19 POWER PLAY

Helena linked in and she felt Gábor's frustration off the bat.

"This man is asking the same questions with other words. Stay connected and you'll see what I mean. He went to get a coffee."

Helena and Leo "saw" the room Gábor sat in. It was a small office with a table and three chairs, filing cabinets with manila folders, a telephone, and some files on the desk beside a computer screen and keyboard. A barred window was to the left, and an air conditioning unit kept the temperature down. The Inspector returned with two cups of coffee and this was the moment when Helena got a deeper understanding of the link. She smelled the coffee and tasted it when Gábor took a sip and even felt the heat on her lips. She experienced everything that Gábor did and so did Leo. Leo did not like the taste of coffee and made a funny face.

"So Mr. Fabien, where did we stop? Ah, oui, when you saw Mr. Lundy, did you know it was him?"

"No, but you asked that before."

"Oui, Yes, but I want to be sure I understand you."

Annoyance washed through Gábor and Helena felt it through Leo. Edgy he replied to the ferret-faced policeman.

"Look, Inspector, if you have a hard time understanding, would it not be wise to have someone with us who does?"

Helena felt Gábor's irritation. The inspector’s face looked as if he'd bitten into a lemon.

"A very good point monsieur, sir. Two pair of ears is better than one, eh?"

He pressed a button on his phone and said: "Gaston, entre s'il vous plait." He leaned forward towards Gábor and remarked.

"Eez ees not a kind man, but Inglish is very good." He exaggerated his accent. His breath was not pleasant and Helena wrinkled her nose. She concluded the man had to be a carnivore and not much into oral hygiene. She felt sorry for Gábor. He was right there, face to face. The door opened and a large Polynesian man came into the room and looked at Julian. Julian indicated the other chair and as he moved toward the chair, he looked at Gábor with a neutral expression on his face. Gábor estimated him to be about 195cm, and about 120kg. The man looked to be in good shape and had a scar on his chin and over his left eye, probably from a brawl. It seemed his nose was flattened a few times too.

"Gaston, this is Mr. Fabien and he speaks only English and thinks I may have a problem understanding him. Would you talk with him for me?"

The large man looked at Gábor.

"Ia Orana." Gábor greeted the man. “E aha te huru? The Inspector does not speak Hungarian or German and my French is not very good,” he said, and nodded in the big man's direction.

Gaston's face cracked into a smile.

"Maitai roa. Maeva Tahiti."

"Mauruuru roa," answered Gábor.

"Do you speak our language?" The big man's voice was pleasant.

"I'm sorry, not yet, but I would love to learn it."

"I speak English and you may call me Matahi. It is my Tahitian name."

"Call me Gabs if you like. My real name is Gábor, but that is too difficult for many." Gábor put out his hand and the big man shook it. It was a firm handshake. Gaston then leafed through the file in front of him for a little while.

"What we have so far is that you were coming to the scene and saw your six-year-old son being manhandled by Mr. Lundy. You wanted to stop him and he turned on you and attacked you with a heavy torch. You shoved him and he fell with your son over the rail into the water. Is that correct so far?"

"Yes."

"How big was Mr. Lundy in your estimation?"

"About like you, maybe a bit taller by a little."

"And you shoved him over the railing? How far would you say Mr. Lundy was from the railing when you shoved him?"

"About a meter, two at the most. I didn't have my measuring tape with me."

"I see." How heavy are you Gábor? May I call you Gábor?"

"Please do. About 67kg. (147lb)"

"I am 120kg. Would you demonstrate to me how you were able to shove Mr. Lundy over the railing two meters away?"

"How?"

"Use me."

"Shove you?" Gábor thought for a moment before he answered. He had bigger opponents before. "What if you get hurt?"

"I'll take that chance." Matahi smiled, almost in a condescending way.

"Okay, but you are not going to arrest me for assaulting an officer, are you?"

"I may if you're bluffing."

"Can I have that in writing? Just in case?" Matahi took a piece of paper and wrote something on it and handed it to Julian who read and signed it with a smirk toward Gábor, then handed it to back to Matahi who gave it to Gábor. Gábor looked at it, folded it, and put the paper into his shirt pocket.

"Are you satisfied, Mr. Fabien?" This time Matahi clearly wore a condescending smile.

"It will do."

Matahi's smile was a bit wider now and he stood up. Almost a head taller than Gábor and nearly twice his weight, he stood about a meter and a half from the filing cabinet behind him. Julian moved his chair to the side and had a sneer on his face that made Gábor wish he were the object of this little demo. The inspector then moved behind Gaston and a bit to the side so he could see Gábor's face during the act.

"Are you ready?" Gábor asked Matahi. Standing about a meter apart the big man smiled at him.

"I'm ready." He leaned a bit forward for the anticipated shove, one could never know. The man in front of him was much smaller than he was and stood too close to really being effective.

Gábor took a deep inhalation and focused his sight on the wall behind the colossal figure, then sank into haragei, the source of power a well-trained martial artist could access at will, and with a kiai Gábor lunged at the big man. The intensity and focus of his mind expressed itself in the strike. He connected with both open palms on Matahi's chest just under his pectoral muscles and lifted Matahi off his feet. His head snapped onto his chest and a puff of air exploded from his mouth. His body thrown back, his flailing arms slammed into Julian, he swept him along and then both men crashed into the filing cabinet, breaking and splintering the shelves in it, and fell to the floor. Loose sheaves from broken folders drifted like sad petals of some flowers onto the government officials, covering them as if to hide them from their embarrassment. Wearing the entire set of police reports from the past ten years on their bodies, both lay there motionless for a few seconds, then with a groan, the Polynesian took a deep breath and rose to a sitting position.

