Felicity Ch. 73

Jordan and Carmen had not found a way to keep many of the largest creatures on Earth captive within their protective reefs. The Cetaceans where air breathers and would not survive the aftermath of the bombardment.

They decided that any saved was better than none so blue whales, Narwhals, and white sided dolphins were placed in the area between the outer an inner reefs. The ratio was three males and nine females. Manta ray, whale sharks and basking sharks were added in the same ratio.

Seals of three species were added as well as elephant seals and walrus. Spinner dolphins and sea otters completed the seeding, nine males and twenty seven females of each.

The lagoon between the inner reef and the outer reef was extensive. It went all around Cel, a one hundred kilometer diameter island, and in some stretches was five kilometers wide. There were four islands within the lagoon for the pinnipeds to sun themselves and hopefully reproduce. Sea birds soon colonized the islands.

The average depth was a hundred meters but there were stretches down to five hundred meters.

Fresh water dolphins and pink dolphins were placed in the lower portions of the four rivers as were the manatees. Only the manatees would venture into the sea and that was for quick trips to Mr. Wu's and back. They had learned that heads of lettuce and cabbage floated nearby at times.

Food for the ones in the outer lagoon required a major project, the whales needed krill and krill needed plankton and the plankton needed nutrients so an upwelling current was created for the inside of the outer lagoon.

It was a long somewhat wide tube drilled through the outer reef that opened at five thousand meters below the surface into a natural upwelling outside the reef.

It was not left open as barriers were placed at its entrance and the tube itself was porous so nutrients and small fauna could be drawn into the upward current through its sides. Powering it was a large propeller adapted from an ocean liner and run by the electricity produced by the rods surrounding the outer reef. It was designed and built to run at least a hundred years. It could also be shut off and had three speeds.

The speeds were set to coincide with the speed of the upwellings of the Galapagos islands. The opening at the base of the outer reef was pointed clockwise and there was soon a clockwise current within the lagoon. Soon all the denizens began to swim counter-clockwise in the circular lagoon.

Most creatures stopped and stayed by the output pipe, that area became a tourist attraction but that was not what the rangers had hoped for so the fan was turned off.

Some creatures turned back but most continued to swim counter clockwise, that was where the food was coming from. When the bulk of the creatures was halfway around the island the fan was turned back on. As they neared the opening it was switched off again.

When the upwelling was first turned on it took two months for the waters between the reefs to appreciably cool. The three stands of giant kelp had survived the period and all the denizens had time to adjust. The water temperature was down to seventeen Celsius.

The rangers noted the increase in activity from the Cetaceans and the Pinnipeds. The also noted there were creatures in the colder water that had not been placed there. Soon submersibles were in the waters between the reefs surveying the population..

Many benthic organisms had begun to populate the bottom and the lower sides of both reefs. The nightly migration from the bottom to the top by many organisms had also been established. Both of those findings gladdened the rangers.

Several species of fish that had not been part of the original seeding were also present but the rangers were fine with those.

One item of concern was the the booming call of an underwater creature no one recognized. There was also a soft singing call that instruments told the scientists came from the same creature.

The habitat was established before the protective dome had ever been deployed. During that time period several high tides had covered the outer reef but only to about four centimeters. Still two seals had crawled over the five meter wide top and gone into open ocean. The new creature could have come in at those times.

The loud booming sound was heard only as high tide approached and only the song like sounds at other times. Soon there were several booming calls from the lagoon and they were now heard at every quadrant of the reef.

Before the Gulf impact the shield was raised and Cel was no longer in contact with the environment outside the outer reef. The booming calls continued before each high tide but the number of individuals making them diminished until the Bombardment then all such calls ceased.

The rangers and Cel were soon going from crisis to crisis, the shield stayed higher than the reef for ten years.

The ecologists decided to allow some of the upwelling waters to invade a shallow lagoon inside the first reef.The break would be up current from an area populated by mangrove trees. An opening a quarter of a meter wide was made between the inner and outer lagoons at the base of the inner reef.

The reasoning was that the mixing of the waters would enrich the mangrove basin and increase the yield of food forms to the inner lagoon. The fish and crustacean creatures there were close to dropping below sustainable numbers.

In the inner reef the bottom was only one meter deep close to the shoreline and two meters deep at the reef.

