Ocean: The Sea Warriors by Brian Herbert, Jan Herbert Page B

in Preston’s youth his father had shown financial projections to him—how much the family could earn in different ways, including the planting of crops, running a big cattle ranch, or subdividing the land, or operating a resort here. At the time, the stately hotel had less than half the rooms it had now, along with a much smaller riding stable, no botanical gardens, aquatic park, or tour operation.
    Preston had made so many improvements over the years that he could hardly imagine making any more. The property was perfect in all ways—but he was getting older now, and didn’t know how much longer he would have to enjoy it—or what the future held for the Ellsworths, with his strange granddaughter and often-disappointing grandson. He’d thought that Alicia would be the leader of the family going into the future, but she had disappointed him terribly. She had gone crazy, had turned against him.
    Unable to lift his mood, he sat on a bench by the smaller of two carp ponds, gazing out on the serenity of the water and its multi-patterned fish darting this way and that, or hiding under the broad green leaves of floating plants. It was a habitat without predators to worry these valuable fish; all they had to do was to swim around and locate the food that was provided for them. The pond was a sanctuary that even had electronic methods of fending off predator birds, making it a niche of survival in these halcyon gardens, on this one-of-a-kind property. At least the carp had little to worry about. That was something, anyway, albeit small, and he had created their little paradise. Usually, he was able to use such thoughts to expand outward and calm himself. But he was having difficulty with that today.
    Tourism was way down in the Wanaao area due to the problems with sea creatures, and the number of visitors was continuing to drop precipitously. Despite Preston’s efforts to muzzle the press, word had gotten out about the situation anyway—and not only about the aggressiveness of the marine animals. The species die-offs were problematic, too. The deaths of dolphins, porpoises, crabs, coral, and reef fish was of such great concern to oceanographers that experts such as Fuji Namoto were coming in to see what was wrong. They wanted to know if it was a normal pattern, or if it could be suicides, pollution, global warming, or any number of other causes that had been postulated—with most of them involving the alleged negligence and illegal activities of humans.
    As he stood there, details of the Honolulu Mercury News article seeped back into his mind, and he remembered the last time he saw his granddaughter, when she told him about the startling changes in her body, and demonstrated her strange abilities. She was putting the Ellsworth family in a very bad light. It particularly galled him that she was traitorously collaborating with a Pohaku—a clear sacrilege to the old man, the worst possible affront against the Ellsworth family that he could imagine. And if his initial assessment was correct (that it was all an elaborate plot to trick him out of his money), that was bad, too—because Alicia was either a circus freak or a charlatan, and now it was in the newspapers, and probably on other news outlets as well.
    His grandson was of increasing concern, too, because of the ongoing police investigation, and questions that kept trickling in by phone and e-mail after the visit by two local police officers. He assumed the federal Drug Enforcement Agency was involved at some level, too, and if Jeff was lying about not being a drug dealer, Preston’s entire ranch could be confiscated by the authorities. The old man would be placed in the position of being suspected of involvement himself, and perhaps having to prove his own innocence, showing that he had no inkling of what his grandson was doing.
    But I suspect him , he thought. I really do suspect him.
    ***

Chapter 9
    “Good morning, Gwyneth.”
    The door to her room had just squeaked