Chapter Five
Submarine Visitor
Grace and Leona joined the others on the beach. Grace ran to Inocente and gave him a wet hug. The Admiral still had his arm around Grace’s shoulder after a second round of introductions had been made. He turned to her with a fond look. “The last time I saw you, you were still a girl. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman who can surf with the best.”
“She really does,” Leona said. “Grace won the international surfing contest during her first year in college.”
“I quit doing contests,” Grace said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Surfing is way more fun without a gaggle of phony monkeys on my back trying to use me to make money. Low life idiots turned a natural and totally healthy sport into competition for business profits, they completely wiped out the beauty of nature and made it ugly, for me anyway.
Waiting to hear more, The Admiral didn’t say anything.
“When I won the championship, the marketing types even brought along a handsome movie star wearing a cowboy hat to give me my trophy. Then there were long stories in supermarket magazines telling how we were going to have a million dollar wedding. Except for the computer enhanced picture of me on the cover, in my bathing suit of course, I couldn’t tell who the stories were about. It was disgusting.” She wrinkled her pretty face and shook her head.
“They even used computer software to balloon my breasts.” With that she turned away from the Admiral, and spit into the sand.
The Admiral listened closely and then responded, “Well said, I’m sure your parents are as proud of you as they are of your brothers.” He took his arm from Grace’s shoulder and pointed toward the shade of the trees. Suppressing a twitch of a grin, he turned to Leona as they walked, “I’ve heard your last name but haven’t yet placed you with it yet. How do you spell your last name?”
“It depends on the language,” Leona answered. “My family has settled on Bañacya, or Banyacya, but most people who speak English pronounce that as “Banaykyae”, so we sometimes spelled it as “Banyahkyah”. The problem with that spelling is that it seems like a name from India or southeast Asia and our ancestors are from the Hopi Nation, something we are quite proud of.”
“Are you related to Javier and Estrella Banyacya?”
“Yes. They were my grandparents, father’s parents.” She said, lifting her head proudly. “And Thomas Banyacya was our ancestor,” she noted, modestly, yet wanting the Admiral to know.”
“I knew your parents well.” He responded. “Estrella used to play fantastic piano music while your Grandfather and I worked out strategies to help Nation Pacifica keep free of interference from the United States of Earth.”
“They were assassinated by Use.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes. It happened right after I retired to the science base on the moon. When we’ve finished helping Nation Pacifica get out from under the thumb of colonial bad guys running Operation Freethem, I plan to bring those who did it to justice. The murder of your grandparents deprived me of my best friends.”
“Why do you call Pacifica ‘Nation Pacifica’?” Leona asked.
Admiral Castro smiled. “Your Grandparents would be proud; forty thousand pioneers, myself included, left the lunar science base and eventually discovered a beautiful planet. We have begun a new society based on the social ecological economics taught by your grandfather. Our new world is named Planet Pacifica, we say Nation Pacifica to distinguish the nation here on Earth. Now that I know who you are, it gives me a better picture of the problem you and Kevin presented to the government of Use. You were like my best friend’s ghost returning to haunt them. And I have heard of your ancestor, Thomas Banyakya. Would you tell me more of his story later?”
Leona nodded a yes.
The conversation drifted to silence; they all watched the Delfinians surf. It wasn’t too long before Kevin broke the silence. “Those are good waves out there. If we’re not going to move the ship to the old fort right away, I’m going out for some rides.”
The Admiral sighed and stood up. “I suppose we should start; this was nice sitting in the shade and not worrying what is going to happen next. Let’s go for a ride on the ship your father designed; it’s close to as strong as everything Use has put together, but we’ll keep to tree top level and stay off radar screens for as long as we can. Go ready the ship and I’ll tell the Delfinians what we’re doing.” Admiral Castro then strode across the sand toward the surfing point. He signaled to the delfinians with a wave of his arm and they started toward shore.
“Wait for me,” Kevin shouted. “I’ll come with you and stash the surfboards back in the shade.”
Kevin ran past the Admiral, picked up the surfboards and quickly carried them into the bushes. He then ran and caught up with him near the water, at the cove point. The delfinians swam into shallow water and sat with their arms out to occasionally paddle against gentle currents from wavelets which reached into the deeper areas between rocks and lava shelves.
“There’s something large out there,” Sudor said apprehensively.
“Maybe the killer whale came back,” Kevin suggested.
“No, it’s not an orca. We think it might be a submarine. Cecric, Perko, and Dawn have gone to investigate; it’s only about five kilometers out so we should know what it is any time now,” he said, tilting his head to one side and then laying down in the water. “I can hear them! It is a submarine. Some kind of tube is extending toward the surface; a float with an antennae has also begun rising upward. Jump into the water with us.”
Kevin jumped into the water immediately while the Admiral sat down and took off his shoes first. “It must be a periscope that’s being raised,” he said. The delfinians were laughing when he crouched in the water next to them. “What’s so funny?” the Admiral growled, thinking they were laughing at him for jumping in with his clothes on.
The delfinians were all leaning to one side with one ear in the water and an unfocused gaze in their eyes, as if they were talking to someone on the telephone. Landra started laughing so hard she actually slipped off the stone she was sitting on and disappeared under water, she resurfaced instantly. “What’s so funny?” the Admiral asked again, realizing they weren’t laughing at him.
“Dawn grabbed the radio antennae buoy before it reached the surface and pulled out more wire. Then she looped it around the propeller and they both tied it to the periscope,” Sudor said, keeping his ear to the water. “Cecric put a fancy knot in it so they can figure out it wasn’t a chance tangle.” He suddenly started laughing as hard as Landra, grabbing his stomach with both hands he rolled into the water next to Landra. The Admiral had never seen Delfinian’s laugh like this, they were actually screaming with laughter, like children being tickled.
