Mana (11 page)

“The darkness slipped from Tupou's face. ‘Of course. Tupala will do that for me.'

“‘You must be cautious. O'onane does not know her own heart. Tell your sister to warn O'onane that your father, the chief, has selected her as bride to the greatest of his warriors and that she must no longer slip out of the woman's house at night. Now, if you will have your sister meet me tonight, I will tell her how to persuade O'onane to read the true message of her heart.'

“Tupou's frank and open face glowed. ‘If you can give Tupala the words to persuade O'onane to come willingly to me, then you will be able to ask your own price as reward.'

“That evening, even before the last pink of twilight had disappeared, Luelu waited nervously in the shade of an enormous kukui near the women's house. It wasn't until the eastern horizon began to silver with the light of the rising full moon that a tall, slender figure emerged.

“‘I come at my brother's behest,' Tupala said, looking at the face now fully illuminated in the moonlight.

“The two walked toward the beach as Luelu called upon all his gifts of speech to entrance the lovely Tupala. His words were convincing because he himself was convinced. Soon, they were laughing together. Still, Luelu never lost sight of his true quest.

“Amidst the whispers of lovers he discovered the old chief was indeed ready to pass along the power of his office to Tupou. That the date was set for the very last crescent of the moon, the time would be in the early evening after the last pink shade of twilight had faded, the dark moon had set, and when the evening star first appeared above the low hill behind the village. The place would be the chief's stone shelter, with no one else present but father and son.

“Luelu's mind raced. Tupou was becoming impatient, reminding Luelu of his promise. The stories Luelu fended him off with had to be carefully fashioned. And there were other plans to be made, and more to be learned in order to carry out those plans. His words to Tupala became sweeter and more seductive than ever. Intoxicated with the sounds of the husky voice, she knew only she wanted to be this handsome, loving stranger's bride, to go with him and to share in the love and homage of his people.

“Luelu gave her his unqualified promise, and also appeared to devote himself to fulfilling her brother's fondest dream. The scheme unfolded, and Luelu gave Tupala her instructions. O'onane would be told to go to the high cliff and wait there for Tupou early on the night of the ceremony. Luelu would himself guide Tupou to the spot, and afterwards would return to meet Tupala at the beach near their trysting place.

“On that day, Luelu took Tupou aside and told him O'onane would meet him, that the spot had been chosen. Tupou was unable to suppress his excitement, asking only what he could do in return for his benefactor. Luelu at first seemed unwilling to make a request, but finally said, “There is one small favor I would ask of you. Could I for one night only wear the whale-tooth ornament?” As he spoke, he pointed to the royal emblem hanging at Tupou's neck.

“With a smile, Tupou removed from his own neck the pig gut strung through the giant tooth and hung the badge of royalty about Luelu's neck. That night, as the skies darkened, Luelu waited along the path leading to the cliff. The first to come by was the impatient Tupou, striding swiftly along the trail. Moments later O'onane, staring disconsolately at her reluctant feet, followed the same path.

“Luelu stepped out of the surrounding brush. Even in the swiftly darkening night, the radiance of recognition shone in the young girl's face. Luelu assured her he had pined for her, that only the mad infatuation Tupala had showered on him, with all the threats of her royal position behind it, had kept Luelu from invading the women's house and spiriting O'onane away.

“Shocked though she was at the mere mention of such a terrible sacrilege, O'onane was too overwhelmed by the return of her handsome and loving Luelu to do anything but acquiesce to his wishes, and he made one known immediately. Would she, for him, keep Tupou on the cliff's summit until the morning light? ‘Tomorrow,' he continued, ‘I will ask the chief for a canoe and a crew of his warriors to take you and me back to my land. Now I truly know I have reached the end of my quest.'

“As he watched O'Onane's small form disappear into the dimness along the path, Luelu knew he had only one more rung to climb on the tall ladder. Quickly he turned and raced to the chief's stone shelter, arriving just as the evening star broke over the crest of the hill.

