The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  Chopper laughed out loud. There are thousands of variations of morning glory, from the invasive vines that strangle Louisiana’s bayous to a delicate Hawaiian flower called the baby woodrose. He knew of many plants that produced similar chemicals. One in particular had had a profound effect on his childhood. He’d poisoned himself with it the first time he ventured into the desert at eight years old. In fact, the chemical structure he was staring at was strikingly similar to the first such structure he had ever studied.

  Chopper rotated his desk chair to face his bookcase. In the light cast by the monitor behind him, he found the first academic textbook he’d ever read: Botanical Encyclopedia of Desert Life. Grains of sand were still embedded in the binding. The book fell open to a picture of a small white flower in the shape of an inverted cone. The description covered five pages and included a diagram of the chemical structure of its particular hallucinogen. Back when he was eight, he didn’t know what hallucinogen meant and had assumed it was a synonym for poison.

  He compared the compound on the book page to that on the web page and understood the problem the researchers had encountered. The similarity in the two structures was striking, but synthesizing them boiled down to thermodynamics. When you combine the ingredients, adding chemicals at precise temperatures, blending catalysts at different stages to attach subcompounds to specific molecular vertices, you can make these compounds. The problem was that everything seeks the lowest available energy state and so, as with a ball sitting at the top of a hill, it was nearly impossible to prevent the compounds from rolling downhill, shedding one component, then another, falling to a more stable configuration. In nature, on the other hand, with photosynthesis, sunlight, water, and the right temperature variations and humidity, in a soup of complex organic buffers that took a billion years to evolve, these compounds were produced every spring.

  Chopper stared into the dim light, letting the wave of pain caused by swiveling the chair break behind his left temple. He set the book on the desk. All the lights in his room were on dimmers, including his desk lamp. With his eyes closed, he raised the light level until a dim orange glow lit his eyelids. He opened them and the jackhammer let him have it.

  He knew this book. He’d read, if not understood, every passage before he turned twelve. He loved this book. As his eyes adjusted to the light, the pain relented enough for him to think.

  He smiled. The desert was too dry. If a plant existed that produced the sensory deception compound, it grew somewhere humid—as hot as the desert, but wet.

  Ten minutes later, he discovered the family of plants he needed to study. Their taxonomy didn’t relate them to the morning glory, but Chopper could see that this was a historic mistake. When plants are named, botanists group varieties together that are similar, but “similar” is vague. A rare plant that lives in the jungle is unlikely to be grouped with plants from the desert simply because the categorization is done by people of different research backgrounds. If it’s later discovered that the plants are closely related cousins they can be reclassified, but there are a lot of plants to study. The blooms of the jungle variety were inverted cones, too, and bright white, but ten times the size of the desert variety.

  Chopper switched to a more advanced database. Just one observation of these peculiar jungle morning glories had been recorded, on the upper slope of the Amazon River. This didn’t come as a surprise. Over half of Earth’s flora have never been recorded, and as the rain forest burns, most of these plants never will be recorded.

  In the vision of a long walk in a hot, wet forest with nothing to do but look at flowers, no humanity, no arrogant monsters to bother him, Chopper sensed relief from the pain and the pressure.

  Sperm whales are the most common large whale. They swim fast and stay below the surface except when breathing. Their behavior makes them difficult to find, and that makes them difficult to kill. The cows and calves live in pods of ten to twenty. Females are much smaller than males and incapable of the dynamic feats required for the Moby-Dick VR experience. Bulls travel the high seas like lonely seamen and, like lonely seamen, seek out the warmth and pleasure of a pod a few times each year.

  With everything else ready, recording Moby-Dick data was becoming, in business-speak, a point of failure. To attach data acquisition equipment to Moby, Farley would have to track a pod for a few weeks, maybe months, until a mature bull appeared.

  The Pacific Whale Foundation said that the project was out of its scope unless a pod of sperm whales started hanging around Maui, where the foundation’s ships would have immediate access.