Julian had broken two ribs and lost consciousness when the thrashing arms of Matahi struck him. Matahi's sudden interest to join a Shaolin monastery after his service with the gendarmerie rekindled. Gábor helped the big man up from the floor, then looked at Julian and advised Matahi to call for an ambulance. The large man had a hard time breathing too and turned as pale as linen and sat down on the chair. He faded in and out of consciousness for minutes and finally looked at Gábor, wheezing and coughing, fighting to get air into his lungs.

"You are a real warrior sir. Where were you when Tahiti needed you?" he managed between fits of coughs.

"In my great-grandfather’s twinkling eyes when he met his future wife," replied Gábor as he watched the big man's breath with concern. He hoped he hadn't been too hard on the man; he was not his enemy.

"We will continue our conversation in two weeks if you don't mind. I need a rest. You convinced me. You're free to go now," wheezed the heavy man and then picked up the phone and called someone from the hospital to pick up the inspector. With a glance at the Polynesian man Gábor nodded and left the office. Helena and Leo looked at each other and burst out laughing. The mind-link with Gábor was very intense; they'd felt the whole episode as if they had done the demonstration together with him, virtual reality at its best.

"Gábor, will you come back here today or will you stay the night in Papeete? We have visitors on the beach."

"Honey, I'll go with Ivan to find Lundy. He cares too much about Leo and I worry he might hurt the man if he becomes stubborn. I'll be returning as soon as we find him. The gendarmes think the sharks got him."

"So you will go back to where we found Leo?"

"Yes, Leo, can you get us connected with Ivan? He went to get some provisions for the trip to Niau, but now I'll be going with him as well, so he'll need to buy extra."

"Just a second, Dad."

It took three minutes. Ivan was engaged in conversation with a woman at Carrefour and he'd just left the store when he noticed a pressure on his mind and he ‘heard' Leo calling him. The presence of Leo was in his head and then there was Gábor and Helena. He focused and the link formed. They exchanged information on where to meet and then disengaged again because they needed to concentrate on finding the place where they wanted to meet.

When they got to the place at the ferry terminal and stowed the things they'd been looking for, they informed Helena through Leo about their departure, wished them good night, and promised to be careful. They remained connected for a little while longer, and when their boat passed the reef, at the entrance to the harbor, they disconnected from the link, opened the throttle, and went against the chop toward Niau, two hundred nautical miles east-northeast. Course 066 degrees true. Time: 2100h.

From previous experience, the boat could go about thirty knots on sixty percent power and they figured they could make it in seven hours, theoretically. With the wind and the chop, they estimated it would take about ten. The tender was an excellent boat, stable and running smoothly, but because of its twin hull design, it had a different characteristic than a deep v-hull. Both men were still experimenting with the boat. It had a capacity of six, but with the two drums of fuel aboard, it weighed four hundred kilos, the equivalent of five full-grown men plus them.

The tender had been loaded to capacity. Their intention was to go to Tupana village as there was a landing strip nearby and Lundy would seek it out.

"You think he made it to Tupana?" Gábor inquired. "He must have been exhausted and it's a long walk from where we found Leo."

Gábor and Ivan discussed their plan and tossed ideas and speculations around to find the most promising action to take. It has been two days since they found Leo, this was the second night they spent in the Pacific, and they found it exciting, but also tiring.

Now with the chop, and the wind on their faces, it was like the stuff one reads stories about or watches on TV white-knuckled in front of the set in an armchair snacking on chips and drinking beer. Waves exploded over the bow and drenched them occasionally with salty spray, sometimes a solid wave crashed on the bow, and the boat would slow down only to surge forward again, like a racing horse. The swells combined with the waves made for a bumpy ride and when a wave washed over the windshield, the men swore, wiping the water from their faces and continued their conversation with elevated voices so they could hear each other. Another large wave slammed into the bow, the boat shuddered, and green water washed over them. Hanging on to the rails, drenched to the bone, both cussed in their native language and then laughed. It was an adventure and for a little while, neither spoke, but they looked at the chart-plotter on the screen of the GPS, which indicated their progress, showing a symbol for the boat as it worked its way toward their destination. Ivan traced a finger along the eastern side of the island and remarked to Gábor.

"According to the chart, there is nothing on the western side where he could get help, or possibly a ride. I doubt he knows about the airstrip, but he could find out about it from the locals. There are a lot of pearl farms in the area where he could get help."

"Someone could take him over to Papeete on a boat if he can pay. I wonder if he had a wallet on him when he went over the rail," mused Gábor and adjusted the collar of his rain jacket. Water was running from his head and his hair was a mess of Einsteinian appearance, but in the dark nobody would notice and Helena was sound asleep a bit to the Northeast.

Ivan had sharp lines around his mouth and his face illuminated by the glow of the plotter gave him a savage look. His lips pressed together into a thin line resembled a pencil mark as he squinted into the darkness, watching for the whitecaps on the water. As he played with the helm to avoid bigger waves, the men fell into silence, and it was Gábor who broke it.

"You know, Julian will go after me when we return to Papeete. He will not forget today as long as he sees me around."

"So what really happened there? Tell me all the fun." Ivan grinned fiercely in the dark.

"Not much. He made an ass of himself before I had the chance to do it. He called this big Polynesian guy in to interrogate me. The man was not unfriendly like Julian, and when I greeted him in his language, he actually smiled. He asked far more pertinent questions and when I told him about shoving Lundy hard enough to make him go over, he challenged me to demonstrate it." Gábor stopped at that. Ivan looked at him as if to say"...and?" However, that was all Gábor said, so Ivan pushed a bit.

"Come on now, open your mouth. It will not hurt, I'm not a dentist, you know." Gábor thought for a minute while Ivan looked ahead and then he continued the story.

