Chương 104: Book 4 - Chapter 2 B

I spent one last night in the RV but headed to the airport the next morning. A short hop in my new plane to Tulsa to be with my family.

"Chef Peter, the vegetables you wanted will arrive this afternoon. Do you mind staying on board to get them put away?" I asked him as we landed in Tulsa.

"Where are they coming from?"

"My Mom's farm."

"I thought your Mom was a musician?"

"The chef at The Mayo was dissatisfied with his local options, so he convinced my Mom to turn the family homestead into a farm for fresh produce for the hotel."

"But it's winter?" Chef Peter said with confusion, looking out the window to confirm it was still winter.

"There are extensive greenhouses and we've been experimenting with hydroponics."

"Excellent. I'll be ready to bring them aboard."

"Thank you." Security picked me up in the matte black armored Humvee that was kept for me here in Tulsa. They loved the big vehicle and had been upgrading and staging them around the country where I might need them. I left Matt behind to organize the delivery of several rolls of graphene felt filters for our next trip.

"I saw you on TV!" Mattie said as I gave her a big hug.

"Was I handsome?" I asked. Her response was just giggles as I got hugs from everybody. It was an unfortunately short visit, because I had an appointment. Just before leaving I had ten people join me on my plane: Four environmental scientists, the Fijian UN Ambassador who I was giving a ride home, along with his wife and two pairs of photographers to document the trip. In total, including flight crew, staff and security there were twenty-nine others.

At the last moment a car came rushing up to the plane, and the final component, a water systems engineer, joined us. He was trying to apologize, but I just pointed him up the stairs.

"Don't waste time apologizing, just get in and find a seat." We finished checks, flight instruction and everyone belted up. The aircraft fully fueled began its one-stop flight for Fiji. The one stop was Hawaii.

"Too bad we can't stay here a while," Matt said as the plane was being refueled in Honolulu.

"If we refuel here, it's cheaper than in Fiji where we would be filling empty tanks."

"Any chance to relax some on this trip?" he asked.

"I promise you days of fishing."

"Nice, Boss. Thanks." We had dinner in the air with the ambassador and his wife. I had offered the ride to start building good will with members of the Fiji government. I got to practice my Fijian with them.

"You are improving so quickly!" his wife Queenie exclaimed.

"By the time we get there you will sound like a native." I thanked her. Then her husband, Winston, asked, "Where are you sleeping tonight?"

"I have a pull-out bunk in my office," I told them.

"Thank you," Queenie said.

"The chairs, I imagine, would have been more comfortable than any other flight I've taken, but to give us your own bedroom, that is truly a wonderful gift. I've never had a better trip to or from my home.

"It's also nice to travel with such a polite young man," she said patting my hand.

"You're only about two years older than my youngest." I smiled back at the motherly look she was giving me and returned to eating dinner. After we landed, I was standing by the door. Matt asked, "Why haven't you gone down yet?"

"I'm waiting for the photographers to get set up, so they can take pictures of our arrival." He laughed.

"I don't know why you need four of them." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"They told me they were cheaper as a set," I explained.

"I think I've been conned and it's a secret honeymoon." We disembarked at the Matei airport. Matt and I, plus the four photographers and four security, watched my plane take off as Matei had nothing but a runway.

"Where are they going?" one of the photographers asked.

"There are no services here—just a landing strip. Not even a parking space. They have to fly on to Fiji to park the plane."

"Where do we go next?" he asked.

"The Rabi Council is sending a couple of jeeps to take us to the boat." We loaded ourselves and several days of luggage onto all the Jeeps that arrived. It might have been every Jeep on the island. They drove the short distance to the dock, where we unloaded onto the boat waiting for us.

"At least it's not called the SS Minnow," Matt joked.

"Did you know that the fans of SyFy are still arguing about whether Gilligan's Island is science fiction or fantasy? It plays as one of the shows on classic Thursdays." He considered as the boat motored away from the shore.