  Farley had sent his Greenpeace proposal to Walt Howard, the man who had been his supervisor back in his days steering Zodiacs between whales and whalers while volunteering on the Rainbow Warrior. It had been almost a year, and Walt still hadn’t replied to e-mail or returned calls. Farley finally called Walt at home, violating proposal etiquette, to find out what was going on. Walt hedged on the phone, saying that the project was still under review and that aspects of it weren’t consistent with the Greenpeace mission.

  “Studying sperm whale behavior and providing the public a firsthand experience of a bull?” Farley said. “That’s exactly Greenpeace’s mission.”

  Farley could hear Walt sigh.

  “Walt, what’s going on?”

  “Maybe I don’t understand the proposal. Can you call me tomorrow at the office and walk me through it?”

  So far, calling Walt’s office had been futile, so Farley said, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll be there at ten.”

  “I don’t have my schedule in front of me, so I’m not sure—”

  “Look, I have to be in San Francisco tomorrow anyway. I’ll stop by your office. We can crank it out in a few minutes. See you then.” He hung up before Walt could respond.

  He put the phone in his pocket and took a seat on the couch. Ringo was puttering between the lab and kitchen and Chopper was upstairs. He took his laptop from the table and sent e-mail to oceanography colleagues around the world asking for updated locations of known sperm whale pods.

  The next morning, he had e-mails confirming the approximate locations of four pods, one each off the coast of Argentina, near the Great Barrier Reef, near Bermuda, and off the east coast of Africa. Three came from Greenpeace, and he didn’t recognize the name of the organization tracking the fourth.

  He drove up the coast to avoid both Silicon Valley and San Francisco commuter traffic, and then cut across San Francisco from the Great Highway to the Greenpeace offices in a neighborhood south of Market Street. The door opened to a large work area packed with volunteers. Farley signed in and asked a volunteer to tell Walt that he was here. Then he watched the activity, enjoying a nostalgic buzz until half an hour had passed and he realized that Walt was ignoring him.

  Farley did what came naturally: he took over. By lunchtime, he had coordinated a telephone fund-raising campaign, assembled a team to design posters, and put three techies together to code up a new Greenpeace smartphone app. When Walt emerged from his office, he found Farley at the whiteboard.

  Walt walked up from behind and said, “It figures. I try to blow you off and you reorganize my team.”

  “Good to see you, Walt. Let me take you to lunch.”

  Walt stared at the poster designs and then said, “All right, I owe you that.”

  As they walked across Seventeenth Street to Chez Maman, Farley described the Moby-Dick project. “Picture it, Walt, a firsthand experience of life as a sperm whale.”

  The host seated them, and Farley set a copy of his proposal on the table. Walt looked at his watch.

  “How can recording the experience of a whale be outside of Greenpeace’s mission?”

  Walt sighed. A waiter set down glasses of water. Walt sipped his. Farley waited.

  “Farley, I like what you’re doing. I sent your proposal to Canada and France, and every time someone else saw what you’re trying to do, they raised the same objection that I have.” He looked across the resta
urant and then back at Farley. “What if something goes wrong? Do you have any idea what would happen to Greenpeace if you hurt a bull sperm whale? What if you killed it?”

  “Walt, please. You know better than that. I’ve got Chopper Vittori designing the tranquilizer. Lots of things can go wrong, but the animals are safe.”

  “Look, if it were a land mammal or a bird, even a seal or a dolphin, we could manage the risk. But a bull sperm whale? We can’t do that.”

  “You remember Chopper? You know who I’m talking about, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Walt nodded. “Chopper used to face down harpoons like they were slingshots—but Chopper was reckless. Has he changed?”

  “Hold on. Chopper is dedicated. He—”

  “I’m not questioning anyone’s dedication. It’s risk assessment. A mistake could shut us down. The answer is no.”

  The waiter asked if they were ready to order. Farley didn’t hear what Walt ordered but said, “I’ll have that, too.”

