrnh could tell.

At one point during the night, the skiff stopped moving for close to an hour; we circled, nudging and bumping up against it, instead of nosing again at the impossible, finely structured net. Perhaps if we were able to communicate our worried thoughts somehow to these opaque minded creatures, they would be willing to leave, and let Brrnh return home. After all, we were fairly certain that we were not their usual prey—and they had made no move to cut or tear Brrnh’s body or ingest it, despite the two arrow teeth. Brrnh certainly was in no state to stop them. And we certainly did not think of these awkward, stringy simians as any kind of prey: looking back, I think we were more surprised, and even confused and hurt, than scared, as though the simians were ill-mannered children. Here were creatures who could not even communicate effectively, could not understand the simplest calls and requests; their towing of our child was nonsensical—we did not know then what we later learned about their plans. We did know of animals that regularly played with their prey before devouring them: but they seemed to have no intention of devouring Brrnh. We pitied them: It occurred to me, and I’m sure to the others as well during that long night of guarding and snacking and following, that the animals in the skiff might not be in control of their own minds and behavior. Again, later we knew more, but in a way it was true.

The sun dawned. With the dawn, came more simians; in fact, they swarmed over the boat, adjusting nets, sticking their legs into the water, making motions without really moving anywhere. The path followed by the boat dragging the listless Brrnh in its opaque netting had been long, but not complex. We were rather far from our home, but the way was easy to digest, and we would be able to retrace it without much problem; some of us and most of the younger, more mobile family of Ullrh had intimate knowledge of the entire area we had passed through as well as our current bay. Notably, we had passed right by the local harbor seals’ primary residence in the area, and we knew many of the smaller islands already, for they provided ample supplementary hunting grounds when the coho and chinook disappeared each year. With the pale light filtering through, we took a collective breath, and tried once again to maneuver into the netted area. Brrnh had more or less collapsed. Sometime during the early morning, the boat had stopped moving, and the arrow teeth had been removed somewhat roughly by a swimming simian who explored Brrnh’s body without rubbing or scratching it or in fact showing any sign of affection; blood poured out for a while, flooding the salt water around the boat, but now only the flapping of torn skin in two places was left as a reminder on his inert form. Every ten minutes or so, he opened his mouth to breathe in a labored way, but still in rhythm with all of the rest of us; otherwise, he appeared unconscious.

We on our part however had come to a conclusion. We could not free him.

It was a time before we knew how to manipulate certain of our powers, before we knew how to bring a small boat under control. When we echoed against the netting, it came back solid—no help there. The simians were neither ally nor prey—but it was not at all clear what spraying wash over their boat would do to help free Brrnh from the lethal nets. We were, in fact, defeated by their wall.

As we gathered to discuss our next moves, we pondered this, each in her own heart. Defeated by a simian wall. It was galling, really: but what could we do? We stationed guards in the area—two youngsters eager to play and have an adventure in a new place, and two mothers ready to follow with. Lrrh and Jnnh decided that they, too, would stay in the area, hunting and exploring, bringing food and comfort if they could to the captive Brrnh; Lrrh also thought it was possible that she and Jnnh could help guide Brrnh to a healing place they knew in the area if he should, by some miracle, get free. With six of our two families’ members watching and listening, we should at least be able to take any available opportunity to help Brrnh that arose. The rest of us headed back to our Gulf island feeding grounds; we would make it a leisurely trip back, spending two days, and playing and visiting as we went. If any new situation arose around Brrnh, we would be easily reachable by the six who stayed behind. If we had known what was to happen to Brrnh, to us all, I often wonder, would we have done differently?

II. Snakes

ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and, resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. "Oh," cried the Farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel." Moral: The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.

Sim, who had begun to pick at a splinter on the bed’s sideboard and then fidget in irritation with the tag at the neck of his pajama top while listening, looked dubious. William gazed at him inquiringly, trying not to reveal that he knew what was coming. “What’s wrong now?” he said evenly. The nine year old raised his eyebrows, as he lay full length on his alligator quilt, made a strange gurgling sound that ended on a high tone, and tossed his head, in an attempt to say, “What do you think?” His father had to capitulate.
“All right, all right. It’s a little unfair to the snake, granted.”
Sim was completely disgusted. “A little unfair? ‘A scoundrel’? ‘The ungrateful’? ‘Natural instincts’? How can a person make a judgment like that about the feelings of a creature he knows nothing about? It was probably a garter snake, in the field! Can you imagine being placed next to the creepy damp skin of a species you have known till then only as a group of hairy marauders who wanted to kill you and your children off because they were so greedy they couldn’t spare even a little of their food? If that idiot had known how to think with snakes in the first place, he wouldn’t have gotten bitten!” Sim knew this would not have the desired effect on his father, but he couldn’t seem to hold himself back. “Why isn’t the moral something sensible, like ‘Those who want to help snakes should study animal physiology and veterinary care’?” They were galling, these new stories that claimed to be about animals, but were really just full of human prejudices and stereotypes. “Can we read the good Greek stories?” He was whining, but this was Sim’s way of being conciliatory, and his father accepted the opening.
“Well: First, don’t use the word ‘idiot’: you know better. Second, Aesop wrote in Latin, not Greek. And he didn’t say ‘garter snake’—how do you know it wasn’t a cobra? But if you want we can read some of the myths from the other book. Your mother and I only picked this book out,” he added in a mildly accusing but slightly amused tone, “because we thought you’d appreciate the pictures.” Sim looked at his father expressionlessly, unmoved by this motive; if the stories were nonsensical garbage, why would pictures help? Incomprehensible and irrational.
William knew he was actually rather proud of Sim. There was no authority the child surrendered his reason to. Of course, it was an annoying trait when you needed to get out of the house on time, or go shopping, or get him to go to bed, or do anything else that required a lack of arguing. But overall, William thought, a pretty good deal. He thought a moment, then ‘redirected,’ as they said at the sessions: “Hey, Simbón,” using his pet name for Sim. “Let’s play ‘Windows’ before you brush your teeth.”
The boy lighted up. “Sure,” he said, delighted to get off the subject of bad children’s books. “You start.”
William ran his huge hands through his shock of reddish hair and frowned energetically, as though thinking very hard.
“Oooonh.. I am colorful...”
“A rainbow! No, a rainbow trout…!” Sim broke in.
“No, no! let me finish! I am colorful, like sun and earth: my head is dark brown, my hair is yellow, my clothes are green, and my feet are brown.” William looked over expectantly. “Eh?”
“One more clue?” Sim said carefully, embarrassed at his first wrong answer. “I think it’s a plant—since your feet are brown. But… your head is dark brown?”
“Yes, almost black. Um, let’s see: maybe you could call it... my eye...” William kicked himself—never give...
“Black-eyed susan! Rudbeckia hirta!” Sim shouted triumphantly. “My turn! My turn!”
William sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. “OK, OK! Don’t rub it in!” Sim was smiling ear to ear and rolling joyfully all over the quilted bed, kicking his feet up into the air and giggling hysterically, snake fable entirely forgotten. There were some advantages to it, after all.
“All right! I’ve got one!” Sim sobered up, his head on its side and cradled in the quilt, just one eye showing. “I live in a tiny green prison for half my life; but as soon as I stretch out my arms, I go free as a bird.” Sim jumped up and off the bed to pantomime the riddle, and began to run around quickly in circles, flapping his scrawny arms as though flying about the room.
“So you’re not a bird,” William mused. “Not a bird!” cried Sim happily as he ran, faster and faster, becoming more and more dizzy. He fell down with a big thump.
“Tiny green prison... hmm...”
“Hey! Are you two still awake?” they heard coming from the general direction of the library. William and Sim looked at each other guiltily. William raised his eyebrows.
“No?” he shouted out feebly, staring intently at a familiar spot high up on the wall shaped a little like a lizard. Sim had already slipped under the quilt, and adjusted his body so that he appeared to have been ensconced there for at least two hours. He closed his eyes, and brought his breathing to a calm, steady pace. William glanced over and whispered loudly, “Teeth!” Sim tried not to hear: that would give the whole thing away. He began to snore lightly, to hint to his father that the brushing of teeth could wait; William didn’t take the hint. “Teeth!” he said, this time almost aloud. Sim scrunched his face up, stuck out his tongue, curled up instantaneously into a tiny ball, and then, putting his head all the way under the quilt, pushed his body down the length of the bed, still underneath the quilt, inching his way along. Finally, a small toe stuck out the bottom of the bed, then its foot, which reached for the floor; the one extended leg was followed by another, and by a trunk, until the boy had reappeared, crouching on the floor at the foot of the bed. The boy kept lowering himself until his entire body was lying in contact with the wooden floor, then slithered off like a snake toward the bathroom. William pursed his lips and tried not to laugh out loud. As he made his way toward the library, grinning from ear to ear, it occurred to him that Dr. Spock had said nothing about this kind of thing at all.