“‘Is that you, my son?' A feeble voice in the darkness, broken only by the light of a single string of burning candle-nuts, greeted him as he stepped through the door.

“Careful to speak in a low voice, Luelu answered, ‘Yes, father.'

“‘Come closer. My feeble eyes can only deceive me. My ears no longer can be trusted. Only my fingers still maintain some of the wisdom of their youth. Let me touch you.' The gnarled old hands moved up the muscular chest and found the whale-tooth ornament. ‘It is indeed you, Tupou. Tonight you become the chief of the Tongan people.'

Luelu listened well as he rehearsed and rehearsed the phrases pouring from the withered lips of the old chieftain, committing every word and nuance to memory. There followed the list of duties he would now assume, the demeanor he must cultivate to command the loyalty of his people, and finally the intricacies of this force he now possessed which would make him a person apart.

“The ceremony over, the old chief handed him the rod of state, saying, ‘Go now to the men's house. Awaken them, and warn them you now carry the sacred force that has guarded us since the ancients came to this island. Know now that no longer may anyone touch you with impunity. Go! Go!'

“Luelu could hardly believe the night had passed so quickly. The first pale color of the morning was showing when he emerged from the stone hut. Racing to the beach he found the patient Tupala still waiting, and far out at sea he could make out the Samoan canoe, the equally patient crew waiting for a signal from shore.

“‘Come, Tupala, he said. My warriors are coming to get me. If you wish to return to my country with me, you must come now. Bewildered by this sudden turn of events, torn between her love of her own people and her love for this stranger who promised so much and promised it so sweetly, Tupala took a last look back at the village of her childhood, then followed the beckoning form into the waves.

“Both were powerful swimmers, and the racing canoe, with its crew throwing their weight behind the paddles and the sail catching the first feeble breezes of the morning, moved swiftly toward them. Behind at the beach, however, Tongan warriors were racing even more swiftly to man their own sea craft. The couple reached their goal when it was but a long spear throw away from the war canoes.

“As the two clambered aboard, the giant Tongan who had challenged Luelu in the game of uma stood in the prow of his canoe and hurled his spear with enormous force. It arced through the air toward the fugitives, turned full circle before reaching its target and returned, burying itself in his chest. Tupala's eyes went from the toppling figure in the war canoe to the handsome form of Luelu taunting his pursuers, who now had stopped paddling as they sought to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade.

“The wind rose. The racing canoe tacked against it, rounding the high point of the land. The passengers turned to look at a small figure standing at the edge above them. Shading his eyes, Luelu recognized the form of O'onane. For a moment it hesitated, then it plunged down the face of the cliff into the rocks and breakers.”

* * *

Toa drew a breath, closed the folder and stared out of the screen. Lehua sat back in her chair. Watching Tessa, Lehua was certain the professor had been just as captivated as she was by the story.

Tessa broke the ensuing silence. “My impression has always been that mana existed concurrently among various peoples in the Pacific. The legends you read imply it was an indivisible force.”

“If you think about it,” Toa replied, “you'll realize what benefits a chief would derive from having his enemies—and his own people—believe he possessed mana, whether he did or not. It's certainly possible that many of the chiefs claimed to have mana while not actually having it.”

“Is there any hint of mana in the rest of the documents?” Tessa asked when she had fully recovered from the power of the narration.

“Fragments only.” Now that the tales were over, Toa seemed to be returning to his earlier taciturnity.

“Was there anything significant in the fragments?”

Toa shrugged. “There was some additional mention in the Spaniard's notebooks. Substantially, it said one day the mana will go back to a woman.”

“And?”

“After her, it will return to its primordial self and will no longer be dependent on a human intermediary.”

Chapter 12

It seemed almost dark in the studio after the cameraman turned off the bright spotlight. Lehua was the first to speak following the break in the connection. “Did we learn anything?” Her face bore a wan smile as she asked the question.