  Farley felt deflated. He’d always respected Walt. Farley asked, “What if I stepped aside? You could lead the whole endeavor. I don’t even have to be there.”

  “What?” Walt started to laugh. “What have you done with my friend Farley Rutherford?” He leaned across the table and pretended to shake Farley by the shoulders. “Farley, are you in there?”

  “Seriously,” Farley said, “you can manage the risk yourself.”

  “No way. It’s one thing for you to violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but Greenpeace?”

  “It would be in international waters.”

  Walt held out his hands. “It was long before your time, but I was there in 1972 when we pushed that through Congress. We’re not going to violate the spirit of that law.”

  Farley said, “Greenpeace has locations for three different sperm whale pods. What if we hire your ship and crew?”

  “You did your homework.”

  “What do you think?”

  “No, that won’t work either. But hang on. I checked, too. Locations of four pods are known. What about the fourth?”

  “You mean the one off the Horn of Africa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s monitoring it?”

  Walt said, “Apparently I did more homework than you did.”

  The waiter brought plates heaped with mushroom crepes and salad.

  “Well?”

  “You remember Randy Gaynes?”

  “Gaynes is not the kind of guy you forget.” Randy Gaynes had been on the Rainbow Warrior at the same time Farley had. After their two-year stint, Farley went to graduate school and lost track of him. “What’s he doing now?”

  “After he left Greenpeace, Gaynes formed his own organization. He’s the captain of the Cetacean Avenger,” Walt said. Farley recognized the name of the ship. The Cetacean Avenger was an antiwhaling vessel that took its name from the order of marine mammals that included whales, porpoises, and dolphins. “I bet he’d help you.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Farley said. Randy Gaynes had always been a radical, the type of environmentalist that gave others a bad name. “We’re trying to make environmentalism mainstream, not further marginalize it.”

  “It’s the only suggestion I have. Greenpeace can’t help.”

  “Walt, we don’t want anything to go wrong either.” Farley picked at his food. “Randy Gaynes? Trouble follows that guy.”

  “I’ve got it,” Walt said, chewing a crepe. He swallowed and then continued. “You’re an entrepreneur. Rent a ship and hire your own crew. I’ll give you a list of experienced Greenpeace sailors.”

  “If we did,” Farley said, “would Greenpeace interfere with us?”

  “No, I can take care of that.”

  “Would we get any logistical support at all?”

  “Interesting question. There’s a tradition of ships helping each other on the high seas. I can’t commit Greenpeace to helping you, but if I could, I’d say yes.”

  Chopper liked the rain forest at night. Moonbeams struggled through the canopy, hinting at the trail. Alive with the voices and footsteps of hundreds of animals and thousands of insects, it provided easy food and drink. Through three days he slept in trees or on rocks in six-hour stretches—a feat he had never accomplished indoors. He cataloged the vines and documented the microecology of anything with inverted-cone-shaped flowers. He collected as many seeds as would fit in his tackle box.

  The trip here, with the chaos of airports and the close-packing of airplanes, had tortured him. It got better with each step, though. The plane from Manaus to Uarini had been a fifteen-seater, and the way it bounced through the clouds was almost pleasant. When he stepped onto the sandy road in the heart of Amazonas and put out his thumb, he could sense relief nearby.

  He climbed into the back of a circa-1950 Chevy pickup with three other guys. The ride wasn’t smooth, and for about an hour it wasn’t pretty either. To the left of the road he could see river tributaries through dense forest—exactly what he’d had in mind—but the view to the right was a different story. As they drove west toward the mountains, the land on his right changed from clear-cut pasture with patches of ordered crops to nothing but dead, ash-covered, barren land. Soon, they were driving through clouds of smoke. Then they reached the fires. Teams of men with shovels and torches manipulated the flames inexorably westward.

  Chopper’s immediate thought was to kill these men, exterminate the disease. As he considered jumping out of the truck, a thought invaded his mind. It came as though someone had whispered it in his ear, someone he trusted. It was Farley’s thought, of course, and it made sense. It was obvious. Right now Chopper was on a mission, and besides, what could one man do in the face of this scale of destruction? He would accomplish this mission, and after his labors bore fruit, he would return.

