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  “Perhaps, but we’ve agreed.” He looked at the check. “I’m going to turn this over to accounting and arrange to purchase the other implants. Looks like James has his work cut out for him.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Jaehnig will be excited.” Matthew didn’t notice his wife’s facetious tone.

  “Yes, I bet he will be!” The limos pulled away, and Matthew fairly ran inside, leaving his scowling wife behind.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6

  Kaunakakai Elementary School, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth

  September 17th, 2035

  Terry turned in his tablet computer with the completed test. His teacher, Mrs. Teel, smiled as Terry slid it into the data slot on her desk, then he went out into the busy hallway. He rather enjoyed being a 5th grader, the biggest kids in the school. Though he was right in the middle percentile for height as a 10-year-old boy, he towered over the little kids, and he loved it.

  After math, they usually had social studies, one of his least favorite classes. However, today there was something different going on. An assembly was called for all the 5th grade kids. No description was provided; the only thing they were told was that a new program would be rolled out. Scuttlebutt was they were going to build a new middle school, but Terry doubted they’d call an assembly just to tell them about it. Besides, he’d have heard about it from his parents long before it was talked about at school.

  When he got to the school’s auditorium, a huge room under a plexiglass dome that allowed in Molokai’s natural sunlight, he saw he was one of the first kids to arrive. Of course, Yui was there already. She’d finished her math test 10 minutes before Terry. It was her favorite subject, while history was his.

  As he moved over to where his friend was sitting, Terry looked up on stage. The school principal, Ms. Kalani, was standing there talking to several teachers. A man he didn’t recognize was standing toward the back, with one of the transparent computers the aliens sold on Earth, called a slate. Next to him was a woman in a US military uniform. Now that’s weird, he thought. Yui was gesturing wildly for his attention.

  “What’s up?” he asked when he was close enough.

  “Don’t you see who’s up there?”

  “The military lady?” Terry asked.

  “No, stupid, next to her!”

  Terry looked again. The man was wearing a casual suit but didn’t look comfortable in it. He chatted confidently with the military woman. He was built like a football player, with a shaved head. Holy crap! “Doc?!”

  “Yeah,” she said. “In the flesh.”

  They hadn’t seen him in quite some time. He’d left them both messages the week after they dove on the Dixie Maru to explain that he’d been busy, then nothing. Now he’d suddenly shown up at some strange school assembly? And who was the military woman he seemed to know so well?

  Terry waved when Doc looked their way. Doc saw Yui and him and gave them a subdued wave in return. Terry narrowed his eyes. What’s up? he silently wondered.

  The rest of their fellow 5th graders came in slowly until the period was over, then the remainder showed up in a small flood, until they were all there. The 5th grade teachers closed the auditorium doors and took seats to the side, not on the stage. Principal Kalani walked over to the podium and picked up the mic.

  “Good afternoon, students.”

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Kalani,” they chorused.

  “I know you’re all wondering why you’re here. Well, it’s to announce a new program that you’ll be participating in, beginning next year in middle school. The United States’ government has been working on this program for more than a year, and funding has finally been approved.” She tapped the computer built into her podium, and the screen behind her came to life showing a shield-shaped logo. Along the bottom was, “United States of America District,” and just above it, “Republic of Earth.” In the center of the shield were the initials, “M.S.T.”

  “M.S.T.,” Ms. Kalani said. The display showed words under the initials. “As you can see, it stands for Mercenary Service Track. Currently, Humans working as mercenaries for off-world employers are bringing in vast sums of money. As you may or may not have noticed, the government recently passed a modest tax on that income. These funds will help keep our government, and the planet, running.”

  “Now this isn’t going to be a political discussion, and many of you wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. Mercs, as mercenaries are often called for short, are soldiers. But many of them don’t actually fight. Some are technicians, some are medics, and some do logistics. Being a merc is a complicated job which pays well. With the introduction of the MST, all US schools, from grade six up, are being given a budget to teach certain classes and provide knowledge which will help you decide if you want to pursue a mercenary career or not. Upon reaching junior year in high school, each of you will also be required to take a test, the Voluntary Off-World Assessment Test.”