"The guy was about two meters tall and at least hundred-twenty kilo. He stood in the middle of the room. Julian stood behind him, and I told the big guy to get ready and I think he underestimated me a little. When I shoved him, he flew back and crashed into a filing cabinet, taking Julian with him, knocking him out and he may have broken a rib or two. I thought I heard something cracking." Ivan whistled through his teeth.

"Whose ribs cracked?" he asked.

"The Inspector's, as the big guy Matahi crashed into him."

"Did you use haragei?"

"Yes, but he is a big man, Ivan."

"You could have killed him."

"Smaller ones survived." Ivan shook his head.

"You could have killed him and then they would have had something real in their hands to shave you with their guillotine."

Gábor did not answer and was thinking that what Ivan had said was correct and he had not considered it. The opportunity to teach this arrogant Julian a lesson was too tempting and he gave into his Ego. Now he looked at himself and saw his own arrogance. He could have swallowed his pride and self-importance and practiced more patience.  But then, how else could he convince these people that size didn't matter much if one can utilize their strength properly. He couldn't have demonstrated how Lundy ended up in the water without doing what he did.

However, Ivan had a point. Haragei was not something to play with. Undisciplined application of primordial power can lead to death in the hands of untrained people. He had received proper instructions and trained with qualified instructors and was confident enough to use it wisely. His need to be back with his family was strong but he'd practiced Zen meditation long enough to have developed an understanding of what desires were, and their effects on one's rational and wise behaviour.

Ever since he'd finished University he'd wanted a family; he'd dated a few girls and had his share of intimacy, and each encounter deepened in him the realization that sex was not the only thing that made a relationship work. Some past experiences with a sexually deranged predator ten years older than him had left their marks on him, and he had barely escaped her grasp when he was nineteen. He often found a good and deep conversation, with joking, bantering, a challenge of intellect and just sharing moments in silence were often better than a steamy sexual encounter.

Women felt attracted to him and felt safe with him, trusted him, but young Gábor kept a distance between them and him, a wall, if you will, that never allowed them to get ‘inside' him. His heart was out of reach like a carrot on a stick attached to one's forehead, a woman once told him. This emotional detachment made him a desirable item to look at, but he wasn't available to just anyone. He was not cold, no, he was a passionate man when it came to intimacy, but detached. Something inside him didn't catch fire, although his partners felt deeply satisfied. He was unsure of who he was and answered questions cryptically to the inquiring person about who he was.

To many, he was an enigma and others called him weird and strange. He had given up dating, was celibate for four years, and didn't really miss sex that much. He kept himself busy with teaching Kenjutsu and archery in a small community center and had his work to keep him busy. He didn't drink, or smoke, or use any drugs, and going out to meet other people only made it clearer, that one can be lonelier in a crowd than on the top of a mountain. The few who knew him thought him to be centered and even wise.

Clients sought after him as a professional in massage and for counselling and he excelled in it, but he was mostly alone. Then Helena showed up in his life and he realized what he'd been missing all his life. She accepted him the way he was, supported him instead of holding him back, and laughed with him, not at him when he did something dumb. She felt his down moments and was there to lend him a hand to get up again and she trusted him when sometimes he did not trust himself. Helena was open, curious, and was not afraid to ask for what she wanted in a way that was not demanding, but rather seductive. She was not afraid to live and took responsibility for the things she did and never blamed anyone. She said once that people give up their own power when they make circumstances or others responsible for what is happening to them. He recognized that trait as a past behaviour in him and made changes.

His clients often said he should patent that as a personal slogan. He couldn't. It was Helena's credo. It was how she lived her life and imparted that onto him. When he advised his clients to take responsibility for everything that happens, they walked out of his office because they remained too attached to the benefits they got out of their suffering and so stayed in their stuck place. They wanted changes without changing anything in themselves. When he struck Matahi, he wanted them to realize that things were very seldom what they appeared to be. Often, something that they believed was a tragedy could very well be a blessing if only they would be able to transcend the experience.

He hoped both of them had learned something from this little demonstration, but what Ivan pointed out to him was a very good point. His intention might have come from his ego to show them up and to get Julian to leave him alone. Analyzing his action in hindsight, he saw it was ego that had the better of him. Old habits are hard to break, he realized.

Normally, Helena and he were without any malice toward others, and when someone did something out of line to either of them, they let it slide or just ignored it and went on with their own agenda. When they became lovers, the athletic team and their supervisors lamented the fact that they were upsetting the unwritten rules that colleagues were not to date one another.

Rooted in stupid regulations that served only the mechanism of work ethics as prescribed by economics, they would never understand that they couldn't rule love. Helena had asked if Gábor would like to be married to put an end to the squabble. Neither one liked the idea of a legal marriage, but they did it anyway. That made work easier for them and then Helena became pregnant. Three months before term Helena quit and then gave birth to Leo. She stayed home with the baby while Gábor continued working. A year later, Leo began to change and it confused both of them. Helena was running yoga classes then and had to stop because she wanted to find out what the situation with Leo was. She became an expert in Internet surfing, but couldn't find any leads on Leo's condition. It began to be difficult with the neighbours and then the relatives and Helena's parents withdrew more and more from them. Gábor's father was disturbed by Leo's condition, but not judgmental. He tried to support them and did what he could in his way to placate relatives, but the gossip was impossible to stop.

Neighbours turned into rumourmongers. They had enough of the prejudice of the people and it was one of the reasons they'd immigrated to Canada. They didn't hold grudges; they just stepped out of the way. Just in the moment, he didn't feel he'd done any of that. What Ivan pointed out to him, made him feel uncomfortable about himself, and he thought he needed to watch Ivan, should they meet with Lundy. Better learn what you teach, he thought to himself.

