Chapter Eighteen–POD OF SEA DREAMERS

 

 

The pod circled the dead calf purposefully. The haunting dirge of the strange Exodus Melody rose and hung in the air. Chirps, warbles, and trills composed a lament so sadly evocative that it could move someone at the summit of joy to tears of grief. The feeling lingered long after the sounds faded. The cove's waters hugged the song, as if to offer consolation.

Visions of an afterlife embodied in total unity with Nature coursed through the young Atlantians. Their hearts immediately were seized by a lesson their minds would later learn. This heartbreaking goodbye was rooted in ancient tradition and religion that went back to the Origin. The whales’ tuneful trumpeting heralded the departed infant's exodus from their surging salted seas into another spiritually elevated realm. Layered in with that joy was the enormity of his mother's pain. The two seemingly contradictory impulses were wedded so completely that they were perceived as one and the same. When the last shimmering echo of the ancient cords attenuated beyond perception, only the whisper of the wind and distant surf on the reef remained. The healing was profound and silent.

Drom and Ari held that silence, held the stillness, held the passing of the day. They simply were.

They felt the sun move across the sky, across their skin. They smelled the wind as it moved across the seas, across them, across all Atlantius. They heard the changing of the tide. They dwelled in a supreme fresh pleasure of completion.

The young Atlantians held the whales in the core of their being, where heart and mind were one. In turn they were held dear by the great ones. As each sumptuously supped upon the other’s culture, the sun melted in a golden glissade along the fired edge of the horizon. The moon and stars rose in a celestial serenade.

Such heavenly beauty was a just accompaniment to the Sea Dreamer's song. For as the whales merged with Ari, they launched into the tale of their rites of passage. As he learned of the symbols they used to convey youths into adulthood, he submerged in the vast hope they held for their young.

Beside Ari, her delicate hand in his, Drom swayed in the ebb and flow of the tidal reaches of his dream's edge. The center was solely Ari's to behold.

Drom knew Ari was still glimmering in the otherworld, even as he spoke. "One day we will give a child to Future."

She was not certain if he was speaking of their own child or of the whales. As if he were a sleepwalker, she knew not to disturb him with questions.

Part of Ari drifted to the Northwest Continent. He was there with Yu. Another baby was kidnapped and killed. The rest of the vision was misted with a veil of secrets. Even with all the strength his headband conferred, Ari could not lift it. He was seized by a need to know.

The whales danced and sang out their reverence for the whole planet and the web of life it held. They knew the beauty of their ocean world was more than a home outside them. They were part of it, as it was part of them. The two were inseparable. Nature was a living being, continuous with their own existence. Dry land was as much their home as the sea. They knew no artificial divides and did not behold illusory ones. Even the heavens reaching to infinity were one with their endless hearts.

The message throbbed within Drom and Ari's perception.

Salt of blood,

Salt of land,

Salt of sea,

Salt of stars,

We are one.

Turn we as the planet turns,

Turn we as the sun-system spins,

Turn we as galaxies whirl.

Their knowledge of the cosmos was deeper than any seabed, deeper than a human heart, deeper than pure consciousness. Deep too was their sorrow.

Turn we as the planet turns,

Turn we as the sun-system spins,

Turn we as galaxies whirl.

Turn we as time turns.

Turn we with you.

We spin on a point.

A point in the sky.

A point in the seas.

A point in time.

The turning point comes.

The turning point is ...

Between life and death.

Hope to survive.

Music we send.

Echoes we hear.

Echoes of hope

Visuals in our ears.

Ari's rendition of their poetry was a crude translation of their elaborate, elevated visual sound patterns. It was only a sketch of the poignancy that their confrontation with the possibility of racial death evoked.

Eventually Ari's mind verbally shaped their eloquence into thought. "Their advanced sonic abilities can somehow rescue them from faith's eclipse. They are anchored by a fervent belief that they will endure beyond any global catastrophe."

Ari waded in silence. The waves lapped at his ankles. He took Drom's hand in his. With their hands' touch, their souls shimmered with a higher vibrancy than known before.

"So few would understand," regretted Ari.

"You are lucky so many within your immediate circle will. Yu will love this. Face will embrace it."

Ari squeezed her hand, appreciating her understanding. "You're shivering."

"This time it's not just from intensity. I'm cold."

Ari quickly pulled together a pile of driftwood and stoked it with dry, grassy plants. He used the power of the four suns and his headband to provide a single simple spark.