"The Professor was always building stuff, like a TV with coconuts. But Mary Ann and Ginger, I think it has to be a fantasy," he said with a wistful smile. The boat took about forty-five minutes to reach Tabwewa Village, the administrative center and location of the Rabi Council. We arrived and were greeted. Then we were given rooms to rest up in from our trip. After changing into cooler clothes, I got to meet with James, the half-Fijian Olympic sailor I had met in Seoul.

"Deadshot John, it is good to see you again!"

"James, good to see you as well! How are you?"

"I'm good. I'm glad you came."

"I'm very happy to be here. This is my assistant and good friend, Matt," I told him. The two big men shook hands and gave each other a good look. They must have liked what they saw because they broke out into big smiles simultaneously.

"Listen, the Rabi Council, they are very greedy. The British recently awarded us money for the destruction of our old home and they can't wait to spend it. Be careful that they don't convince you to give them money."

"Thank you for the warning," I told him sincerely. The next morning the Council greeted me. Some spoke English and that's what they greeted me in. I replied in Kiribati which shocked them all.

"Thank you for inviting me to this home of the Banaba. I've come to talk to you about restoring your home island to life. I've brought tools to begin, and scientists who specialize in understanding the Earth and the plants and animals that nourish it." They agreed to discuss it. So the meeting soon ended. I headed back to the lodgings they had provided.

"That was short," Matt said as he tried to figure out if the hammock outside out hut could hold him.

"They take time to decide anything. The problem is conflicting desires."

"What do you mean?" he asked, after deciding he wouldn't fit even if it held. I saw James walk up and waved him over to sit in the shade with us as we enjoyed a cold drink in the hot humid air.

"I was just telling Matt about the conflicting desires of the Rabi Council."

"There are many. Which ones concern you?" James asked.

"They want an island that is basically unlivable. It's too small for the current population. They want the wealth of the remaining phosphate mine but they don't want any more phosphate mining on the island."

"That's a good list. You should remember that only a few of the Council ever lived there and then it was as children. It is also really far from here! For most people it is something they've always heard complained about, but they have never seen it with their own eyes," James said passionately.

"Have you seen it?" I asked him.

"Yes, I and a few others sailed there a few years ago. There is nothing there worth having."

"How far away is it?" Matt asked.

"Thirteen hundred miles," I told him. Politically it was an even more difficult situation. Banaba, their ancestral homeland, was part of the Republic of Kiribati, a sovereign state in Micronesia, which straddles the equator. Most Banabans lived on Rabi Island, which was part of the country of Fiji, where they had been forcibly relocated, later purchasing Rabi from the locals for their exclusive use.

The Banabans had members representing them in the governments of both countries, but no political power in either, due to their population being only about five thousand. Eventually we came back to meet again with the Council. It came to the point in the discussion I was dreading.

"Could you please explain to me why you even want the island?" I asked.

"There's no water source, it is mostly uninhabitable, it has regularly killed thousands of your people during droughts and it is one-tenth the size of the island you have now. Only a few people live there and they don't live well. Please, explain to me the point of it!"

"It is ours. By right of our ancestors' blood, it is our homeland!" the Council asserted.

"Really? And what if instead of helping you bring water to the island and try to do something with the great big hole in the middle of it, I offered you fifty million dollars for it, what would you do then? You've lived here long enough for your blood to be part of this island," I challenged. The people listening readily agreed with my statement. I could also see the avarice in the eyes of the Council at the offer.

"We will need to talk about this," they told me, and ended the Council. I went back to our hut, then purchased a fishing pole. Matt and I went to the beach to fish in the surf. The Council didn't get back to us until the next day. They countered my offer, seventy-five million dollars. I countered theirs: "Sixty million, ten million for each square kilometer of island. You can divide it up among those with ownership records based on square meters owned. Divide the rest up as you see fit."

The larger families who had owned larger pieces of land and kept meticulous records cheered the offer. The Council moved together to discuss it. Finally, they said they would talk about it and answer me the following day. Only one thing to do: go fishing again. James joined me. I handed him a small piece of paper.

"James, can you find these people and have them meet me at our lodging tonight?" He looked at the list, then at me and put it in his pocket.

"Sure. Now how about I show you the right way to cast when surf fishing."