  “If it’s voluntary, why do we have to take it?” Yui asked, and Terry snorted. Several others in their class were wondering the same thing.

  “I’m sure you are curious why it’s called, ‘voluntary’ if it’s compulsory. Apparently the test was labeled prior to the decision to make it mandatory.” Ms. Kalani shrugged, then grinned. “You can all consult your social studies for a reminder in how government works, and doesn’t.”

  She looked down at her notes, then turned to the military lady and Doc. “Behind me here is Captain LeEllen McCartney. She’s been assigned by the US Military as your pre-6th grade liaison. Next to her is Lieutenant Commander Vincent Abercrombie, a US Navy SEAL, retired. He’ll be the MST instructor for the Molokai General School district.”

  “Navy SEAL?” Terry whispered.

  “Holy cow,” Yui said, “I didn’t know he was a SEAL! How cool is that?”

  Explains why he’s so good at diving and stuff, Terry thought.

  Captain McCartney came forward and took the mic. “Good afternoon, boys and girls. I’m excited to be here today. The opportunities you’ll be offered next year, and every year going forward, are multifold. Besides being given specialized instruction on how to maximize learning to possibly begin a very rewarding career as a mercenary, you’ll have the chance to give future generations on our own planet an incredibly brighter future!”

  Terry looked around as Captain McCartney spoke, noticing the various reactions. Some of his fellow students were listening with rapt attention, while others were indifferent. Yui was listening intently, though she seemed to be staring at Doc more than anything. The teachers’ reactions were much more interesting. Most of them looked, for lack of a better word, pissed.

  “So, I think it’s time to meet your new MST instructor, Lieutenant Commander Abercrombie.”

  There was polite applause from the teachers; a few seemed to be pretending to applaud. Terry and Yui, like a few other of their classmates, knew Doc, and they applauded enthusiastically. He took the microphone and cleared his throat. “Some of you know me as Doc. After leaving the service, I became a charter boat captain and part time teacher at Hawaii Community College. When Principal Kalani asked me to be the MST instructor, I accepted.

  “You see, I’m a former SEAL. I was injured and had to retire. Ten years ago, my former team went off on the Alpha Contracts, and none of them came back alive.” He looked down for a second and shook his head. “They were cock-sure and convinced they were the best. And they might have been the best—on Earth. In the stars, they were ill-prepared. We know a lot of you might decide to be mercs someday. Who doesn’t want to be rich and famous, right?”

  From the looks on the faces of the teachers, nobody would. Terry didn’t notice Yui grinning.

  Doc went on, “We’re going to teach some of the lessons learned out in those stars and, thanks to information provided by the Horsemen, we think we can help. Now, I know a lot of the teachers aren’t happy with this plan.” He looked at the aforementioned men and women, many of whom were openly glaring at him. “Unfor
tunately, this idea wasn’t mine, and we don’t really have a choice. You don’t believe it’s proper to give what amounts to military instruction in a public school.” He smiled, then shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. Either way, I’m here, so I hope we can all make the best of this. Thank you.”

  Terry thought a few of the teachers’ applause was less grudging than before. Doc was easy to listen to, and what he said made sense. Terry wondered what it had felt like to have all your friends die a million lightyears away. Not good, he guessed.

  A pair of teacher’s aides began to move among the students, handing each of them a green folder with a red, white, and blue stripe around it, and the same logo that had been up on the display. Terry and Yui got theirs and opened them to find pages describing a lot of what they’d just been told, and a description of the assessment test to be administered in seven years.

  “It’s a lot of work to do for something nobody really wants,” Terry said to Yui. She made a noncommittal noise. As they walked out of the hall, Doc was there talking with the principal and Captain McCartney. “Hey, Doc!”

