Lee reached for his mouse. “I’m going to record this.”
“NO!” shouted Alison. She shook her face mask back and forth. “Don’t. This is private, Lee. Something deeply personal. It’s a miracle they’re letting me see it.”
“Right.” He retracted his hand and instead leaned forward onto the metal table in front of himself, continuing to watch in awe. “Why are all the others swimming around the reef like that?”
“For protection,” Alison answered. “The males are protecting the females during the birth. From predators.”
“Ah,” Lee nodded. He stared closer at the dark video. “It looks like there are some adult dolphins swimming behind the mothers. Can you see that?”
Alison grinned and nodded. “They’re midwives.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope. You’d be surprised how similar their birthing process is to ours. If you take out the water.”
“Wow. I can’t believe they showed you this.”
Alison’s smile suddenly vanished upon hearing Lee’s comment. Yes, why had they shown her? Alison wasn’t the only marine biologist to grow close to dolphins. Yet to her knowledge, no other researcher had ever been allowed to see a birth in the wild.
So why did they pick her?
74
Hello Alison.
Alison peered up from the spectacle in front of her to find Sally appearing from out of the darkness, above the slew of creatures passing below her.
Dirk moved effortlessly into place beside her.
We show.
Alison blinked before looking back down to the center of the reef. “Yes,” she remarked. “And it’s beautiful.”
Sally did not answer. Instead, she merely continued peering at Alison with her dark eyes and perpetual cetacean grin.
“Are you okay, Sally?”
Yes Alison.
She looked around through her mask. More pods of dolphins were swirling about. It was then that she saw another group of dolphins emerge, three of which she had met before. She recognized them immediately, not by their shape or sizes, but by their age. Their faded and marred skin appeared to be a slightly lighter gray than the others.
We want talk Alison, Sally said.
Alison stared carefully at the elders before eyeing Dirk and Sally suspiciously. That’s why. That’s why they showed her their birthing ground. To establish trust.
“Yes, Sally. I would like to talk too.”
When another one of the elders came closer and into better view, Alison was surprised at what she saw. From the patches and wrinkles on its skin, this one was not just old. This dolphin was really old.
When it spoke, it sounded exactly like Dirk and Sally, using IMIS’s computer-generated voice.
You come far. For metal.
Alison nodded. “Yes, we have.”
Why for metal?
She chose her words carefully. “The metal is important.”
Why important you?
“Because it’s not from here.”
Where from?
Alison looked at the other elders. “From the stars.”
The beep of a translation error sounded in her ear.
“Really?!”
Another error.
“Come on!”
Then a third error.
“Uh!” A flustered Alison shook her head, trying to start over.
“They don’t have a word for stars, Ali,” Lee’s voice broke in.
“No kidding.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. “The metal,” she said, “is not made by us.”
At this, the elder came even closer, studying Alison. The others closed in tightly behind. The oldest made a slight movement with its head that was akin to humans tilting theirs.
You makes metals.
“Yes. We make metals. As tools.”
This time there was no error. And another of the elders spoke.
How you make metal?
At this, Alison stopped. How do we make metal? Were they asking how to build things?
“I… I don’t know how to answer that.”
No. No make. The oldest interrupted. We talk this metal. The strength of the dolphin’s speech suggested an exclamation.
“What?”
You come this metal.
“Yes,” Alison repeated. “We came for this metal.”
What you do?
She wasn’t following. “What do we do? About what?”
What you do metal?
Alison still wasn’t sure what it meant until the elder rephrased.
What now you do metal?
This time the message was clear. So clear she felt as though she’d been hit over the head. They wanted to know what the humans were planning to do with the alien ship.
75
The door burst open, and the young Janvier was pushed forcefully ahead, stumbling into the front room of his own house. The room, though clean, was barely furnished. Most of their belongings had already been sold over the last year to pay for electricity and food.
After their father had disappeared, the family had been abandoned by most of their friends, fearful of being subjected to the same fate.
Sitting on their one remaining piece of furniture in the front room, Janvier was not surprised to find his mother and younger brother. However, the person sitting next to them scared him to death.
The teenager tried to control his fear as he looked to his mother, trembling next to Amir Ngeze, the man who controlled much of Northern Rwanda. The same man who was responsible for their father’s disappearance.
One of Ngeze’s men stepped forward behind Janvier, forcing the young man further into the center of the room and closer to the couch. Janvier looked away as a sadistic smile began to spread across Ngeze’s face. Sadistic, broad, and dark.
He stood up and stepped toward the boy. “Well, look what we have here. Janvier Sentwali.” He moved his large hands behind his back, glowering.
Ngeze then looked at his man, standing behind the teenager. “Where?”
“We found him coming back down the mountain.”
“Is that right?” He stepped closer again, now just inches from Janvier, who had his head down. “With your new friends?”
The boy didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes rolled up slightly to his mother and brother still on the couch.
“You can answer,” Ngeze said. “Your little brother told me all about them. The two men and the woman. And the monkeys.”
Janvier kept his eyes on his mother, saying nothing.
Ngeze smiled deeper and followed the boy’s eyes to the couch. His mother, still in her work uniform with hair pinned up and arms around his brother, stole a glance at Ngeze before lowering them again — the terror clearly evident in her eyes.
Ngeze could see much of the boy’s father in him. Defiant. Even courageous. But his father eventually broke once he was alone and without his guards.
Hired by their new president to find a way to bring Ngeze down, Gael Sentwali and his team damn near succeeded. It was only by taking extreme measures, by killing first his bodyguards and then Sentwali himself, that Ngeze effectively broke the back of the president’s mission.
Of course, Sentwali’s family, now before him in what was left of their house and their lives, never knew the ultimate fate of the man they called father and husband. They only knew Ngeze had him, and each continued to believe he was still alive. That they could somehow bargain for his life. But his life had long since been stamped out.
Their collective naïveté almost made Ngeze laugh. But he held his lips tightly together, waiting for Janvier to answer.