Once he knew Drom was warm, he built the fire higher for the pure pleasure of watching the orange waves of energy dance on the surface of the sea. The arrangement of the wood and the hot patterns of flame rippling on the licking waves was a return gift from him to the pod. Fire, water, land, and air. The universe was complete.

He curled up beside it with Drom to multiply his joys still more. They dwelled that night in the orchestral dance of whale dreams.

 

--

 

Face and Yu arrived so early that morning that the fire still flamed. In the brilliant ember of Ari and Drom's embrace, the two sensed the hint of the unity of the previous night's communion. Slight though that glimmer was, it was momentous.

Ari flexed his muscles and his brain into alertness by pacing the beach and contemplating the cove. Watching him in shared guardianship, Drom stood with Yu on the dunes.

"I think he's trying to find himself." The sun glistened affirmation in Drom's glossy midnight hair.

Yu's thought vein gently pulsed in agreement.

Face strolled along lightly, then stopped atop a boulder. Drom noticed how he gravitated toward it. "That rock means something to the whales too. I'm not sure yet what it means to them. Since Face is an SIC, the whales can't read his thoughts. I think they’re intrigued by that."

Yu readily agreed. "He's responded cleverly to that limitation by tuning into their telepathic frequencies."

"He felt their presence in the stone and chose it. Different though they are, Face and the whales both find kinship in the rock."

Bone, crystals, stone, and wind chime.

All are one.

Drom continued relating the events of the previous day to Yu. She wanted to reformulate it in words. Not only did that let her share it with Yu, but framing it verbally let her experience it anew in another modality. Her voice flooded with amazement. "Our communication with them was deeper than any either of us have ever experienced, even with our own kind. We were their honored guests. More than that, they accepted us as family. They let us know that essentially we are all one kind."

Yu turned to her, "I explained some of this to Ari this morning." She saw the confusion in Drom’s eyes and hastened to elaborate. "When Ari called us yesterday, Face and I scanned all the relevant data about the whales. I can give you all the statistics. They are 23 meters in length and weigh 80 tons. A newborn is 7 meters long and weighs 20 tons. They can dive for five to fifteen minutes and descend 230 meters. Their V-shaped heads have a narrow-pointed snout, symmetrical, grayish-white."

"We've seen all that for ourselves." Drom struggled to remain patient.

Yu knew her need to catalog details could be vexing. She pushed herself to come to the point. "What’s more important, we found SIC research suggesting that a whale hears through special oil that lines its lower jaw and sends sounds to the inner ear. A small amount of it’s also near the inner ear of the Atlantian Leader class. As members of the Leader class you and Ari were DNA enriched with it. That DNA was activated by the whales’ use of 3-D visuals. It enables you to communicate 3-D sine-wave patterns and understand some whale thought. You literally are kindred."

"Then all Atlantian Leaders can visualize 3-D images?"

"Yes. But you and Ari are the first to do so. With some study and work you can communicate fully with them. Not just with a single pod that brings you in physically, but with as many as you want at the same time, even across the seas. Presently, of course, you're limited."

"There's no way to fully describe their sounds with words, let alone what their synthesis creates. The closest comparison is our Spatial Emersion System." She looked at Yu, struggling to help her comprehend. "You know. You're watching, feeling, experiencing — you're there! It's real, yet but intangible. It's fantasy, yet reality. What's most important is what you feel inside, rather than what you see outside."

Listening to her, Yu felt hugged by something enormously greater than any single being. She thought she knew the answer to the question that embrace prompted, but was compelled to ask, "What did you feel?"

"Love. Love and honesty. Complete and total love and honesty."

Drom silently shared what she could, holding those precious moments in her heart and mind, in the core thread of her being.

Having pushed the image toward Yu as energetically as she could, she tried words again. "Whales are unlike other animals. There's something innately good about them. Their funeral song, the Exodus Melody, was the most touching, feeling music I ever heard. It was a melody of visual colors that told the history of the pod and their afterlife. It moved our souls. It would be marvelous to actually talk to them."

"I'm glad you understand that they are extraordinary creatures and not fish."

They grinned together, knowing that Ari liked to call the whales fish. Coming from someone else that might have been derogatory. Ari, however, served up that thought with a clear twist of irony that emphasized the greatness of these creatures.

Yu was thrilled with the possibilities the whales offered. "The next trick after learning to hear the 3-D patterns is to interpret them better and quicker. When we do that, we can communicate on several deep levels and perhaps answer some of our key questions."

"How extraordinary it would be to speak on another level to such wondrous creatures. I can't imagine it."