"Ivan, why don't you rest a bit? There is a dry place right under the windshield and it is padded enough to be comfortable. I'll wake you in three hours, okay? It will allow me to think a little on what we could do with Lundy when we find him, and then we can talk about it when you are up again. Deal?"

Ivan yawned, nodded, and moved under the cover of the windshield. "See you later, and try to stay dry and drive carefully. Lots of bumps out there," Ivan closed his eyes and one breath later he was asleep. Gábor was alone with his thoughts. They had made about thirty miles now and still had hundred-seventy nautical miles to go. He hoped the weather wouldn't get heavier and the wind wouldn't change too much, he'd preferred it more from the South.

He recalled the weather forecast and it called for fifteen-knot winds from the East, changing to lighter winds for the following days. That would be good, and he looked forward to seeing Helena and Leo perhaps as early as tomorrow if things with Lundy could be worked out. He also wanted to explore this "mind-link", a concept he'd read about in some science fiction stories while he was still in school. However, this was real and his head still had a hard time accepting it, but when Helena thought about the "hard drive" and Leo conveyed it, there was no longer any doubt in his mind. Only Helena and he knew about this private little joke. He wanted to see if he could contact Leo in the morning and ask him to "show" him and Ivan the face of Lundy so they would be able to identify him when they found him. He did not think there would be many black people on an atoll, but it would exclude an error and aid in identification. He also had to stay away from Lundy because he could recognize him and would wonder why he was looking for him on the island. Lundy could have seen them and recognized them, although they never really met.

They had to approach Lundy carefully so he would not become suspicious and do something stupid before they had him under control. Ivan had to be the one who would have to initiate the first contact. Of course, they had to find him first. He could have found a ride on a boat or hired someone to take him to Tahiti.

Gábor surveyed the plotter chart; the atoll was pretty much a circle, eight km in diameter, the lagoon, he was sure, was completely enclosed by a low-lying coral reef and like all of these island’s, there would be predominantly a load of coconut trees fringing the shoreline on the outer edges. There was an airstrip on the northern tip of the island and the only populated area was at Tupana of about two hundred inhabitants. If Lundy made it, he would be easy to find. A charter company serviced the island, and flights were very sporadic. That was what the two men were hoping would be to their advantage.

A spray knocked Gábor out of his thoughts; he looked up from the display and paid more attention to his surroundings. There it was again, this time he saw the spray to the port of the boat, and he throttled back. Whales! He'd seen many orcas in Canada, mainly from shore where he and they were safe from each other; now he was in the middle of the Pacific with whales close by. Ivan woke and asked what the matter was and Gábor told him.

His friend sat up and looked, but saw nothing for a few minutes. Then the sound of a whale expelling air was right in front of the boat and the head and back of a humpback whale emerged from the dark waters. The men worried they would hit one of them, but to their relief that did not happen, and a few minutes later, they heard the exhalation off to starboard, so Gábor put the boat into gear and cleared the area. Ivan lay back again for a bit but didn't go to sleep. Marvelling how bright and close the stars seemed to be, he searched the sky for familiar constellations up in the sky, and he saw the belt of Orion and the Southern Cross, which was a new one, and the broad band of the Milky Way. When he was a young man, he had dreams about one day perhaps living, at least part time, in the South Pacific. He shared this dream with many others who traveled these waters.

He looked up to Gábor. Ivan liked the man a lot. He was straight and good-natured. His martial arts training made him reserved and disciplined and he was authentic. They'd had good talks and enjoyed each other's company, yet Ivan felt there was always something on Gábor's mind he would have liked to talk about, but he never did and Ivan was sensitive enough not to pry. Sometimes they saw each other in Vancouver and on the ferry to Horseshoe Bay, and during those times, Gábor had talked about his work as a coach, his training as a counsellor, and his Zen meditation, but never about Leo and not much about Helena. Then he had talked about building his own log house and since he had done that himself, he offered his advice and assistance and that's how he got to know him better.

When Ivan finally met Leo, he understood what Gábor must have been going through. Gábor looked for ways to help Leo, but he did not see that Leo was not the problem. The problem was in Gábor, why he thought about Leo the way he did. Leo's form brought prejudice to the surface of consciousness in others, including his own father. Ivan decided to help them as well as he could to understand the issue. He didn't have a very deep understanding of psychology and he'd only had eight years of school education, but life had its ways of teaching ‘acceptance' if one was observant and open enough to understand and draw conclusions from events, and one could admit errors along the way.

At Midnight, Ivan changed places with Gábor. There was not much to being on watch. The boat held its course with the help of a small autopilot the previous owner had installed. They'd had to buy a new servo unit and they'd installed it in fifteen minutes; it worked well, but they needed to keep a lookout for other vessels and like a while ago, for whales. In any case, whales had the right of way anytime. Gábor took off his foul weather jacket, put it under his head for a pillow, and almost instantly went to sleep. Ivan's glance went over the phosphorescent whitecaps and he increased the speed of the boat to a point where it could handle the waves without bouncing too much, the waves were not hitting the bow, and thus, they didn't have to deal with spray as much as they had before.

The wind, he noticed, had decreased a bit, which he welcomed. Whitecaps were now less frequent and it seemed the waves had flattened out. Ivan picked a star and tried to keep it in the same position, and with time and as the stars changed their place in the sky, he corrected the position to stay on course.

