Page 45 of Kailirex

“Mahalo nui,” I said, Stella echoing me.

“A'ole pilikia,” he replied with a smile and a wave before hurrying back to relieve the beleaguered Ray back at the bar.

“Did that mean ‘You’re welcome’?” she asked me and I nodded. She hummed thoughtfully as she took a sip of her drink. “That’s given me an idea. I know I’ve not been hired to work on the show yet, if I ever am, and you can feel free to tell me it’s not workable, but what if the show includes some Hawaiian language segments?” She pursed her lips, deep in thought. “And for broadcast in states and territories with other native languages, branch out so they have their tongues instead? Or would that be too complicated?”

“That is the most marvelous suggestion,” I told her. “Before we go, I’ll reach out to the Kamehameha School aboard the fleet. As for the other languages, I’ll have Xeranos put me in touch with the various tribes.”

She looked ecstatic. “So it’s not impossible?”

“Not at all,” I smiled at her over the rim of my glass. I took a sip, loving the tart but sweet fruity flavor that burst over my tongue. “We can distribute it so that on streaming platforms, all versions are selectable, and local public broadcast stations will receive those with local native language segments only. We were already going to do the same with Spanish, to accommodate Spanish speakers as that is the language most commonly spoken in Puerto Rico, only with the main segments dubbed into Spanish and the second language as English. Both versions would be broadcast each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.”

Her eyes shone at the revelation. “So when you start broadcasting in other countries, the dub would be localized once again, with English and Mylos as the secondaries.”

“Well, Mylos and any indigenous tongues particular to their regions, for one broadcast and with English in the second.”

She squealed. “Oh, I hope I get to work on this! It is even better than I’d imagined for my own show!”

I smiled, then tapped on my kunnarskyn, accessing my cloud. I quickly had Xeranos forward the pictures to the tablet I knew Mom would have been issued by now. Moments later, my kunnarskyn vibrated with a voice comm. I answered, seeing it was Eric.

“Hi! Just to let you know, they totally pulled a fast one!” Eric laughed, sounding immensely happy. “We got up here and they checked Dad right into sickbay, asked us to go to our guest quarters and they’d call us as soon as Dad was all settled. Then, just before we got the pics you guys just sent, they told us he was getting the nanites now instead of tomorrow. In fact, they’d already given them to him and he’s doing great.”

Mom’s voice came over the comm. “They said they did it now so we wouldn’t have to sit and worry all night! And this place is really something! They have food replicators just like on Star Trek!”

Eric laughed. “Mom and Pop have already made us all the fanciest coffees you could ever think of and had it make corned beef hash to see if it was as good as Pop’s.”

“I thought you were going to eat the stuff in the fridge!” Stella admonished.

“We will. They said Dad will be home in a few hours, so we decided to have it as a late dinner.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It looks wonderful there!” Mom called out. “Are you having a good time?”

“A better one now that I know Dad really is okay. Call or message us again when he’s out,” Stella demanded.

“I’ll take pictures of us all eating dinner,” Piloris piped up.

“You go have some more fun! I wish we could all be there with you. I always did want to visit Hawaii.”

“Ask Piloris to take you to Mylos Shore,” I said.

“Mylos Shore? What’s that?” Pop asked.

“Oh! I think I know!” Eric exclaimed.

“Let it be a surprise,” Stella told him.

“What? Why?” Pop asked, causing Piloris, Eric, Stella, and I to laugh.

“You’ll see,” I promised him.

“I’ll take them in the morning,” Piloris promised. “It’s a plate lunch day tomorrow, so I’ll order some as soon as we’re done talking here.”

“Plate lunch day?” Stella mouthed at me.

“Tell you after,” I mouthed back and she nodded.

“We’ll let you go. Sounds like we need beach wear ourselves,” Eric chuckled.