“William Williams, did you set the computer background picture to this ugly Strandbeest again after I spent hours finding that amazing picture of the New Jerusalem marae?”
“Ugly? It’s our energy future, sweetie!” Arachne shook her head, smiling teasingly, and pretended to sock William one in the jaw, then reached over and ruffled through his hair. Her own hair she habitually cut very close to her head; she liked the way that William’s was almost a full-out Afro. She kissed him on the nose. “You’re so…”
“Ornery?” he suggested.
“Mm. I was going to say ‘frizzled.’ Cute forelock. How’s the little snake?”
“Well, he was slithering off to the bathroom to brush his fangs when I left. Sorry we took so long—he had an adverse reaction to Aesop.”
“I could have predicted that, I guess—but I didn’t!” she laughed. “So, what’s next? I’d recommend Kropotkin.”
“I know you would! We’ll see… I can’t keep up with his biology brain as it is—do we really want to add anthropology and sociology, a lethal mix even for me? There’s always the newest National Geographic, but that won’t take too long.” He was quiet a moment, then added: “Actually, I was thinking of The Flamingo’s Smile …”
She brightened even more, and ran with the suggestion: “He’d love those! Good idea. We can look for them at the library this week. We can read them with him—the vocabulary might be a bit confusing at first. There might even be some picture books about evolutionary science in the same section. Hmm… I think I have a few over there…” she glanced over to a large, tottering pile of books, very few of which had spines facing any direction that could be read. “I’ll—I’ll look through…” she coughed lightly, waiting to be interrupted.
William laughed loudly; there were very few times when Dr. Arachne Achieng suffered embarrassment. “The library will do. He should learn how to find his own books, anyway.” Arachne was visibly relieved. She pushed her chair back from the computer desk, and sighed.
“Shall we?” she asked.
“Certainly, my lovely Spider Lady,” William said and headed for the kitchen. At the counter, he pulled down two sky blue mugs, on the sides of which were elaborate, intricate designs surrounding the initials W and A, and poured a cup of semi newly brewed and pressed coffee for each of them. He added some soy milk to his, and some kahlua to hers, and brought both mugs back into the library, where Arachne was already sitting back in the big blue-green sofa, eyes staring off into space, absorbed in a problem or a memory. “Arachne?”
She started. “Mm-hm.”
William looked thoughtful. “Sim…”
“Honey, stop worrying,” she said softly, sipping her coffee.
“I’m only worrying because I want him to be able to do what he is truly capable of, realize his potential. I’m not sure it was the best idea to…”
“To what? To find out why he could memorize and recite the entire Encyclopedia Britannica article on frogs, but could not greet a classmate at the bus stop without having a nervous breakdown? I think it was the best idea we ever had. He’s doing so well, and this school has really worked for him…”
“I know, I know. It’s not that. It’s just that I’m afraid he’ll be limited somehow in the future… or,… I don’t really know what I’m worrying about, I suppose. He’s only nine, after all. He has time to lick it.”
Arachne sighed again, this time a bit perturbed. “ ‘Lick it’? What do you mean by that? It’s not a disease, for pete’s sake, whatever they might say about it. It’s a way of thinking, a way of making sense of the world—and in a lot of situations it’s a very functional way of doing that. I don’t mean that it won’t be hard for him, but the difficulty is not rooting it out and destroying it: it’s learning to live differently, think differently, from his friends and neighbors, and have that be OK, with him and with the others as well. You know that; they’ve explained it so many times.”
“I know, I know.” He still couldn’t explain the anxiety to himself, let alone her. “I guess it’s the others that I’m worried about.”
Arachne touched his arm lightly. “Me too. But we can’t do anything about them except educate them, one by one.” She looked into his eyes, tired but smiling: “That’s what we’re good at, right?”
William grimaced. She had a way of making it all seem easy—but he knew that the feeling would only last while he was safe in this room. It tired and depressed him just to think of the trials coming up for his son; his own childhood had been bad enough, without having to deal with an unknown quantity like this. “Yes, Spider Lady: we’re fabulous at educating them, fabulous! ‘This class was interesting.’ ‘Not applicable.’ ‘The teacher showed enthusiasm for the subject.’ ‘Not applicable.’…”
“Oh, stop obsessing,” Arachne chided, “and get me another cup of coffee.”
Crash.
William and Arachne looked at each other; William closed his eyes. Arachne pried herself out of the comfortable sofa, and jogged briskly over toward the bathroom, knowing and not knowing what had happened. “Sim?” she called out in a controlled, low tone. As she reached the open door to Sim’s bedroom, she involuntarily glanced in, noticing a large lump in the middle of the bed. So far so good. She sauntered into the room, and sat on the edge of the bed, then poked at the bundle in the middle. The bundle said “Ow!”
“That’s right, young man: ow! What was that crash?”
The bundle was silent.
“OK. I am going to walk to the bathroom now and see...”
“No, wait! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” the bundle cried out in remorse. “I slithered over it! It pulled!”
“Slithered over what?” asked the bundle’s mother patiently, relieved that Sim did not seem to be injured.
“The cord. The cord to the light. Unh.”
Arachne’s eye finally took in the fallen six foot standing lamp lying across the floor at the bottom of the bed; shattered glass was scattered across the room. She quickly refocused. In her best non-emergency voice, she said, “Sim, let me see you now.” The quilt began to bubble, and finally the edge nearest the window popped up and a hand pushed out from under. The rest of the bundle made its way to where the quilt edge had been found, and slowly pulled itself out to sit in the middle of the bed, on top of the quilt. Head down.
“Sim,” his mother said gently. “Turn around and look toward the window.” Sim dutifully did so. Arachne methodically checked his head, legs, feet, arms, and back for marks, or broken glass. None. “OK, little snake: are you feeling all right?”
“I think I am,” said Sim. “I predict that I will be able to sleep now.”
Arachne smiled. “Good. I’ll clean the lamp up. Silly lamp.” Sim smiled briefly, but didn’t look up. “Good night, sweetie.” She reached out and gave him a big hug. He closed his eyes, then crawled back beneath the quilt. “Good night,” he said weakly.
Avoiding the glass, Arachne walked into the kitchen to get the broom and dustpan. “The next time I suggest anything with a cord for Sim’s room, please remind me of this,” she half-joked to William, who was still looking nervous. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry: be concerned, but don’t worry,” she repeated like a mantra, inviting him to join in with a hand gesture. Instead, he grabbed a wet rag and followed her back in to Sim’s room to clean up the broken glass.
“This is the trouble with being a snake, right?” he joked. Arachne laughed quietly and a little sadly, nodding her head; she didn’t know why, but some water was trying to make its way out of her eyes. Sim was already snoring.

