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PCRI, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
August 10th, 2035
“Did you hear me?”
Matthew looked up from the display and noticed his wife standing by the door to his office. He bit his lip and tried to remember; she’d been saying something? “Terry?”
“Yes, Matthew, our son?”
“I know he’s our son,” Matthew said, making a face.
Madison crossed her arms under her breasts and glared. Matthew’s expression went away. “That’s the first step, now you can tell me where he is? His game was over two hours ago.”
Matthew looked back toward his office window to see the sun falling toward the horizon. He looked back at the display—an alien-manufactured, true 3D holographic display known as a Tri-V. It showed the anatomical makeup of a cetacean’s brain—an orca, to be precise. The images were like the Tri-V, thousands of times better than anything that had existed on Earth prior to the aliens’ arrival. The image called him with its siren call.
“Goddamn it, Matthew Davis Clark!”
Oh, shit, he thought, and his head spun around. “Uhm, I think he went scuba diving.”
“And I thought we were going to talk about whether he should be diving with that man. Terry wants to shave his head to look like him.”
“I think we’re safe. I checked on Doc with Kaunakakai PD.”
“What did they say?” She walked over to stand next to him, her own attention drawn to the anatomical model.
“He’s fine,” he said. “Vincent ‘Doc’ Abercrombie has lived on Molokai his whole life, except when he was in the military.”
“Military?”
“Yeah, a Navy SEAL, apparently. He was injured on a dive and medically retired. The boat belonged to his brother, who was killed in a traffic accident while Doc was in the service.”
“Oh, wow,” she said, looking back at him.
He nodded. “Terrence is quite safe.”
“He wants to be called Terry, you know.”
“I know,” he said, then shook his head. “I don’t understand why, though.”
“Because he’s an independent being, Matt.”
Matthew’s head came around in annoyance. She was grinning ear to ear. “Okay, fair enough.” He touched a control and the Tri-V changed to show a device hovering next to the brain. “He said he’d be back before dark.”
“What about dinner?”
“I admit, I didn’t think about that,” he said.
“Well, I did. I saved him some.” She put a covered plate on the desk. “Saved you some, too.”
“You’re awesome,” he said. The cover popped off the plate and the delightful smell of roasted fish and vegetables filled his nose. “Oh, yummy.” He grabbed the fork and took a greedy bite. “I forgot.”
“Of course you did,” she scolded. Again, her face didn’t show any anger. She pulled a chair out and sat next to him. While he devoured the food, she slid the alien computer over to herself. The device was no bigger than a normal tablet computer, though it was anything but normal. Less than five millimeters thick and completely transparent, the aliens called it a slate. The Tri-V was projected from it, and it didn’t move a millimeter as she slid it over. The slate instantly compensated, keeping the image frozen in space.
“Such amazing casual technology,” she said, shaking her head.
“Casual, sure,” he said between bites. “That ‘casual’ tech cost 200 credits.”
Madison whistled. “Two million dollars for what the aliens consider a ubiquitous toy.”
Matthew shrugged. “Translators are 150 credits each.” He looked at the translator sitting on his desk. The institute now possessed three of them—all on loan from the Logoo Syndicate, the alien organization Kodu’ku worked for—in exchange for engineering assistance developing aquatic life-support systems.
“Looks like you have it worked out,” Madison said and pointed at the display.
“I think so,” he said. “The file we got from the Science Guild helped. The race known as Selroth have brains amazingly like cetaceans. I looked on the Aethernet and found these.” He reached over and clicked the slate. The orca brain was replaced with a tiny technological device. Popup explanations of various components appeared. “They’re designed for the Selroth, but were apparently rejected for use.”
“Rejected?” she asked. “Why?”
“The customer didn’t like the size. These are apparently large for a Selroth.” He clicked again, and the device was rendered next to an orca. It was almost invisible. “Obviously it won’t be a problem with our orca.” He glanced at her. “Probably not the bottlenose, either.”
“Then you’re thinking about both?”
“Why not?”
“The question is, how much?”
“They’re listed as scrap. Fifty of them for 15 credits each.”