“What is it now?” Inocente chuckled.
Sudor and Landra were laughing so hard they couldn’t answer for a moment. “Perko found a big conch shell and slid it over the top of the periscope. Even if they do extend it to the surface, they won’t be able to see.”
“I can see it!” Kevin exclaimed suddenly, his voice rising above the laughter.
“Your young eyes are better than mine,” the Admiral said, looking in the direction Kevin was pointing. “What do you see?”
“It’s way out there. I can’t actually see any detail, but knowing there’s a big shell on top, I can make out a bumpy shape on top of what must be a periscope sticking out of the water.”
The Admiral laughed, too. “Those three have temporarily disabled a billion dollars worth of submarine with their bare hands and a shell. You high tail it back to the ship and tell the others to bring the ship up to full defense alert and keep their heads down. Then bring a transmitter, binoculars, and something to eat back here to communications headquarters. Walk around the cove through the trees. Don’t cross the beach unless we signal it’s okay.” Kevin nodded, climbed out of the water, and took off running across the open sand. The Admiral stayed in the water tucked in among the tide pool lava shelves with Sudor and Landra. “Well, if they had any doubts about us being here before, they’re probably pretty sure now,” he said.
“They will be very surprised as soon as they use the propeller to move the ship,” Sudor responded, still grinning broadly.
“They just did,” Landra said with her ear pressed to the water surface. “I heard the buoy cable snap.”
“What do you think they’ll do?” Sudor asked.
“That’s hard to say. I’m fairly certain they’re looking for us. The sub commander must know a submarine is no match for a spaceship, yet, at this point, there is no way for them to know we are actually here. The first thing I’d do is move the periscope down fast in an effort to clear the obstruction.”
“That’s exactly what they did,” Landra said with her ear still to the water. “The shell floated right off and Perko caught it. He’s going to put it on again when the periscope comes back up.”
“May I make a different suggestion?”
“By all means. What do you have in mind?”
“Use the shell to tap a Morse code message. Four quick taps, short pause, then two quick taps. Wait a moment, and then repeat it so they get the message.”
“What does it mean?”
“Very simple. It means ‘hi’. Then, tap tap scratch, short pause, tap scratch scratch tap. That means ‘up’. Maybe they will come up and talk to us instead of sneaking around underwater.”
“Admiral! You’re beginning to think like a Delfinian. I’ll swim out past the surf to be sure they hear the code clearly,” Landra said, casting him a look of genuine fondness as she dove toward the surf line.
Perko understood the message clearly. He tapped and scratched it on the submarine hull, and then did the whole thing over just to be sure it was heard and understood.
The message had been heard. Inside the submarine was complete silence. Almost everyone on the ship understood Morse code for “hi,” followed by the equally brief “up,” it was quickly explained to the few who didn’t. All eyes in the control room turned to the skipper, Commander Kenneth Grey. Beads of perspiration on his brow shined in the lights. He was as stunned as the rest of the crew. His impulse and training was to fight, but there was nothing he could see to shoot at. Aware that the crew was waiting for a decision, he feigned complete calmness and studiously peered into the periscope. He looked in a complete circle. All he could see was a quiet little island with white sand leading up to a line of palm trees and tropical undergrowth. Everywhere else was open ocean. Nothing moved. He snapped the handles closed on the periscope and said, “down scope,” just as submarine captains do in all the old war movies he'd seen. His mind raced from one war idea to the next and came up a total blank. He glanced at his first mate. She shrugged and glanced upwards in a way no one but the Commander could see. He heard himself say, “Surface, nice and easy.” The words echoed in his head as if someone else had said them. He had no idea he was obeying a request from the most powerful military leader in all Human history.
“The sub is coming up, Admiral,” Sudor said with his ear flat to the water. “What’s next?”
The Admiral turned to the tree line. He saw Kevin, Grace, and Leona standing back in the shadows and waved them to hurry with the equipment, and his lunch. Then he turned back to Sudor. “We can’t fight this ship with weapons and hurt a couple hundred young sailors. It’s possible we could drain it’s energy defensively, yet, to save our own ship we might be maneuvered into using deadly force. Our primary weapons from here on will have to be logic and truth. Our opponents must make room for your Delfinian dream, Sudor.”
Landra swam to Sudor’s side and joined him on the rock seat. Neither said anything as they listened to the Admiral.
“The time has come for you to tell the world you are here to live and be in peace on this planet. Tell them you are here to protect your cetacean cousins. We will offer the commander of the submarine a once in a lifetime gift, an opportunity of real leadership; the Commander and his crew will be your welcoming committee. You tell him what you are doing here but let me do most of the talking about tactics. Kevin is bringing a transmitter so the submarine crew can see and hear what happens when their Commander meets the President of the Delfinians. We will inform them that this island is your Earth base, that we don’t want to hurt anyone but we will defend it. Tell them that you will be sending sociological and biological information about Earth to the rest of your people for study and analysis. It might be a good idea to mention you will be bringing your medical science and that will benefit all Humanity. Can you work with that hazy outline?”
Sudor locked eyes with the Admiral. A thin membrane of time and space waved on the line of their gaze as a bolt of conscious energy snapped between them. They each straightened as if the wave had traveled upward from the lower spine and then echoed deep behind the other’s eyes. Landra laid her hand on Sudor’s shoulder. She felt the bolt of conscious energy burn into her palm. The expression on her face was pure joy. She knew exactly what Sudor would say before he said it.
“Sounds good to me. Let’s do it.”