Francesca Gallo

KAHUNAThe Quest for Hollow Earth and The Rongorongo Tablets

FANTASY

First Edition: February 2011

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The known is finite, the unknown infinite;

intellectually we stand on an islet

in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.

Our business in every generation

is to reclaim a little more land.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY (1887)

NEW YORK

“Hello…”

“Caroline… I’m sorry to wake you in the middle

of the night, but I’ve got some bad news:

John’s helicopter never reached Mérida.

The search parties are already at work.”

Caroline Lunos, famous designer and owner

of the C.L. fashion house, wakes up with a start,

looks at the silent phone on her bedside cabinet

and gets up, pushing the sheets back in exasperation.

“It was a nightmare!”

She slips on a long robe and goes into the kitchen

to make some tea to calm her nerves,

shaken by the memories of that awful night

of eleven years ago.

The January night in 1997, when the helicopter

piloted by her only son disappeared in Venezuela,

near Sierra Nevada National Park.

Onboard were his lovely Polynesian wife Talita

and their firstborn Stella, who was just sixteen

months old.

They had spent Christmas and New Year

at the family home on Gran Roque island, and instead

of going straight back to New York, John had decided

to extend the holiday to show Talita the country

where his mother was born and which he had always

thought of as his second home.

At Caracas airport he hired a Bell 206,

a two-blade, single-rotor turbine-powered helicopter,

so he could head for the Sierra Nevada to show

Stella and Talita the snow-capped Andes.

Sadly, an accident halted their flight

over Pico Bolivar. After days of searching,

the rescue teams managed to find the remains

of the helicopter, and Caroline identified the lifeless

bodies of John and Talita, but there was no sign

of Stella.

In her heart, Caroline felt the little girl was still

alive, but after six months she gave in to the facts:

no child under two years of age could survive alone

on the Cordigliera for all that time.

In her Park Avenue penthouse, Caroline looks at

a photo of her granddaughter and thinks,

“In all these years, no matter how crazy it is,

I’ve never given up hope of seeing you again.

Even if all my searching has been for nothing,

I can’t believe you starved to death or were eaten

by a wild animal. I know that now you’re almost

thirteen and you must be as lovely, kind

and delightful as your parents were.”

VENEZUELA, PICO BOLIVAR

John is confident at the controls of the powerful

206 Bell: he got his pilot’s license when he was

twenty-two and has hundreds of flight hours

under his belt. Next to him, Stella and Talita gaze

at the mountains.

Suddenly, the engine cuts out. At first John tries

without success to restart it, then he does his best

to keep the right tilt for landing, but a strong gust

of wind makes him lose his already weak control

and the copter spins, and starts to plummet.

Talita bends over Stella to protect her from the

certain impact with the ground that is getting closer.

Quanita is a huge female spectacled bear

and she has just finished feeding her two cubs,

Athina and Pepe, when a terrible blast shakes

the ground.

“Don’t move until I get back,” she orders

her brood before going to see what’s happened.

Not far from the cave entrance Quanita sees

the smoking wreckage of a helicopter in the trees

slashed by the impact.

She’s scared and doesn’t want to get any closer,

but she can’t stop herself when she hears a cub

crying and this call for help echoes in her mind.

The bear approaches with caution and next

to a lifeless man she sees a bleeding woman who hugs

a sobbing child with the little strength she still has.

“Help her! Take care of her.

I know I haven’t got long left.”

Quanita’s confused because even if the woman

isn’t speaking, her thoughts are quite clear.

Talita understands the bear’s surprise and explains:

“I can communicate with you and sometimes

with elements of Nature because many centuries ago

one of my ancestors married a female

from the Pleiades. My extra-terrestrial ancestor had

a daughter who inherited her powers and this continues

for all the women in my family.

When Stella grows up she will be a kahuna, like me.

But for now she’s weak and can’t survive without

your help. Please take her and make sure she finds

her grandmother, the only relative she has left.

Her… name… is Ca… ro… line … L… u… nos…”

Quanita doesn’t know anything about the Pleiades,

a group of hundreds of stars in the Taurus constellation,

or about its inhabitants, who came to Earth to take

refuge after a catastrophe on their planet in another

solar system. They settled on a great continent

in the Pacific Ocean but couldn’t use telepathy

to communicate with humans, so they invented

a simple language, Polynesian, and they called their

wisdom ‘huna’.

All the same, she promises: “I’ll do my best,”

and gently grasps in her jaws the baby girl

who has suddenly calmed down, as Talita closes

her eyes forever.

Back in the cave, the bear places Stella

between her cubs.

“I’ve brought you a little sister. She’s staying

a while,” she says, watching their reactions.