“Seven and a half million, Matthew,” she said, doing the math. “Where are we going to get that kind of money?”
“What would someone pay to talk to a dolphin?” he asked.
“Matthew!” she exclaimed. “You’re talking about an amusement park! That goes against everything we’ve worked for.” She pointed back toward the tanks. “All our cetaceans are rescues, for God’s sake!”
“You don’t think I know that?” he snapped. She shot him a sharp look, and he calmed himself. “Look, don’t think of it as a side show, think of it as education.”
“I’m not feeling it,” she said.
“You don’t think Joe Sixpack would leave here with a better understanding of why we should take care of the oceans after talking to someone who lives in them?”
“You think Joe Sixpack will sit and be lectured by a fish?” She said the last with a decidedly sloppy but recognizable southern accent to emphasize her scorn.
“No, of course not. We’d have to have some fun with it. I bet the dolphins will have a blast. It’s a small price to pay to advance cetacean sciences a hundred years in just months! Think of how much we can learn.”
“I know as well as you,” she said. “If you recall, our PhDs are the same.”
“Of course,” he said.
“But still, how do we earn over seven million dollars without first having our talking dolphins or whales?”
“I talked to the Bank of Hawaii,” he said. “They’re willing to see a demonstration.”
“We can’t demonstrate anything without the machines first.”
Matthew reached into a drawer and removed a metallic box smaller than a pack of cigarettes. She gasped when she saw the alien writing on it. He pressed a release and it popped open, showing the exact device displayed on the Tri-V.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“I dug into our bank account,” he admitted.
“Matthew,” she hissed, “even one is $150,000!”
“I got it half price, as a sample.” He swallowed. The $75,000 was almost the entirety of their savings, including Terrence’s college fund. “We’ve always been committed to the institute, right?”
“Of course, but our savings?”
“It was the only way,” he admitted. “We can’t go to NOAA or the Trustees with this and risk losing control.” She nodded slowly. The Trustees were heavily risk averse.
“When are we doing the surgery?” she asked.
“As soon as I talk to one of the orcas.”
“Who do we use?”
“Who do you think we should?”
“Kray,” she said.
He nodded in agreement; that was his choice as well.
“Let’s have a chat,” he said, and picked up the translator.
They rode together down the elevator to the tank holding the Residents. All four of the Resident breed were together in one of the two biggest tanks. As soon as Matthew and Madison came out the door, a huge shiny black head popped out of the water, and an eye looked to see who was there. Matthew held the translator between them.
A whistle and thrum came from the orca they recognized as Kray. “Wardens,” he said, using the word the orcas had chosen to refer to anyone who took care of them. “Who these Wardens?”
“Matthew and Madison,” he said, and they both knelt at the edge of the pool. Madison scooped some water into her hand and rubbed Kray under his mouth.
The big male gave several deep clicks. “Rub good, Warden mates Matthew/Madison.” He submerged for a second, and the other three surfaced a few feet away, clicking and whistling their own greetings. “Not food time?” Kray asked. The others tossed their heads in agreement.
“No, not meal time,” Madison agreed. The orcas’ sense of time was extremely hit or miss. They knew night from day and could usually tell meal time. However, even mounting a clock in the tank room big enough for them to see hadn’t produced any progress. It was part of the reason they wanted to do the implant.
“We wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask,” Kray said. “Pod like ask things, like answer things, like Wardens!”
“We like you, too,” Matthew answered. “You know the translator?” He held up the device, and Kray’s big eye locked on it.
“Talk box,” Kray said.
“Talk box!” all the others echoed.
“Yes,” Madison agreed. The orcas splashed water with their pectorals and shook their heads, happy to get it right.
“We want to put a talk box inside you,” Matthew said, hoping they’d understand.
“How do?” Kray asked. “Eat talk box? Eat like fish?”
“No,” Madison said, shaking her head in an over-emphasized motion so they could see it better. “We would need to cut.”
“Cut Kray? Make Kray gone?” The translator conveyed alarm.
“Not gone,” Matthew said quickly. “It’s called surgery. Ulybka, do you remember when we helped fix your tail?”
