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know it, but you have to admit, what’s happened to us is quite fantastic, and difficult to explain.”
    He nodded somberly.
    “We still haven’t figured out how to contact the people on our list,” Alicia said, “or what to say to them to keep from sounding like kooks.”
    She noticed that some of the sea creatures Kimo had been leading were gathered just offshore now, along with a number of smaller, colorful species, as if guarding him, and perhaps Alicia as well.
    “We don’t need the old man’s money to travel across the world,” he said, presently. “We’ll use jetfish—long, sleek creatures that can amalgamate and form an oxygen-rich enclosure for us to ride inside—a pod to transport us far away, at very high speeds. We’ll collect volunteers and bring them back the same way. Conventional transport would have been more comfortable and less disturbing to recruits, but we needed your grandfather’s help for that. Don’t worry, though, this will still work.”
    “Jetfish? You haven’t mentioned them to me before.”
    He laughed. “In the short time we’ve known each other, do you really think I could possibly have provided you with a catalogue of everything in my experience? The seas are vast, and even I know only a small part of what there is to know about them. It’s only in the past few years that I’ve discovered bubblefish and jetfish, and a number of other extremely unusual species. Even some species thought to be extinct are still swimming in the ocean.”
    “I see,” she said, feeling chagrined. And she thought of the fish that had encased her in a bubble and taken her deep in the ocean to visit Moanna for the first time—something Kimo had called a “bubble tube”. Now she asked him if the jetfish pod was like that.
    “Exactly the same, but totally different,” he said with an impish smile. “Jetfish do not dive deep, and bubblefish do not go fast.”
    Alicia nodded. “But are we going to go see everyone on the list unannounced and try to make our case to them—proving we have gills and can swim underwater without external breathing gear? Also, some of the potential recruits are not near the ocean, so we’ll need to go overland to get to them.”
    “Maybe there’s a good way to get the word out in advance, calling for any interested volunteers to make themselves accessible for pickup at designated places on the seashore. My mother and father have thousands of cousins in the islands, and even though I’m adopted, they’ve become my cousins, too. One of them, Jimmy Waimea, operates a newspaper in Honolulu and teaches journalism at a local high school.”
    “He could help us?”
    “I took the liberty of phoning him to discuss the situation, and he’s very interested, though he made no promises. He wants to meet with us personally to verify our special powers, and he wants to see our list of names. It’s another reason I had you bring it with you. We could go see him today.”
    “All right.”
    “I must inform you, though, that your grandfather dislikes Jimmy and once tried, unsuccessfully, to put him out of business.”
    “That’s all right,” she said. “Do you think he could publicize our recruitment campaign, and give us some credibility?”
    “Possibly, without us having to prove ourselves to each potential volunteer. We can just prove ourselves to Cousin Jimmy, get him to write a story that is transmitted around the world, and then go pick up the recruits.”
    “With publicity, we could even receive donations,” she said.
    “True, but that would take time, and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that we should travel across the world in our own high-speed jetfish pod, without the aid of money, which really is an artificial, human concoction, isn’t it? Something we’re trying to get away from.”
    “You’re right, but what about food for all the passengers we pick up, and toilets, and details like that? What about places to sleep? Will it be