Tessa shrugged. “I'm not really sure. I'll have to go over the tape. There's a lot there, but I'm not sure it's relevant to your problem. There is one thing though. I think Cy was right. Toa does seem to believe in mana.”

Lehua's smile deepened and broadened. “I'm sure he does. The funny part is it made me think he was some kind of a kook for giving any credence to that sort of thing. Can you believe my thinking apparatus could be so skewed?”

“I know it isn't easy to accept what's happened. We're raised in a world where science explains everything, and here we're faced with something we can't explain that way.” Tessa paused. “Maybe we have to look closer at the legends Toa read to us.”

“Do you think there's any truth to them?”

“I think Toa thinks there is, and we know he's right about the existence of mana.”

The cameraman had rolled up the last cable, moved the camera back to the wall, given a tape of the conference to Tessa, and was waiting expectantly at the studio door. Tessa and Lehua left, still engrossed in conversation.

“There's a limit to what I'm going to believe,” Lehua said, “even in my present condition.”

“I'm not saying you have to accept the legends, whole cloth. It's just that we know there are grains of truth in them, even though those grains are buried under a lot of standard mythological characteristics. If we can extract some of the wheat from the chaff, it might help.”

“There's too much missing. For example, did the old Tongan chief lose his mana when he passed it on to that Samoan con artist? Did the mother figure in the first legend lose it when she passed it along to her son? Is passing it on the only way to lose it? Did mana prevent her from even friendly contact with others? And what about sex? Those are the important questions, as far as I'm concerned, and I see no answers in the legends. I most certainly didn't see anything there that would help me to get rid of mana.”

By the time they had reached their cars in the University parking lot, little of Lehua's gloom had lifted, but Tessa promised to keep working on the problem.

* * *

Under other circumstances, the message waiting for her on her recording machine would have been a welcome one. Now, it merely added to her problems. Bill's voice announced he was on his way home. Looking up at the clock, Lehua saw she had just over twenty-four hours to decide how to deal with a new crisis. After checking to make sure there were no other messages, she dialed police headquarters and finally managed to get through to Millie.

“Hi, Lehua. What's up?”

“Bill's on his way home.”

“Oh, oh! When's he getting in?”

“Tomorrow, on the twelve-twenty from Honolulu.”

“OK. I'll be there for sure. Any idea how we should handle it?”

“All I know is I'm desperate.”

“Have you tried to explain any of this to him?”

“I've told him virtually nothing about what's happened. He prides himself on being a hard-nosed scientist. He's going to dismiss all this as rank superstition and, if I insist, he'll want me to go to a psychiatrist.”

“I can sympathize with him. I wouldn't have believed in mana either, if I hadn't seen it in action.”

The final decision Lehua and Millie arrived at was a deferral of decisions until the plane's arrival time.

* * *

Lehua waited impatiently outside the entrance leading to the gates. Millie had gone in as soon as Bill's plane taxied up, while Lehua had moved well out of the traffic flow. The mix of emotions as she watched Bill and Millie emerge through the arrival gate was almost more than she could handle, wanting terribly to have him hold her, terrified he would, happy to once more see that familiar face, horrified at the dark suspicion shrouding its features as Millie gesticulated and pleaded. Lehua shrank back against the stone wall separating the passenger approach walk from the landing area.

“What in hell's going on?” Bill was making no attempt to hide his frustration and anger.

Millie tried to intervene, but he brushed her off. Lehua said, “Please, Bill. I know this is all really confusing. Millie will take us to my apartment, and I'll tell you the whole story there.

Dropping his luggage into the trunk of Millie's car, his face still a thundercloud, Bill sat up front with the sergeant. An uncomfortable silence marked the short ride to the apartment. When they had settled down in the small living room, Bill in a chair beside a coffee table strewn with books and papers, Lehua on a floor cushion, he finally managed a sarcastic, “Well?”