"True. You can't imagine it -- at least not accurately. But you can actually do it." Yu's high bald brow knitted as it did whenever she gave a complete scientific explanation. "They produce 3-D wave patterns because their underwater environment exerts evolutionary pressures over eons that have enabled them to produce a wider frequency range of visual and auditory stimuli than land dwellers."

"Their use of these sounds is phenomenal."

"Communication is the primary use. They also use their sound for sonar, navigation, and hunting food. The lament you described is the most elevated creation of a mode of understanding that is also quite practical."

Drom's eyes glistened with tears. "It was the sound of the despondent. It was pitiable when they left the young whale. Ari opened the force field to let the tide take him out to sea."

"Face and I deduced funerals were one of their rituals. This confirms it. That calf probably weighed at least twenty tons. They wouldn't want the empty shell to wash ashore. Letting him rot would be a desecration. In the sea is where his last journey belongs."

Drom's words were teary. "Sorrow became a banquet."

Although Yu could feel her sense of transcendent wonder, tuning in to the ephemeral nature of being was nearly unbearable. Yu wisely left this sad subject. "For Most Atlantians and Yutans special sonic devices would be needed to duplicate this 3-D telecommunication. I've already started to create such a device."

"A translator?"

"Yes. It would at least give us a sparkle of what Leaders are genetically equipped to understand directly. I must figure out how to communicate multiple things simultaneously and still have them understood. We normally think linearly. Cetaceans think in multiples. We'd say, 'A fish just swam by, above and to my right.'" A Cetacean would visually echo a message that the receiver would see. They'd know not only what we would say bit by bit, but the whole of it -- what kind of fish it was, its size, shape, location, speed and surroundings. We'd have to itemize each bit of information. They comprehend it totally and instantly. It’s like thinking in pictures, not words."

Drom's voice brightened as she seized upon a happy memory. "What about the bubble blowing ceremony?"

"You know much more about that than I. What I can tell you is that they've a sophisticated sonar system tied in with the visual one. They communicate visually by echoes. In the presence of another animal in the water they can 'see' that other creature across vast distances. Their navigational system is acutely refined. It’s based on emitting a stream of clicks in a narrow beam through the water. They can visually listen around corners by bouncing echoes off the bottom. By changing the V-shape of their forehead with the muscles around it, the focused beam also changes shape to direct and narrow the focus. We use a beam of sunlight in much the same way. We can do it whether or not we understand the physical laws that describe the process. When you and Ari master that ability, you'll be able to live in their underwater world as well as they do."

"That would seem impossible, if we hadn't already done the impossible.” Drom’s amazement was evident. “How odd that a system that evolved in water would be ideal for use in outer space."

Yu was about to speculate about that, when they heard Face and Ari on the beach. They joined them, watching the whales approach shore.

A smile filled Drom's beautiful face with radiance. "Yes! They're coming in."

The small troupe of Landwalkers waded through the shallows to greet the pod. Drom stood on tiptoe, nearly jumping with excitement. "TwoRidge. That's her in front. She's the new Leader. It's the first time they've had a female leader. And I don't just mean in this pod — it's unique in the entire world."

She didn't understand how she knew and didn't stop to question her knowledge. Ari and Drom found that they simply knew the whales' names and more and more information about them.

Face pointed to some flat rocks next to the boulder where he stood earlier. "That 45-degree slant would give them easy access to us."

Ari took his suggestion, wading over to the stone ramp and up it. Once in position, he mentally asked TwoRidge to come ashore. He knew just coming close to land required an act of faith by the whales. To actually slip up onto the rocks was like placing your hand in a stranger's and following him into a fire. Ari found himself wondering if it was fair to ask them to do this. Perhaps it was too much.

He soon had a very concrete answer -- tons of it. TwoRidge bellied up on the rocks, water glistening, gurgling off her smooth black glistening skin. The white of her belly was visible, the skin as delicate as a white orchid. She lay there blowing, her blow holes puckering, sending a stream of air rushing out. The intense smell of the sea surrounded the foursome.

"Being even partly on land is a greater effort for her than everything you two have put into learning their vernacular," Yu noted. “She's bearing her enormous weight without the help of buoyant forces. If she stays out too long, she'll crush herself."

"We are all privileged by this." Drom was honored by the risk TwoRidge was taking.

Face couldn't resist word play. "It is a huge step."

"Mammoth," volleyed Yu, starting to record her observations. "The lower lip is dark on the left side, white on the right. Its front baleen plates are white on the right side and dark gray on the left. It has 56 to 100 throat groves, which end at or behind the navel. The slender, relatively short flippers, have white undersides and pointed tips. The white underside of the body shows little scarring and molting. It has a thick tailstock with a ridge from the dorsal fin to flukes. The small falcate dorsal fin slopes backward with a pointed or rounded tip. It has broad, slightly triangular flukes that in the middle have slightly concave trailing edges and can be notched or frayed with white undersides."