He was in a kind of dreamy state and the drone of the engines being the only event in a changeless ocean with its eternal waves, lulled him almost into a trance. Gábor made some sounds as if he was having bad dreams, but did not wake up. Two hours later, Ivan checked the plotter and with satisfaction noted their progress toward Niau. 6.5 hours had passed since they left Papeete and they'd made one hundred and fifty nautical miles. Checking on the fuel gauge, it told him they needed to fuel up soon again. When his turn on watch was finished and Gábor awoke, they got the plastic hose and went to work. The Eastern sky indicated the new day and made a flashlight unnecessary. Without words, they filled both tanks to the top and still had a bit of fuel left in the barrel. When they got to Niau, they would empty them completely and leave the empty drums on the Island if someone wanted it. They were sure someone there could use them. It would make more space on the boat for other things.

"How was your sleep?" Ivan asked Gábor when they finished the fuelling. Gábor, stowing the hose onto the tank compartment turned back to Ivan.

"I feel like a cocktail. Shaken but not stirred. How was the watch? Did I miss anything?"

"More "Zzz's perhaps. You moaned in your sleep with either pleasure or pain. Something on your mind?"

"I had a dream about us being tough with Lundy and we were accused by dolphins and cats of cruelty and lack of intelligence. It was bizarre."

Deep lines on his friend's face indicated stress, and Ivan looked at Gábor with some concern. "We need to talk with him and it depends on his response as to what we must do. If he can be reasoned with, it will be easier on him, if not…" Ivan left it hanging unsaid and Gábor felt uneasy. After both being quiet for a while, Ivan spoke up.

"If we offer him money for his silence, how can we make sure he will not milk us like cows for as long as we live? He may want to use his knowledge to become rich in a short time and not have to work for the rest of his life. Have you thought of a plan that will make sure he doesn't talk?"

"No, I would like Helena's input on any decision we make. They may be up already and able to "hear" us." He focused his thoughts on Leo and had instant contact. It was as if Leo had waited for him.

"Hello, son, is your mother awake?"

"I'm here, and good morning, sailors." Gábor and Ivan's face bore a grin when they caught the undercurrent of the implied "Sailor's" greeting. The mind-link was very accurate in relaying information.

"Whereabouts are you two?" Ivan looked at the plotter and informed Helena and Leo in the same instant. Gábor wanted to get info from Leo and formulated his request. Still awed by this telepathic means of communication, where all could link in and relay information to each other as if they were all in one mind, what one saw, thought, heard or felt was instantly received without misunderstanding, Gábor feeling the affection of his wife as well as that of Leo and his friend Ivan, he begun to get used to their authentic nature. In turn, they too felt him and the bond between them strengthened.

18 THE GROTTO

They arrived at the crevice and she rummaged in the watertight box containing the electronic supplies and found the GPS she was looking for. Closing the box and covering the goods with the gray tarp, she stepped back out in front of the hideaway and noticed Leo looking into the distance. They couldn't see the water from here; there were too many trees and vegetation blocking their view and Helena suspected Leo used his ESP power to know what was coming at them. Leo would make a fantastic radar. She focused her mind on Leo and formed the question in her mind:

"Is there something?"

"I sense somebody is heading this way. We should clean up our tracks on the beach. Better if they think it was a long time ago that someone was here."

"Good thinking, Leo. I'll get some branches to use as a broom. Let's play Cowboys and Indians. This will be fun."

Leo and Helena grabbed some old palm fronds, walked down to the beach and started to erase the fresh tracks they'd left behind. Walking backward and looking at the beach, they were sure that nobody would guess their presence here. Withdrawn into the dense foliage they looked out to sea. Helena saw a powerboat about three miles out heading right toward the point where they had been only a few minutes before. They must know this place, she figured, and watched, as they got closer. There were three people in the boat, one was a male, and the two other were women, perhaps a husband, wife, and a daughter? The boat approached the shore, dropped anchor, and a pretty young woman about twenty years of age got out of it. The waves were now a bit larger and breaking, creating surf, but the girl had no problem in the water. Helena watched as she fought her way onto the beach and up to the same tree where about thirty minutes ago, Ivan had untied their tender.

For a moment, the woman looked at the tree, then, wrapping the line around it, she turned back to the boat. The two others dropped an anchor and pulled their vessel closer to the beach, and moored it just outside the surf. The boat rocked with the waves but had no problem riding them. The man lifted a bag and put it on the side of the boat, jumped into the water, which came up to his chest and hefted the bag onto his head, making his way toward the beach. The older woman lifted something and Helena recognized scuba equipment with buoyancy compensator and a regulator unit. Then she lifted a second set off the boat and lowered them into the water, jumped in and dragged the gear ashore where she covered them with some palm fronds.

Leo and Helena had seen enough. They knew these people would be here for the night, so they quietly left their hideaway and headed for the cache, grabbed two backpacks, and filled them with some foodstuff and some other items. Fastening the sleeping bags onto the backpacks, they took a hatchet and two machetes they thought might be important and continued on toward the North. It was hard walking and they needed to concentrate on their feet to see where to step safely, and they did not talk to or "read" each other.

Helena observed it was much easier for Leo to navigate around challenging areas than for her. He moved like a cat and Helena felt envious. He leaped over fissures, jumped on or over fallen trees, boulders, and outcroppings. He was at home in this wild setting. Leo was so much more suited to the natural environment than her and seemed to know where he was heading. For Helena, the dense jungle, with its steep, uneven, and rough terrain was confusing and hard to traverse, but it was beautiful. The air was fresh and it all felt so vibrantly alive, it invoked images of the Garden of Eden for her. Flowers everywhere and everything was lush, green, and magical.

After an hour of walking, she thought they had lost their way; she consulted the GPS and found she was closing in on their destination. They had programmed the coordinates into the Garmin when they were on the beach the second time and made a waypoint, called "Cave." It was only three hundred meters away and Leo was heading straight for it without the GPS. There were a few flat areas here and the vegetation made everything look the same. When she looked back, she could not even see where they'd come from.