Lehua took a deep breath, while Millie went off to the kitchen to put on coffee.

The story unfolded. Hesitant at first, watching closely for a glimmer of belief in Bill's eyes, Lehua thought it best at the outset of her story to avoid mention of the recorder and its message. Instead she began with the first evening at the newspaper. Bill's face reflected his horror as Lehua told about the rape attempt. Turning to Millie for confirmation as she came in with the cups and coffee, Bill looked more baffled than dubious at her energetic nods of agreement with Lehua's narrative.

Lehua swiftly described Tessa's skepticism and her quick change of mind brought about by the pen tossing incident, then told him about the acid thrower and his fate. Bill kept shaking his head in disbelief as Lehua detailed Millie's even deeper skepticism and the dramatic circumstances leading to her conversion. But it wasn't until he heard the tragic news about Carlo that Bill broke his silence.

“Carlo! Who in hell did that?” Disbelief, anger and shock mingled in his voice.

The name of Phil Cheng brought even greater disbelief than before. “Am I going crazy, Millie?” Bill asked, turning to the police sergeant.

“It's all true, Bill. There's witness after witness to describe what happened. Everyone has their own explanation, but the facts are pretty clear, and I've been there to see some of it myself. Phil Cheng was Number One. Now he's dead, along with four of his mobsters.”

“You two are just talking black magic.”

“Would it help if we called Tessa and had her give you her version?” Lehua asked in desperation.

“Mass hysteria,” Bill muttered. Then, looking fiercely at Lehua, he asked, “Are you trying to tell me if I so much as touch you I'm going to be knocked across the room?”

“I wish I knew for sure what would happen if you did,” Lehua answered. “The force seems to be getting more and more irritable and more and more unpredictable. Since you left, no one has even brushed against me.” Suddenly she broke into a weak laugh. “Except for a mosquito, early on.”

“What does Sam Silva say?”

Millie was the one who answered. “We haven't told him what we told you, so he's completely baffled. He has firsthand knowledge of what's been happening. He's seen the shape of the bodies…

“So why haven't you told him?” Bill interrupted.

“We've never told him the truth because he'd probably try to have us locked up. But, believe me, he's having a tough time coming up with an explanation of his own. That reminds me.” Millie started off to the kitchen with her empty cup. “I'd better get back to work.”

After Millie left, Bill kept throwing question after question at Lehua. “Who have you convinced besides Tessa and Millie?”

“Bill! Please don't use that tone! I haven't convinced anyone. It's the mana that has. You heard what happened on Campus. Millie knows no bullet could have stopped that car. Certainly no bullet could have wrecked it the way it got wrecked.”

“What convinced Tessa?”

“I told you. I asked her to throw me a pen. That was before I realized how dangerous this force could be even to something as innocuous as that.”

“Tell me again what happened?”

“It never reached me. It just got batted aside.”

Before Lehua could stop him, before she had even become fully aware of what he intended to do, Bill had crumpled up a sheet of paper he had picked up from the coffee table and tossed it toward her. The wad stopped abruptly in mid air and slammed back against Bill's forehead, the blow upending him and his chair. Lehua stifled a scream, jumped up and then stood helplessly by as Bill, his nose bloodied, and a lump already rising on his forehead, rolled out of the upset chair and struggled to his feet.

Relief at seeing he was relatively unhurt was almost instantly replaced by an all-consuming anger at what he had done. “Damn you, Bill Wu! You could have been killed.” Dashing into the kitchen, Lehua returned with some paper towels. Gingerly, Bill took them from her and used them to replace the bloody handkerchief he had used in an unsuccessful attempt to staunch the flow.

The words she heaped on him helped her to control her own trembling. “You and that damn science of yours. Well, do something with that!” She nodded at his streaming nose and battered forehead.

