Intermezzo Ch. 01-07

"Yes. He is very reluctant."

"On my responsibility, begin the process now. We cannot afford to lose him now."

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It was still dark out when aquaTarkus slipped her lines and motored out of the marina and into the Pacific. Henry Taggart laid out a great circle course for Honolulu and engaged the autopilot. He flipped off the A.I.S. then went to speak to the cop, needing to know if he'd ever been on a sailboat before.

And of course he hadn't. The cop had military experience in the Navy, however, so not all was lost. The other guy, the Geddes kid, looked like a lost cause, a total geek.

Geddes was standing at the aft rail, just above the swim platform, and he was staring at Los Angeles as the city disappeared in the haze surrounding the rising sun. When Taggart walked up to the kid he appeared lost inside a deep trance, staring at the sky above the city.

"We're being followed," Geddes sighed uneasily.

"Oh? Did you see something?"

But the boy just shook his head in answer to the question.

"Okay, so how do you know?"

"It's inevitable, given the circumstances."

"The circumstances? And what might those be?"

"The child isn't human, and we've stolen it. Someone will come for it."

"And? What else aren't you telling me?" Taggart asked.

But Geddes turned away from Taggart and looked at the sea ahead, then the boy turned again and looked down into the sea -- and his hands began trembling.

Intermezzo -- Madness and the Desperate Flight of aquaTarkus

Part VI: Flight II

The dream comes in numbers, yet the solution still avoids him.

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Taggart watched the kid whenever he could, but especially when Geddes took the wheel and steered. There is a rhythm to the waves that eludes most people, but the kid seemed to understand the sea, to anticipate her moves, so much so that Taggart considered the kid a natural. If he'd known Geddes at all he'd have understood that the kid was smiling for the first time in his life, that he finally felt alive -- yet Taggart understood. He'd always felt pretty much the same -- whenever he took the wheel and began to vibrate with those ancient rhythms.

There first morning out Debra came up into the sun carrying the little baby, but already Taggart could see something different in this odd little creature's eyes. There was an innate inquisitiveness deep inside, an expressiveness he found utterly inhuman, like she was reading his soul, imprinting his deepest secrets. He watched it somewhat warily after that, not yet sure what he was dealing with but certain that trouble lurked ahead.

They sailed into Avalon Harbor well before noon and refueled at the dock while Debra and Geddes ran ashore to get supplies, while Daisy Jane dumped a load on the grass with a huge sigh of relief. Taggart scanned the sky, saw not a thing to cause alarm -- which only alarmed him more -- and he helped get their supplies stowed before backing from the fuel dock and then cutting under the south side of the island before resuming their westbound course.

Debra fed the baby girl -- for that was indeed what she was -- and Brendan scanned through the LA Times, finding no mention of the UAV episode but breathless coverage of the robbery and downing of the American 777. There was scant coverage of the fracas on the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which he found the most surprising of all the omissions -- because he had already figured out that the baby was the keystone event in the entire chain of events. The way Geddes saw things, time could be divided between the period before and after the baby's arrival here on earth -- because the baby was the fundamental shift. She was the plan. He still wasn't sure who's plan she was a part of, but that was a trivial concern at this point. Time had been reset -- of that much he was sure.

Debra warmed formula and prepared a bottle, and all the while Geddes held the little girl in his lap, cradling her close to keep her out of the wind and the sun. Two hours after aquaTarkus left Avalon the first orca appeared, and within an hour or so a half dozen more had joined them swimming just ahead like sentinels out ahead of the legion, and at one point Geddes was sure he'd seen a fifty meter long white oblate form moving along about a hundred feet beneath the keel. He'd started to say something to Henry but then the oblate disappeared and he thought better of it.

Debra took the spud down below and they napped, and Geddes saw the oblate again and moved closer to Henry. "There's something down there following us," Brendan said, his reedy voice coming across in hushed conspiratorial sighs.

But Henry had only nodded. "It showed up after the orca arrived."

"Do you see a correlation?"

Taggart nodded, but he didn't explain his thinking. "You ready to steer again?"

"Yes, of course," Geddes said, his demeanor brightening in an instant.

"Swell. Uh, Sumner, you know anything about single sideband radio?"

"Uh...no, not really."

"Okay...well...it's time for your first lesson. It will be on how to download GRIB files and construct a 72 hour weather forecast."

