Mermaid 8 By: KeikoJade I lay in the lagoon and watched the crescent Moon traverse the night sky.The arced sliver of bone light shared the sky with countless stars. Thewater was warmer than the cool air.. A storm had raged all day, andscrubbed the air and sky clean. A month had passed since I found this island. It had become my home inheart and soul. But in my mind I knew I'd have to move on. It was becomingdifficult to see myself working with Julia. After my talk with Sarah, theurgency I felt to be with my family had waned. It hadn't disappeared. Ididn't want it to disappear. I couldn't let it disappear, because I didn'tknow what it would mean if I did. And, even though it was only a two-day trip to get back to our meetingplace, the idea of leaving my island, or any land, for the deep waters wasintimidating. Crossing the Pacific, at least halfway, had failed to cureme of my fear of the deep. Living in shallows provided comfort and safety.I'd nearly died in the Pacific, and had the scars to remember theexperience by. Also, my left shoulder still ached if I used my arm toomuch while swimming. I couldn't appreciate the strength I had lost on my journey until Iassumed life on the island. Here, food as well as rest was plentiful. Igained weight back, and my mood changed as well. I felt more positiveabout things. At the same time, the idea of deepswimming seemed to causemore anxiety than it did the first time I considered it. I guess at thattime I was only scared of the unknowns. Now, I was scared of the knowns,which were more tangible. Before heading out my main concern had beenbeing turned into food. Now, I knew the main concern was not being able tofind food. As I pondered the sky, I realized that I had more will to stay than willto go and meet with Julia again. Our failsafe for rendezvous had been todelay the meeting by another two weeks if I missed the first, and torepeat every two weeks thereafter. I had to make a decision now or waitanother two weeks. I decided to sleep on it. In the morning, I found no urge to return. So, I started my day. Hunt,swim for fun, follow some reef fish, grab a bite to eat, sunbathe, thenmeet Rico and Sky and play tag and bask and screw off in general until itwas time for dinner. After a month with the pair, I had learned a lot about their language.Though it consisted of clicks and squeals and beeps, a good part of it Icould understand. I recognized queries like: "where are you? hungry?tired? play? where prey?" And I could distinguish confirmations for eachof the queries. Then they made sounds sometimes just for the act of it,kind of like humming, or singing. Perhaps some of the sounds they weremaking were nonsensical even to one another, yet at the same time theywere merely accompanying each other with the sounds of their voices. In away people do that as well, when they talk with one another abouttrivialities. The content of the speech is in some ways a lot lessimportant than the act of speaking and hearing a friend's voice. Also, I wasn't sure if I was entirely reading their language, both verbaland body, or if I was picking up things mentally. I had communicated withGlubok telepathically. I was able to influence the psyches of humanbeings. I hadn't tried to influence or manipulate the psychs of Rico andSky, out of respect. I was sure I could. I tried to communicate with themwith my mind. I would think of queries I knew they understood, and imaginethe sounds they made for them, as well as the idea and emotion behindthem. It didn't seem to yield results. But, they were masters at readingmy emotions, moods, and disposition without me broadcasting them. Theyintuitively understood when I wanted company or solace. They seemed toknow when I was hungry, or tired, even before I knew I was. I wondered ifthey were perhaps recieving my thoughts, but I was unable to recievetheirs. I was screwing around, floating in the lagoon, and growing a bit bored,which was unusual. I decided to focus on imitating the voices of myfriends. I'd only tried to speak underwater once, but to no avail. Perhapsit just took time, which I had plenty of. I tried to tense my vocal cords as I pushed water through them whileexhaling. I practiced this for hours without feeling any effect. Icontinued into the afternoon. I didn't feel a thing, no vibration, andcertainly no sound. However, something kept me going. At first I thoughtit was stubborness. But then it seemed a bit more tangible, and I realizedit was a kind of instinct. I kept at it, pausing only for meals and sleep. After two days with noresults, I quit. My stubborn instincts were