Second Nature

Epilogue

Coolahatchee Bay Island National Wildlife Refuge 

Haven squealed with giggles. Cade tossed her over his shoulders and she splashed into the surf. Gen stood nearby in the water, laughing at their antics. A summer squall had built the shorebreak to a rare size-three to four-foot waves crashed on a sandbar just off the beach. People up and down the beach were body-surfing and riding boogie boards. 

No jet-skis or speedboats were allowed, no golf courses, no land developments. The whole island was now a wildlife refuge, because of a Civil War-era plaque that proclaimed Cade and Lana's forefather the rightful owner of Coolahatchee Bay.  

It had been a year since Gen's pod found Ghost Whale. Dozens of other pods had helped in the search, and they had located the ironclad in less than a day. Races-the-Waves retrieved the plaque before Cade and Jimi even arrived on site with scuba gear. Cade learned that his father had attached floats to keep track of the submerged hulk, but someone had cut the lines.  

The descendants of a slave, Odysseus Seaborne, became the owners of Coolahatchee Bay Island. Turning the island into a national wildlife refuge had been Lana's idea.  

She and Cade had retained the Stanton Hill sixty acres, and had granted to all the original Cool Bay families the properties they lived on. All latecomers, who had bought land illegally from Weston Fairchild, were reimbursed from Fairchild's bank accounts, and court-ordered to leave. Lana and Cade sold the remaining land, about half the island, to the United States government, under the provision that the area be designated a federally protected avian and marine park, patrolled by park rangers and marine wildlife officers. Now, scientists and nature lovers arrived from around the world to conduct research and to enjoy the pristine beauty of the seashore.  

Weston Fairchild got his country club-a country club prison. Four homicide charges had been dropped for lack of evidence, but convictions on real estate fraud put him away for thirty years at a federal facility in Maryland for white-collar criminals.  

Gen stepped on a razor-edged oyster shell. "Ouch!" She lifted her left foot and bright blood trickled down her big toe. The wound did not heal instantly, because Gen had no mitobots in her tissues. It reminded her that she had not seen Deep Sky Water, her dolphin son, for six weeks. Anyone he let touch him absorbed his mitobots, and within minutes, responded with amazing healings. 

Gen sorely missed him. She longed to hug his sleek body, kiss his bottlenose. He usually swam into the shallow water every few days to visit with his family of two-leggeds, and especially, to play with Haven. Those two were more like brother and sister than two human siblings.  

But Deep Sky Water had accelerated his growth rate to make himself older, and then had left the pod on a vision quest. There was no way to tell how long he would need to find himself, his true identity-and give himself his own True Name. 

"Gen, look at me!" Haven shouted. She stood with her feet in Cade's hands and he sent her soaring up and over; she cleared his head by three feet and landed with a splash behind. Gen smiled at her gorgeous husband, feeling warm tingles in secret places. She liked the name Cade, but Hercules fit nicely, too.  

True Names. Cade's great-great grandfather had been named Odysseus; his great-grandfather, Atlas; his grandfather, Moses; his father, Samson; and Cade was named Hercules. But after his dad had died, Cade had felt too small and powerless to own such a heroic name, and had started using his middle name.  

Gen looked at his brown body, like that of a champion athlete from classical Greece. Only she called him Hercules, when they were in bed and he sent her soaring up over the world, into the sea. With a splash. Those tingles were getting intense. When the three of them went home for lunch, she and Cade definitely needed to lie down for a "nap." 

Jimi and Lana were up at the inn, supposedly making lunch. But Gen wouldn't be surprised if the newlyweds were making lunch upstairs in the bedroom. They, too, napped a lot. Lana was pregnant, at forty-one, and they both were thrilled. Jimi told Lana the pregnancy magnified her beauty; he said she could wear a sweat suit and still look as regal as a Nubian queen. That kind of talk led to more naps. 

Jimi had created a year-round dolphin research station, headquartered at Cool Bay Inn-the Institute for Cetacean Language and Culture, better known as I-CLAC. Grad students and marine biologists from around the world were on waiting lists to study with Jimi on the island. With Gen's help, he had created an English-Dolphin speech translation system, and Gen was working on dolphin translation software for scores of other languages.  

Last year, I-CLAC's television spots hit the networks. Dolphins themselves pleaded with humans to stop hunting whales and dolphins for food, stop drowning dolphins in tuna nets, stop polluting the seas. The effect worldwide was like a religious awakening-although 'awakening' was too weak a word-more like a conscience-bomb detonating, with consequences as far-sweeping as Jimi had ever imagined would occur after contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence. 

Now Jimi, Cade and Gen were filming a documentary, "Planet Ocean," about the evolution of life on Earth, told from the point of view of dolphins. Races-the-Waves, Moon Catcher and Squirt-whose True Name was now Sun Leaper-were being interviewed for the project. It was going to shake up human society, even though the filmmakers had decided to omit, for now, the facts about panspermia, the seeding of the oceans with life. They would begin the dolphin history from the era when dolphins roamed the land on two legs. 

Gen thought more about the dolphin concept of True Name. 

Haven. Perfect name for her. Haven possessed her aunt's love for animals, and she helped Lana run the Cool Bay Wildlife Hospital, mending broken wings and torn beaks-and sometimes accomplishing miraculous healings, thanks to the spread of mitobots. 

True Name: Gen Arista Toshi Monteverde. She smiled at the memory of her mother and friend. She was overjoyed that Arista and Toshi were together, light years from Earth, traveling on an immortal adventure, spreading life. She whispered a Shinto prayer of gratitude to her ancestors, K'o-k'o-pelli, the age-old progenitors. 

Gen crouched in the shorebreak, diving under waves, laughing at Cade and Haven's roughhousing. She felt happy. But she watched for dolphin fins, for her pod, for her son. She wanted to embrace him, tell him how much she had missed him. 

Cade and Haven stopped playing. They stood still together, staring past Gen. A small wave knocked Haven off her feet, but she hopped back up, never taking her eyes off the enrapturing vision. 

Gen felt hairs tingle on the back of her neck. 

"Mother, I have found my True Name." 

Gen turned around to gaze upon her son. He stood in the shallow water, a beautiful naked boy, seven or eight years old, with cinnamon skin and amethyst eyes. 

"My name is Sky Monteverde. I have come home to you, to be your human son." 

Gen stumbled, splashing, to grab him and draw him into her arms. 

"I will live ashore with you, part of the time, mother," he said, "and at sea with my pod, part of the time." 

Gen wanted to say things about love and family and home and belonging, but all that spilled out were tearful blubberings. She pressed her son's head against her bosom; smelled his wet, black hair. It smelled of saltwater, of life.  

Cade and Haven rushed to them and joined the embrace, and Gen's heart melted like a dolphin made of sugar swimming in the deep blue sea.  

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