Maths became Ripple’s focus. She soaked up everything in class and sometimes requested extra help. She only once worked with the astronomy class and that was to create a ‘maths’ song. She hoped one day to deliver it to Axis. In her free time she applied what she had learnt. Little by little the descriptions of the music came together. At last a day came when she was ready to take a piece of music to Axis for the data compression process.
They worked together for several evenings. First, he showed her the processes used by mathematicians and astronomers to compress navigation data and they modified it to suit Ripple’s data. Then he taught her how to apply it to her own material, and finally how to create, transmit and activate a numerical unlock key.
She made sure she was alone for the first test. She cleared her mind and centred the compressed ‘bullet’ in her consciousness. She breathed, relaxed and applied the unlock key. The music played.
~~~
‘What’s that new cacophony she’s made?’ Sterne asked.
‘More noise she has cobbled together.’ I replied, ‘Hmmm; it seems not quite as bad as the usual bedlam.’
~~~
Ripple was disappointed. The music played but the new process had distorted it horribly. This was nothing like her true creations; it was chaos in comparison.
Chaos? That’s the word everyone uses. Now I begin to understand. If this is like what they’ve been hearing, no wonder they thought I was mad. Poor Mother.
She forced herself to listen again.
Yes, it’s awful. But faintly recognisable in places. Enough for hope?
She told Axis.
‘Refine your mathematical descriptions; improve their accuracy,’ he advised.
Ripple worked on, calculating her songs, week after week, her head full of music and numbers. She hunted little and rarely socialised.
At last she was ready to compress and unlock for the second test. She listened carefully to the result. It was still not perfect, but suddenly she knew!
I need only keep at it to succeed. Father was right. Mathematics! My perfect solution all along.
That night she hunted with Echo, Rush and Cosmo and told them of the progress. Cosmo swam alone with her afterwards.
‘Ripple, we both know how much your music has alarmed me but I’m curious to have it clarified at last.’
‘I’ve not forgotten my promise to give the first song to the one who inspired it.’
She was amused to hear him wondering what a ‘song’ was.
~~~
Ripple immersed herself in her task through days and nights.
‘Strange’ she thought, ‘how I can do this work alone and remain perfectly aware of the ocean and any dangers it might hold. Mathematics is far safer than creating music.’
One or two hungry sharks took an interest in her when they sensed her solitude but she evaded the danger.
Measuring, quantifying, organising, calculating; I watched with sister Sterne as Ripple worked on, hour after hour, stopping only for the bare minimum of hunting. For a dolphin who didn’t like mathematics, she’d come a long way.
When the work was complete, she decided for her third test she’d use a different piece of music, start from the beginning and go through the whole process.
She started at first light on a morning at the height of summer. The piece she chose was about three minutes long. It was one of her earliest songs; a song of hope inspired by sky-colours she’d seen one misty pre-dawn, shortly after her discovery of music.
Using her new processes it took about an hour to create and calculate the mathematical description of the song. She applied the compression and the resulting thought ‘bullet’ was ready to communicate by thoughtstream. That would be an instantaneous action. She created an unlock key, cleared her mind and applied the key, just as the sun was rising.
There were other dolphins in the vicinity and mindful of her promise to Cosmo, she veiled her mind while the song played.
~~~
We of the Hereafter could have listened but we chose to respect her barricades.
Sterne even banished the seraphim to the far side of the universe to ensure Ripple’s privacy.
‘Don’t come back for an hour,’ she warned.
They were back in ten minutes but by then the test was over.
~~~
Ripple lay drifting in a daze of unveiled thoughts.
Not a note too high or low. Not a note too long or short. Every pause, perfectly timed. The melody, the chords, every beat, every trill, every subtle vibrato, every sweeping glissando, exactly as I intended.
Ripple streamed a thought to her niece playing far off beside Aroha in the main school.
Rikoriko, you’ll need to work hard at your maths if ever you wish to make music.
Ripple allowed herself to be hypnotised by the surface patterns around her, light glancing through water, tilting this way and that, ranges of miniature peaks linked by shining curves. She pressed her tail gently against the muscle of the sea, propelling herself forward; lacy patterns of bubbles brushing her eyes; the water parting cleanly around her body.
She drifted down, then looked at the surface glimmering above. Shafts of sunlight spread gradients of colour from deep royal to light jade-green through the sea. She released diamond pebbles of air and followed them to the surface where she breathed and still carrying this strange calm within her, cruised towards the main school.
Ripple knew she was approaching a turning point in her life, but somehow it did not delight her to know her secret would soon be out.
It’s been my own for so long. Do I really want to share it? Do I want to hear others talk about my songs as they talk about weather and hunting?
She sought Delph and asked after Cosmo and the boys.
‘They’re away on a mission,’ he said, ‘and unlikely to return before late tomorrow.’
A reprieve.
Ripple spent the rest of the day close to the main school, processing and compressing song after song, stacking the song-bullets neatly in her mind until many of her favourites were ready to share. Her efficiency grew as she worked, so that each song was processed quicker than the one before. She visited Aroha and told Rikoriko that she had a big surprise for her soon.
Rikoriko turned many cartwheels. Ripple joined in pretending she couldn’t help being sucked into lopsided acrobatics by the tiny slipstream. Aroha stayed out of their nonsense and kept her poise, laughing at them all the same.
‘So,’ said Aroha, once their antics had calmed, ‘I gather from your mood, you’ve solved your problem.’
‘Yes. Father recommended mathematics. It was the right advice.’
‘When do we get to experience music then?’
‘I’ve promised Cosmo he’s to be first, but he’s away, so you must wait.’
‘You seem calm. Is it hard to be patient?’
‘I can hardly wait to share it, especially with Rikoriko. But a part of me is sad to unveil something which has been private for so long. Perhaps Rikoriko will become my first apprentice musician. Will you mind?’
‘That’s difficult to answer without knowing what it is she is choosing. But I think she would want your vocation even if you were a bubble counter. She’s mad on maths at your suggestion.’
Ripple laughed, ‘Counting bubbles does come into music occasionally.’ The afternoon passed and night drew on.
Ripple sought solitude to enjoy her music while it was still hers alone, perhaps for the last time.
‘I know you’re out there,’ she whispered, as she gazed at the stars and played music of starlight. She listened with half her mind while the other half monitored her surroundings, but nothing disturbed the peace of her ocean that night.
The next day dawned overcast and gloomy. Cosmo’s team was due back late afternoon. Ripple made herself busy. She prepared a few more songs for communication by thoughtstream. She attended a mathematics class and informed Axis that her project had reached a successful outcome and that she’d demonstrate it shortly. He congratulated her. She spent time with Aroha’s family, hunting a little and playing with Rikoriko. It rained. The sadness of the seeping rain made them swim slower and closer together. They compared the sharp empty taste of the raindrops to the rich salt of the seawater. Around them, the ocean lay eerily muffled beneath a thickening blanket of cloud.
In the afternoon Ripple attended a poetry class with Tercet.
Two boys misbehaved during the lesson. They hadn’t learnt the poems, the discussion was beyond them and they became bored. They interrupted and tried to distract other students. Tercet ordered them to stay behind after class. Ripple overheard him muttering.
‘Why is it that there are always some who don’t respond to poetry the way others do?’
Ripple thought she had swum too close to an iceberg.
Always some who do not respond to poetry? Will music be like that too? Why should Cosmo care about a bunch of sounds I’ve arranged?
Tentacles of fear squirmed in her mind like shadows of true madness.
~~~
Read on, or if desired . . .