defeated. But after skipping aday, I was again drawn to trying. I was hovering in the lagoon with myface to the surface. Without having the slightest expectations, and fullyresigned to a disappointing result, I exhaled water and tightened mythroat. To my amazement, I heard a subtle rasp, quieter than the sound ofa weak breeze pushing through palm leaves. However, I had definitely heardsomething. Elated, I repeated the sound. The idea of speaking with Rico and Sky on their level kept me going. Aftera week, I was making a sound like a missed high note from an oboe.Progress was slow, but seemed to be accelerating. During a lull in playing with my two friends, I surprised them by makingan oboe-ish squeak. I only had a miniscule amount of pitch control, and itwas an embarrasingly tiny sound. It was more like a rat squeak thananything comparable to what Rico or Sky could produce. The effect,however, was instant. They both turned to me rolled against me, andsquealed and beeped uncontrollably. Finally, they grew silent. I took thisas a request for an encore. Again, I produced a miserable little squeak,and they were ecstatic. My voice grew stronger. Not only were the notes I could make longer andlouder, but I felt a great amount of vibration in the hard tissues of mythroat when I made them. The highest range was established first. Then Iconcentrated on going lower and lower. Soon, I could drop from an oboesound to low clarinet range. The sounds were inhuman, in that they werenot altered by movements of lips or tongue. In fact, the sounds I wasmaking would be disturbing if I heard them come from someone else. I triedspeaking words underwater, but it wasn't any use. The noise was definitelyemanating from my throat as opposed to my mouth. Thus, the flow of waterover my tongue and lips couldn't change the sound. Also, in water, Icouldn't move my tongue quickly enough to make clicking sounds, like ahard 'K'. And the ability to make a 'TH' sound as in 'the' wasn't there ina recognizable form, missing along with 'Z' as in 'zoom,' or any otherconsonant or vowel. I found that it didn't matter whether my mouth wasopen or closed when I was vocalizing. Water I was exhaling to produce thesound could travel through my nose or mouth. Thus, I could sing with mymouth closed. I was also unable to imitate the clicks my friends made. I was altogetherignorant of how they made their sounds. I once had my hand on Rico'sforehead when he was chatting, and could feel a fair amount of vibrationthere. But other than that, I didn't know how they produced their sounds. After a month I was able to imitate all their non-clicking squeaks andbeeps, in both pitch and volume. This facilitated our communicationtremendously. I had also grown more attuned to our sounds. Concordantly,my vocabulary expanded greatly. Once I got past the shock that Rico andSky used a language as diverse as that of humans, I was able to learn itfaster. To my delight, I found that submarine vocalization had benefits outside ofcommunication with dolphins. In a sense, I was able to sing. The companyof my own voice was welcome indeed. At first the songs, produced withoutthe manipulations of the human mouth, sounded obtuse and silly. After somepractice I found I was able to provide enough control to the songs thatthey carried their own tunes. After some time, my ears grew accustomed tomy own sounds. I'm the type of person who likes to sing in the shower, orwhen they are in a good mood. I was happy to regain the ability to do soin my own environment. The other benefit took longer to appreciate, but turned out to beincredibly useful and important. It became the most important undiscoveredtalent to date. For no reason in particular one day, I was circling the reef slowly,swimming with my eyes closed to better appreciate the feel of the waterslipping over my body. I was only a few feet from the surface, and thesun's rays were warm on my skin. I was in an incredible mood, and wassinging a wordless tune. Since I was near the reef, the unpleasant thoughtof bumping into it was strong in my mind. The coral and limestone were assharp as razors. But I found that I instinctually could feel my proximityto the reef. Not only that, but I could feel its contours intimately.Shocked, I stopped singing and opened my eyes. What I saw of the reefmatched what I had felt of it. Again, I closed my eyes and hummed a high-pitched note. I could feel the reef, more than see it. It was as if theknowledge of the shape of the section of the reef exposed to me that wouldbe gained through eyesight was instead dumped straight into my brain bythe