“Wow, that flowers thing doesn’t work at all.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Most of the time it does, because I ignore you as best I can when you start thinking about carnations, tulips, and roses. Figuring out what you were trying to avoid me noticing wasn’t really a challenge in this instance, though.”
“Blah, blah, blah. I just hope the water’s warm.”
“It’s Bermuda in the middle of summer,” Chuckie said. “That water will be warm.”
“You’re not swimming with us?” I asked Siler.
“Nope. I’m staying on the ship with your mother and the dog. Where it’s dry.”
“You don’t like water?”
“I don’t like swimming in water where there might be sharks.”
“I literally didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
Siler shrugged. “I saw Jaws at a formative age.”
“You know that it’s rare for great whites to swim in these waters,” Chuckie said.
“And I also know that they do,” Siler replied cheerfully. “I’ll be here, manning the shark torpedoes, waiting to hand you all towels.”
The yacht had a ladder that allowed us to climb down into the water, though the flippers we were wearing made it a little difficult, so all of us jumped in when we were still above the waterline. Happily, Chuckie was right again—the water was perfect. Really would have liked to have a chance to swim and actually snorkel, but didn’t figure that request would be met with anything resembling enthusiasm from anyone else.
Once the rest of us were in the water, Muddy and Wruck both dove in from the upper deck, Muddy going to Sea Turtle Mode and Wruck again choosing Giant Seal. The seven of us swam to where Dew and Mossy and hundreds of Mykali were gathered.
Fast intros were made and then the fun of translations began. Dew seemed to have the best grasp of what the Mykali were saying, so she was the main focus of conversation.
“How long have they been here?” Chuckie asked.
Dew relayed the question. Heard nothing but what sounded like faint music, but she nodded and turned to the rest of us. “Since before you walked upright.”
“How did they get here?” Jeff asked.
Question relayed and what might be musical answers given. “In natural ships.” Dew sounded uncertain. “They are balls of earth that fly through space.”
“Meteors or meteorites?” Chuckie asked.
Dew nodded. “I believe that’s what they mean.”
“How did they create them?” Jeff asked.
More consultation. The noises the Mykali made were very soft, but when they were together it was louder. “Are they a hive mind?” I asked Muddy and Mossy.
Mossy nodded his head up and down and back and forth. “In a way. They are individually sentient but when together like this, they can combine their minds to create a higher sentience level.”
Would have said wow, but Dew was speaking. “The Mykali did not create the spaceflight. They come from a world that was once abundant, as Earth is. Others on the world found a place to try to live and those sent the Mykali to Earth, long, long ago. The Mykali have waited for thousands of years for the others from their world to join them.” She looked sad, in as much as a sea turtle could. “They fear that the others were not able to leave their planet in time.”
“Or they found another one, or ones, to test,” Chuckie said, and I could see the wheels in his mind turning. “So, a race of higher sentience decided to send the Mykali out first, just like the Russians sent a chimp into space before they sent a human.”
“That makes sense,” White agreed. “Our people did the same with sending my father here, for example.”
Chuckie nodded. “It’s a tried and true formula. How long were the Mykali flying through space to get here?” he asked Dew.
More consultation. The Mykali’s voices sounded like singing and the more they spoke, the louder it was getting. “Their voices are beautiful. Are they what gave rise to the idea of siren songs?”
“Possibly,” Mossy said, once White explained what I meant by this. “They have on occasion tried to communicate with humans. You’re too far removed from them. We Turleens know of them because we have visited Earth often enough. Most of us don’t go to your oceans—Tur has only lakes and rivers, though we have an abundance of those, but no salt water. So your oceans are a bit . . . frightening to us. Some are excited by the challenge, though, so they have gone, as Dew and I are right now, in these forms. And in these guises they have met the Mykali.”
“They don’t know how long it took for them to reach Earth,” Dew said. “They were in suspended animation inside their ships. They do know that some of their ships did not arrive. Whether they reached a different planet or were destroyed during flight they also do not know. They cannot live on land and so have no comparison, but say that your oceans feel like home.”
“If they’ve truly been here longer than humans have been sentient, then it’s difficult to think of them as aliens,” White said. “They technically could have more claim to the planet than humanity.”
“Which is not the way to lead with their story,” I pointed out. Remembered from college that they could eat poisonous jellyfish and literally saved that poison for their own use, which was their only form of defense. “Because humans have a tremendous inferiority complex thing going, and these Mykali are basically defenseless against anyone wearing really thick gloves.” Or any scientists with traps, or hunters of any kind.
“So,” Buchanan asked, “what do we do about these Mykali?”
Jeff sighed. “We leave them alone.”
CHAPTER 38
“BUT THEY’RE AN EXAMPLE of another sentient alien race,” Buchanan pointed out. “It could help with what’s coming.”
“How, exactly, would that help?” Jeff countered. “Look, I understand why everyone’s excited about this. Only there was a reason my people hid in plain sight for years on this planet. If we share that this race—this basically helpless race, particularly as compared to humans and A-Cs—is here, and has been here for longer than we have, then I know what will happen.”
“They’ll be hunted, dissected, captured, and killed into extinction.” Everyone looked at me and I shrugged. “Look, humanity isn’t the nicest form of sentience out there. It’s why everyone’s running to us right now—we’re vicious, even in our curiosity. Sure, we can show incredible kindness and care, but basically, Naked Apes are really effective at destroying. I agree with Jeff—these people need to be protected, and to do that, we have to go back to saying that they’re pretty sea slugs.”
“I agree,” White said. “Wholeheartedly, Jeffrey.”