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PCRI, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
September 11th, 2036
Terry got the chance to meet Dr. Maia Taumata briefly when she showed up with several Molokai police officers, a pair of Republic Marshalls, and some paperwork demanding she be allowed to inspect the cetaceans. Accompanying her were a pair of marine biologists and an alien who looked to Terry like a bipedal Pteranodon he’d read about a year before while studying dinosaurs. Only this one was a specialist in the pinplants the article talked about.
“Who are you?” Dr. Taumata asked when she saw him feeding the Wandering Pod. “A little young for an employee.” She was even shorter than she’d appeared in the internet article, and she had a funny tattoo on her lower lip.
“Terry Clark.”
“A relation to the doctors Clark, then?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m their son.”
She’d nodded and gone about her business. They closed the institute to the public and proceeded to question the staff and then the cetaceans themselves. A week after the incident in Seattle, the four bottlenoses his father had taken to Seattle were flown home in a government flyer. Dr. Taumata had been worried about the bottlenoses’ seemingly depressed states until the four came back, at which point the Sunrise Pod instantly returned to their formerly jubilant selves.
The morning of the 11th, Terry was asked to a meeting room, where he again met with Dr. Taumata. She had the alien he’d since found out was a Sidar with her, and one of the marine biologists. Since he was a minor, his mother was there as well.
“Now, Terry, you don’t have to say a thing if you don’t want to.”
“You don’t want me to lie, do you?”
“No, we’ll leave the lying to your father.” Terry looked askance, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Just answer any questions they ask, unless it makes you feel uncomfortable. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hi, Terry,” Dr. Taumata said, rising to shake his hand. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. This is Dr. Trudeau, a marine biologist like your parents.” He shook the man’s hand. “And this is Klaak; he’s a member of the Sidar race, a specialist in cybernetics and the devices known as pinplants. Do you know what those are?” Terry nodded.
“Before we begin, I need to establish something,” his mom said as she rose from the chair she’d been sitting in before Terry came in. “Terry is a minor and my child. He’s under no obligation to testify and is doing so on his own initiative, with my approval. If either of us don’t wish him to answer a question, he won’t.”
“Are you attempting to shield him from this inquiry, Dr. Clark?” the man named Trudeau asked. Terry had to listen carefully; his accent was fairly thick. He guessed by the sound and his name that he was French.
“I’m attempting to shield him from any culpability, because he’s too young to be either responsible, or to fully understand his legal jeopardy.”
“This is unsettling,” Trudeau said.
“What, that I would defend my child?” Terry knew his mom was getting mad. He’d seen it more than enough times. She also seemed quicker to anger after her recovery.
“I don’t think we need to turn this into a confrontation,” Dr. Taumata said in a calming voice. She looked at Terry. “All the cetaceans hold a very high opinion of you, young man.”
“I like them,” Terry said. “I think they like me.”
“They do.”
“Of course they do,” Trudeau said. “He feeds them.”
“Not all that often,” his mom said, and passed a file to the argumentative man. Terry recognized a checkout form from the food preparation area. “As you’ll see, over the last two years, Terry has fed them less than 50 times out of a total of 1,533 feedings. Three percent isn’t even statistically significant. They like him because of their own feelings.”
“Feelings,” Trudeau said, and snorted. “Just a sense of the familiar.”
“Did you notice the change in the dolphins’ behavior when their missing pod mates returned?” Taumata asked Trudeau. “I understand this sort of behavior is common among all cetaceans.”
“What is your specialty within marine biology?” his mother asked the man.
“Mollusks are my specialty,” Trudeau said. Terry’s mom and Taumata exchanged looks, and Trudeau’s expression darkened.
“I see,” his mom said, and Terry suppressed a smile.
“Terry,” Taumata said, “can you tell me your impression of the cetaceans before and after their augmentation?”
“You mean besides their ability to speak English?” She nodded. “Well, they’ve become much easier to work with, of course. I could only tell personalities by actions before, but now I can tell they all speak differently, as well. The Wanderer and the Shore pods of orcas are also much more different than I could tell by just watching them before.”
“Can you elaborate?” Taumata asked.
“Sure,” Terry said and glanced at his mom. She nodded for him to go ahead. “The two pods are different kinds of orcas. I knew this already, but now I can tell they think differently, too.”
“How so?”
“Well, they both know about Shool, but they think about it differently.”
“There is this fantastical Shool merde,” Trudeau said.
“I’ll ask you to watch your language,” his mother said.
Terry had no idea what merde meant. Now he knew it wasn’t a good word. Trudeau’s face turned slightly red, but he nodded.
“Do you believe it’s a religion with them?” Taumata asked.
“Yup,” Terry said. “They talk about it a lot, but the Shore Pod are much bigger into it. They act more like it’s God. You know, everywhere? The Wandering Pod thinks of Shool like it’s a thing, deep down under the water.”
“Klaak, can you elaborate?” Taumata said. “Is this religion possibly a side effect of the implants?”