Drom touched her arm lightly to soften her criticism. “She is a ‘she’, not an ‘it’.”

“You’re right. I am corrected.” She bowed, “I apologize.”

Ari stood still, ignoring everything except TwoRidge. Her yelps, low clicks, creaks, high pitched whistles, blares, rasps, squawks, and warbles were an alphabet that created patterns of meaning.

Drom tried to help him. "I've tried to come up with translations, but most of it’s too complicated. Sharp loud pops scare aggressors. Their sacred symphonies feature lengthy trills. The melodies repeat in complex variations. You can try to catalog them, Yu. But I quickly ran out of descriptions when the pod demonstrated their sounds for us."

"Any idea what she's saying?" Yu asked.

Ari remained intensely silent. Everyone listened to the chirping. The capacious animal added some squeals and yelps.

Ari kept his focus on the whale as Drom answered Yu. "It's clearer each time. They're talking to us freely now. I think they've responded to our help and our love. Imagine! Their whole existence is based on these 3-D symphonies. They travel, navigate, and locate objects by sounds. They eat, mate, pray, give birth, and groom — all accompanied by song. It's not just sounds that go with activities. The music is an integral part of their actions. It organizes their life. It's like the ancient principle of the music of the spheres running the universe. The music organizes their lives. The most beautiful choruses of the symphonic melodies are sacred to the pod. Primal order and justice are recurrent themes. Just listen. You’ll get part of what they have given us — a small hint at the complexity of their pod's society and experiences, of birth, of nurturing and instructing their young."

Even Yu was silent, beholding the sound patterns. She listened curiously while Ari communicated with TwoRidge, her thought vein surging evenly.

As TwoRidge continued singing, Fleet came close to shore. He stood on his tail and squealed loudly. Drom eagerly threw herself into the liquid aquamarine and stroked toward the shining silver dolphin. They cavorted like old friends.

Drom squealed with enthusiasm and hugged Fleet. He took off across the cove at full speed with her on his back. Drom chirped her happiness.

Yu noticed Ari looked a little concerned. "He won't hurt her. Don't worry. Fin whales can swim at 30 KMPH. He's actually going slow for her benefit."

TwoRidge slid quietly back into the water. Evidently she'd said all she had to say for now. She had felt the shadow of worry that passed through Ari. It didn’t take much to shake his confidence.

"Perhaps TwoRidge is young, but she's wise." Ari concluded. Looking at Drom, he saw the joy she beamed toward him. He knew his caution had been unwarranted.

As if he sensed Ari's thought, Fleet underscored it with his love and care for Drom. He expressed it by carefully gliding straight onto the slant rocks to deposit her safely in Ari's arms.

"What do you know about him besides that he's male?" Yu joked.

A silver-scaled laugh shimmered from Drom’s lips. "It was a little like a first date actually. The only thing faster than Fleet flashing across the cove was the wave of thoughts he poured over me. He told me his life history and with it much of the pod's."

Drom stopped cold, knowing it would drive Yu crazy. She had to know everything Drom knew. Her endless curiosity would torment her until she did.

Drom waited until Yu’s thought vein looked like it might not bear any more and then ended her teasing. "Fleet wasn't born in this pod. He met them by chance when they were feeding on plankton off the coastal swamps of the main continent. Sometimes a member of the pod starts singing while they travel. Fleet heard these Fin Whales and led his pod to meet them."

"We know they are Cetaceans." Yu just had to add something. "We're the ones who classified them."

"They defy classification. Our names are superfluous to them." Drom flashed a look of unerring perception before she continued. "Fleet was attracted by their liturgical compositions. He fell so in love with them that they let him join their pod. His speed instantly placed him in the role of the pod's vanguard. He not only warns them of trouble and provides swift solutions, but has fought off creatures twice his size."

"That's all you learned?" prompted Yu.

"Except that he really likes me." Drom's voice softened and she looked flirtatiously up through her lashes at Ari. She wasn't trying to make him jealous. It was more a matter of sharing the compliment, since her bond with Ari was firm.

Ari tweaked her cheek. “You’re quite the little charm peddler, aren’t you?”

She ignored his teasing and plunked down in the sand, without taking her emerald eyes off the pod. The other young Atlantians followed suit. They spent the remains of the day marveling at the antics of their new friends and learning more about their individual habits.