  “Hi, kids,” Doc said.

  “Or should we call you Lieutenant Commander Abercrombie?” Yui asked, a twinkle in her eye.

  “Knock it off,” he said. “LeEllen, I’d like you to meet a couple of the kids I teach diving.” He gestured toward them. “This is Terry Clark and Yui Tanaka.”

  “Oh, well, nice to meet you two. Did you have any questions?”

  “Not really,” Terry said.

  “Yui?” Doc asked, looking at her.

  Terry glanced at Yui, who cast a furtive look back at him, then shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Well, don’t be late for your next class,” Doc said.

  “Will you have time to go diving soon?” Terry blurted out.

  “Yeah, in about a week, I think. I’ll send you a message.”

  “Excellent,” Terry and Yui said at the same time. Terry waved goodbye, as did Yui, and they headed off.

  “The whole thing is so strange,” Terry said a minute later as they walked toward the science building.

  “What do you mean?” Yui wondered.

  “Well, mercenaries. You watch old 20th century movies and stuff, and mercenaries are the bad guys. Everyone hates them. Now, they’re heroes?”

  “Yeah,” Yui said.

  Terry glanced at her as they walked. He wasn’t sure in what way she agreed with him.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 7

  PCRI, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth

  October 27th, 2035

  Terry watched the crowd. Several hundred people were crowded into the new auditorium listening to Kray talk about Shool, and how she created the world. In the month since he’d gotten his implant, the leader of the Shore Pod, as he’d renamed his group, had become incredibly more understandable. He’d also become somewhat of a religious character, Terry thought. A 9,000-pound televangelist, his mom called Kray.

  “Shool mean us have world forever,” Kray was saying. “We like have talk box to tell people about us. We all good. You all good. We all be good together!”

  Terry was pretty sure a lot of the people in the auditorium had been there before, just like the last Saturday he’d worked there.

  He finished his chores in the auditorium, emptied the trash cans, and moved to the educational center. Ki’i, the leader of the Wandering Pod, as her group was now known, was talking with some kids near Terry’s age.

  “Why haven’t you talked to us before?” a girl asked her.

  “We try,” Uila said. “We speak not same. Talk box Wardens give us make good talk.”

  “What Uila is explaining is, the implants we’ve obtained are like the alien translation pendants,” Dr. Orsage explained. She usually worked with the Wandering Pod. She wouldn’t admit it, but Terry thought Kray and his talk of the orca god annoyed her. “We’ve been studying their vocalizations for a long time.” She pressed a button on the control she had, and the ghostly clicks and thrums of wild orcas played over the auditorium’s PA system. “We’re still really trying to understand. The technology in the alien devices is very fast and very smart. It recognizes elements of thousands of languages and can render them into English, or another 100 Human languages.”

  “A hundred?” a boy said, eyes wide. “There are 100 languages on Earth?”

  “Oh, no,” Dr. Orsage said. The boy grinned, thinking he’d gotten her. “There are more like 6,500 that we know of. Mind you, that doesn’t count dead languages or some dialects.” The kids all shook their heads. Their parents nodded and commented to each other. “The translators we have from alien sources can handle 100 common Human languages. Some of the languages on Earth are just as alien as the various cetaceans’; however, we have one advantage over our marine mammal cousins. Do any of you know what it is?”

  The kids began throwing out ideas. One boy said computers, another that Humans had thumbs, and one said Humans could sing.

  “We sing,” Uila said. “You play sing just now.”

  “Nobody knows?” Dr. Orsage asked.

  “Common point of reference,” Terry said.

  Dr. Orsage turned, saw who it was, and smiled. “Meet our resident young expert on the orcas. This is Terry Clark, son of the director, Dr. Matthew Clark, and his wife, Dr. Madison Clark.” The kids looked at Terry in his coveralls pushing a big bucket of garbage in confusion. He grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

  “What does that mean?” a child asked.