"A what file?"

"Never mind. Let's go down to the chart table..."

Taggart noted the kid could steer for hours on end, and his mind didn't wander, either. If he told Brendan to hold two-seven-zero on the compass that's exactly what the kid did, for hour after hour and with not a single complaint voiced. Yet, at one point Taggart came up to the kid and he found they boy's eyes locked on a cloud.

"See something?" Taggart asked, now looking at the cloud.

"Hm-m, oh...no. I was just reading something."

"Reading something? In a cloud?"

"Yes. Tell me, Henry. Do you believe in God?"

"Excuse me, but where'd that come from?"

"Oh, I was just reading something..."

"Up there in that cloud?"

"Yes, of course."

"Okee-doke."

"And, well, it seems to me that most religious texts have set up a patriarchal view of our relationship to animals..."

"Well, that seems to go with the territory, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, gee, don't you think religions tend to be pretty paternalistic?"

"Ah, yes, I see what you mean, but I don't eat meat. Never have. It seems cruel to me, yet most religions have no prohibitions against eating animal flesh. Then I read that these same religions don't regard animals as sentient, which seems to mean that religions don't see animals as having feelings like love or that they can friendship."

"Just curious, Brendan, but what do you eat?"

"Avocados, mainly."

"And are you pretty sure avocados don't experience love or friendship?"

That seemed to stump the kid for a moment. "Avocados don't have a brain, so how could they?"

"Hey, don't ask me, ask a fruitarian."

"A what?"

"That, Brendan, is someone who only eats fruit. And some fruitarians hold that even fruit hold feelings."

Brendan's eyes went wide. "Seriously?"

Taggart nodded his head. "You could get real hungry real fast if you hold to extreme points of view."

"So do you think that eating an animal isn't cruel?"

"I don't know, but I'll ask the next cheeseburger I run across."

"That's a specious argument."

"Not if you're a cheeseburger," Taggart sighed. "But tell me...what if it could be demonstrated that avocados have feelings. What would you do?"

"I don't know," Geddes said.

"Really? You'd choose death by starvation over eating the avocado?"

"Probably not."

"Okay, so what about the Inuit peoples of the arctic north. There's no ready food supply but whales..."

"But that's not true. They can go to a store, or even..."

"Brendan, there were no stores until about fifty years ago, so try again. There choice was eat meat or starve to death. What should they have done?"

"That doesn't seem right."

"Okay. So, if I hear you correctly, you shouldn't eat something that has the capacity to feel emotions."

"Yes. I think that's correct."

"So, if you fall overboard, should that shark over there not eat you?"

Brendan turned and looked at a scythe-like dorsal fin slicing through the water about fifty feet off their starboard beam, and he instinctively inched towards the center of the boat. "What is that?" he moaned.

"Tiger shark. About a twelve footer."

"Isn't that a man-eater?"

"A spud like you would take him about three bites, so yeah, you could say that."

"But he's not sentient."

"Oh? Are you sure about that? What about the Inuit? Are they not sentient?"

"Well, that seems to be what all these religious texts seem to say."

"Oh? How do they define humanity?"

"I'd say compassion and empathy are the difference?" Geddes said.

"So, that Killer Whale over there cannot feel compassion or empathy? Is that what you're telling me?"

"I think so."

"You think so? Does that mean you aren't sure?"

Geddes seemed to hesitate. "Maybe they feel those things for their own offspring, but..."

"But not for us?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure about that?"

Geddes shrugged. "No. Not really."

"Well, why don't we find out," Taggart sighed as he started for the aft rail. "Come with me," he added, stopping to engage the autopilot. Once Geddes was with him aft on the swim platform, Taggart looked down into the water then over at the Tiger Shark. "What do you think the orca would do if you were to fall overboard?"

"I don't know," Brendan said, now a little nervously.

"Well, let's find out," Taggart said -- just before he jumped off the platform and into the sailboat's wake.

Geddes watched as the Tiger Shark turned towards the sound of Taggart's thrashing splash and he turned towards the cockpit: "Help! Man overboard!" he cried, and then he heard Debra and Sumner running up from below. The shark had closed about half the distance when it seemed to explode, then vault into the air; seconds later an orca appeared a cupped Taggart in what appeared to be a protective embrace. The orca lifted Taggart out of the water and he stepped aboard, wiping sea water from his eyes.