"Look how their pod names match them," Ari observed. "Finback’s that pretty female. She's new to the pod. Her's are the most perfectly shaped fins ever seen."

"Now should I be jealous?" Drom teased.

Ari smiled, but kept his eyes on the pod. "There's Finner. He loves to flicker his fins out of the water like that. Yesterday he let me hand feed him some energy wafers. He can't get his fill of them. He's also insatiable when it comes to Atlantian history. I can't think fast enough to suit him. His ideas flash by faster than his fins."

"They're introducing themselves to you," Drom decided.

"That or they’re just delighting in being themselves." Ari sounded envious.

A loud splash punctuated his thought. "That's Breach," Drom explained.

Yu shared a bit of her knowledge, "They swim on their right side when feeding. Look at how when he breaches, he does a tremendous twist midair and lands on one side or his back."

Drom was more impressed with the spectacle than an analysis of it. "He delights in high leaps and humongous flops. He loves creating thunderous splashes and churning up colossal waves of foam because he likes feeling it effervescing around him. As the second son of Razorback and TwoRidge, he's the pod's rear guard."

"Each of them knows their role and plays it instinctively," Ari observed. “My inmost instinct is they are not of this planet and by showing us their purpose, they want us to examine ours."

Having nudged Ari to the edge of introspection, the whales submerged suggesting there were more important contemplations to come.

 

--

 

Drom awoke first the next morning. She ran with glee to the shore, seeking the pod. The sun was starting to rise in the sky before Ari joined her.

Drom skipped a morning greeting. —Nothing’s moving.”

“Something’s wrong.”

They ran into the shallows and swam swiftly toward the reef. Fear cramped their spirits.

“There they are!” Ari shouted, seeing Breach sound.

“Where’s Fleet? I see everyone but him.”

“I don’t know.”

The pod neared and surrounded them. Drom felt them urge her further out to sea. She outdistanced Ari.

Fleet’s over here,” she called over her shoulder to Ari.

Ari was amazed to see her swimming toward shore on her back, Fleet resting against her stomach as if in a lifesaving tow. “I think he’s sick. There’s a cut under his fin that I didn’t see before. It’s all inflamed. He seems weakened by the infection. He was struggling to swim. I can feel the life force leaving him.”

With Finner’s assistance, Drom and Ari helped the wounded whale into the shallows. They stayed deep enough so that he did not have to bear the pressure of leaving the water, but shallow enough that they could take turns resting where they could stand. Drom wanted to nurse Fleet gently into convalescence.

Yu thought aloud, “Cleansing is always healing. He’s already in warm salt water. Perhaps sonic cleansing can clean the wound and clear out bacteria.”

Face added his power to Yu’s. In an effort to drive out the festering infection, they pulsed sound waves through the water to vibrate the wound clean. A flow of filth was purged from it. Although only a subtle murky current moved away from Fleet, it was as corrupt as a flow of maggots.

“We need a Master Healer,” Ari declared. “But I promised no one else would come. They don’t want any more Land Walkers here.”

Each did what they could. It was not enough. The hidden horror raged within his fevered being.

Finally there was nothing left to do except sing. Drom sought to heal him by sheer force of spirit. She sang an ancient blessing of angelic renewal, of regeneration, and rejuvenation. The pod swam in circles around them, forming a ring of renewal.

Splintering wind blasted them as a storm gathered. Fleet struggled in the mounting sea like a flailing jellyfish.

As the storm subsided, Fleet seemed to sense the outcome. As he lay dying, he felt his fatal wound was an affront to his new friend’s healing efforts. He looked apologetically at Drom and took one last breath. He died in her arms.

Drom hugged him and sobbed. Her body convulsed, sending sorrow throbbing into the sea.

The whales embraced her as she embraced Fleet’s vanquished form. The pod of young Atlantians mourned deeply with the Sea Dreamers.

 

--

 

As day followed day, the Atlantians increasingly understood the Fin pod. By communicating the nature of their own species, Ari and Drom's self-knowledge also deepened.

Their telepathic communications required robust efforts. Exercising their capabilities made them progressively stronger. The more they rose to the challenge, the more masterful they grew.

As Ari talked with TwoRidge, she conveyed her concerns about the turning point, his future, and her new responsibilities as leader. The two species shared ancient mysteries freely. Although his clan was another disparate class, Face also discovered that the whales' frequencies held secrets.

The friends learned from Two-Ridge that the whales had little respect for Landwalkers because of their abuse of technology and the environment. Despite this, they found Ari compelling.