III. Spider Plants

Huffing and puffing, William walked briskly through the huge, open oak door of the main department office, making a bee-line for his mail cubbyhole. Without looking over, but not unkindly, he said, “Good morning, Ms. Melitti!”
“Good morning, do you know you have a new person moving in with you? of course not, here’s your new library key, we changed the lock.” Gina Melitti, the administrative assistant for the department, had blue hair this morning, which went surprisingly well with her vintage clothing black sweater top and big blue beads. She had a strange, grating voice, and was nothing if not economical in her speech. She smiled mischievously: “You’re probably not going to like each other, I told Jim, but he went ahead—but I’m sure you’ll make the best of it.” She smiled again, broadly and sincerely this time. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” William said abstractedly, processing some but not all of what had just flown by him. A new person. A new key for the library. Or was that a new library? He had learned over years in the department that when one did not understand something said, the best policy was to stay silent and wait until the subject cropped up again. If it never cropped up, you were home free; if it resurfaced, you would be able to glean a little more this time, and so on. Right now, all he needed was a seat by a window. He said as much.
“Go ahead, just don’t forget your library key, hey, what are you waiting for?” Gina was still smiling. She suddenly stopped smiling. “Anyway, I have a ton of stuff on my desk for today, so if you want something tell me quick.”
William thought a moment. “Nope—not today.” He decided to be foresighted for once: “One of these days, though, Gina, later in the week maybe, I’m going to need to book the library for a meeting—just two hours, no more.”
Gina looked skeptical, so he revised: “Later in the month?”
She relaxed. “No problem. Tell me when you have a date and time and I’ll put it on the calendar. OK, have fun with your new roommate. Don’t spill the coffee all over as you leave.”
Roommate. Coffee. Put new library key in pocket. Each time William made it up the spiral stairs to his office on the sixth floor of the Science Building, for several years now, he discovered something changed or shifted. This was difficult for him, for despite the chaos that seemed to surround him regularly, he was truly a creature of habit. It hit him like an endless barrage, and he found himself unable to distinguish large from small inconveniences, tricks from innocent mistakes, hostile from neglectful acts. He had grown, you might say, a little paranoid. Sometimes someone had taken a chair out of his office to use in another area; other times, some of the notes on his desk were rearranged or piled neatly in the center, or the sweater he had left folded neatly over the back of his chair was hung from the coat rack, a practice that he despised because it stretched the wool. Once, a 50 gallon tank of tropical fish had been placed on a stand near his window temporarily, for a biology class, and in the process his favorite spider plant—the only kind he ever kept in his office because they were so hardy, and because his wife was named Arachne—had been given away to a graduate student. Another time, Gina had decided to spruce up the department by taking out famous paintings on internal loan from the university art museum, and he had found himself sitting behind his desk staring at Picasso’s “The Absinthe Drinker,” a piece that he found not a little disconcerting and upsetting. Yet another time, a blackboard on wheels, three chairs, and an additional desk were crammed into his office because there was no other place to put them. Jim, the departmental acting chair, was responsible for almost every one of the changes (except for the Picasso loan), and William couldn’t help but feel that each change was a small push to get William to leave of his own accord. It had almost become an amusing game: what would be gone this time? Moved? Would he have no curtains? Would his electric hot pot be in storage? Would his computer CPU have a cover over it, or be disconnected from the wall? Once he had found his stash of hot cocoa tampered with, and had almost thrown a tantrum in his chair’s office, but thought better of it, and simply went out and replaced the whole thing without complaint, to be politic. He didn’t want to appear paranoid, even if he was.
So it was with his usual sense of dread and foreboding that William approached his own office door this morning. Roommate. He knocked, softly but firmly, before putting his key in the lock. No answer—so far, so good. He pushed open the door gingerly and stood in the doorway to inspect the space. Desk: check. Lamp: check. Computer: check. Shelves: check. Books (this took a little longer to survey)... well, they looked like they were all there, arranged in the order that he had left them in. He took a deep breath, and exhaled with decision. As he stepped into the room, he glanced over toward the window for a look at the replacement spider plant—and halted.
“Dr. Williams, I presume?” said a young woman with inquisitive dark brown eyes, matted brown-black hair, a pale, bookish (or, alternatively, model-like) complexion, and very fashionable glasses, looking up from her book, which—William noted with annoyance—she was reading snuggled into his reading chair by the window. Under the spider plant. With her shoes off, and feet tucked under her legs in the sort of quasi-lotus position that seems to come naturally to young people in their 20s, and which is never attained after that age without conscious effort. She smiled inscrutably, trying to maintain her advantage he supposed, put her book face down on the arm of the chair, jumped up, and extended a rather large, athletic-looking hand to him: “I’m Dr. Maribel Hawking; thrilled to meet you!”
“Hawking...”
“No relation,” she said, a flicker of disappointment flashing across her face.
“Dr. Hawking... the new Assistant Professor!” He tried to sound enthusiastic and encouraging. She was really so young. “I saw your résumé—very impressive. Mm. Unified field theory is one of those sexy areas that everyone wants to work on, but very few people seem to be able to get very far with.” He nodded at her. This much was true. He really did not remember, however, whether he had considered her to be one of those few people when he’d read her application and résumé—it seemed so long ago. He thought a moment. What else? Oh: “Congratulations, and welcome,” he added as an afterthought. There, that should do it: friendly, not condescending... She seemed like a nice young person. Maybe she would give his chair back for the morning, if he asked nicely.
“Thank you.” She seemed somewhat unimpressed. “It looks as though we’ll be office mates this semester,” she observed, looking around his office in a slightly too casual way for his taste. “I’d like to get a few ground rules straight.” He blinked.
“Ground rules. Right.” He stared at the spider plant hanging just above her hair, which was looking a bit forlorn, its little green and white leaves drooping like hair that needs a shampoo, and its two little baby shoots looking a little bedraggled. He needed to get water to it quickly. “What days do you teach?”
“No, I mean: ground rules. For instance: I smell stale smoke in this room, and since I am very allergic I need to ask you to refrain from smoking while here.”
William started to explain that he did not smoke at all, that his wife Arachne... but she waved his explanation aside. “No need to explain; I just can’t have it, that’s all. I hope you understand.” He nodded, nonplussed. She continued without a pause: “I have a few more necessary items to share: One. I will need a desk; Ms. Melitti told me there would be an extra, but I don’t see one. I hope it won’t be a problem if I utilize yours for a few days while one is located and brought in for me. Two. I am hypersensitive to sound. That means that when I am working, I require absolute silence. I do not know what your schedule is, when your office hours are, or how often and how long you plan to be here working in this room, but if we are to share the room at any point, I must ask you to respect my needs in this area. Three. I have already reconfigured your computer—I hope this is not a problem—so that my own account is accessible from the first screen; this is so that we can share the computer effectively. You will need to use your password to get into your account now, too.” At this, William grabbed his desk with one hand to steady himself; he had used his own computer for so long that he was not completely aware that he had a password, not to mention an account; he would need to look into this further, no doubt. As it was a Friday, it might be difficult to get help with it from Info Tech today. He closed his eyes and tried to remain calm.
“Finally,” Dr. Maribel Hawking finished up, “finally, I am very aware that you are an old and established Professor in this department, whereas I am very new and relatively inexperienced, in this department.” She paused, a bit discomfited by the thought, but she seemed to reassure herself by the fact that her emphasis had been clear: she had plenty of experience, just not here. “But I hope you will treat me with all the respect you show your older colleagues. I am used to being taken seriously.” She seemed very serious. William couldn’t help it: he burst out in uncontrollable laughter.
Tears streaming down his face, he leaned harder on his desk, and finally collapsed in a heap on the swivel chair behind the desk, which twisted a bit unexpectedly, making him laugh even harder. He struck the desk with his flat hand several times, and lay across the desk hiccuping out giggles every few seconds. Dr. Maribel Hawking stared at her hysterical office mate, and a translucent, hard, icy veil came down over her face. She waited for what seemed like an hour but was really 20 seconds, and then, since there was no sign of a let-up of the storm, finally stalked out of the room, making inarticulate little sounds from her throat, lips pursed, brows knitted. The book she had been reading slipped as she left from the arm of the chair onto the floor, but she did not notice.
William slowly recovered himself. He felt a little remorseful, but not too. This was obviously the best surprise of all—he had to hand it to Jim. This Hawking woman took the cake. So, they were roommates. OK, he could live with that. Most likely, he’d drive her nuts quickly, she would ask to be moved, and that would be that. Humming to himself, he grabbed the empty Bustelo can sitting on the windowsill and headed down the hall to get some water for his parched spider plant. As he passed the women’s bathroom, he heard some muffled noises from inside: she could deal with it herself, he thought to himself. I’m getting water; I’m heading back to my office, my office, I’m sitting at my window, under my watered spider plant, and reading… what had she been reading? there was the book, on the floor. William picked it up and glanced at the cover—Lamarck? Who read Lamarck, for pete’s sake? Interesting, though: a new critical translation. The man had believed in spontaneous generation of new species. On the other hand, he hadn’t believed in hierarchy among living creatures. That was something. Maybe the time was ripe for his rehabilitation. The Hawking woman was—
“Are you proud of yourself?” said a familiar, grating voice at the door.
“Gina, I—”
“Oh, don’t bother. The poor woman’s been through enough this week. Your office wasn’t her first landing pad, you know. At least be a little friendly. How could you send her to the bathroom crying like that? She’s still in there! For godssake, have a heart!”
“Oh, she seemed like she could take care of herself. Laid out ‘groundrules’ for me! For my office! I didn’t say anything, I just—”
“Look, in this place it’s ‘share and share alike’—for someone who studies communal systems you’re not being very… communal.”
“I don’t have to be communal! I’m a Full Professor!”
Gina rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Professor Baby. Just give being nice a try for a change.” Gina charged off back to her desk, muttering something uncomplimentary about academic tenure.
He sighed in a grieved, long-suffering way. Of course she was right, but he hated to back down. He hadn’t really done anything except laugh at her. And look what she had done first! He didn’t feel that he owed anyone an apology, really, considering. This Hawking woman was not what he had expected for a roommate—quite volatile, defensive, and super young. But Lamarck. Maybe he could start there. If she ever returned from the bathroom.