sound I was producing. This was fascinating. I started swimming with my eyes closed whilenavigating through song. I moved slowly, expecting to collide with thereef, but I guided myself perfectly around the island. I was even able tolocate the entrance to the reef's tunnel, and navigate it into the lagoon. As I entered the lagoon, I realized that it was a bit harder to determineits size and the location of the sands at its circumference. The sounds Iwas making were absorbed by the sands more than they were reflected.However, when I opened my eyes, there I was, in the middle of the lagoon. Soon after, I discovered that it wasn't the sound I was making that gaveme this sonar, but reflections of the sound I made bouncing back to myears. Because sound travels rapidly through water, I had to be pretty farfrom something that bounced back sound to actually detect the echo.However, the images the sound gave my mind definitely did not appear untilI could detect the echo. At close range, the song and its echo reached myears nearly simultaneously. My new talent had plenty of room for exploration. I realized that my ears,which were so attuned to sounds in the water, were also perfectly attunedto recieve data from my own voice. My brain was wired to interperate thesounds. I was just never able to produce sounds before, so natually thistalent lay dormant. Of course people can judge the size of a room they arein while blinded by the sound. This talent was similiar, but muchstronger. I was no longer blind in the dark. Locating prey was easier than ever. Ididn't have to come into visual range with something before I coulddetermine its size. Thus, it was easier to determine whether I was headingtoward something I could eat, or something that could eat me. I was ableto detect land rising from the seabed before I could hear the oceaninteracting with rocks or coral sand. I soon became so accustomed to singing and sounding that I did itunconsciously. I gained new confidence in deep waters. Looking back, Icouldn't believe that I had crossed the Pacific without this abilitity. Ithad been like a blind and deaf man trying to walk across a city at rushhour. My knowledge of the dolphins' language grew exponentially. I also deviseda way of making clicks, by snapping my fingers. However, it was difficult.The amount of strain I had to put on my fingers to make them audibly snapunderwater was uncomfortable after one click, and painful after a few.Thus, I decided to abbreviate my communications. Without clicks, myvocabulary was limited. I could understand far more than I could speak.However, I was able to communicate at a comfortable level with my friends.They seemed to grow accustomed to my click-less method of speaking. Icould chirp a word that they also added clicks to, and even without theclicks they understood. Once I grew comfortable with their language, the thing that amazed meabout the difference between humans and dolphins, was that thereessentially was no difference. While I had learned, I had effectivelyunlearned, as well. The emotions and feeling the observer feels the firsttime they witness a dolphin are far more genuine than he or she isprogrammed to believe. I knew that people could easily anthropomorphizeanimals. I wrestled with this, wondering if I was attributing too muchhumanity to them. Finally, I simply couldn't see it that way. It wasn'tthat I was giving the dolphins human characteristics. It was that dolphinsand humans share characteristics. I realized that the emotions and spiritswe feel are not exclusive to our species. Though I was skeptical when Ifirst realized this, it became something in which I fully believed. I learned also that we share good and bad characteristics. Rico and Skywere best mates, but sometimes Rico was aggressive toward Sky. The humpingI had witnessed was always initiated by Rico, whether Sky felt the sameway or not. Often he never let Sky reciprocate. Sometimes when they werehunting, Rico would wait until Sky caught a fish, and then grab it fromhis mouth before he had a chance to eat it. This was apparently for noreason other than to show him who was boss. Sky would sometimes fightback, but only as false protest. On a pleasant afternoon, the three of us were basking after eating. Theyslept in an odd way, and it took me awhile to recognize when they weredoing it. They would just kind of lolligag as if in a daydream. Whatconfirmed the fact for me that they were sleeping, though, is that it wasthe only time they would actually shutup. I felt I was becoming a creatureof the wild, but I definitely appreciated silence more than