The female named Ulybka had come in with an injury to her fluke which hadn’t received proper medical attention in Russia; the result was a persistent wound that didn’t want to heal. They’d put her under general anesthesia and debrided the wound, applying a waterproof bandage, and it had healed up just fine.
“Yes, yes!” Ulybka said. “Fix tail, tail good now!” She dove and flipped over, her tail popping out of the water to flip back and forth. The notch was clearly visible, but the bandage was long gone.
“Like that,” Madison said, “but we’d have to put a talk box into your head.” She reached out and touched Kray just behind his eye. “Right here.”
“Hurt Kray?” Kray asked.
“A little afterward,” Matthew admitted.
“Why?” Kray asked.
“You’ll be able to talk to everyone,” Matthew explained.
“Not only Wardens?” Kray asked. “Talk Warden calf?”
“Terry, our son?” Madison wondered to her husband.
“Yeah, I think that’s what he means,” Matthew agreed. The translators were so expensive, Terry had never been allowed to use one, or even hold it. Call it adult paranoia, but Matthew had forbidden it. Kids were kids, and the risk of losing or damaging a multi-million-dollar piece of equipment wasn’t worth taking.
“Yes, you could talk to Terrence, our calf. Anyone else, too.”
Kray and the other three dove underwater and moved around each other. From experience, Matthew knew they were talking to each other. The orcas had adapted soon after understanding the Humans could talk to them. It had caught all the scientists completely by surprise.
Dr. Patel had suggested they record their conversations on the hydrophone and run it through the translator later, but both Matthew and Madison had vetoed it. They’d agreed the orcas deserved at least some basic dignity and some privacy. For the same reason, they were now asking the orcas if they wanted the translators installed.
Kray and the others surfaced, and Kray again spoke, “Why you ask?”
“We think we can learn a lot from you,” Matthew said.
“No. Why ask? Why not do?”
“Do you mean, why didn’t we do it without asking?” Madison asked. Kray’s head bobbed in an orca nod. “Because you’re a person and deserve to decide for yourself.”
“We not Wardens,” Kray insisted, and they all nodded.
“No,” Matthew agreed. “We take care of you, but you have rights.”
“Rights,” Kray said, trying the word. “What rights?”
“It means you can say yes or no,” Madison explained.
Matthew pressed the mute button on the translator. “A little oversimplified,” he said.
Madison shrugged. “Close enough?”
He nodded, agreeing.
“I say no, or I say yes?” Kray asked. “I say no, you no do?”
Both Madison and Matthew nodded their heads.
All four orcas floated for a long time; several took breaths, their respiration blowing mist over the pool. They’re thinking about it, Matthew realized. The orcas just kept surprising them.
“Can pod all do talk box?”
Madison looked at Matthew, who looked back at her; both of their eyes were wide with surprise. “Do you all want them?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kray responded.
“We would need to have one for now,” Matthew explained, hoping they would understand. “Kray would be first. If everything’s good with Kray, the rest of the pod, then, later. Other pod, then, also,” he said, referring to the pod of five Pacific Transient orcas in the next tank. “If Kray’s talk box works good, we’ll also give them to the bottlenose dolphins.”
“Little brothers get talk box?” Ulybka spoke up. “Little brothers” was what the orcas called dolphins. The dolphins struggled more with the translators. Their language seemed to be more contextual, often speaking in metaphors. Ironically, the dolphins called the orcas, “Dark Killers.”
“Yes,” Matthew confirmed.
“Good, good, good,” the orca pod all agreed.
There was no discrimination between the cetaceans the researchers had seen. Matthew was quite keen to see one day how well the device would work with other cetaceans. There were rough-toothed dolphins in captivity, and beluga as well. The other scientists at the institute had also talked to several other research establishments about trying to talk with a pod of blue whales to see if they could strike up a conversation.
“One more thing,” Matthew said. Kray focused on him. “There is risk.”
“You could die,” Madison said.
Matthew looked at her, his eyes narrow. She stared him down, and he shrugged. It was true, there was risk.
“I not fear,” Kray said without hesitation. “I want talk box.”
“Okay,” Matthew said, “let’s do it.”
* * * * *
