> 4
The waka floats in the deep ocean, the sun motionless and searing in the clear sky. Mui, the trickster, casts his fishing line into the depths of the ocean, tied to his magic hook made from a human jawbone. Almost immediately the hook catches, and he pulls up an enormous fish that somehow becomes, as you watch, an entire continent. On that new continent magnificent dinosaurs -- taniwha -- prowl the dark forests. Volcanoes dim the sky with smoke and stain the air with the stench of sulfur, but the land is rich and fertile, and Mui's older brothers
look on it with greed in their eyes. Mui watches them, deep in
thought, with a faraway expression you can't read. Then he turns to look directly into your eyes, and says, "You know that some of my brothers cannot be trusted. You must keep them from carving up this great fish until I return from the gods with the proper karakia."
And suddenly he's gone, flying away into the sun in the form of a seabird, and you're left floating in the waka with Mui's brothers as they smile secret half-smiles to each other and reach for their knives, and you wonder what in the world Mui thinks that you, twelve-year-old Tim Cooper, can do to stop them before they carve up and defile...
Difficulty Level: Introductory            Cruelty Level: Polite
 Everyone is! You are ready to work?"
Excitement gets the upper hand for now and you grin just a bit -- you can't help it. "I still can't believe I got picked to come! I get to see real dinosaurs? That's so cool!"
Eruera laughs, a startling, wild sound. "You may not think it is quite so 'cool' after picking through dinosaur roka for a few days, Tim."
You cock your head a bit, not quite sure you understood. "Roka"He just looks back at you silently, the friendly grin growing a bit wider.
Oh.
The cutter's hydrofoil brings the ship high out of the water -- high enough that there's very little spray. The wind whips past as the boat glides across the ocean off the coast to port. Thick, deep green bands of forest snake along the coastline to port. The treeline tracks stretches of black sand beach, sharp cliffs of dark volcanic rock, and the occasional salt marsh. The ocean glares as you look at the shore, almost overpoweringly blue.
A dark feather from some sort of seabird flutters in the wind, caught in a small gap in the guardrail.
You hear an incomprehensible yell from the general direction of the bridge. Eruera turns toward it, then closes his eyes for an instant. "I told them to double-check those gaskets," he sighs. "I'd better go help them before we're dead in the water."
He starts to leave, then turns back to you for a moment. "Why don't you head to the bridge? They've got sandwiches in there; I'm sure you're hungry after all your traveling. I'll catch up with you after I sort things out below decks."
Eruera sprints off to aft.
The Prow
The cutter's hydrofoil brings the ship high out of the water -- high enough that there's very little spray. The wind whips past as the boat glides across the ocean off the coast to port. Thick, deep green bands of forest snake along the coastline to port. The treeline tracks stretches of black sand beach, sharp cliffs of dark volcanic rock, and the occasional salt marsh. The ocean glares as you look at the shore, almost overpoweringly blue.
A dark feather from some sort of seabird flutters in the wind, caught in a small gap in the guardrail.