Face, Ari, and Drom learned whale language and cultural ceremonies. Ari was especially enchanted by the rite of passage that confirmed youths as adults. The whales had a highly sophisticated and finely tuned religion and cultural life. Every birth, marriage, funeral, and religious ceremony was celebrated with symphonies and thousands of 3-D songs. Some of the songs depicted the history of the pod back to creation.

When TwoRidge sang her stories, Ari and Drom focused on the content of the music. Yu focused on the physical transmission of the sounds.

As Two-Ridge stretched toward a particularly high note, Yu's thought vein pulsed with a parallel resonance. "Look," she blurted, pointing. "Those are fatty pouches imbedded near the blowhole, lip-like structures that sputter as air shoots though them. They flex and pulse like vocal cords, muscles that control the sputter speed. By using their muscles and changing the shape of their foreheads, the focused beam of images changes shape."

Drom clarified her thought. "I remember what you told me before. It’s like calibrating a laser-light to focus a beam."

"Right. The sounds originate in air sacs and organs next to oil-filled spaces of various densities in their foreheads. The pouches slapping together make vibrations that are conducted out through the oil-filled area."

Two-Ridge squealed in Yu's direction, making Drom laugh. Yu suddenly felt left out. "What's she saying?"

"She's forgiving your interruption. She realizes that it sprang from enthusiasm, not rudeness. She knows you are admiring her as Nature's creation."

Two-Ridge did not return to her previous melody. She launched into something far more complex.

"That was one of the most beautiful symphonies we've been privileged to experience." As the last note faded, an idea crested in Drom. "That was too beautiful to let vanish, too wondrous to keep to ourselves. We should record these so all Atlantians can enjoy them."

"Only Leaders will have a hint of the understanding that you two have. The other classes don't have the capacity for them." Yu's caution was reasonable.

Ari weighed the matter. "Each will perceive them on their own level. Face can't tune in the way that you do, but he knows these songs are important. I think we should find a way to record these and share them. But I can't decide for them. Let's see if they agree."

Ari flashed the question to TwoRidge.

TwoRidge slipped deeper into the water.

Ari translated for the others. "I feel her mind dissolving in solitude. She may be shying away from the idea."

Yu held out hope. "At least she hasn't said no."

Ari concentrated on Landwalker's own rites and ceremonies. He focused on the symbols that marked graduation from nestling to adult. He felt TwoRidge understand Landwalkers’ racial infancy and growth. Sharing sea dreams would help Landwalkers mature and learn respect. Understanding that they were one with all would make them restore what they could of the resources they had squandered.

Ari's gentle cajoling was imbued with an outright trust that was magical. His coaxing was echoed by his two-legged companions.

After Ari had presented everything he could to convey the value of sharing Fin music, he turned to his friends. "TwoRidge was impressed, but something's holding her back."

Suddenly Ari fell backwards as if pushed. The sands absorbed the shock of his abrupt tumble.

Face and Drom laughed out loud. "I guess we can take that as no." Face surmised.

Ari laughed. "That was a resounding yes! TwoRidge grew into our idea. But every time she'd start to say yes, she'd think about Razorback and what he would have done. He'd have said no immediately. In fact, he'd never even have had the chance to consider our idea because he never would have allowed us near the pod in the first place."

Drom and Ari were seized by an image of the attack on Razorback. They felt horror transmute into glory — an honorable sacrifice.

Drom explained aloud. "On a personal level his death was tragic, but was also glorious. He knew he was sacrificing his life. While those monsters were busy devouring him, the rest got away. His sacrifice did more that save the pod. It permitted a revolution. It allowed his wife to become Leader and that let us contact them and discover our kinship."

By making this decision, TwoRidge took on an invisible mantle of authority. Her decision was a coronation that finalized her leadership of the pod. Every shred of Razorback's authority passed to his lifelong mate. He became a respected part of history, not a ghost haunting her with doubt.

Ari nervously swung his hair and adjusted his headband. He felt the weight of his father's shadow flicker across the cove's sunlight. TwoRidge's assumption of Leadership and the vastness of its consequences was too much for Ari. Part of him wanted to toss it aside, with a flip of his long locks. His will could not bend to a preordained fate. He tried to slip into a larger sense of his own authority. As usual, he felt he failed desperately.

I must find and fulfill my destiny.

“I have faith in you.” A 3-D thought was received, TwoRidge's confidence was as substantial as the heavy girth of her blubber on land.

Ari knew that by sharing their music, the whales were giving Landwalkers their entire cultural legacy. He must offer something equal in return. Once given, his gift would be theirs to share as they wished.

