Nani

“Nani!”

The young woman was startled awake. Through half-open eyes, she saw Kawika, the facility’s custodian. She sensed that something was very wrong.

“What’s up?”

“Come!”

“Why?”

“Just come! Grab your Go bag!” His agitated tone made it clear that resistance was futile.

As she leapt out of her bunk, her hand moved reflexively to the heart-shaped locket around her neck. She didn’t have any rational fear that it wouldn’t be there since it was held there by a chain made of Hawkinsium, the strongest metal on Earth. Or what was left of it.

Kawika ran out of the room, confirming extreme urgency. His words about the Go bag eliminated any doubt that might crop up in her mind. She grabbed the bag and followed him down halls, up steps, down steps, around corners until they arrived at the helo deck. He was holding the door of the craft open, waving his arms frantically at her to hurry. She dove into the craft as he shut the hatch. The craft immediately started lifting, before the hatch was secured.

As she gathered herself, she looked up and saw Kimo, the third associate director of the Tropical Plants Division, her boss, and uncle. Seated behind him was Polunu, a computer savant she knew, and two seed technicians she had seen but did not know.

Kimo motioned for her to get in her seat. She did and buckled in just as the craft exited through the roof of the facility and shot forward, slamming her against her seat.

During the ninety-minute flight over the north pole, Kimo filled her in. He was more inclusive than he needed to be. He began with the nuclear exchange 16 years before, as if she wasn’t aware of that. He briefly told her the history of the seed bank in Svalbard, the only real home she had ever known. He explained that her parents had been travelling when the exchange occurred, so they were lost, as was most of humanity. He spoke of the food wars that began a few years later and wiped out most of the rest of the humans. He got a bit emotional when he spoke of her tutu kane (grandpa) who had approached the men who ran the seed bank and persuaded them that mankind needed to save more than just food crop seeds. Tutu was aware that those men believed that nonfood plants had no intrinsic value. He knew different. So, he paid out of his own pocket to have an entirely new, underground secret annex added to the facility for one purpose: to preserve species of plants from Polynesia, especially the Hawaiian Islands. He talked about how her tutu was affiliated with the National Tropical Botanical Garden and how they had offered some of their land on the north shore of Kauai to preserve these plants in the event of… well, what had actually come to pass. That organization existed to preserve rare and endangered plants, and it only seemed fitting to them that the plants should be preserved beyond Armageddon, at least a secular one. He went on to explain that the five men on the craft with her, including himself, were all native Kauaians, just like her mother and father. That was part of the plan. It was also part of the plan that they would travel to Kauai when the nuclear winter had ebbed, a part which was unexpectedly expedited due to the vandals who had discovered and breached their secret lair.

The reasons Kauai was chosen were that it was approximately 2500 miles from either of the land masses that were lobbing ICBMs at each other, tropical warmth, dirt that was likely uncontaminated, reliable trade winds to keep the soot and radiation away, and a ready source of fresh water from Mt. Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth.

About the time he finished his talk, she noted the craft was slowing and descending. She looked out the window and recognized Makana and Hanalei Bay from the holograms her parents had frequently shown to her, even though there was no longer any vegetation at all. Kimo told her to stay in the craft while they reconnoitered. Off of her puzzled look, he said, “We don’t know if there are people here, and if there are, whether they might be hostile.”

She was scared. “What are you gonna do?”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, your tutu thought of that too.”

He and the other men all got up and headed for the exit. All of them had weapons. She watched as they exited and then continued following them out her window. She noticed one of the men was carrying a Go bag. They slowly walked up the beach toward the palm trees. They fanned out and the man with the bag knelt and unzipped the bag. He pulled out ulu (breadfruit). He stacked them on the sand. She remembered the ulu tree that they had cultivated at the facility. She realized that someone’s Go bag had something other than cosmetics and apparel like hers.

The men slowly backed toward the craft. After they entered, they secured the hatch and with a touch of a single button, all of the windows became opaque.

Kimo looked at her, smiled and said, “Ulu, the universal language in Polynesia.”

In the morning, Kimo woke her up gently. He asked if she wanted to go for a walk. After she oriented herself, she readily agreed.

He said, “I think we’re gonna make some friends.”

“How do you know there are people here?”

“The ulu is gone.”

“How do you know it wasn’t eaten by some animals?”

“It wasn’t animals.”

“How do you know?”

“Animals would’ve eaten it in situ, not carried all of it away. Only humans would’ve carried it away from the beach.” Seeing the realization in her eyes, he said, “C’mon!”

When they exited the craft, she was surprised to see nine men standing at the tree line. They had some paint on their bodies and were wearing kapa (barkcloth). She knew instinctively they were Kauaian. They had long sticks and other elementary weapons.