Ruefully, holding the towels to his nose and rubbing the bruise on his forehead, Bill said, “Science isn't a thing. It's a method. It's a way of dealing even with this.” He waved the mass of reddened paper towels and a sudden gush of blood made him quickly return it to his nose.

For the first time in almost a week, Lehua broke into a wholehearted laugh. “OK,” she said, “Let's see you and science deal with this.”

Bill gave an answering laugh, saying, “I will. Just give me a chance to clean up, then we'll bring the best efforts of science to bear on this problem.”

* * *

The sizable welt on Bill's forehead was turning various shades of purple, but his nose had stopped bleeding, and he had found one of his old shirts in Lehua's closet to replace the splattered one he had taken off. Lehua eyed him across the dining room table where they had settled down. She decided he was once more looking quite presentable, and perhaps more than that. Thinking back to the first legend Toa had read, she remembered Tamai had had many children after acquiring mana. Apparently, adjustments could be made. Speculating about the possibilities made Bill that much more attractive.

In the meantime, Bill was far too entranced with a problem needing solution to read Lehua's thoughts. With a paper and pen in front of him he said. “Let's start at the beginning. How do you think you got this …this mana.”

“I played the tape after you left. I sat and listened to it, rewound it and listened again. Then I ran it through a third time. I'm convinced it was the repetition that did it.”

“Fits. Annie said it once and there was no effect. If I remember right, she even refused to repeat it.”

“That's right.”

“You say you played it three times?” Bill started to scratch out some notes.

Lehua nodded.

“Did you have the board here when you played it?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever it is, I think it's the sounds that make the difference. I doubt there's anything special about the board, or the recorder. Annie not wanting to repeat the words is significant.” Bill pondered for a moment, then added, “I agree with you. It's the repetition that makes the difference.”

Lehua nodded. “Yeah. Annie not wanting to repeat what she said is what convinces me the repetition is what did it.” Lehua smiled at Bill's intensity as he scowled at his notes. “Don't you wish you could chip something off with a hammer and put it into a test tube?” she asked. “How does this incantation fit in with your science?”

Bill looked up and smiled back at her. “Poor Lehua. You're still living back in the Dark Ages. Words and other symbols are as much a part of scientific inquiry as atoms and molecules. We've got computers right now that will do incredible things in response to voice commands. Look at the wild stuff we're doing now—things like virtual reality, for instance. What we have to do is to examine all this, one step at a time. First, we know that somehow this—whatever it is—got transferred to you.”

“So far, we agree. And it is called mana.”

Bill continued, as though merely speaking his thoughts aloud. “On the other hand, maybe it wasn't a simple transfer. It could have been a nondestructive readout.”

Exasperation showed in Lehua's question. “Just what does that mean?”

“You know. It just reduplicated itself, like DNA.”

“No, I don't know. But if you mean it's in me and also out there somewhere, then maybe I can't get rid of it. Maybe I'll be a Typhoid Mary. I'll just carry it around and spread it.”

Bill picked up the note of desperation behind Lehua's show of humor. He started to reach for her, and she shrank back, saying, “Say what you will, this still comes a lot closer to Merlin than to Einstein. In fact, about the only leads Tessa and I have gotten so far have come from legends.”

“Legends?”

Lehua proceeded to give Bill a quick summary of the conference with Toa.

“OK. I'll go along with that. Legends get badly garbled as they're passed down from generation to generation, but there can be grains of truth in them, and at least these got written down along the way. You say Tessa has a tape of the telecast?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” Bill made a note. “We'll borrow a copy and go over it. Scientists never ignore anything that might possibly be relevant.”

The phone interrupted their discussion. Lehua depressed the speaker button the moment she recognized Tessa's voice. “Bill's here,” Lehua said.

Bill looked up and shouted a “Hi” across the room.

“Hi, Bill. How much has Lehua told you…and how much do you believe?”

Bill broke into a grin and passed his hand across his bruised forehead. “She's told me a lot, and I'm now a believer.”