The sun was high in zenith now and it was getting hot, and even though they were in the southern latitude approaching winter, Helena broke into a sweat. She saw no sign of Leo being hot. He had taken off his clothing; his cat features with his fur were stunning to her. She found Leo to be beautiful. Resembling a lion, his thick fur must be hot for him, but he showed no sign of discomfort. Now that she clearly saw his intelligence and his ability to communicate, she felt a pride about having given birth to a being like him that she never thought she would. Self-pity and shame had made its exit from her life and an awe and joy filled her heart. This is my son, she thought, and he is precious. Leo turned and looked at her intensely with his amber eyes. Helena realized she thought about him passionately as only a mother could. She smiled broadly at him and thought with concentration:

"You are a magnificent specimen of a person that makes me proud to be your mother. I love you, Leo."

"But I'm not human."

"Thank heaven. You're much more than that. You are the most unique being this planet has ever seen and I feel privileged to be your mother. I'm sure your dad feels the same way, too. He may not know it as well as me because in some ways he is too pragmatic, but when you fell overboard, he went into the waters after you and didn't care about the sharks. He was a half hour or more in the ocean before the crew fished him out, with sharks circling around, and he had to be handcuffed to prevent him from getting back in to find you. I was scared I would lose him. He is the best man and father you and I could ever wish for."

"I didn't know he came after me, Mom. Ivan told me he is a good man and he is his best friend."

"Ivan is a good man too, and when we asked him to help us with this crazy plot, he did not hesitate for a second. He loves you too, Leo. You are lucky he is your friend."

"I want to learn what he knows. I think he is very wise… Look, here we are. There is the cave and over there is the place we waved to Ivan." She looked around, they were in an area that was pretty much flat and even, with a good number of trees, and in comparison to the area they'd crossed to get here, it was almost like a meadow or a parkland setting. It was a beautiful area on a small ridge, elevated about three meters from the surrounding area, with many flowers and chest-high hibiscus bushes. A good breeze made it a pleasure to be here. When Helena was up here the first time, it hadn't been visible. Dense flowery vegetation fringed the plateau. This was the best place to set up a Polynesian style fare in the future, in case they decided to return one day.

"Perhaps we could look for the ledge we saw from the water, Leo. It was on the other side. Yes?"

"Yes, and I have an idea where it may be. Let's leave the backpacks here. Come with me."

They set down their packs and Helena followed Leo around some boulders, with the cone of the dead volcano to her right and the grotto on her left. She looked for a trail to the ledge also, but saw no indication of a path and relied on Leo's guidance. Leo progressed north and soon he found a crevice about three meters wide with the debris of tree trunks and rocks the size of small cars and a clear indication that water ran in this gully, at least when it rained hard. His keen hearing picked up the sound of running water, but he saw nothing, so he entered the crevice. When he'd made it to the bottom, he heard a gurgling sound, but still saw nothing. Projecting his thoughts at Helena forcefully to break through her ESP barrier, he called her. She still needed practice to ‘listen'. Finally, she ‘heard his ‘call', relaxed, and allowed the mental pressure to unfold into Leo's ‘invitation’. Slowly she was beginning to recognize the characteristic signs and symptoms of his telepathic callings and tuned into them easier now.

"I hear water running, but see nothing. Could you come down here and see if you can figure it out?" Helena joined him and after listening intensely she heard a faint sound that sounded indeed like water running through a tube. With a quizzical look on her face she looked around, removed some loose rocks and branches, and laid her head on the ground; the sound was louder now. "It must be underground," she vocalized to Leo and got up. "Let's find out if this leads anywhere."

With Leo in the lead, she followed the crevice that sloped down in a relatively steep descent, and after a few bends and turns, they heard the sound of the surf not far away, the walls of the gully reflected it as if they were in a long tube. Helena saw several fissures, some too narrow to enter, others wider; she would explore them later. A few more meters along, they saw the ocean glittering through a meter wide cut in the rocks. Continuing the exploration, they exited into the middle of an almost three meter wide ledge poised about six meters above the water.

To the right, the ledge ran along a wall for another thirteen meters, and then it narrowed into a very insubstantial protrusion. On the left the ledge widened to about five meters then recessed by about four meters, creating an alcove approximately five meters deep, three meters high and seven to eight meters wide, opening out toward the ocean. Flowering plants and vines hung from an overhanging huge slate that obscured the indentation. That was the reason why they didn't see the hollow indentation from the water before. Upon their appearance a mass of seabirds lifted off squawking, protesting their intrusion and Leo used his arms to swat them when they became too aggressive. His mother broke into laughter as the birds' dove and screeched at him, but in the end, Leo succeeded in driving them off.

The rock floor was covered with thick moss and a lot of twigs and branches, along with a great number of nests that they would relocate. The ground felt springy under their feet though it seemed to be solid rock. It would make a great place to rest and look out to sea without anybody seeing them, but not ideal for inhabitation for a longer period. Inside, the cave was almost free of detritus with the exception of the nests and they would have to clean the area, but the ledge was full of it. Too bad they couldn't climb the wall to get to this place; they could only get here by the way which they had come.

Above the indentation, a few bigger trees grew on apparently sheer rocks, but they looked strong and well rooted. A stream of water ran down the steep wall and disappeared in a fissure about a man's height above the high water mark. The ledge had plants growing on it; rocks were mixed in with fallen branches from trees, but there were no shells or anything that would witness saltwater ever having had come up this high. Leo looked at the wall and figured he could climb it from the water all the way up to the ledge, but for a human, it would be very hard, but not impossible. A breeze cooled Helena's face and strands of her hair fell over it.