Although there was an average of a one hundred meter gap between the beaches and the inner reef there were areas with two hundred and fifty meter gaps which included the mangrove shelf.

By the time the shield had begun to be lowered the numbers had recovered enough to once again allow fishing in both lagoons.

The top of the inner reef was covered with a solid pathway as wide as a two lane highway that all could walk, in fact an annual race around the island had been initiated and over one hundred had participated in the long race. Regardless of where they started all the competitors ended their race in Felicity. None had actually run all the way around, that distance was over six hundred kilometers,

The inner reef was connected to the shore about a thousand meters apart. The bridges from beach to reef had wide spaces underneath to allow the free circulation of the waters. Wide steps on the reef allowed citizens to got to the top. Suspended fishing piers extended ten meters away from the reef on the outer lagoon side as did ten meter wide diving platforms on both sides of the reef.

All structures were made of the same material as the reef and creatures attached themselves to it. The junction of bridges and reef were popular snorkeling sites.

They also provided Cel with a big surprise, mermaids.

As she shield came down and the Earth warmed people began to see creatures sunning themselves on the inner diving platforms. They normally slid into the water if they saw someone.

Ahn decided to put up cameras on the veranda of the resorts balcony facing the sea. Sehel, Sammy and the Sprite Lu helped her.

It was not commonly known but Sprites did not fly over large bodies of water. Like the male Mur they could not swim.

The diving platforms up the reef were too far away from the resort for anyone to notice anything from its veranda but Ahn's camera lens had enough zoom power to be able to see anything sunbathing there. As most people she expected them to be monk seals, the only ones inside the inner reef.

Nothing happened for the next two months, not surprising since Felicity had the most number of people of any shoreline on Cel. But Ahn and her friends knew it was almost the equinox and the herring would be migrating past the resort soon on their way to the mangroves in the next bay.

Large fish would be following the herring and seals would be following them. They were right in that regard but the seal were not the ones directly behind the larger fish, whatever they were they had tail flukes like porpoises and whales and a long sinuous dorsal fin that shone like gold.

They got no good videos of the creatures but knew the herring run took two days to go past Felicity

That night they had the video they wanted. A creature was sitting upright on a platform. It seemed to be holding something. Another creature surfaced near it and they sang to each other.

They surmised the creatures were as small as the Akkad, the two meter depth by the platform was more than ample for the second creature.

The creature in the water suddenly dove and soon surfaced again. It swam towards the one on the platform and handed it a small lobster.

It took a while for the friends to comprehend what they had seen. The creatures had arms and hands.

The one on the platform took the lobster and ate it shell and all. Then it sang as it moved what it was holding to the creature in the water. It was a baby and she had been nursing.

The one in the water played with the baby a bit and as soon as the female went into the water they swam away with the baby holding on to a parents golden hair.

The next morning they went to Lord Jim's compound and asked him to summon every ranger. After they all gathered she showed them the video.

Everyone was too stunned to say anything after the video ended so Ahn played it again.

"I can't believe they are real," is what they all thought and said.

"Told you," Jordan said to Carmen.

"I still don't believe it ," Carmen said.

"Play it back from after the father appears and increase the volume," the older of the two marine biologists said.

"We heard that, we recorded it," the younger marine biologist said.

The oldest said to the gathering, "They have been here since before the shield was raised the first time. There were booming calls too, apparently calling the family to come over. Those calls stopped after they figured out they would no longer be any life past the outer reef."

"All the calls we heard came from the outer lagoon. They must come to the inner lagoon when they have babies," the younger one said.

"Is the gap to the mangrove large enough to go through?"

"The baby and the Mom probably, the father would be unlikely to fit through. Of course the water to the top of the reef is only half a meter, they could crawl across."

"What do we do about them? Sehel asked.

Lord Jim said, "Well, we need to protect them but people are swarming back to the beaches, someone will see them sooner or later."

Mizuki said, "They have doing fine for twelve years now, they seem to know to avoid us. But I am afraid they may scare someone into doing something rash. I think we should release the video."

"And make sure every understands how miraculous this is. Remind them to smile without showing teeth."

The speaker was the woman in charge of primates. All in the room finished the last sentence with her.

"Lin, sweetie, those creatures are primates, they are your responsibility. You better learn how to swim" Lord Jim said to her.