  “It means the cetaceans, in some ways, are as alien as our extra-terrestrial visitors. Uila’s never lived in a town, and we’ve never lived under the sea. Hard to understand each other, right?”

  “I understand now!” said a little girl from the back, sitting on her mom’s lap.

  “Good!” Dr. Orsage said and clapped. “That’s why we’re doing this!” One of the adults in the back raised her hand, and Dr. Orsage pointed at her.

  “Do these orcas also believe in their god like the other ones?”

  “That’s a good question,” Dr. Orsage replied. “They do share some of the same concepts, which have been translated by the devices into English. We’re still trying to fully understand those beliefs. There are two pods of orcas here; these are the Wandering pod, as they call themselves, and they are made up of Pacific Transient orcas. They were caught in this ocean and are hunters, eating seals, whales, and other large animals.

  “The other orcas are the Shore Pod, which is made up of Pacific Resident orcas. They live close to shore and like fish. They talk about their religion more.”

  “They Shool different.”

  Orsage turned to look at Uila, who was up close to the glass looking at her. “Sorry?” she said.

  “Shore say Shool everywhere. Shool like you say ghost.” She tossed her head and splayed her flukes. Terry watched with curiosity. “Shool down deep.”

  “You mean in your heart?” Uila shook her head side-to-side in an unmistakable answer. “I don’t understand.”

  “Down deep, deep, deep.”

  “You mean under water? At the bottom of the ocean?”

  “Yes. It why we dive deep,” Uila said.

  “Meet Shool!” Ki’i said.

  “Meet Shool!” the other three orcas echoed.

  Like a sea monster? Terry wondered. Cool!

  Dr. Orsage had grabbed her tablet computer and was furiously typing. Her assistant took over the questions for the rest of the encounter. After the normal encounter time, the group moved on, and it was only Terry, Orsage, and her assistants. He decided he could ask a question.

  “Dr. Orsage, do you think Shool is a sea monster?”

  She glanced up from her typing and shook her head before going back to it. “No, it’s probably nothing. Verbal histories passed down by Humans are often filled with some differences, even among the ones who share core beliefs.”

  “Is it maybe why the Shore Pod and the Wandering Pod don’t like each other?”

&n
bsp; “It’s not that they don’t like each other,” Orsage said. “I think it’s more like a rivalry. Because they have different lifestyles, it breeds some natural contempt sometimes.”

  “Are you going to put them together at some point?”

  “We’re still evaluating how that would work with the new translators factored in.”

  Terry grunted. That’s adult for ‘we don’t know,’ he thought. Dr. Orsage went back to her notes. Uila was looking at him through the thick glass, her massive eye watching closely. “Uila?”

  “Yes?”

  “You said you understood the song Dr. Orsage played?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did it mean?”

  “It song of death.”

  Dr. Orsage looked up and blinked.

  “What kind of death?”

  “Pod mate die.”

  “Terry, can you leave me to talk to Uila, please?”

  Terry made a face, but left as he’d been asked, heading into the bottlenose habitat. He wondered why it was so important.

  He thought the orcas were interesting, especially since they’d had translators implanted. Now the Pacific bottlenose dolphins? They were freaking cool! If they were Human, they’d fit right in with many of the hip, young surfers he met regularly on Molokai. He also had to admit, his opinion of the dolphins was at least partially biased because he was allowed to swim with them.

  Where the orca tanks were as massive as engineers could make them to allow the huge cetaceans room, the bottlenose habitat was a series of ponds with deep areas in the center, and shallow at the edges. The habitat was staffed with four institute employees, and at least 50 people were either in the water with the dolphins or watching curiously.

  Terry had seen video of people lining up 20 deep for a chance to touch a dolphin at some parks. In some of those parks, the guests would pay hundreds of dollars to get in the water with the animals. His parents hadn’t shared all the details about how admission worked here, but he’d overheard the face-to-face encounter with the pod of Pacific bottlenose dolphins was $2,000 each and lasted an hour.