Difficult for her to comprehend, this biological activity in her womb. Her mind was facile and her intellect expansive; rarely did processes or systems cause her confusion. Reason was her ally, and logic a well and often-used tool. Yet somehow, in some way, this was different, and the limits of her intelligence were tasked. This was so very different; her body was performing on its own, and it was creating something—something from almost nothing. A miracle—it was a miracle, the miracle of life, and a new beginning, exquisitely profound.

Fine white sand squeaked behind her. She turned to see the great mass of Kateos plodding across the strand. Buccari moved back from the warm ocean, sensitive to the kone's fears and perceptions. The human raised her hand in greeting, and the kone, rising onto her hinds, replied in kind. Kateos removed her helmet.

"The fog-ah is lifting," the kone said. "Soon you will see them."

"The whales? Does the noise come from the whales?" Buccari asked. The horn again—a high-pitched moaning close inshore, and distinct clicking sounds, the loudest she had heard yet.

"Yes, they are come back. That is their call," Kateos replied, taking a nervous step away from the water's edge. "That-ah one is very close to shore. Look, the fog goes."

The friends stood on the shore and watched as freshening breezes parted the veil of fog, until only scattered clouds remained. The horizon expanded to the full limits of Buccari' s elevation, and she observed the churning caused by giant ocean creatures. Great mammals surfaced constantly, and puffs of vaporous steam hissed from their blowholes. Colossal rounded backs, barnacle-encrusted, smoothly cleaved the ocean surface, and languid flukes gracefully arched into the sky.

"They come here to bear their young, just as you have. Your beautiful baby will be born here, too," Kateos said, rapture in her voice.

"Yes, it will be born by the sea," the human replied. "And then we must return to MacArthur' s Valley. Just as the whales return to deep ocean."

They stared in silence, watching the endless movement of nature.

"Will you return to space, Sharl?" asked the kone enviously, dropping back on all fours so that she could stand face-to-face with her human friend.

Buccari looked Kateos squarely and deeply into her kindly face.

"The deeper oceans of space…Maybe, my good friend. Maybe."

Author Biography

Scott G. Gier was born in Aiea, Hawaii in 1948. He received his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and his MBA from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California. He served in the United States Navy for six years and then worked for various Silicon Valley companies while living in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost thirty years. Married for thirty-seven years and a proud grandfather, his interests include backpacking (aircraft wreck-chasing), kayak-fishing, surfing, birdwatching, and ocean-staring. He says of himself, "Still haven't grown up (just old)."