IV. Meeting

Solitude and meditation gave me an awareness, a perspective which I have never lost: that of solidarity with the rest of mankind. (Vicente Aleixandre, 1898-1984)

We headed not only for our home feeding grounds, but for the Telling Place. Like most friendly groups, we had to talk with to remember, and we had to remember this with, of course. Already all the pods and families up and down the coast were aware of what had happened to Brrnh, and some were sending delegations to our six guards and Lrrh and Jnnh, sending food and visiting regularly. I should share about the Telling Place, however, because it was, and is, a very special place.
If you swim toward the shoreline on the northwest side of the Big Island, you can easily hear it opening out, deepening unexpectedly. The depth changes with the tides, but this one area harbors the steady presence of cool water from the depths, rising, calming, running over your back and beak. We rubbed against each other affectionately as we entered the area—one couldn’t help it. Seagulls circled continuously in this area, but were always oddly quiet; chinook huddled and flashed, seaweed swished by, chatter from below floated up and around. When I was young, I would come here when I had eaten enough but did not want to play with friends—when I wanted to be quiet and alone, watch the silvery streams of water and fish, rub up against the gravelly surface of the shore, and then dive deep into the cold green underwater, listening to far-away play sounds, watching the crabs flash away into the muddy or sandy bottom, wondering as multicolored little fish passed by and the occasional seal made his or her way through the area, and thinking about my life, my past and my future. I reflected to myself on feelings and situations that were not present at the moment, no longer (or not yet) before my eyes. I turned over my experiences, examined them with. Sometimes my rumination would be sparked by something I heard or felt, a skittering crab that I glimpsed as I hopped up, the particular way a sunbeam flashed down to the shallow bottom by the shore, a particularly large congeries of peculiar, shrivelled-looking sea lemons grazing in a bed of sponges that connected in my mind with the sea lemons that fascinated me when I first went shallow water hunting with my mother… This place bred memories, helped me to turn over my experiences and connect them. The connections were sometimes saddening, sometimes joy producing, sometimes frightening: but they were always desirable, and they always helped me to face future events more confidently.
I was also able to share my imaginings and rememberings with friends—which made them more valuable. In time I came to know the solitary place of my childhood wishes as a common meeting place for all of us when we wanted to think into our ways and our experiences. It was the place of the Sharing of Gifts. As a child, I knew instinctively that this was a place for developing and creating gifts, but my sharing was not formal; it was simply a natural and childish attempt to connect further with my mother, and others around me. No doubt their experiences had been much the same, and even my formulations must have seemed childish and repetitive to them. But they knew that this was how we grew our gifts, and so they cherished each small offering and encouraged me to continue learning and remembering. They added bits to my sharing, whenever possible; and so I grew to be a very aware youngster, existing both in the world of many and the world of one—and awake also to the world of all. The Telling Place was where I first learned to listen, and therefore to develop my gifts, upon which I rely now more than ever.
This place, then, we were all longing to visit together as we made our way home through the cold salt waves. When we began to hear once more the raucous sounds of the seashore area, the island inlets full of sounding fish, seals, and dolphins, our hearts beat a little faster, and some of us surfaced, slapped the water, and turned somersaults and did dives of pleasure. Traveling at our second or third best speed, we had made the trip back in much less time than it had taken to track Brrnh’s captors. We knew where to find him if something happened, and our guards were ready to warn us if we needed to return quickly. Calls travel through the water with great speed. We did not feel isolated from Brrnh and the others: quite the opposite—they were within easy reach, we felt. I wanted to make sure we gathered soon, so that we could formally add Brrnh’s story to our memories, honing it with recently experienced sounds, smells, and sights. The others seemed amenable. A small group of us older ones headed for the place, which was hidden from the direct tide by a short outcropping of rock from the north eastern side of the island. We swam in a circle, resting, sending marking noises to one another, half asleep. The others would come soon. The cool, deep water and the bright sunlight made the area just the place for waiting. The gulls made their background music, and completed occasional skimming operations, searching for the smaller salmon that our group had left behind.
“Mrrmh, listen,” ventured my life sustaining friend from our extended family. Ullrh had made the trip handily despite her almost six decades of age and a slight new gash across part of her dorsal fin from heaven knows what recent adventure. “I want you to know with: we will not leave Brnnh and the others—we intend to return,” she said warmly, “with a plan.”
“I know, Ullrh, I understand. This is the place for us to remember, to create and share our memories of the trip and of Brrnh’s capture, but it is also the place for planning. I do love you,” I added, to make sure she knew how I’d treasured her pod’s help, and her personal steadfastness.
“I love you, too, Mrrmh. We will plan together.”
“Yes; those nets are perplexing, but not beyond everyone’s concerted thinking to solve. Listen, they are coming,” I said, hearing happy meeting calls winging their way through the water. I heard Khrrssh, Mmllh, and baby Rllh as they drew near in a group, chattering—my children, sisters to Lrrh; Khrrssh had given birth to Rllh only three years ago, and the baby was still very wide-eyed and innocent, twisting and turning as it swam, bothering the plant life, and generally disturbing flora and fauna with wild abandon. This was good—several generations would hear and remember this story at once; such tellings stood a better chance of making it through the years intact, and becoming steady traditions.
Ullrh gave an excited side glance at me, and twirled about, bobbing her head out of the water into the fresh sunlit air. She let out a happy call, then another, waiting for the response from the youngsters to make its way back. She turned back to me and asked, “Will you guide?” I nodded my head. She floated contentedly, staring out and down. “There was a time when I would have jumped at the chance to guide such a group, but now I am very glad that you will be the one to do it. I enjoy feeling the structure building with, but you are a better architect!” We both laughed happily at that.
The group was gathering. “Ullrh,” I asked, “dear one, tell me who is coming now; my ears and skin are a little tired from the journey.”
“Glad to! well, you heard Khrrssh’s little group before; they are now resting over along the ledge, just before the water becomes shallow. Now I am hearing the family of Nmmrh, the ones who frequent the crabs’ areas. They have had no new members for years—perhaps they are thinking of becoming old all together, and do not warm to the thought of young ones needing care and attention; after all, Nmmrh herself has been rather sick at times in the past.
“Behind them, I hear the family of Yllmh, the one who made the far journey a decade ago to bring back word from the Distant Clan. And among them, there is little Hllhmh, who is not so little anymore, though!” She chortled at her little joke, then added in earnest, “She has a beautiful voice, as she always had, and her size gives her much power now. I think she will become a Singer, in fact. And no wonder, given her mother and grandmother.” I reflected: Ullrh was right. Hllhmh’s grandmother had been the first Singer I had ever heard, as a young one. Her clear, strong voice had inspired me then: how wonderful for a creature to command all the tones, not just her own calls or the calls of friends, to move from deepest sound to the skimming of a bird over the water, all in one sweep.
To be a Singer was a life calling, and I was not entirely sure that Hllhmh was happy in that choice—of course, she had yet to choose, was still very young, but there was a certain independent mien about her that made it difficult to say whether she would want to undergo the training, and become a Singer. Ullrh was also aware of her ambivalence, but preferred to ignore it. It would be wonderful for us, I understood, if Hllhmh decided to train, but it was not in our hearts to force or demand that someone Sing when their love was elsewhere. Not every group sustained a Singer; and sometimes more than one would crop up in one pod. It was a remarkable fact that the transients seemed to have two or even three in each of their tiny pods—it was a cliché that all transients were Singers, but it seemed almost true. But Hllhmh’s singing was a joy nevertheless. No matter what she chose, it would always be a pleasure to hear her, through the water, clear and strong. In fact, Hllhmh might have decided to train, but the choice was taken out of her hands—not by us, her family… but I’m getting ahead of my story.
The gathering was still being formed, and it was gigantic—as many as sixty pods were represented; so many, so many—Ullrh even lost track, and just encouraged me to bring my thoughts together for guiding, and not worry about who was there. I would know every one of them, of course, anyway, and I knew the vast majority of the dialect calls, as well.
Preparing to guide was an easy matter for me—I enjoyed it. First, the overarching topic: homecoming. There was our homecoming, and Brrnh’s failed homecoming. We were all trying to come home, and bring beloved others home as well. We needed to weave a story about the trip, and about the return, and about the way to bring about Brnnh’s homecoming as well. This was my guiding line. As I reflected, I realized that we would need in addition some technical information; some of the members of the group may have encountered these nets and boats before, and could have good ideas about circumventing them. The simians who took their crafts out onto the water this way did not seem unfriendly for the most part, although they did not go out of their way to meet and discuss, either. In fact, for the most part they seemed to live in their own world; the nets were a good symbol of their approach to others around them: ignore or acquire. They seemed not to be able to conceive of others unless they were confined to simian space. And they were certainly neither generous nor quick. This might mean that they could be overcome with very simple strategic planning.
The group was assembled: over fifty pods were represented, I noticed, looking around excitedly. Everyone was astir, and everyone had heard the stories of the groups that had tried to free Brrnh already. The drawing up would be simple. I saw with happiness that a group of about fifteen Singers had begun the opening calls already; I responded with vigor for our pod, as did the other mothers and various children who could not hold back their excitement. The sea around us was fairly roiling with tail pushes and circling bodies. The calls and the responses grew stronger; everyone was prepared to listen, and to be heard if need be.
Our greeting calls lasted fifteen minutes or so, so many were there; toward the end, I began my drawing up call:
Here we are, here we are
Here we are, here we are…
And the answers began to come back soon:
To hear the news
To hear the news
I added:
To think together
To think together
And they answered well:
To find a plan
To find a plan
And finally:
To bring home Brrnh, Brrnh of our hearts
We will bring home Brrnh, Brrnh of our hearts

