PoraBora

Chapter Fifty-Two

There was much to do on Ila'i, and not enough Navigators to do it. The Navigator of Events worked briskly to get everything ready to welcome Timoteo into his new role, shouting at everyone who was near enough to hear it.

He demanded that Miimikani help, to which she had responded that she was not the Navigator of Events. "You're the Navigator of the Landed, aren't you? Then bring me landed!"

Suddenly his job had the perfect assistant.

But Miimikani had enough on her own to worry about. The landed came to her hourly, to complain, to question, to talk. It seemed Miimikani was the only one who had time to listen.

U'ekeo would have, she thought. In a time like this. She wanted to believe he would have left his reef open even to the walking fish. That he hadn't before was only because of tradition. Because he would bend his stalk in any rolling swell that pushed.

That was him, she thought. That was who he was. Good intentioned, but spineless.

She remembered him standing up to Makaia. She remembered him trying to save Maye.

She remembered they all failed.

Miimikani sighed hugely at her desk, which Wehaeha had allowed her in the back rooms of the main hall. It shared walls with the offices of other Navigators, and she was pretty sure one of them was Wehaeha's. Which meant she kept voices low whenever someone came to her to complain.

"Are we really going to let the Akapuans stay here? Just like that?" had asked one of Kahule's landed.

What else could they do? The koa warriors were away, held hostage to prevent the people of Ila'i from doing anything. Just as the island was held hostage to control the koa.

"And the chief?" whispered a coconut farmer. "Death by sharks? How can we allow Makaia to take our own chief from us?"

They wouldn't.

They couldn't.

But Miimikani was not allowed those words when Wehaeha knocked on her coral lightly, smiling from the hall.

The landed looked over, startled, frozen, as if by sitting still the Navigator of Taipala would decide she wasn't alive.

"Yes?" asked Miimikani.

"I was only wondering if you had heard," said the man. "A couple of missing villagers have returned. They were out fishing."

Pe?

"I was hoping we could go see them together."

Miimikani excused herself, putting a comforting hand on the farmer's shoulder on the way out. "We'll do everything we can," she told her.

Even if it had to be her alone.

Wehaeha walked briskly. No doubt he was as busy as any of them. He had to be. The other Navigators didn't complain, except for Kunuhakoa and Tionia, who had been in Maye's cavern, and even they didn't complain in more than grumbles under their breath, but Miimikani knew the man had his hands as much in their work as they could be. It felt like Miimikani couldn't check on the villagers without the man showing up with his smile and his pleasantries.

It didn't make her job easier.

"And how are the landed doing today?" asked Wehaeha. They exited the main hall and headed south towards the docks.

It wasn't Pe, then, thought Miimikani. Pe wouldn't have landed here. She would have gone straight to Li'hili, unaware of what had transpired. Or would she know? Would someone on Upa'i'apu have heard? Would she even have stopped there?