Invisible images shimmered between the two fledgling Leaders. The Sea Dragon’s serpentine neck snared its prey time and again.

Sea Dreamers know.

A forward stroke by flippers on one side, a backward stroke by the flippers on the other side. It turns on the spot. Some days evil preys on evil. One day the serpent, the cannibalizer, and Razorback are one. Good dies. Landwalkers come. Share. Good grows.

Of one lineage are we.

Trident stands Sentinel.

Good births and grows secure.

Clumsy though his thought images were, the whales knew what Ari offered and graciously accepted.

Drom translated for their friends. "He's offering them safe haven in the coastal areas protected by Atlantian force fields."

Ari pulsed out a pattern. It could have been just a pretty thing, but it was so much more. Beautiful though it was, it was the key to the whale's survival. Ari transmitted the safe access ID frequency, an ordering of impulses that would open shallow havens to them like a mother's arms flung open to a missing child.

The image of massive sudden death was replaced by one of bleeding to death, drop by single slow drop. Ari understood. On behalf of all Atlantians, he guaranteed the whales' privacy. It was enough to expose themselves through their music to the Atlantian population. The last thing they wanted was to become an entertainment for those who were curious but not enquiring. Ari assured them that he would note "anonymous" as the composer on all the recordings.

Beyond that surety, he still felt a debt weigh on him.

Images of the whales’ sophisticated sound sculptures cross-faded with visions of the Fins spending hours skimming tons of plankton into their vast bellies. Ari reformed the picture in his mind, reversing it. Artistic creations completely replaced feeding.

Ari was hit by a wall of vibrations so powerful that they knocked him from his feet. He levitated backward as though raised by a controlled gale.

"She has said 'yes' to something," deduced Face.

"Indeed," uttered Yu, overcome by the enormity of what she had witnessed.

Ari surfaced. "I've offered an unlimited supply of plankton energy wafers and she has accepted. They skim fish, krill, squid, and octopus plankton from the water as they swim. It is effortless, but still takes time. A supply of wafers will free the whales' from grazing. They'll have time to perfect their culture just as we have."

TwoRidge knew their communion with the Landwalkers had reached completion. In honor of the new agreements and the time limit imposed by the Turning Point, TwoRidge and Face composed a new song. Everyone agreed it was the first of its kind, a true and formal collaboration between cetacean and SIC.

Ari felt TwoRidge's joy and shared it. She was glad about the progress they'd made with the Landwalkers. The historic meeting was a source of proper pride for her that would be carried by her lineage beyond her own life time.

With the social arrangements between them complete, the four Landwalkers spent many happy days with their new friends in creative bliss. Face and Yu collaborated on the recording mechanisms, while Ari and Drom helped the whales select the content.

One day, Yu held out a device to Ari. “I’ve developed oil micro-crystal implants. By using them all Atlantians can visually enjoy the pod’s sacred symphonies.”

Ari weighed the tiny cochlea-curled invention in his hand. "Some things should remain private," he decreed.

Yu remembered how Ari had stopped him from recording a sequence from Fleet’s death song, even though the pod had willingly repeated it for them. "They have some secrets then?"

"I don’t think they can lie nor deceive. It’s mystical. Duplicity is physically impossible for them, just as it is for Face. But because they are totally open to me, doesn’t mean everything should be public."

"I bow to your judgment. After all they chose you."

Ari blushed and flicked back his hair. Yu was terribly close to intuiting the whales’ name for Ari.

You are the Chosen One.

The message was as staggering as it was clear. The whales had conferred that title. Ari did not want to claim it. He wanted to deny it. The honor was a staggering obligation. He felt it strip something from him.

Drom sensed Ari's feeling of nakedness. She verified his comments to Yu. "Ari’s right. TwoRidge told me their 3-D visual echo enables whales to see into the mind of anyone with whom they communicate. They live in total honesty. There can be no deception. They've no vocabulary for 'lie.' It is a meaningless concept to beings that understand inner thoughts. That's probably why they could agree to our offers so quickly. Just think of it. They can't even think of trying to be anything but what they are. They are rooted in fact. How wonderfully ironic that sea creatures would be so grounded."

Ari felt her thought deeply. "That's wonderful! Imagine being your own truest self without pretense. They've no need to act a role, try to be someone they aren't, nor live up to anyone else's expectations. They are authentic -- as transparent of mind as Face is of body."

Drom squeezed his hand. She understood that Ari was battling to find his genuine self. The whales had touched the truth that lay sea deep beyond his surface turmoil. He had not grasped the facts of his true identity yet, but now fathomed it as an undeniable, deeply embedded part of him.

