Chapter 3: 1971.
Eleven year old Danielle Colebourne breathed slowly as she rested quietly, elbows and knees on the sandy ground, studying the beautiful but deadly creature who sat, doubtless well aware of her presence but largely unconcerned, only a few meters away for a long moment through her viewfinder. Her finger found the trigger and pressed. There was a flash of bright light...
...and the gentle whir of a motor that lasted about a second as the creature darted away towards elsewhere. She turned towards her watchful mother, whose approval of the "good job" was clear. More bubbles than usual came from her mouthpiece as she giggled when mom scratched her head. The older woman tapped her wristwatch and pointed a thumb up towards the large sailboat which was the family's home, and the two divers slowly finned up towards it.
The Ni–a was seaworthy enough for cruising the Antilles, and with some attention maybe for crossing an ocean or two, but not too nicely kept. There were surfboards and a kayak or two lashed to the deck, and many interior spaces were cluttered with diving equipment and camera gear of every description, along with various artifacts and preserved specimens. There was one cubicle, relatively tidy, kept as a sort of office, with a boxful of recent newspapers and magazines, a Philips shortwave receiver, a cassette tape recorder, and a small Royal manual typewriter in an open case. Jack Colebourne had finished preparing some sandwiches when the girls emerged from the water.
"Danni got the shot!" Tina declared as they ungeared and toweled off.
"She did?" asked Jack. "Congratulations! We'll have to see what develops."
"I think it's gonna turn out good because I did everything you and Mom told me about taking pictures underwater," Danni beamed as she grabbed a soda out of the cooler. "That'll be one cool shark picture. I think it could get into a 'cyclopaedia or somethin'."
-.-.-.-
Some time later, Danni got into one of her pensive moods, as she often found herself getting in lately. She talked to her parents as the family of three rested under large umbrellas on the deck.
"I love the ocean, but I miss living on the land. I don't think I could ride a bicycle to save my life. I miss having friends. Like Lara and Susie..."
"Honey, very few people your age can do the things you know how to do. You cook the best breakfasts, you can swim fifty feet down without air, you surf big waves by yourself, you can rebuild a motor, you can fix a regulator, you drive the boat, you did an operation on Dad when he had a really bad cut and made him all better. Anyway, Lara had to go away to school. And Susie... Susie can't spend a lot of time with us. Her dad," replied Tina in a whisper, "works for the United States Government."
Jack, war veteran, policy critic, and underground social commentator alerted anyway, and launched into a polemic. "Land is the province of government. Government is not so much an organization as it is a concept, a force, almost a disease. Like any powerful drug, its abuse has disastrous consequences, and its use 'as directed' has harmful side effects. That stupid war does nothing to protect us. The lessons we learned in Korea...hmph! The Japanese couldn't stop it; the French couldn't stop it..."
Tina tried to make the whole thing a little more understandable. "No one has the moral right to take an innocent person--like me, like you, like your father--into custody and make them do things that they don't want to do, or aren't capable of doing, especially if it's to make them hurt and kill people who haven't threatened them or their own country. There are men working for the government on the land who want to catch and punish your father and others who think like he does..."
"Daddy is a good man. Why would they want to catch him?"
"...Because the way he wants to live and the ideas he talks and writes about are a threat to the way the government seeks to maintain its power. The government always wants to become more powerful, but the laziest way to make that happen--instead of doing easy and good things like making sure everyone always has food to eat and clean drinking water and a house to live in and the ability to see a doctor and get medicine when you get sick--is to make it so there's always something to be frightened of: people in another country, people of another religion, and, if all else fails them, even your own neighbors."
"Gee. Things must really be screwed up out there," Danni observed.
"Ain't that the truth, princess," responded Jack. "Tell ya what. Things are gonna change. They have to. When everybody in the Beltway gets back to their senses, and we can spend enough time tied up to a big enough rock, your old man's gonna learn ya how to ride a motorcycle!"