they did. I was just beneath the surface of the waves, dozing, when I felt one ofthem bump into me. I heard Rico's voice, very soft, and very pleading. Ijust pushed him away, but he was then under me, behind my back. I feltsomething hard and ridged hook onto the back of my dorsal fin. "Don't like," I said. I couldn't reach around to push him away, so Istarted finning. That's when his jaws came around my left shoulder, aboveand below my armpit. He bit down hard. The image of the shark nailing meon the arm filled my mind, and Rico started humping against me. "Don't like!" I shouted, and started swimming hard. His teeth dragged overmy arm. There was no way I could fight him. He was four feet longer than Iwas and had to weigh around 600 pounds. In a few short seconds, I felt hishot ejaculate shoot across my back, up into my hair. I pulled my arm away,and he let go. I swam hard to clean myself of his cum. I was furious. Iwaved my hair in the water and coughed in fresh breaths. "Bad!" was the word I shouted at him, though I was thinking more along thelines of "Fucker!" I turned to him. His eyes were glassy with pleasure. "It was fun," hesaid. No sooner had he toned it did I hear a cluster of powerful clicks thathurt my ears. Sky came out of nowhere and broadsided Rico with his beak.Rico shouted confusion for a second. Sky chomped his jaw together, makingan unbearably sharp 'crack.' That was kind of like throwing down agauntlet at an opponent. Squealing, shouting, and screaming, they launchedinto each other. I had seen them play-bite before, and kick at each otherwith their tails, or play-ram one another, but this was a real fight. Thefury of it scared the hell out of me. I didn't feel like I could survive asingle serious bite, and being rammed by one could probably kill me. Ifled back to the lagoon at full speed. My shoulder hurt again. Rico had broken the skin, and his conical teethleft long rake marks that bled. They were a little bigger and deeper thancat scratches made by a cat with two dozen claws on each paw. Thescratches weren't bad, but my shoulder was damn sore again. I was pissed at Rico. I had waved him off a few times when he was amorous,and he seemed to be able to take a hint. This time, though, it was almostlike rape. There was no permission given on my part. My anger was hard tocontain. However, as the sun set, and I gained more distance from the event, itbecame harder to blame him. I was good freinds with them. The only thinglacking between us that Rico and Sky shared was sexual expression andsharing. That was fine for me, because I didn't fully understand my ownsexuality. But perhaps Rico couldn't understand why I'd protest hisadvances. I was also growing worried about them. The last I'd seen them,they were relentlessly beating the crap out of one another. However, itwasn't like they had knives or clubs, so I figured they'd fight out theiraggression and quit when they were tired, just bruised and battered. Regardless, I decided it was time for a break from my flippered friends.Now would be a good time to fulfill my committments to Julia. More thanthree months had gone by. Many opportunities to meet with her were missed.I wondered if she was still bothering to show up. I didn't really feel badfor letting her down, but I did feel bad for not feeling bad. It felt likeI had made the commitment in an entirely different state of mind. I didhave growing concern about the plight of my family, though. That concernwasn't so abstract. However, it was obvious now that my first act uponreaching Hawaii shouldn't have been to seek out a human. Of course,hindsight is infamously perfect. I gathered my things together. As I donned the belt and scabbard, I hadthe same sensation that I had when I would gather my backpack to leavehome on a hike. I started feeling excited about the trip. I startedsinging the tune to "On the road again." After two days, I arrived back at our meeting place. I noticed, however,that the water here was somehow irritating. Also, it was noisy. Accordingto my map, the area in which I had made a home was a nature preserve. Ourmeeting spot, however, was surrounded by the city and tourist beaches.Back at my home, I had spent months without ever hearing boats, orsmelling diesel fuel in the water. My nose and pallette had grown clean.Here, there was constant motor noise, and my skin felt itchy. Visibilitywasn't as good, either. The worst thing, though, were jet skis. Their obnoxious whine never leftmy ears. How on God's green earth anyone found it enjoyable to run aroundthe ocean on those irritating pieces of high-speed