Ocean: The Awakening by Brian Herbert, Jan Herbert Page B

gather around you and follow you when you swim, the way you heal them when they are injured. You must tell them what you want them to do.”
    “It’s not like that at all,” Kimo insisted. “What you’re asking is not natural. No individual leads the schools of fish or other sea life. They just do things together, the way they’ve always done them, for thousands and millions of years. Schools of fish move together like flocks of birds, communicating with each other in their own manner. For me it’s not a conscious thing; I can’t send them thoughts and make them do things. I don’t hold conversations with them.”
    Ealani put a hand on Kimo’s shoulder, and said, “Ask yourself this; Why were you born the way you are, with functioning gills and the ability to dive deep in the ocean? Why is it that you can take mouthfuls of seawater and remove the plankton from it as a food source, filtering out and discharging what you don’t need into the ocean? Why do sea creatures sense where you are even when you are on the land, and cry out to you at night? Why can you heal them? Do you think all of it is coincidence? Don’t you see the influence of a higher power that has put you on a path to do more? Don’t you see that you have a calling? Moanna has told you this; you have a destiny.”
    “You must do something for the ocean,” Tiny Pohaku said. “You must try.”
    Kimo hung his head. He knew they were right.
    ***

Chapter 15
    Less than imposing, Wanaao City Hall was a cluster of linked one-story modules that had been floated in by barge from Honolulu and lifted into place with heavy equipment. The official rationale for this type of construction was that pre-fabricated units were less expensive than on-site construction, but Alicia had heard that a Honolulu manufacturer of pre-fabs paid bribes to local political officials, including the Mayor of Wanaao Town. She had asked her grandfather about it once, but he had shrugged and said he knew nothing of the matter, only the rumors that had reached his ears as well.
    Now Alicia sat at a long wooden table with thick file folders in front of her, researching old land records, looking for information on the Pohaku family’s claims. The clerk, a slender woman with a Portuguese surname, told her that these musty-smelling records had not been entered into the computer system, but she did not say why, and did not say if they ever would. She had been cooperative, especially when learning who Alicia was, and had even asked how her grandfather was doing. So, despite the acrimony at the town meeting the evening before, the owner of the Ellsworth Ranch still had friends in the area. Alicia was relieved to learn this.
    That morning at the ranch, she’d eaten breakfast with two more of his friends, the Governor and his wife, the female oceanographer he’d brought with him to the town meeting. The woman, Fuji Namoto, said she would stay for a few days to walk on the shores, go out in boats, and scuba-dive in the ocean, investigating sea life behavior in the area—all with the aid of two ranch employees, who would help her with the equipment and take her wherever she wanted to go. Governor Churchill, however, was taking a midday flight out of town, because he needed to return to Honolulu.
    After breakfast, Fuji and Alicia had walked along the seashore, where Alicia described the problems with dolphins at the aquatic park; how the animals had never forgotten their tricks before, or been unable (or unwilling) to learn new ones. The oceanographer had seemed genuinely concerned, and Alicia liked her….
    At City Hall, with a little digging, Alicia found records involving the Pohakus and their land claims, going back for more than a century. Many of the pages in the file were yellow with age and water-stained—a hodge-podge of typewritten and handwritten entries and bad copies, not in good order. The file included old drawings and black-and-white photographs of the former Pohaku land,