"Any questions?" Taggart sighed as he turned to the orca and waved.

"Did you know it was going to do that?" Geddes cried, clearly exasperated.

"Did I know that?" Taggart asked with a shrug. "I dunno. Let's just say I had faith he would, and call it a day."

"That doesn't make any sense," Brendan said, muttering to himself as he walked back to the wheel.

"Well...I guess you could say that about faith in general, Brendan," Henry said to the boy as he caught the towel Debra tossed his way. "Then again, I could be full of shit."

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From the Log of SV aquaTarkus

Saturday, 20 December 2008 local noon by reduction

Lat: 28°40'24.85"N Lon: 132°51'31.69"W

Winds 030 degrees at 12-15 kts OAT 52 degrees F; Seas 2-4 feet; Depth: 13k charted

Worked out a noon site today, first time with the sextant since last Vic-Maui race on the Swan. TG for Bowditch. Showed the kid how to shoot a site and reduce using the tables and he took to it like a duck to water. The cop was mystified. The kid also spotted the triangular shaped UAV again, about 0200 last night. Spotted by the craft occulting stars in Cassiopeia; I'd have never caught that. Bright kid but strange as hell, always looking at the sky. The baby is stranger still; she has grown about a foot and is eating solid food now as she has all her teeth. Quite a feat given that she's ten days old. She seems to me like a passive receptacle, sponging up every word we say, gauging our every emotion. Never seen anything like it, which, given her probable origins sounds about right. Deb thinks the ship is keeping an eye on the baby, but keeping an eye on what? Something has been bothering me all day, namely that we really have no idea who the actors in this drama really are. If the UAV is somehow related to Ted Sorensen then that means what? He had to know the kid would appear on the bridge -- but how the hell could that be possible? So, what if the UAV is in fact 'alien'? That would mean we have another spacefaring civilization playing around down here on earth? And if that's the case, what is their relationship to the sphere civilization? Already seeing signs that the Pinks are not on the same page as the Blues and Greens, and they all seem terrified of the Reds. Assuming this is a factional disagreement within the sphere groups, how will they react to another group of real outsiders beginning to meddle in our affairs? I get the feeling about the only way I'll find any answers to these questions is to get back to Seattle, but then the moment passes. Yet the question remains: what do we do if something happens as we approach Hawaii? If dropping off the grid failed? Then we're in the deep do-do -- without a paddle, and with no place left to run.

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The man-child stood at the aft rail staring down into the water. Looking at the fat oblate forms down there, following -- him -- just like that shark had. He didn't know what to think now, not after Taggart and his orca, but he knew the ships were still down there, watching. 'Watching me watching them, the perfect infinity mirror...'

The cop was sitting at the wheel, the red from the binnacle casting a ghoulish glow over the cockpit, and Geddes wanted to jump into the blackness and wait to see who came for him first. The orca or the shark, faith or darkness. But then, inside the briefest flash of peripheral insight, he saw the other choice, the third option. The white shadows down there, following him. They wouldn't let him die, wouldn't let him be eaten alive. They couldn't. Not now. Why else had they put him on the bridge just before time shuddered to a stop.

Brendan was about to step off the platform when Henry came up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. "Having a moment?" Taggart sighed, his voice gentle and reassuring.

"They won't let anything happen to me," Geddes whispered. "They're afraid of me, but they won't let anything happen to me."

"Who are they, Brendan? Do you know?"

"Of course I do."

"And?"

"They came from Sagittarius. They sent the signal."

The hair on Taggart's neck stood on end, perhaps because of the way the man-child spoke those words. So certain, the certainty of numbers. Somehow the kid had worked it out, and now he had the answer to one question. Ted Sorensen wouldn't be waiting for them in Hawaii. "Do you know why they're here?" Taggart asked.

"I'm not sure. At first I thought the child interested them most of all."

"But not now?"

"No, not now. Not after you jumped in the water."

"What does that mean?"

"I think they're interested in you, Mr. Taggart. You, most of all."

Taggart shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. Why me?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Okay. Well, maybe you could let me know when you are?"

"I'll be dead before that happens."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll be dead next week, at least that's what I worked out. Probably next Wednesday."