trash, instead oftaking in nature on a surfboard or a sailboat, I had no idea. Perhaps Iwas turning into an old krank, but their sound was maddening! Also, itbecame almost impossible for me to use song to locate things. There wasjust too much engine noise. I couldn't even sense a limestone cliff unlessit was within reach of my hand. I had to use my eyes a lot more, like Idid before discovering my sonar. My neck grew stiff from all the swivelingit put my head through. The noise even made it hard to think. It really angered me. I hoveredbelow our meeting place rock, eating a lobster, and hoping she would hurryup and arrive. I hadn't used my watch in three months. However, it stillworked, and I was here, on a weekend, three and a half months since thelast time we met. Time dragged. At least at night the jetskies died off. But every morningthey'd come back. I really wanted to grab one of those jetski riders offhis machine and scream in his ear until he realized how annoying he was. Ifantasized about shooting the jetski with a high caliber rifle so that theengine would die quickly, leaving only silence. Maybe the rider's brainwould suddenly wake up without the noise rattling through it. I could seethe jetski through an imaginary rifle scope. I put the engine housing inmy crosshairs, and pulled the trigger. The heavy bullet would kill theengine. The thing would glide to a stop, and the rider would be standingthere, forced to appreciate golden silence. In my fantasy, this wouldteach him a lesson. However, in reality, he'd probably produce an air hornand blast it to sound help. Or, just pull out a cell phone and startcomplaining to someone. Most of Sunday passed. I didn't see a boat stop above me. I was startingto hope Julia wouldn't come by. I just wanted to get back to clean ocean.However, I heard the thrashing of a propellor late in the afternoon. Theboat it pushed appeared over my head. The engine ceased. An anchor plungedinto the water, and then descended very slowly, as if hand-lowered. Thatwas my sign. Suddenly, I found that I really did want to meet Julia. I surfaced nearthe stern. She was there, wearing a one-piece bathing suit, looking cute,and lowering the dive ladder. "Hey you!" she cried, happily. I had exhaled water coming up. Now, I took in a deep breath of air. It wasthen I realized that I hadn't bothered to breath air for weeks, maybelonger. I hadn't even been sunning on my beach in that time. The air feltstrange - vaccuous and empty. As I breathed in it felt as if my lungsremained empty. The feeling was so alien that it felt as if I was a humantrying to breath water. I started hyperventilating and felt dizzy. Juliamust have read my expression. "Are you ok?" she asked. I felt as if I should go back underwater and catch my breath before Ipassed out. Just as my vision started to tunnel, and bright starsappeared, I started to recover. I found myself gripping the dive ladder.After a few minutes, I felt normal again. "Are you alright?" Julia asked. I tried to speak. Nothing came out. It felt as if air wasn't substantialenough to move my vocal cords. Again, I tried to speak. Nothing - not evena rasp of air. I could only sigh quietly. It suddenly dawned on me thatthe last time I had vocalized in the air was before I started learning howto do it underwater. I looked up at Julia, mute. I simply shook my head. I looked away as mymind raced. I realized that I hadn't so much been training my vocal chordsto work underwater, but re-training them to do so. Now, the thin airwasn't tangible enough to vibrate them. It was perhaps possible to re-train them again for use in the air. However, the benefits of sonar andcommunicating with animals would then be lost again. I bit my lip and looked at Julia. I put my hand over my throat and shookmy head. "You can't speak? Unable to?" she asked. I nodded. "Why?" I shrugged my shoulders. There was no way to explain without words. Then,I motioned for something to write with. She produced a pen and writingpad. I really couldn't get out of the water that much here. There wereother boaters, and those annoying jetskis. I hiked myself up on my elbowsas much as I could, and wrote. "I learned how to speak underwater, but it seems I can't speak in airnow." I showed it to her. "Damn," she said. "Well, I don't know what to say, but... Where have youbeen? Oh man, there's so much I have to tell you that it's not funny. Holycrap, I was worried about you." I had to let her talk on. The frustration of not being able to speak wasso strong that I barely heard her. The waves were pretty strong that day,and without climbing fully