"I have some ideas on how we could use this ledge other than for surveillance, Leo. Is it possible to contact Gábor or Ivan through the ‘mind-link?'" Her focused thought came clear through to Leo and Leo responded.

"If he is in a relaxed state of mind, it should be possible. He now knows about the possibility and once he's got the idea and had contact, it should be easier to "call" him." Leo turned his mind to Gábor and probed forcefully. He felt Gábor faintly, but he seemed occupied with the pending meeting with the Inspector. The contact was very weak and Leo could not penetrate Gábor's mind. He turned his probing toward Ivan and in an instant had Ivan. Ivan was thinking about Leo and they established contact without a problem.

"Hey. I was just thinking about you. How are you guys?" They realized the question was moot. He felt how they were through Leo. Gábor and he were in sight of Tahiti and saw the city of Papeete on the hills of the island.

"Can you see what we see?"

"As if I was there. Can you see what we see here?”

"Is this a Mind game? Of course. What's up, Kitty?"

"Lena wants to link with you and Gábor and show you what we've found. Can you rouse him?"

"Donne."

"Wow, it's a great view. If you'd looked around, I could see what you see, yes?" said Gábor following the link-up.

"Sure. It would be as if you were here yourselves. Mom could even convey her ideas to you this way. Enter my world," answered Leo. It almost sounded like a ribbing and Helena chuckled. As she looked around, Gábor and Ivan saw the scenery and the ideas forming in Helena's head through Leo's mind. Helena projected to Leo and Leo in turn to Gábor and Ivan; it all happened simultaneously and the link was crystal clear. The amazing thing for all of them was the ease and clarity of the communication. Once one knew the method, one only needed to empty one's mind of thoughts in order to receive the thoughts of others, and then transmit them out again instantaneously. In this case, with Leo as a "relay station" all three, including Leo, they were as one mind. What one saw or thought was in all of their minds and they felt like one expanded consciousness.

Their ideas mingled; one person's thoughts became the same as the others. Ideas and concepts did not need an explanation because no apparent separation of mind existed between them; misunderstanding or different interpretations of the same words would never occur. It was the perfect way to communicate. The weird thing to outsiders would have been the eerie sight of people standing around without talking, yet going into action knowing exactly what to do without any exchange of words.

After their conversation, they wanted to see if they could remain in a kind of lucid contact, still in the link, but in a way that allowed for privacy. Leo did not know if that was possible, and they realized Leo did not have all the answers to mind-link, a lot of this was still new to him too. In the past, he was able to "read" them, but when he tried to communicate with them, he found they were deaf and mute. He could hear them better when they focused and were clear, but most of the time, their minds were all over the place and they had a hard time holding a thought for more than a few minutes.

Helena had a thousand things on her mind, Leo knew that, and when she calmed down, her mind became easier to read, especially when she worked on something. She could be very clear, but so absorbed in her own thinking that she could not "hear" Leo. On the other hand, the yoga exercises she did were enabling her to be clearer, especially when she let go of daily concerns.

In the past Gábor was different. He focused on his work, solving problems, helping others to perform better, and he meditated regularly. It was easy for Leo to see his mind, but he was to "realistic" as he called it, so to consider such a thing as Mind-link went against the grain. At least he loved Leo like someone loves a pet, a dog perhaps, but it was love for a pet nonetheless. Only recently, he'd begun to open his mind to Leo and he now saw in him an intelligent being rather than an animal. Leo thought if he'd been just an animal, and not born to Lena, with Gábor as his father, Gábor would have just loved him in the same way as the other pets, but the fact that a human couple produced an animal-like being was too hard for him to accept, and Leo began to understand his father's predicament.

When Leo heard that he jumped into the water to save him, he began to see Gábor in a different light. Before that, he saw in Gábor a person he respected but did not really love. They never played or made an effort to talk as one would talk to a human. Leo felt tolerated more than wanted by Gábor; his acceptance of Leo was a tribute to Helena, but it did not come from a space of genuine love, he thought. Since he had found Leo on the Island after his accident, Leo felt a different mindset in Gábor. There was a genuine love and happiness in him for Leo and it made Leo hope for reconciliation with his father. Helena had told him about Gábor trying to save his life by going after him into the water. He would not risk his life for a pet in shark-infested waters. What had happened since he fell over the side with the black man and the time they had found him? He didn't know, but this affection for Leo had now surfaced. For sure, Gábor had made big progress toward Leo and Leo now made steps toward Gábor.

"Dad, Mom misses you and would like to take care of the hard drive. What's wrong with it? Her thinking is a bit confusing."

It was only a vague image he had from Helena and just wanted to get a little closer to Gábor, connecting. Suddenly the link became deserted, except for Ivan.

"What? Did I think something wrong?"

"Kitty. We need to talk." Ivan chuckled.

Leo noticed Helena looked red and embarrassed and Leo cut the link with Ivan.

"Did I say something wrong?" he repeated his question to his mother.

"How old are you in cat years Leo?"

"Well, let's see. If I heard it right when you and Dad were sitting and talking in the solarium about Bushi and Miko, you said they were about eighteen when in reality they were three. I'm bigger than they are, so if I presume half of that time would equate to me, which would make me about the same age as they are now, eighteen also. Why? What does that have to do with the hard drive?"

"Oh, I think it's about time to get you some books about the birds and the bees Leo."

"What? You make no sense, mom. Why birds and bees? What does a hard drive have to do with the birds and the bees?"

Irritated and embarrassed Helena retorted, "Have you got nothing better to do than asking a lot of weird questions, Leo?"

"Two questions are a lot?"

"Le-o!" His mother was exasperated, he knew that tone and shut up, letting her cool off.