Athina, Pepe and Stella look each other over,

sniff and make friends right away.

Quanita decides to stay close to the wreckage,

because she knows someone will soon come looking

for Stella and she wants to keep her word.

Fate turns against them, however, because

the next day Quanita climbs into a tree to reach

a huge honeycomb and the side branch she is hanging

from snaps under her weight, making her fall and hit

her head so hard she forgets everything

that’s happened in the days before.

Back in the cave, she wonders where

the flaxen-haired child her cubs affectionately call

“little sister” has come from, but she can’t figure it out.

So when rescue helicopters start to fly over the area,

the bear worries about this human presence

and decides to leave the cave, taking her family away,

and that includes Stella of course, as she’s now

one of them.

“Wake up! We have to go!”

she orders the babies firmly.

“Go where?” asks Pepe, still half asleep.

“To a lovely place,” replies Quanita to persuade

the little ones to start the trek.

They walk for many days, crossing mountains,

forests, rivers, trails and even if they never leave

the Sierra Nevada, they go so far that they arrive

in Colombia.

COLOMBIA

The years pass and Stella’s now six:

she’s grown to over three feet tall and weighs about

thirty-five pounds, while Athina and Pepe

are at least twice her height and width.

Stella realized a while ago that she’s different,

both from her family and from all the other animals

on the Sierra, so one night she plucks up her courage

and, lying down on Quanita’s soft belly, she asks:

“Mummy, why don’t I have fur or wings or claws,

why don’t I have sharp teeth or a beak or a tail?

Why am I not like you and no one is like me?”

“I knew you’d ask me that sooner or later,”

replies Quanita. “The place where we live,

where we animals are in charge, is just a small part

of the world, which is a huge place, almost

completely dominated by men and women,

who look just like you.”

“So I’m a man?” enquires Stella, frowning

as she repeats this new word that she can’t connect

to any sort of image.

Now Quanita smiles.

“Well, you’re a little girl and when you grow up

you’ll be a woman, a female human.”

“So why am I here with you? Where did you find me

and who are my real parents?”

“I wish I could answer, but I remember little

of that time: you, a tiny baby, playing with Athina

and Pepe, humans arriving and our hasty escape

to get away from them.”

“But why did we run away?

Maybe they were looking for me.”

“They might well have been but when it happened

I didn’t think of that. I just thought I had to protect

you, and that’s why I brought you here.”

“Why did you think we were in danger?”

“Because humans don’t understand us

and don’t even imagine we might have feelings.”

“That’s impossible!” cries Stella firmly.

“I understand!”

“Yes, you do, you talk to us but other humans

aren’t able to do that, and I can’t tell you why.

Perhaps Babu, the wise jaguarondi, can help us

to answer your questions; tomorrow I’ll take you

to him.”

“I’d rather go with José,” says the little girl

and turns away without waiting for a reply.

The next morning, Stella and her best friend,

a cute foot-long mouse opossum with a prehensile tail,

set off for Babu’s cave.

They walk for several hours and as they reach

the dark cave, Stella hesitates for a few seconds

in front of it, then she takes a deep breath

and enters as José is climbing onto her shoulder.

She walks along a narrow tunnel until the feline’s

loud roar stops her.

“Who’s disturbing my meditation?” asks Babu,

brushing aside a heavy curtain of leaves covering

a gap in the rock.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but there are things

that I don’t understand,” replies Stella, in the cave

now flooded with light, “I speak your language

but I’m not one of you. On the Sierra they say

you know all about everyone, so please tell me where

I came from and who my parents are.”

“I don’t know your parents, because you arrived

here a long time ago with Quanita,” recalls Babu

scratching his muzzle, “but I’m sure that at least one

of them descended from the ancient race of the Pleiades,

a people of light skin who left the stars and moved

to Mother Earth Mu in a distant past.”

“Mu … what a strange name!” observes José

with interest, while the jaguarondi continues his tale.

“They had special powers and despite

their superiority, they lived peacefully alongside

humans. Together they created one society, ruled

by a king called Ra-Mu, who governed the ten tribes.

Even though the continent was inhabited by different

races, they all lived in harmony and did not have wars.

Then, twelve thousand years ago, when there was

a terrible gas explosion that set off a series

of apocalyptic earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean,

followed by sea floods, the land of Mu shattered

and was almost completely submerged.

The survivors gradually turned into barbarians

and only a few kept the memory of their special origins

and abilities, handing them down to their children.

Their descendants can talk to Nature and understand

the invisible side of things. These are kahunas:

shamans, links between the human and animal worlds.

You, Stella, are one of them.”

The little mouse opossum hugs her neck,

kissing her: “I always knew you were special.”