The responses were strong, and the rescue seemed already to be on everyone’s mind, so I ventured to step back, and open up the conversations.
When we speak with each other in such large groups, the first structure, the basic ideas presented in the drawing up, is habitually followed by a freestyle discussion such as this; it is hard for six score of us to present our ideas to the group without first presenting the ideas to smaller groups, gaining assent or revising the appeal, and then (only then) bringing each idea to a larger circle, and finally to the entire group. The Easing that I would do later would be based on how well I could listen now: as each group’s sound spun off into the distance, I counted them and put myself in position to listen as they developed. This was not easy, but my speed made it more manageable. And I certainly enjoyed it! The din grew, and I pushed my body around the inlet, picking up first one then another thread of conversation about the rescue. The group by the rocks was mainly concerned with the young ones left as guards, and the welfare of Lrrh and Jnnh; the group furthest out, beyond the small island, containing three of those who had seen the nets and boat up close, was discussing the nature of the craft, and the nets, and sharing how best to overcome these obstacles and free Brrnh; the small group to the northeast, nearest the shore, mentioned the nets also, but was having an exchange concerning the traumas Brrnh must be experiencing, and how best to use the places of healing once his rescue was effected.
As I wandered and listened, I committed as many ideas as I could to memory, so as to be able to ease the conversation correctly. The Singers ranged about listening to all the various conversations as well; they were searching for material for their story, for the history of this expedition was their responsibility. They would be the ones to create the story from as many of our memories as it was possible for fifteen to scan and reflect upon, then to set the story in our minds by weaving together the thoughts into a beautiful and satisfying order, and finally to ensure that it was passed on along with the rest of our clan history to the younger generation, by performing the stories many times in many ways, and by teaching the younger Singers, or those who hoped to become Singers, how to listen deeply and weave thoughts together this way. The craft took many years to learn; most of the Singers were well over thirty years old, although there were occasional prodigies, like Hllhmh sounded to be at that time, who were able to master the listening and weaving techniques in a shorter time. Each time the history was performed, it was fresh; the same, but new and different also. We value this difference as the embodiment of accuracy: each new telling reveals for both Singers and listeners a slightly different perspective on events. For our past changes as we change. That is easily understood.
The water was blanketed with sound, loud and soft, and it was getting to the point where some groups were making overlapping points as they discussed the various aspects of our situation—a promising sign for the formation of a plan. To help this process along, whenever I heard two groups communicating along similar lines, especially if they were resting and circling in very different areas, I would cue a few members of each group so that they would begin to share with one another. Little by little, some of the smaller groups coalesced, seeking the usual consensus on smaller then larger issues. When I saw that a member of one pod had experience with a matter being discussed in another, I would introduce them. When I heard a clear difference of opinion being expressed within a pod, I tried to keep it in mind, and search out pods with similar positions to both; if possible, I brought those with similar ideas together; if the flow of conversation was such that this was not possible, I tried to remember the configuration of ideas. All this and more is the work of the guider. Some find it tiring, but I find it exhilarating, as though I were a part of every conversation, privy to every thought, in the entire group, the entire extended family. I loved circulating, listening, connecting—I suppose that is why we call this activity by the name of “guide thread.”
At length, when most of the groupings seemed to be in consensus on most issues, I began, quietly, the call back. The water swarmed, and the sound blanket heightened: tail slaps, tail flips and cracks, clicks, calls, little screams, and other sounds intensified. The swimming patterns opened out, and larger swirls took the place of the small circles that had housed the discussions; calls became more raucous. The threads that I had gathered were now coming into their own, as I called out each piece of the growing communal decisions:

Listen now, listen now to our story, to our story
Listen now, listen now to our plan, to our plan

I then led us into some of the ideas I had heard, in the order: 1. we should rescue Brrnh; 2. we can push a wave over the boat; 3. we can probably pull the nets from around him with our teeth, or possible tear through the nets; 4. we should go in a force of more than 40; 5. we need to rest before we attempt this; 6. we should use a storm time for this rescue attempt, since it will weaken the simians’ position; 7. Brrnh’s mother and siblings should be the ones who, along with Lrrh and Jnnh, bring him to one of the Healing Places; 8. we should praise those who stood guard, especially the young ones. And 9. In case we fail, it will not be because we did not make the attempt.