  He didn’t speak Portuguese and the guys in the old pickup didn’t speak English or Spanish, so as the road curved into the jungle and the forest closed in, he slapped a fender when he was ready to get off the truck. He stepped off, felt the amused stares on his back, and walked into the jungle. The auras cleared and the migraine hammer relaxed to a gentle tapping. By nightfall in the forest, the pain was gone. With no auras blocking his sight, he could even discern a path lit by filtered moonbeams.

  He found them at night: giant white blossoms at the ends of fragile vines that stretched as far as it took to capture a ray of moonlight. When the sun came out, the blossoms closed and drooped into the shade. Even here they were rare. The lacelike mesh of the vines was easily torn by anything that passed through. He found just a dozen of this variety within a few square miles. They grew in extremely alkaline soil several feet above the level of the river. He dubbed the plant tlitliltzin-prime, a deviation from the morning glory family.

  On his fifth day, he came upon a village of almost a hundred people who lived on the bounty of small plots of cleared land, food from the rain forest, and fish from the river. He spied on them for a few days, monitoring their routine, identifying the male and female leaders as well as the younger members most likely to challenge that leadership. It was embarrassing that they found him before he chose whether or not to impose himself. They were sturdy, swarthy folks who wore shorts and button-up shirts. Some had jeans and most were barefoot, though some of the older men wore boots, and they lacked the American norm of personal space. They stood close, they stared, they didn’t conceal their curiosity or suspicions. Compared to the arrogant citizens of civilization, they cared for the land and each other. Chopper felt a foreign feeling that he identified as empathy.

  In anticipation of the obvious but unspoken question “What are you doing here?” he showed them his stash of seeds and pressed flowers. Two youths took him to the man he had identified as the village patriarch. As he approached, the man rose from a long bench carved from the trunk of a tree. The wood was dark enough to be mahogany. It reminded Chopper of the table in the conference room at Sand Hill Ventures. The house behind him was built of the sam
e dark wood, its roof formed by layers of huge leaves. At first Chopper’s feeling of empathy gave way to a more familiar feeling, outrage, that they had harvested endangered trees, but then he laughed at himself. These people lived with the trees; they made the trees part of their lives—not to harvest and sell, but to share with Earth.

  The patriarch was the same height as Chopper, several inches taller than the other villagers, and spoke Spanish. He said his name was Mariano Tuxauas.

  Chopper spent the following two days with Mariano, mostly sitting on that bench talking. The effects of the seeds from the gigantic white blossoms were known in the village. Chopper gave Mariano a crash course in practical biochemistry as it pertained to botany: photosynthesis, fertilization, crossbreeding, and ways to isolate the pharmacologically active ingredients of various plants using the cooking tools at hand. In exchange, Mariano gave Chopper a botanical tour of the rain forest.

  Mariano showed Chopper a wide swath of flat forestland that could be burned back for sugar or coca production. Chopper almost lost his temper, arguing that greater wealth was already growing in that rain forest. Mariano stopped him and explained that it didn’t matter; they had no money or political power and so no chance against the plantations. If the owners came, they’d take the land and might even re-enslave them. The two of them discussed ways to keep the area lush and dense so it could be concealed.

  By the time he left, Chopper believed he had convinced Mariano to pursue a new type of agriculture. Mariano recognized that his village could flourish on the wealth derived from a sustainable harvest of rare plants that they could sell as pharmacological resources and natural remedies. As he saw the understanding come to light in Mariano, Chopper thought of Gloria. This was her idealistic brand of capitalism. He decided to bring her back with him, and see if she could live up to her philosophy and help these people.

  For the better part of a day, the bitterness that Chopper felt for Homo sapiens disappeared. As he walked away from the village, he wondered if he might have been too harsh. Was it possible that humanity had some redeeming qualities?