out of the water it was impossible not to getthe paper wet, at which point the pen would not spread ink. "Hey, I think the coast is clear enough," Julia said. "Come up in here." "What?" I wanted to ask. I looked at her quizzically. "Just look," she said. I pulled myself up on the gunwales. There was alarge vinyl lounge chair, shaped like a bent banana, with a slit just theright size for my dorsal fin to fit into. "That was custom built for you," she said. "It was so hard to get both youand I comfy last time." I laughed silently. There was no one in obvious sight. I hauled myself upon the gunwales. Julia positioned the chair and helped me scoot onto it,and helped my move my dorsal into its slit. Then, I eased into it. Thechair bent my upper body up at a comfortable angle, as if I was in areclined La-Z boy chair. This boat was slightly larger than her last, andthere was room for my tail and fluke. The chair was very soft, as well. Ifelt like I could fall asleep in it. However, I was somewhat immobile. Themermaid portion of me was also visible to anyone who could see us. Julia produced a large cotton sheet. "Put this over you?" she asked. Iaccepted it, then threw it into the water and soaked it. I pulled it backonto me, and covered myself up, wrapping it over my breasts and tucking itbehind my back. I gave her a thumbs up. I also realized how I was now icognito. Unless someone looked directlyinto the boat and saw me without the blanket, they couldn't tell me apartfrom a human. This was thrilling! Now, if only I could speak! Being out of the water allowed me to write freely. After so long, the penfelt clumsy in my hand, and my penmanship needed practice. "Show?" I asked. "The show is on, if you want to go ahead with it," she said, her eyesgleaming. "The footage you provided us with was impressive to say theleast. We have a budget of $30 million to start with." "Who pay?" I wrote. "An independant producer and director," she said. "For movies, not TV.That's the other thing. We're going to make a movie. Or, you will alone,depending on what you want to do. It's just going to be a movie from yourperspective. No plot, but you'll have to get a lot of good footage. Youknow, stuff only you have access too." "Can I still do it alone?" I asked. "Yeah, you can," she said. "It's all going to be determined by how muchtrust you have in us. Thirty million gives us, for our purposes, unlimitedresources. I've scouted ships that can accomodate you, the way you want tolive. On those ships we can edit the footage you bring us, transport youto different locales, whatever." "What kind of ship?" I asked. "A research vessel we can lease," she said. "It's designed for studyingcetaecans. It has a moon pool." She reached into a bag and produced afolder. She had brought out a lot of stuff for me to review. The folderwas an overview of the ship. The moon pool was a direct access to theocean through the ship's bottom. I could come and go as I pleased,unobserved by anyone outside the ship. "Basically, we can use it as a floating movie studio," she said. "This wayyou would have access to unlimited power and good cameras." "What is other option, for me being independent?" I wrote. "Other option is this," she said, handing me a folder. This one detailedplans for several different devices I'd need to carry out tasks on my own.Julia let me go through the information. Together, the devices formed abackpack that looked like half of an egg. According to the specs, it wasneutrally bouyant and airtight. The exterior and interior of the egg werecovered in photovoltaic cells. Inside the backpack there was room for twocameras, one a hand-held, the other a lipstick camera I could wear with aheadband. These cameras were waterproof and recorded digitally. However,the computer they used, and the satellite dish they needed to upload film,were only water resistant. I'd have to use them on terra firma, and keepthem in the backpack while at sea. It didn't seem very plausible. Also,the part about it being neutrally bouyant wasn't really true, because theshell couldn't compress. It was probably neutral near the surface, butfloated deeper down. It was also only airtight to 500 feet, and thecameras were only good to 2,000 - both well inside my operationalenvelope. There were also limitations with the battery time on the cameras, and theamount of time needed for the devices to soak up photovolatic power fromthe sun was very long. Though these things were custom-made and state-of-the-art, they really weren't what I expected. The satellite upload and thecomputer were another story. They could