"Indeed. And how is this going to come about, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I think you're going to kill me."

Intermezzo -- Madness and the Desperate Flight of aquaTarkus

Part VI: Flight II

The dream dies when all solutions become inevitable.

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Thunderstorms lined the southern horizon, vast arcs of lightning crossed the night sky, and Henry Taggart looked up at Orion, gauging the distance between the advancing clouds and Rigel. The big island was about a hundred and twenty miles due south, Maui about seventy miles ahead and Honolulu another hundred or so miles beyond, which meant keeping Molokai's windward shore to port. The hurricane was bleeding energy fast now and would -- probably -- be down to tropical depression force by morning, but whatever force remained in the storm would hit Honolulu about the same time aquaTarkus arrived off Diamond Head.

'So,' he asked the night, 'what are my options?'

Despite appearances, there are really precious few facilities for visiting sailboats in Hawaii, with almost every facility located in and around Honolulu, on the island of O'ahu. There are almost no 'hurricane holes' in the islands -- save for the Pearl Harbor region -- which explains why the Japanese didn't even try to invade in 1941. Invasion by any means other than air in an extremely hard nut to crack, and this dearth of anchorages also explains the how and the why it took so long for colonies to take hold there.

So Henry Taggart faced a difficult choice: push on to Honolulu and hope the storm kept away long enough to allow a relatively mild weather window during their approach, or to veer off to the north, into colder air, and wait for the storm's passage. 'But what if the storm gains strength and turns to the north?' He knew if that happened that they'd be in serious trouble and that help would be even further away.

Sumner Bacon came up to the wheel, with the latest Coast Guard weather-fax map in hand.

"Well," Henry sighed, "what's the verdict?"

"My guess is that the storms gets stronger and turns north," the cop said. "Lots of talk about steering currents and a dip in the jet stream."

"Okay, so that makes the decision easy," Henry muttered. "We skirt Maui and Molokai as close as we can, stay in their wind shadow, and hope for the best as we approach Diamond Head."

"That Ocean Passages book says pretty much the same thing," Bacon added. "What's the wind speed now?"

"Twenty two right now, but gusts to thirty in the last hour. It ought to be rough as pig snot by morning."

"Pig snot? Where do you guys come up with all this stuff?"

"You make it through a couple storms and you'll know."

"Gee, that sounds encouraging," Bacon said, a little warily as he looked at lightning along the horizon.

Taggart grumbled something unintelligible as he moved waypoints on the chartplotter's screen, changing their heading about ten degrees to port. "How are things down below?" he asked.

"Deb and the baby are asleep; the rocket scientist is on the computer again."

"What's he doing now?"

"Beats me. I saw a graph and a bunch intersecting parabolas, if that means anything to you."

"Nope," Taggart said. "Take the helm for a minute, I'm gonna check the bilge." Which was, Bacon knew, what Taggart said when he was going below to check on Deb and the baby. So Henry made his way carefully down the companionway steps and stepped down into the aft cabin -- only to find Deb and Brendan both wide awake -- and playing with a rather large toddler on the bunk. The "baby" had grown at least a foot and a half over the course of the voyage, and she now weighed too much for Deb to comfortably pick up. And now, to Henry's dismay, the "baby" was talking.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Deb asked Henry as he came into her stateroom.

Brendan had a notebook computer open and was showing the baby a problem in calculus, and Henry watched as the infant entered numbers onscreen, immediately adjusting the parabola to solve for the missing variable -- and even Brendan seemed impressed by her accomplishment. "That's very good," Brendan told her, smiling.

"Why do you smile?" the infant asked.

"Because you make me happy," Brendan said, and then the little girl turned to Henry.

"Hello, Father."

Taggart seemed to recoil under the weight of the girl's words and he staggered back a step or two. "Father?" he replied. "What makes you say that?"

The baby turned to Debra then. "She is the mother," she said, and then, as she turned back to Taggart, she added: "and you are the father."

Not "my father," but "the father," and the difference wasn't lost on Henry -- or on Debra.

But Henry leaned into her words, thinking what all this might mean. "So, who is he?" Henry asked, pointing at Brendan.

"Brendan is a teacher and a student. I have been teaching him for years, and now he is teaching me."

"I see," Henry said, though clearly he didn't. "So tell me...do you have a name?"