Free Messages from the Deep by Theo Marais Page B

closer.
    “What’s up, Corky? Shark got your
tongue?”
    “You’re pregnant, Ada. Do you know?”
    “I have been hoping, but how do you know,
Corky?”
    “I’m not deaf, you know. Anybody with sonar
could hear and see that. But maybe something you don’t know is that
you’re expecting twins. At your age. Just when I thought I was
starting to understand you humans.”
     
    Eight months later, Mariada gives birth in
the shallow, warm water of the little bay, ably assisted by the
doctor and Corky as midwife. The babies, a girl and a boy, are the
first people to be born on another planet.
    A few months later, as they sit on the beach
with their babies, Mariada feels as though her grandparents are
with them. She sees her grandmother at nearly 98 years old, a
matter of weeks before she died, but radiating so much positive
spiritual energy that she was already almost not of this Earth, and
her grandfather at 99 years, asking her if she had seen gran
because he had seen her nearby, even though she had died a year
before, and then he also died.
    And now her parents are the same age, and she
realises that she has done all that she ever hoped to do.
    A pod of dolphins swims up to them, showing
great excitement, and saying that they will have visitors very
soon. They notice a bright, pulsating light coming straight down
out of the sky, materialising as a space ship about as big as an
ocean liner. Aliens alight and greet them warmly and
peacefully…

 
     
     
    FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
     
     
    1. HOW DID THE HUMAN CHARACTERS DEVELOP
?
    Mariada de Villiers’ background and
application for the ‘Life on Mars’ mission is clearly based on
Adriana and ‘Mars One’, for which she gave permission. Adriana’s
great grandmother was a de Villiers. Her grandparents did live
until almost 100 years old. But everything else from the present
(2016) onwards is obviously fictitious.
    Alexander Zhivago’s background is partly
based on a variety of people, and so his initials go from A to Z.
But my inspiration for the character came from Alejandra Vargas,
hence the similar name and research interests. I have been inspired
by her dedication to believe that it may not be long before we can
communicate with cetaceans.
    Noriko, one of the Martians, is the name of
Adriana’s friend in Japan. Konichiwa!
    Aziz is the name of a man who trusted and
trained me during the anti-apartheid years in London. Viva!
     
    2. WHAT INSPIRED SOME OF THE INCIDENTS?
    Adriana has generously passed on her
knowledge of Mars and space travel to many people, and there are a
few references to this in the story. It was also easy to imagine
Adriana as Mariada on Mars and beyond.
    On reading about dolphins, I was amazed by
the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans, like Aristotle and
Ovid, about them; about their evolution on land and in the sea,
their intelligence, the belief they are the equals of humans in
law, and their love of music. Ovid inspired me to put dolphins on
Earth 2, like Jupiter did.
    The incident recalled by Alex when he nearly
drowned at Keurboomstrand is based mainly on Adriana having had a
close shave there, but fortunately not the near death experience
described.
    The dream of being chased by a lion was my
own, but the advice given was not by my dad but by me to children
when they tell me about similar dreams. Just hearing that advice
seems to help, as I reserve judgement on whether one can actually
script one’s dreams. (“Dear brain, Tonight I want one lion chase
dream, with full confrontation, but no sticky ending, please.”)
     
    3. WHAT ARE THE MAIN THEMES OF THE STORY
?
    I was inspired by a short film I saw in the
early 70s, where the viewer goes through a mosquito into the human
body, down to the smallest cell, and then back out to the skin and
into outer space, through the Solar System and the Milky Way to the
furthest galaxies, and then back again. It seemed to show the
immense complexity of the inner journey of deep