access the internet and phonesystems anywhere in the world. That meant I could at least use email,since using a telephone required a voice. I pretended to go through the information while I considered my options.Why would I do this? I was becoming happy in the ocean. The only thingstying me to human life were a rapidly-diminishing feeling of loneliness,and the obligation to my family. As I pondered this, I heard a jetski approaching. The mosquito-whine sentshivers down my spine. It was driven by a young guy who was obviouslyflexing his muscles as he drove near us. The thing buzzed our boat, and helet out a shout as we rolled in his wake. "Loser," Julia snorted. I watched him blaze on across the water. He had no idea what the noise ofthat machine did to the creatures below the waters. It blocked sonar, itrattled their skulls, it made the water oily and polluted. All from asimple joyride. I then realized that he was a reason for me to undertake this project.While there were constantly environmentalists talking about the ocean, Ihad never really listened to them. I had never cared. Now, I was part ofthe ocean, and without realizing it, I had become a die-hardenvironmentalist. I cared for the waters. My perspective might be a meansof helping people appreciate nature, and care for the ocean. I glanced at Julia. She was reviewing paperwork that looked like legalstuff. It reminded me that I would be engaging in something for profit.Would my message be lost by the ones who carried it? Maybe she and herinvestors didn't want to producing something that had a message. Hell, forall I know, they could take my footage, add some animation, and create"The Little Mermaid 5." Without the advice of a lawyer or an agent, it wasalso possible that I was set to be massively exploited. Beyond that, therewas always the question of entrapment - literally. The degree to which Ihad started trusting humans so quickly, after my initial paranoia, wasstartling. _A lot to ponder,_ I thought. However, I figured it was now or never. If Ispent more time in the wilderness, I might decide to never come back. OrJulia's interest and faith in me might run out. I wrote on the notepad. "The boat option is best," I said. "I trust you." She looked me straight in the eye. "Thank you. I won't betray it." I nodded my head slowly, then smiled. "Well, Ytha, there's a bunch more stuff. It's all legal things. However, Ihave procured for you, or am ready to, something you'll need, and that'san agent. Also, I have a lawyer for you." "It's ok, I trust you," I wrote. "Well, again I thank you, but this is for something different. You see,there's a way to get you legally recognized as a citizen of the UnitedStates. If you're a citizen, then you'll be afforded legal protections.You won't have to worry about becoming someone's pet project, or both. Ifsomeone advocates for you, they'll be advocating for a legal entity." I nodded. I hadn't expected this, or even considered it as a course ofaction. The logic of it was strong. I just wondered if it was possible forme to become a citizen of the United States. I wasn't familiar with anylaws dictating this privelage only to the human species, but I knew squatabout legal stuff. "That sounds great!" I wrote. "How can we do this?" "It's complicated. First you have to seek asylum, and have a residence,etcetera, etcetera, however, if you become a celebrity through this movie,things can be sped up drastically." The sun was starting to set. "Have you heard from my family?" I wrote. Julia nodded. "Your sister and I have had a lot of talks," she said."She's been a little dubious now that so much time has passed, but she'spretty convinced. In any case, she wants to meet you. We can fly her outhere." This made me feel warm. I was suddenly impatient to start working. "When do we start all of this?" I asked. "Whenever you want." "Immediately," I scribbled. "What to do first?" "Well, first, we have to assemble a crew. One condition of the funding isthat you have to meet the investor, personally. Other than that, youreally don't have to meet anyone you don't want to. The ship can serve asa home base for filming. You never even have to enter the moon pool, ifyou don't want." "One thing I need learn," I wrote, showing her the tablet. Then I wrote:"Sign language." Julia laughed. "I agree. Your hand must be getting tired." I nodded, smiling my laughter instead of laughing aloud. I looked around. The sun was setting. Sitting in the comfortable recliner,I felt peculiarly human. For some reason, I didn't mind. "One other thing," I wrote. "How'd you get this great chair!?" TBC