"I do know how to swim, the river just had too strong a current for me," she claimed.

All nodded and patted her back holding back giggles. She had known this would happen before she was pulled out of the river after she fell off a boat.

The video was shown at the beginning of each newscast every day for three days. Commentary by Lord Jim, the two marine biologists, King Jordan, or Lin alternatively accompanied the presentation. Ahn, Sehel and Sammy explained how they had gotten the video.

Many cameras were set up pointing at each set of diving platforms around the island. Two captured a family but they were not the same ones captured by Ahn. There were three families in the inner lagoon.

It spawned a new phenomenon in Cel, every family with a baby went to the sea, and sang. All beaches on Cel were nude beaches and many had been reserved for families

First contact was between two little girls, one human, one mermaid. The parents of both stayed back and just watched them have fun.

As the mermaid family left the human parents hugged the air in front of them. Their daughter did too.

It took several moments but soon the two mermaids and the merman sent hugs back. The humans had seen bonobos and Sasquatch do that and thought, why not. They were happy to see it was a universal form go greeting between primates.

The next time the two families encountered each other they immediately hugged the air around them.

The human girl was now an excellent swimmer and both girls began jabbering at each other although neither had any idea what the other was saying.

The mother waded out to the mermaid mother and took off her necklace with a crystal pendant containing a photo of her and her family and showed it to her.

The mermaid was stunned, mystified, overwhelmed. She kept looking at the pendant and the humans.

Her husband went to her and saw the pendant and he was stunned, mystified, overwhelmed. He kept looking at the humans then back at the picture.

Apparently neither had a concept of photos in their experiences.

The woman took the necklace back and gave it to her husband and he placed it around her neck. She hugged herself while looking at it.

The human wife then brought out a similar necklace and handed it to the merman husband. That picture had the mermaid and her family. Their eyes kept going from each other to her daughter to the photo. The humans knew it was the first time either had see themselves. The human husband had taken the photo on their first meeting.

The woman looked to the merman and he understood and placed it around his wife's neck then hugged her. He then turned to the humans and made sound that likely meant thank you and bowed.

The mermaid was shaking so the woman hugged her. The mermaid clung to her.

Their daughters though their parents were being silly, until they saw the embrace. The girls decided to embrace too.

The merman decided it was time to go. His wife hugged the woman and the daughters hugged each other again. Ten seconds later they had vanished under the gentle waves.

Several cameras on shore had recorded the entire incident. The video was shown on every news channel.

The two families saw each other once more but it was a short meeting. The mermaid's family was ready to go to the outer lagoon. Their daughters clung to each other until forced to separate. Then the merman had to softly urge his wife to end her embrace with the woman. Then he had to separate the girls again.

They left at high speed, apparently there was a tide to catch.

Contact between species was sporadic and humans never saw one in the outer lagoon but knew there was a healthy population out there.

During the following years herring run there were four mermaid families in the inner reef. Each befriended families with young children.

One family brought out a metal table and chairs and invited the mermaid family to lunch. The terms for eat, salmon, shrimp, cooked, human, mermaids, baby, girl, boy, and good bye were learned. Each family had fun pretending to be grossed out by the others eating habits.

The fathers dared each other and the human ate a raw shrimp shell and all and the merman ate a peeled grilled shrimp. Both said it was OK.

All were fascinated with each others hands, one set with wide webs between the fingers and the other with no webbing at all.

They also learned that it took twenty seven days for the Sea People in the inner lagoon to go around Cel once and then left for the outer lagoon immediately after completing their seventh trip around.

All four of the families were waiting for their friends each time around. Humans brought alien friends to join them during the visits. All learned that the Akkad could hearth Sea People better and they could hear the Akkad better. All also learned that the Akkad were very graceful and very much at ease in the lagoon. The Akkad had partial webbing between the fingers and toes when in water.

Soon those get togethers ceased to be news, five years later it seemed every mermaid that wanted alien friends, including humans, had many. They had also learned to kiss.

Every human that wanted Sea People as friends eventually had one, but all had learned that the limit of comfort for sea people was around eight other beings, any more than that they felt uncomfortable and bolted away. All citizens stayed away when the group around the sea people was six.

Immediately after his coronation ceremony six years later King Marc and Queen Natalia proclaimed the mermen and mermaids Beings and citizens of Cel.

No one objected.