About our Brrnh we say about Brrnh of our hearts
We say we will seek him we say we will search for him
In the south cove in the south cove
We will use our waveover we will push the waves over the boat
We will use our teeth our strong, sharp teeth
We will go in a wall our wall will be solid
We will go in a wall our wall will be many
Our own pods will go and those of our family
Our own pods will go and those of our friends
They may be many but we shall be more
They may be forty but we shall be more
They may be ready but we shall be readier
They may have rested but we shall have rested
They may be strong but we shall be stronger
We shall learn where the salmon dwell by the island
Learn where the salmon dwell by the boat
We will try the nets we will try the nets
When the storm of good omen grants us good flukespeed
We will care for Brrnh we will care for Brrnh
Brrnh will go to the healing he will enter the Healing Place
Brrnh and his mother Brrnh of our hearts, Lnnh of our hearts
Brrnh’s siblings Bllrh, Allwh, Lehwyh, and Ryllh
Brrnh will go to the healing they will enter the Healing Place
We will thank those who stood who stood firm and watched him
With our Lrrh and Jnnh Lyrrh and Jnnh of our hearts
We’ll praise our young lookouts young lookouts of our hearts
They may be ready but we shall be readier
But they may be ready and we may be weaker
We must try the nets We must try the nets
We will try the nets We will try the nets
We will try the nets We will try the nets

This was the main path of the communication; I had worked hard to construct it from what I heard among the conversations, and all who spoke with me thanked me for my work and told me they felt that their voice had been heard, which felt very good in my heart. As these main points circulated, revisions continued to be made by those with more, or more precise, ideas of the rescue—for example, one youngster was asking about using teeth to try the nets, a new idea that was gaining some supporters among other groups than his own; others spoke of specific areas along the island coast where healing places could be found. A thousand small conversations broke out within the general structure, as was our goal, and I knew that I could call this another successful guiding.
For the remembrance of the actual event, which many of the groups had spoken of, the Singers would be composing for the rest of the month, if not longer, by continuing the conversations, and listening for pieces and sensory images. For the moment, we would each be remembering on our own, or with our small groups; Brrnh’s mother, Lnnh, was clearly distraught, but the fact that Lyrrh had stayed behind was a great comfort to her, and she was steadfastly signalling, calling, and clicking with the rest. She was surrounded at the moment by Singers. When she tired or saddened, she would move away.
Overall, the meeting was a great success. The time frame had still to be worked out, but all the pieces of the plan were spoken for, including the several wave approach to the boat and its population. I have since learned how flimsy these craft are, how easily we could have overcome even with just twenty of us; but the arrows were a great fear then, and the nets were still a mystery. It is almost amusing to look back and reflect on the great earnestness we all had then, how energetically and almost innocently we made our plans. It could be that such action will be needed again in the future, however; it was necessary that we go through it then, too.

After the great meeting with, the small meetings with came. That is, we reintegrated ourselves into our former area, so rich with chinook, and communicated in our usual ways as we did so, resting, playing, chattering, nudging. We may not be able to find the same quantity or quality around where Brrnh had been taken at this point in the year, I thought, worried for a moment. Then I relaxed: if feeding had been difficult in that area, we would surely have been notified already by the young ones who had remained there. No, the difficult part would simply be removing the nets, without being wounded by the simians’ arrows, and taking care of Brrnh. I believed this in my heart.

V. Attack

The expedition was under way, finally: it had taken four days, but we were prepared to return now, en masse, and attempt the rescue. We had received as much information from the young guards and from Lrrh and Jnnh as we could take in properly; the boat, with Brrnh inside the nets that trailed it, was remaining still; each day, Brrnh’s jailers came and made contact with him in some way, and they offered food, mostly dead chinook, which he could not bring himself to eat. When he described what he was going through to Lrrh, she passed on that he believed that he would die soon; he was in that state of mind, and the food seemed tasteless, almost irrelevant. He had lost a tremendous amount of his mass, and the wounds from the arrows, while they had been treated with medicine, were very sore; one had been deep enough to penetrate beneath his layers of fat, and could prove fatal ultimately. We did not speak of that possibility, however, with Brnnh. Lrrh reassured him that we were grouping, and would come to free him as soon as possible; he was holding out for this.
We were circling around and about the Telling Place, chattering, calling, diving, spyhopping, all sixty-three of us, very early in the morning, before the sun began to warm the water. The Singers had begun weaving their songs, and so poetry floated around us as we concentrated and filled ourselves with thoughts of our parts in the coming conflict. The first wave would be attempting the washover of the boat, it had been decided—one of our hunting strategies, but there would be no actual hunting here, none of us positioned on the other side of the washover to pick off prey. Instead, we thought, this should leave the captor simians stunned, at least, and ideally would immobilize some of them, since they were not particularly competent swimmers. The next wave would focus on the net surrounding Brrnh, which according to the guards was still there, and without breach. This involved a team of ten, who would be taking hold of the netting and swimming in different directions, trying to maintain their grip. If the stuff should tear open, which is what Jnnh had predicted should happen, Jnnh, Lrrh, and any of the ten team members who were available would rush through and sweep Brnnh out. If the net remained firm, however, as some of us were predicting, we would dislodge it from the boat, and bring it with us as we left with Brnnh—in the best case. If we were unable to dislodge it, the third wave would work on the problem areas, and further analyze the structure of the thing. We had friendly relations, too, with dolphins in that area now—Jnnh and Lrrh and the guards had seen to that—and so we would have substantial help in figuring it out. Those grouped after the third wave would mainly guard, watching for more simians or other unexpected action.
We began to move out, sensing each other’s signals; some of us moved up against each other for a last, lingering nudge or rub of affection; many moved to their young children to tell them goodbye. We were fairly certain of success, but we did not know what percentage of us would become wounded on this expedition, so it was prudent to say our farewells if need be. Many of the children, including my grand-grand children, as usual, were playing hide-and-seek; I didn’t stop them. Being in the team of ten was preoccupying me in a way I hadn’t expected it to: what was this netting made of? How strong was it? It was sensed by me and the others as a sort of wall: was it made of metal? another material? It would surely be difficult to break through, I mused naïvely.
Heading out of the inlet, wave by wave, was a pleasure. Ullrh and I had paired off, talking back and forth and enjoying each other. The geography of the area is such that there are many inlets, all the way down the east side of the island, facing across to the other edge of the straight, which was mainly a shallow play area. We spread out and enjoyed the area, racing each other through the narrows, breaching, slapping our tails, hopping up and taking a look around. When there were a few stray chinook about, we took and ate them quickly; we’d need the energy. Gulls called and thronged about our wake, picking up the spare bits of chinook, and dipping their wings and beaks into the water. It was a beautiful day, and the sun warmed the top layers of the water more and more as the morning progressed. Since we were heading south, we felt that we were swimming into the sun itself sometimes. As we passed the southern end of the island and left its inlets behind, the sun exploded into our bodies.
My jaw felt it first, and the explosion wracked the entire length of my skeleton; it did not stop. I could not make contact with the others—the powerful, shrill noise stopped any possible listening for clicks and screams. Nothing except this intense, shrill, explosive thundernoise was able to be heard. I panicked; I could not stop the intense noise from entering and jarring my senses, no matter where I turned; it was excruciating, and inescapable. I was suddenly living inside one big, shrill, blast of sound; my inner ears responded to my skeleton, and I felt as though my forehead was about to rip apart, and my inner ears continually rang and then did a series of implosions. My body jerked with each one. I wasn’t sure where I was anymore, or where the water was. Instinctively, I tried to retreat, moving roughly in the direction I had come from, back toward the southern tip of the island, I hoped. It was impossible to know.
Where were the others? My body wanted to seek Ullrh out, to search for my family, but it was torture even to be right now—the atmosphere, it was as though my world were on fire, and I had to survive in the middle of it. I surfaced briefly, and found that it was not all that effective to spyhop—it didn’t relieve the pressure on my ears and jaw, and I couldn’t see the others from that angle, anyway. I continued to head back toward where my hazy memory told me the beach had been located. My body throbbed. My plan, in so far as I could make one, was to shepherd as many as possible to the inlets beyond the south shore, hoping that there would be some shelter there, amid the coral and other sea life, from these booming waves of sound. If not, we would move further north, back to where we began our journey, beyond, even. If we could hold out. It was as though the water were boiling, exploding from the sound of gigantic, vibrating calls so deep that one had to experience them with one’s body—there was no way to escape. I moved steadfastly northward, trying to look out for any others. There was no question of sharing my plan: it was too loud for that. But I could show by the way I moved and swam where I was headed; at least I thought I could. I powered through the water, using tail thrusts to propel me. Still no one.
The water was getting shallow, and I was scratching my body on the pebbly bottom — luckily, I had the presence of mind not to run myself ashore to escape the sound: I knew my only chance of rescuing myself was to remain in the sea — the question was, where in the sea? The noise was tremendous; my body was still shaking, and my ears felt intense pressure bearing in on them. I maneuvered away from the pebbled shore, and tried to bring myself to enter some deeper water. It was a difficult sell to my sound-pierced brain, but I managed to thrust myself along, pushing strongly with my tail and trying to forget my intense headache and jaw and bone aches. Fish swam by me, diving to escape the sound, hoping to bury themselves in the mud. Bottom dwelling creatures pushed upwards at odd angles, their wits and senses jangled by the blasts. All around me, in the vortex of sound, was a feeling of terror and despair. I pushed and pushed through the churning water — I knew I had to get out of range before I was physically damaged, and unable to help others. Push — thrust — extend your body, Mrrmh. The sound pressure was still incredible, but I found myself able to notice that in some areas it was slightly blocked — outcroppings of rock. I positioned myself directly behind one of the jetties, and the pressure dropped measurably. Where was the largest jetty? Did the others know where to go, how to block the blast?
I moved slightly and felt the huge pressure wave again on part of my head; but I would have to make a dive for the next jetty—it was larger, and further north, which also seemed to help. Moving from rock to rock, I picked my way slowly into an area that was more sheltered from the blasting; the source seemed to be the shoaling place, just over the southern tip of the island to the west, so the island’s bulk helped block it. After almost a half hour of moving north rock by rock, I had moved perhaps a few miles from my start, and I reached a place where I could send out an actual call, without having it subsumed by the roar. I initiated a call that would contrast strongly with the low booming around us—a high, thin cry that one might hear above it all. The only thought in my mind was that I needed to get as many of us together as possible. That, and the fact of the booming thunder, decided me on a very simple coming together call. I prepared to wait for hours as the various members of the fifteen or twenty pods who were joining the expedition straggled back; but astonishingly, I heard an immediate reply.