The Sidar’s elongated head turned so one eye could fix Terry in its black-on-black gaze before he spoke. “An improperly administered pinplant could have unforeseen complications. As I’ve previously stated, these pinplants are a simple model designed for the Selroth. I’ve provided basic neural details on the race, and confirmed they are remarkably like your primitive cetaceans. I’ve also examined the simple scans of the...dolpins?”
“Dolphins,” Taumata corrected. “Pacific bottlenose dolphins.”
“Yes, sorry, dolphins. The scans indicated good nanite penetration of their cerebellum and properly functioning interfaces. Coprocessing is in place, and the four I examined appear to have adapted to them remarkably well, considering they’re considered non-sentient by Union index standards. I haven’t examined the orcas yet, but if the implants were handled with the same skill on them as they were on the dolphins, I don’t anticipate a problem. I’ve never observed a bad implant causing any sort of delusional behavior. Psychosis or neural failure, yes. But not making up anything as complicated as a religion.”
“As I’ve already shown you,” his mom said, “they mentioned Shool before any of them had the implant, just using an external translator. We’d assumed it might be a problem with the improvised matrix, but after the implants, the terminology remained and was greatly expanded.”
“Mom,” Terry said. She glanced at him. “I don’t understand all this. What is Klaak saying about the translators?”
“They aren’t translators,” she explained.
“Indeed not,” Klaak agreed. “In the Galactic Union, they’re called pinplants. These are used to interface with computers, store data, and augment learning. They’re nearly ubiquitous among many established races.” He turned his head slightly, reached up with a wing which sported a vestigial wing membrane, and touched the side of his head. Terry could see a little circuit board there. It had something plugged into it and a tiny yellow light.
“Your father,” his mom said and sighed. “He bought the implants without doing any research. They were old technology.”
“Yes,” Klaak agreed. “Those pinplants are extremely old and not used anymore. The Selroth haven’t used them for 500 years.”
“So they were broken?” Terry asked.
“No,” Klaak said, shaking his huge head slightly from side to side. “Just old. They are medical class devices, and if the seals are properly maintained, they will be useable for thousands of years. Based on the packaging I’ve examined, the ones used were in perfect condition. We guess an unscrupulous free trader took advantage of your race’s ignorance to get rid of some old inventory.”
“That sucks,” Terry said. “Isn’t it against the law in the Union to do that?”
The Sidar made a coughing sound, his translator turned into a “Ha ha ha” sound. “Law? You Humans have much to learn about the Galactic Union.”
“The Union takes ‘caveat emptor’ to an entirely new level,” his mom said. Terry looked at her in confusion. “That’s Latin for ‘buyer beware.’”
“Oh,” Terry said.
They asked a few more questions about care for the cetaceans and how they were looked after when guests came in. Had any of them been harmed by an interaction with a visitor? Had any of the cetaceans harmed a visitor?
“No, none of that,” Terry told them.
“Do you think they’re stable?” Dr. Taumata asked. Trudeau rolled his eyes dramatically.
“I’m sorry?” Terry asked.
“She means are they acting normally,” his mom said.
“Like normal dolphins and orcas?” Terry asked. Dr. Taumata nodded. “No, not really.”
“See,” Dr. Trudeau crowed.
“Wait,” Terry said. “They don’t act like other dolphins and orcas because others can’t talk! How could they be normal? They act fine, just more like people.”
“Outrageous,” Trudeau said. “The opinion of a child.”
“Still worth listening to,” Dr. Taumata said. “Thank you, Terry, for answering our questions. You can go.”
“Can I ask a question?”
The two Human doctors looked at each other, but Taumata answered before Trudeau could say anything to the contrary. “I think that’s the least we can do, young man.” Trudeau sighed and sat back in his chair.
“What’s going to happen to them? The whales and dolphins?”
“The Earth Republic High Court will have to make that decision,” Dr. Taumata said. “I believe, ideally, removal of the implants would be the ethical thing to do.”
“They’re unlikely to survive the procedure,” Klaak said, then shrugged. Terry was surprised to see a talking dinosaur shrugging. “I’m a little surprised they worked at all. Probably because they’re basic pinplants.”
“You mean they’ll die trying to take them out?” He looked at Dr. Taumata in horror.
“That’s what Klaak has explained.” She looked at his mom. “I’m afraid euthanasia is not out of the question, considering what the animals have been put through.”
“They’re not animals,” Terry said defiantly. “They’re people.”
Dr. Taumata looked at him with a slightly sad expression. “I’m afraid that isn’t what the law says.”
“Well, then the law is wrong,” Terry said, and left. Later his mom came back into their apartment looking tired. “I’m sorry if I was rude,” he said.
She smiled and limped over to give him a hug. “You have no reason to apologize, and you weren’t rude. I think they were.”
“Would they really kill them because of the implants?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
“I’ll do anything to keep that from happening,” Terry said. “Anything.”
“Thanks, Son,” she said, and gave him another hug.
* * * * *