"How do you feel about going back to the cache tomorrow and we can bring some more of our stuff here? Where would you like to spend the night? Up here or on the beach?"

"The beach."

"Okay, let's get the backpacks and move in."

Relieved that she didn't have to answer any awkward questions, she escaped from the ledge. Carefully, Leo probed her mind, but she guarded it well. The two returned to their stuff, circled the cave to the southern end, and went down to the beach. Their footprints were still there with no other prints so they put their bags in the sand and decided to get into the water. Since they had often been naked in the house when they were alone and were not shy or ashamed of their bodies and didn't think Leo had compunctions. Helena began to undress, but then she hesitated for a moment before she shrugged her shoulders and stepped out of her shorts.

She had to admit it was different knowing Leo was much more mature than they previously thought, but why change the custom now? Leo was her son, and he had no problem taking off his baggy pants he did not like anyway, so why should she feel shame? Was it because they talked about the birds and the bees and it flashed in her mind how stupid the sexual education was? People still considered sex dirty in many parts of the world and hid when making love as if it was a sin. Murder and atrocities shown on TV and in movies or video games promoting violence were fine, but shows of erotic content, with explicit sex scenes between people, was classified as pornography. One had to be nineteen in many parts of the world before drinking alcohol, but going to war and killing other humans, one only had to be eighteen.

Society called a public show of sexuality ‘perversion', but men went and paid money in "Titty Bars" to see on stage the "perversion" they condemned in public. Violent beatings and abuse in schools, orphanages, and foster homes were rampant. Gábor had clients that had suffered those kinds of treatments, yet authorities gave licenses to establishments that performed and sold services of that kind. Helena wasn't against nudity or prostitution, but hypocrisy she couldn't stand. People like to point fingers at others to deflect attention away from them and nudity became stuff for movies and sensationalism. It was okay when there was money in it. The exploitation of sexuality is big business, Helena thought, and that could almost take the fun out of sex. Leo was out toward the entrance of the cave and she observed him checking the height of the rocks above his head. It seemed to be a bit higher than she remembered and she came up to Leo.

"What do you think? How much lower will the tide go?" she thought.

"I don't know," replied Leo. "The computer may be able to tell us if we have the right program. Ivan had a program on his that predicted the tides anywhere in the world. It even had charts and maps of the world with all the pictures of them. He called it Google Earth."

"I think your Dad downloaded the charts and the tide tables on this computer. We can check it out tomorrow. I hope that the "guests" will be gone tomorrow and Dad and Ivan will be back. Let's swim back to the beach and find out what those two have accomplished with the gendarmerie."

The water was crystal clear, about five to seven meters deep with some corals, many rocks, and white sand on the bottom. Different sized fish were in the water, several types brilliant in colors, and Helena had the impression she was in her own private aquarium. The water was warm and swells rose and fell gently. She felt a bit of current also, but it was only surging. Leo wanted to stay a while longer in the water, it was much better than in Canada where one could die of exposure to cold temperatures within fifteen minutes. Helena got out, dried herself off in the sun, and then lay naked on the sand.

Not much of a breeze was in the cave and the sun was descending slowly over the edge of the cave when Leo came out of the water. Helena had her eyes closed, but when she felt a shadow on her, she opened her eyes and looked at Leo. His fur was about two centimeters long and the wetness allowed the outline of his body to be clearly visible. He had the body of a cat with some human elements. With a broad chest and flat belly, he resembled more that of a human than a large feline. However, for a human, his body was too long and seemed too wide in comparison. He had a strong back and heavy limbs extending into the forearm and the paws had short, but dexterous, wide fingers with claws that were hidden in sheath-like pockets. His face and jaws were half human, half lion and in some way, he was interesting to look at. Leo looked powerful. Lately, he had adopted the way of walking as a cat would; on all four limbs and he looked natural that way. He was a mixture of a human and a lion, yet his appearance was predominantly that of a lion. His narrow waist merged into very strong developed thighs with large feet and he walked on the ball of his feet when he walked upright.

Sitting, he looked just like a cat, and when he moved on all four legs, horizontally, he could easily be mistaken for one. His tail was about eighty centimeters long and looked like that of a lion. His testicles were visible and tight against his body; his genitalia, concealed in a pouch inside his body, were out of sight. His head resembled that of a male lion and nobody would suspect anything else at first glance. His whiskers were long now, and his eyebrows were developing nicely. He was still young looking, and as cats go, he was a great looking cat, and Helena felt like getting up to pet him, but something held her back. He was not a kitten anymore and he was humanoid to some degree. She wondered. Would he ever find a mate? Could he reproduce? He had reproductive organs, but who would want to mate with a being like him? Were there any others like him, a female perhaps? Would he ever know the pleasures of sexual intimacy? When would he mature sexually?

Helena could not relate to her own son; she didn't know anything about his needs, his pleasures, his feelings, or his pain. How did he feel about his condition? How long was his life expectancy, what were his dreams? What did he hope to achieve in his life?  Did he have any ambitions like humans or was he free of that compulsion? Confused and at a loss for answers and what to do, on an impulse she rose to her feet and embraced him, tears welling up in her eyes as happened frequently when she thought about him. Leo put his furry arms around her. The love of a mother to her child was not always full of joy but this moment it was.

He was a grown young being, alien in appearance, and her child. He deserved respect as any intelligent being would, that is, to be treated with love and dignity. She would always love him; she was his mother. Helena held him for a long time, then she let him go, and they went to the wall where there was a rock upon which they could sit down. Looking at her watch, she figured her husband would be facing the Inspector in Papeete.

"I think he will be talking with the inspector now. Can you try to contact your Dad?" Leo nodded and a few seconds later got Gábor. This time the connection was easy and instantaneous.