I: Come, come, come, come Reply: I come, I come, I come, I come

I had to wait a few moments before the signature call came, and I realized it was… Lrrh? But that was impossible! Lrrh was with Brrnh, swimming with his guard, watching over him, together with Jnnh, whom she loved. I called again, to be sure; yes, there she was, her clear call rising above the throbbing, low thunder. I answered strongly, with a little leap of the heart.

I: Lrrh, Lrrh of the heart! Lrrh: I come, I come, I come, I come
Here I, Mrrmh, am staying Stay, stay, stay, I come
Here I, Mrrmh, am hiding Hide, hide, hide, I come
Where to? where to? North, to you; North, to you
I welcome you here I am welcomed by you here
I offer you chinook I receive your chinook gladly
(this part was purely a formal part of the greeting, as we would not have dreamed of taking salmon at this moment)
I ask you your reason Reason that I have come
Is there some joy? No, not any joy do I bring
Is there some sorrow? Yea, much sorrow do I bring
Do you come with news? Yes, I bring news of Brrnh
Brrnh of our hearts—

I gave her a clear response, so that she could take over the initiative, the storytelling, and she stepped forward and did so, as we both moved northward together after rubbing up against each other, commiserating but glad to find each other. It seemed that this morning at dawn, Brrnh had been finally dragged out of the sea by his captors, and placed in water behind a wall – the nets were gone, and Brrnh could not even be seen now, although his occasional calls could be heard, and he seemed to be able to hear the calls of those outside. The others knew; they had sent her alone to tell us. Just as she had reached the southern point of the island, however, the blast had begun – so she had with great difficulty, like I had, made her way further north, trying to escape the impact if she could. Luckily, she was already several miles ahead of the others when the blast hit, and she had perceived, as I did, that the blast was toward the west, not the east; she could not shield her ears, and could not hear all that I said, in fact, because of the roaring that had not yet subsided in her ears, but she had been able nevertheless to work her way north along the coast, discovering as I had that the inlets and jetties could save her to some extent, and that coming around the island into the inner harbor and heading up amid the strait offered some blockage.
“What do we do now?” Lrrh asked plaintively, as she finished her story. I could not say: my plan had originally called for organizing the others who were left, but I had begun to doubt that many had escaped as we two had. I was exhausted, in fact, and really just wanted to rest in the inlet that we had fortuitously entered. We could not, however, and I knew it as well as Lrrh.
“Well, we go out into it again,” I commented quietly. “Where are the young guards? And Jnnh?”
Lrrh looked worried. “I think the young ones are all right—they were moving very slowly, and they promised to stay down near the new pen and watch and speak with Brrnh. But Jnnh…” she shuddered.
“What? What happened to Jnnh?” I was never this agitated; I tried to calm my mind, center my thoughts.
Lrrh couldn’t speak. She rubbed up against me, wanting comfort from her grandmother, and I could not give it. “Where did you leave him?” I tried to ask it gently.
“B-b-by the west shore of the island,” she stammered. “I could not bear it anymore, and he could not move with me. We lost each other.” She was deeply ashamed. “We could not hear each other, and the water was so murky… he wandered off, and for the longest time I couldn’t find him. Then I realized that he was moving in the wrong direction, to the west, toward the horrible source of the sound rather than away. I couldn’t communicate with him—I tried to rush over and nudge him back, but he was too far away, and I could not physically stand the noise…” she trailed off, miserable.
I sighed. She was young, and this was an unprecedented situation—I myself had only made it this far through sheer luck. I tried to comfort her; I knew she needed it and would refuse it, but I had to try. “Lrrh, you are not responsible for this catastrophe. You cannot take responsibility for Jnnh’s mishap—it belongs to no one.”
“I couldn’t reach him; it belongs to me,” she called softly, too softly for the background noise, but I knew what she meant.
“Lrrh, little one, let your sorrow take its course, but also, right away, let’s think about how to find the others, now that we ourselves are safe. That is the proper way around, remember? You could not have helped Jnnh—you would only have lost your own life, and I would have lost a helper. As it is, you did the right thing, pushing in the direction you knew would save you—and Jnnh would say this, too.”
Lrrh was grateful; I could tell. She made some small noises that I could now hear, and we moved around, planning our next move. We had no idea how long the blasts would continue, so we planned on moving through them somehow. Worrying but not of a mind to give up, we took our measured way back, jetty by jetty, toward the opening of the straits and the open water, boiling with sound. If it got too intense, we said, we would stop and return, recoup. We would not move away from each other so far that we could not hear each other. We worked our way back, hugging the rocks, looking and listening hard for the others.

As we moved down the coast, looking and listening as best we could with the thundering always in the background, we called to each other, practicing against the backdrop of sound—and surprisingly we found we could communicate even within the storm around us, as long as we avoided any deep sounds or clicks, which could not be distinguished against the background white noise. Then, as we rounded yet another small jetty, we saw it.
Head hanging down, the body of one of us was suspended in the shallows, white stomach and tail scraping listlessly along the bottom, ready to beach when the tide brought it over. The black and white mass was being pushed by the waves, not moving of its own accord. Even more ominously, a long, pinkish cloud crawled down over the white stomach skin. The body was motionless except for the gentle rocking of the waves; the airhole was submerged. The pinkish cloud, we saw as the body swirled with the tide, was emerging and forming from a steady red thread that originated in the left ear or eye. We moved carefully around the body. It was Hllhmh, the young singer.
[sonar blasts from ships/navy ships; racing—5 beached orcas hemorrhaging; Hllhmh; others flee further north, away from navy ship source, including Mrrmh; this is the first Esquimalt incident]

VI. Sim growing up—making contact

VII. Sea World, & Sim becomes a grant recipient

WHEN MAN first saw the Camel, he was so frightened at his vast
size that he ran away. After a time, perceiving the meekness and
gentleness of the beast's temper, he summoned courage enough to
approach him. Soon afterwards, observing that he was an animal
altogether deficient in spirit, he assumed such boldness as to
put a bridle in his mouth, and to let a child drive him.