Although he had reached that realization, Ari still could only bring himself to interpret his title in the narrowest sense. "They've chosen me to bring the whale's songs to Atlantians."

Drom prompted him, "Do you think they only want you as a musician?"

Ari blushed deeper and tugged his hair harder. "As important as the message in the melody is, touching Atlantians is even more important."

"There, you said it -- 'Atlantians' You are either the next Leader of Atlantis or a producer of symphonic messages."

"Life would be nothing but duties and obligations." Ari felt part of his youth die. He drowned in mourning. Confusion reigned. The Exodus melody sounded in his mind, reminding him that all death lead to new birth. The refrain would not leave him.

Ari is the One

Bring all together

Ari is the One

Species join

Peace Live

Harmony is All

Live Peace

Ari is the One.

Mandate 4 dominated Ari's need to dodge this message. "Perhaps if I submit willingly, the fact that I am the Leader will overpower my need of happiness and in it I’ll find a greater joy or passion. I'm not so sure."

Drom caressed his hair, crowning him with tenderness. "You are who you are. That’s what the whales have shown us."

Ari knew his refusal to accept his role was the beginning of an end. The last Cetacean lesson began. The whales hinted of eons past, of distant planets and obscure lives, of changes in genetic regeneration and sentinel reformation He must learn more about their enlightened end and illuminated beginning.

Ari and the pod drowned in deep dreams. Unknown to Ari, a growth of understanding was arising and cultivating. It was confusing but innately, the teaching would continue. Despite that, Ari knew it was time for farewells.

The Atlantians stood ankle deep in the water, watching sadly. TwoRidge led the pod out to sea, cruising ahead, sonar and senses attuned to danger. All eyes lingered on the stately procession. The four swam in a new hierarchy. Fleet was missed as scout. TwoRidge led the pod northeast at 20 KMPH. Behind her were her oldest son, Finner, and his younger brother, Finback, slightly astern of him.

Ari started to touch his headband to raise the force field across the cove. His fingers were almost touching the four suns, when he remembered he had enabled the whales to control it.

Finner dropped behind.

"He's waving goodbye," Drom said sadly, as his fin flickered in the distance.

His farewell squeal reverberated across the water and above the soft lapping of the waves. Just as they were about to vanish in the distance, four narrow columns of spray nearly seven meters high appeared. The fountains were for all of them, but most especially for Ari. He felt so revered by them that he knew he could not rise to their expectations. He renounced being the Chosen One.

Still focused on the pod, Drom's voice shivered with respect and love. "How beautiful!"

Yu was struck by the sight and characteristically expressed that by reciting the details. "They blow two to five times at intervals of ten to twenty seconds. They’ve two blow holes, one on each side, each with splash-guards in front of them."

Ari was awash in a new wave of communication. He saw a dead infant. In his mind's eye, their gentle bodies were slashed and cut. He could not see the force that ripped their flesh. He struggled to sense the nature of this villain. It was amorphous, foggy, as rank as swamp gas, as unnatural as a carnivorous plant. He intuited that the whales knew more than he could decipher. By the markings on the tail fin he knew the infant was their pod member. He sensed their kinship.

Ancient Ones

Green Glances

Glimpse Green

TRAITORS

Chosen One Spies

Friend pulses

Ancient Ones

Star Matter Supreme

Chosen One,

Ascend We.

Confusion returned, as Ari felt destiny arise through him. The troupe of Land Walkers watched the last glimmer of the pod spouting against the sun disappear under the horizon.

"They're heading North," Ari told his friends. "They must search for new members. Three whales and a dolphin are a small band. Finback's calf was a great loss. He was her only offspring. The rest of the pod will have to nurture her through a long mourning. She can't have another baby until next spring." "Finback will miss her calf and TwoRidge will still mourn her mate and son," added Drom. "Although Razorback and the calf can never be replaced, new members will make the pod healthier."

"They plan to graze heavily and put on more fat before I can get a wafer distribution system in place. They're preparing for a disaster. I don’t know what. I can't put it into words clearly. The Turning Point they sang about won't happen easily. Something catastrophic is on the horizon."

Yu's thought vein pulsed, but she had no clues

"They know far more than their ocean world. They sense magnetic differences in the continents, the changing moon, and other space-like objects. They have commerce with Nature in a seagoing life Atlantians can only dimly imagine. They combine these acoustic skills with a keen ability to adapt. Yet something is not only a threat to them, but to us. All of us."