One of the seed technicians moved ahead of Nani and the others, all of whom had left their weapons on the craft. He spoke to the men in fluent Hawaiian. The men seemed astonished that he spoke their tongue. The putative leader hesitantly responded. The two men exchanged some more words. Kimo stepped forward. He too spoke flawless Hawaiian. Nani could understand a few of the words but had no idea what they were discussing. She noticed Kimo pointing toward Makana, the sacred mountain on the northwest corner of the island, a few times as he spoke. After an awkward pause during which neither man spoke, Kimo motioned for Nani to come to him.

As she got to him, he took her locket in his hand gently and spoke very animatedly toward the leader. The eyes of all of the natives got large as he mentioned several plants that she recognized the Hawaiian names of, including passionfruit (lilikoi), jackfruit, kiawe, coconuts, lotus, brighamia insignis (alula or olulu). She noticed a few tears on several of the men. The leader seemed skeptical. Kimo then loudly said “kalo (taro)”. The leader’s eyes widened even more. With tears flowing freely, he just nodded his head toward Kimo. All of the natives then disappeared into the trees.

Nani watched them go and then looked at her uncle, who was beaming broadly.

“What the hell?”, she inquired.

“There’s more for you to know.”

“I’ll say…”

Kimo sat in the sand and invited Nani to do the same. She complied.

He spoke softly, “First of all, he told us there are others. They survived the past sixteen years on what they gathered from the sea. All of the vegetation disappeared years ago, which we suspected, since it has from the rest of the Earth.”

“My father, your tutu, was a great man. He saw this coming in ways no one else did. He then spent the rest of his life planning for this day. During the years NTBG was supplying seeds to the seed bank, he had simultaneously planned for their subsequent return to their home, here on Kauai. When these islands were formed six million years ago, all plants had to come from across the ocean. Your tutu anticipated the plants’ return to Kauai from across the ocean again by digging out several caves on NTBG land in Limahuli valley at the base of Makana. It was an obvious landmark. In the caves, hopefully we will find the supplies that he cached: food, a 3D printer to print out habitations, greenhouses, tools, everything we need to cultivate every single plant that grew on the Hawaiian Islands when the bombs started falling.”

“The biggest unknown in my father’s plan was the uncertainty of whether the trade winds would survive the devastation. If they had not, there was little chance we, or anything, could survive here. When we landed yesterday, the first thing I did was look to the palms. They were dancing in the wind, so I knew we are going to be okay.”

He paused to give her a chance to take it in, and maybe ask a question.

Nani was silent for several minutes. She had the sense of drinking out of a firehose with all that she had been hit with in the past 24 hours.

She then asked what she thought was the obvious question, “So, where do we get the plants?”

Her uncle just smiled.

Impatiently, she demanded, “Well?!?!”

He reached to her and cupped her locket in his hands tenderly.

Nani was confused. “I don’t understand.”

“You remember the first project you worked on when you came to live at the seed bank with your parents?”

“Of course. Miniaturization of the seeds. To save storage space.”

“Yes. When your tutu learned of that technology, he incorporated it into his plan.”

Nani just looked dumbfounded.

“May I?” Kimo asked.

Nani responded sarcastically, “Yeaaah!”

He reached behind her neck and loosened a latch that she didn’t know was there. He opened the locket to expose the picture of her mother and father. He turned it toward her and smiled.

She looked at the picture and then at her uncle, clearly not understanding his implication.

He took one of her hands tenderly and while holding the picture of her parents right in front of her, said, “Nani, attached to the back of this photograph, using that miniaturization process that you used on so many other species of plants, is a seed of every single species of plant that was thriving on these islands before the world changed. You’ve been taught the propagation of these tropical plants for a reason. You are going to bring them back. Your tutu even included the DNA of pigs, so if there were any Kauaians left, they could have a luau. He wanted the ancient ways to survive.”

She smiled through tears.

“Tutu wanted you to be The One. He knew that plants mean so much more than just food. And he knew that with your name, you were the one to honor your mom and dad, and the rest of our people. And bring nani back to mankind.”

She put her face in her hands, missing her parents. And her tutu, who she only had distant memories of.

After a few minutes of quiet sobbing, realizing the unexpected responsibility, she looked at her uncle and said, “So, let’s get busy!”

He smiled and told her that they had to wait two days so the leader could pass the word that they were not hostile and should be treated as ‘ohana (family).

Two days later, Nani and the others walked out of the craft, up the beach and headed west toward Limahuli.

A month later, inside of her largest greenhouse, Nani saw the first green sprout. Without thinking, she said softly, “Hi Tutu.”