VIII. Rescue, & Sim goes to prison

An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him
to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to
bring in a bundle of sticks, and said to his eldest son: "Break
it." The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was
unable to break the bundle. The other sons also tried, but none
of them was successful. "Untie the bundle," said the father,
"and each of you take a stick." When they had done so, he called
out to them: "Now, break," and each stick was easily broken. "You understand my meaning," the father said.

XII. Nets

Sim was horrified. “They’ve turned the entire ocean into one huge military installation,” he whispered. His eyes wandered over the huge chart before him in disbelief. The testing areas were shown clearly, as were the areas of deployment of aircraft and vessels using the AN/ALQ-99 technology; Growler icons covered the field in all directions like a skin rash. On top of the whole monstrous display was a digital countdown: 3 am was the projected deployment time, apparently. “What have they done? The gift… it was a gift…” He walked in a circle, taking in the enormous spread of data pulsating in eerie green, blue, and purple lights strung like netting over the dark walls. He was mesmerized: there was the North Island cove where he had seen the five beached, hemorrhaging orcas thrown up so long ago; over there was the swimming cove; there was the cove of the crabs, where he had first begun to understand his first formal calls—and there was the area of the huge, underwater labyrinth that he had explored with Ullrh and Jnnh. But further out, far beyond the coastline of Vancouver Island, out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean by Hawaii and beyond, and stretching up into the Arctic Ocean, Sim saw that the density of the network was pretty much the same no matter where he looked: light after light showed how extensively the sonar jamming weaponry had been deployed. Ships were everywhere; clusters of lights gathered about Hawaii, the Philippines, and other military ports, but out on the sea, there was practically no area that lacked its own sonar jamming, or its own aggressive attack sonar. Mid-range, low-range… frightening decibel levels in the hundreds were barely visible white numbers beneath each small light. He could take the positions in easily, scattered as they were; it was as though his brain recognized the pattern. As he stared, browsing back and forth and committing the positions to firmer memory, a chill ran down his spine, and his sense of time imploded; despite the enormous digital clock glowing up above, time froze for him as he took in the positions of almost every light, trying to imprint the configuration on his brain. He stood, soaking it all in, and suddenly he realized that a kind of tingling was chasing itself up and down his body: now he knew what they had to do.
“Mrrmh!” he muttered to himself. “You were right! you were right!” There was no time to lose. He had to get these final coordinates to the pods, and quickly—or they would never be able to counter the onslaught in time. Even as it was, he knew they would only be able to send word to some areas—he just hoped it would be enough to save the species until every last ship was neutralized. He raced out of the room and down the empty halls, flew down the narrow staircase, and bolted past the sleepy guard, forgetting even to flash his ID card; he burst out from the stale building atmosphere into the sharp night air with a sense of relief, and of urgency. Running to the bike rack, he checked his watch: 2:00 am exactly. If he could make it to the shore by 2:20, he stood a very good chance of being able to bring it all crashing down on their heads. It would be the quickest bike ride to the shore he had made yet, but he had to do it. They needed time to gather, think, and communicate in their slow, solid ways.
“Shit!” His seat was gone. Nothing to do about it. The bike was still here, at least. He threw a leg over the bar and pushed off hard, heading out to the highway like a madman. The only traffic at this hour out there were huge tractor trailers, sometimes in convoys, sometimes alone. Sim hugged the side of the road, and pedaled for his life, trying to keep his eyes straight ahead or to the right, out of the light, as each enormous truck flew by—they must be doing 70 or 80 mph, Sim thought to himself. But there were frequent stretches when nothingness appeared before him, and he needed to keep himself going by sheer willpower, since his knees were beginning to feel it. He went back over what Mrrmh had told him about the possible motives of these people, their habits, their past history in the marine world. Another tractor trailer passed, honking its horn and breaking his concentration. He must have wandered a bit into the lane… no, wait. This one was slowing down intentionally.
“Angel?” Sim called out incredulously, when he saw the red striped baseball cap on the bearded man sitting behind the wheel, so high above him.
“Need a ride?” Angel yelled over the din of his own motor. The door flipped open. Angel was out in a flash, helping Sim to shove the seatless bike into the compartment under the front cabin seats, then climb up into the cabin. Angel hoisted himself with ease into the driver’s seat, and they took off. After he had moved back out into the truck traffic, then finally relaxed and pushed the truck into high gear, Angel remarked amicably, “Long time no see.” Sim laughed in relief, and told him, “Floor it! I need to get to the bay, like, yesterday!”
Angel smiled enigmatically and nudged the speedometer upwards. “No problem, chico. Why the rush at 2 am? Where have you been that you shouldn’t have been this evening? I know where I’ve been—but you’re too young and innocent for that kind of thing!”
Sim realized that he hadn’t seen Angel since before his jail stay. He quickly told him about the rescue mission, his jailing, how he figured out who was controlling the grant, his creation of the fake ID, the control room with the international network of sonar installations figured on the wall, and the necessity of catching up with the pod and speaking with Mrrmh’s children so that they could learn and disseminate the necessary signals and counter-signals before 3:00 am came and the area around the bay was given over entirely to a blanket of naval sonar testing such as had never before taken place on the west coast, maybe in the whole world. Angel was quiet, taking it all in.
At last, he said simply: “OK. Here we are.” The truck slowed, and Angel pulled it off the road, toward the familiar path. “You’ll tell me more later, all right? For now: what do I do?”
Sim threw his head back and exhaled into the cold night air. Thank you, he prayed, touched to the core. Angel was dropping whatever his present task was because he loved the orcas as much as Sim. “Gracias, Angel,” he said; “You know, I really love you. I’ve known since long before the Esquimalt catastrophe that I could trust you with anything—you may be the only human I can really say that about, anymore.” Sim blinked, then steeled himself to think; there was something important that Angel could do, that Sim could no longer do. “If I make it out of this alive, I promise to do something huge for you, something… I don’t know what, but something huge. Here’s what you can do…” Someone watching from a distance would have seen the two figures, young man and a portly, furry man in a Phillies cap, put their heads together in a conspiratorial way, and then would have watched as the man in the Phillies cap leapt back into the cabin of his truck, deftly backed it out onto the road, and roared off. Meanwhile, the other, smaller, figure, silhouetted by the moon, could be seen running at top speed through the weeds and tall grass, taking or making his own path down to the side of the sea. Listening carefully, the same observer might be able just to hear a high-pitched whistled version of the simple background piano melody from “La suerte es loca.”

[Angel goes to radio broadcasting tower of BCU at Vancouver, and also alerts George Strait Alliance and other watchdog environmental groups—the action will take place simultaneously with the “jamming” of the sonar channels by sea mammals all over the world; all day, more and more protesters. Sim goes to talk with the orcas, esp Mrrmh, who have been preparing but need the final positions that he can give them; the plan is to test out a certain range of sonar wavelength, until a successful jam happens; then to maintain the jam, which will take more than orcas—all odontocetaceans are standing on ‘red alert’ at this moment]

XIII. A Fable for Sim

AN ANT went to the bank of a river to quench its thirst, and
being carried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point of
drowning. A Dove sitting on a tree overhanging the water plucked
a leaf and let it fall into the stream close to her. The Ant
climbed onto it and floated in safety to the bank. Shortly
afterwards a birdcatcher came and stood under the tree, and laid
his lime-twigs for the Dove, which sat in the branches. The Ant,
perceiving his design, stung him in the foot. In pain the
birdcatcher threw down the twigs, and the noise made the Dove
take wing.