“The Gifted Ones didn’t send for them. They came looking for the truth about Amelia Earhart.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. But it’s only a matter of time before they realize the truth about this place… people will flock from all around the world to come here.”
“I know.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I would discuss it with the council, but we would be looking for our independence.”
The Caretaker’s eyes narrowed. “You think that was wise?”
She met his gaze with defiance. “It’s time we start developing our own allies from the outside.”
The Caretaker nodded. “You’re certain you can trust him?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Let’s see where this takes us.” The man paused, taking it all in. “Did you tell him the truth about your past?”
She shook her head. “No. It would be too much. It would change the negotiations completely. Then we really would have the world coming down here, searching for the one resource more valuable than gold.”
The Caretaker squeezed her hand. “You made the right choice, Amelia.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Moken people, who live in the Mergui Archipelago — some eight hundred tiny islands scattered across nearly three hundred miles of Andaman Sea off the coast of Thailand and Myanmar — have lived as nomadic seafarers for more than four thousand years, since their migration from southern China in 2000 BC.
The ancient hunter gatherers spend nearly their entire lives out at sea, living on small wooden hand dugout boats called kabangs, only ever coming to shore to make repairs and to gather sea shells for cooking, pandanus leaves for their sails, or to take refuge from the most severe monsoon. Throughout the course of the year, they tie their boats together to form a flotilla — a living community out at sea to which dozens of families may belong.
The only possessions they desire are their boats and a few simple seafood-gathering tools. They share everything they have, even with strangers, a custom based on the belief that the sea is bountiful and there is enough for all. They show virtually no signs of materialism or greed. They don’t save; they don’t want possessions because carrying a lot of things only slows them down. They catch only what they need for the day and never use nets. They don’t try to make large catches and never sell what they’ve caught. Any excess is shared with family, friends, strangers, and their community. Individuals are happy if their community is doing well and sad when their community struggles.
This type of egalitarian lifestyle has led to the interesting development of their unique Moken language, which doesn’t have any Moken equivalence for common Western words such as, when, take, worry, want, hello, or goodbye.
Katale smiled, his big white teeth shining bright against the backdrop of his dark, suntanned skin. His eyes were large, and doe-like, giving him a more youthful appearance, despite his lean and muscular body. At twelve years of age, he was still little more than a boy, but he fished like a man, and could dive better than those many years older than him.
The fishing had been poor today.
Something had gotten the fish spooked. It happened. Sometimes it indicated a sudden change in weather, a great storm was coming, or that there had been a submarine earthquake. Sometimes it portended a great disaster, like in 2004 when the great sea spirit came to the shore of the islands and ate thousands of people. Katale wasn’t alive then, but he’d heard about the story, about how his people had known of the upcoming disaster and warned many people, saving many lives throughout the archipelago.
It didn’t feel like any of that today.
There was something else entirely different happening. There was a disturbance in the sea and things were about to changer forever.
And that made him happy.
Because he wasn’t the only one who would be curious.
The crayfish would have sensed the change as well as he did, and they had left the safety of the reef.
And that’s why he was smiling. Because he would find the biggest one and bring it back to his father. Tonight, their family would feast on crayfish.
He sailed his kabang at a fast pace, riding a gentle, but firm, southerly wind.
Katale was proud of his kabang.
Boat building was a skill passed down through the generations from father to son. This was his second one, and by far the best in the Andaman Sea. It was carved hollow from a single, old-growth log, then hauled to the beach, where the hull and roof were painstakingly built during the last monsoon season.
It had taken him nearly four months to build.
His boat was traditional. It was painted black and had curved notches in the bow and stern to symbolize a mouth and an anus, representing that the ship is a living, breathing entity that eats the sea. Most modern kabang had motors. But his father didn’t believe in them, instead, recommending that he should power the ship with traditional oars and sails made of pandanus leaves. Being lighter than those with slow diesel motors, his kabang could move nearly a full two knots faster than those which had succumbed to some of the more modern technologies.
Running with the wind was like sailing in a dream. His large single square sail, made of woven pandanus, was fully open. Because the boat was being drawn by the movement of the air, it felt calming, with the sensation of very little wind — yet there was plenty of movement.
He reached the outer reef by the time the sun was two-thirds of its way through its cycle overhead. Katale furled the single sail, and dropped an anchor made of a large stone tied to rope.
Katale didn’t wait to check that his kabang was secure. He instinctively knew that the anchor had bitten the sand below. He took a couple deep breaths and dived off the boat, into the turquoise waters.
The lives of the Moken people have been entwined with the sea for so many years that they have become amphibious creatures, as comfortable in the sea as they were out of the water. Their children learned to swim before they ever learned to walk. Their eyes could see twice as well underwater as their Western counterparts, allowing them to focus on and pick out small shellfish and other sea life from the rocky ocean floor that would otherwise be just a blur. The human eye was adapted to function optimally in air and its focusing capability deteriorates underwater. That's why we need goggles to see clearly while swimming, but Moken children are able to constrict their pupils, thereby producing sharper images.
At twelve years of age, Katale was probably the best free diver from his flotilla.
He opened his eyes and swam deep into the crystal-clear waters. He swallowed to equalize the pressure in his ears and dived quickly. At forty feet, he reached the bottom of the outer reef, where the crayfish could normally be found. He ducked down, so that he could see beneath the shallow overhanging reef.
Nothing.
No fish swimming and no crayfish hiding.
He turned, and kept swimming along the bottom of the reef, his eyes constantly scanning for signs of sea life.
Nearly two minutes went by and he turned to make his way to the surface for air.
But something stopped him.
Out the corner of his eyes, he spotted something. It was in the sandy seabed another twenty feet deeper, and it was flickering in response to the rays of the sun. It looked like the gold the visitors to the islands from lands far away used to wear. The stuff they seemed to covet more than any other material. He didn’t care for its appearance, but he knew the value of gold. It could be used to entice fish, making it a great fishing tool.
His curiosity piqued, and Katale swam deeper toward the seabed.