by Mark Wandrey
“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.”
* * * * *
Chapter 3
Kapukahehu Beach, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
August 10th, 2035
Doc set the autopilot on his boat, the Krispin, and swung down from the flying bridge to greet the kids. He tussled Yui’s hair, and put Terry in a headlock. The young boy escaped with the nimbleness of a martial artist i
n a move Doc had taught him the previous month.
“Where we going?” Yui asked, looking over the diving gear arrayed on the rear deck.
“Kapukahehu Beach,” Doc said.
“The Dixie Maru?” Terry asked, excited.
“Yup,” Doc confirmed.
“You said we can’t go down below 40 meters,” Yui said.
“You can for a few minutes without decompression,” he explained. “However, we have a game changer.” He picked up a strange clamshell-style case.
Terry immediately became more interested. The aliens who’d been visiting the institute over the last few months often carried cases just like it. They called them, “Union Standard” equipment cases, though they came in a dizzying variety of designs. He tried to imagine some factory floating in space, cranking out these cases for whatever you wanted to store. Everything from crazy alien toothbrushes to laser blasters!
“You got some alien stuff,” Terry said.
Doc looked at him with the appraising look he gave them sometimes when they surprised him. “Yeah,” he said. “How do you know that?” Terry explained. “I had heard there were a lot of aliens coming and going at Kaunakakai lately. You guys and your fish research?”
“Cetaceans, yup,” Terry replied.
“Fish,” Yui said, poking Terry in the ribs with a particularly sharp elbow.
“They’re not fish,” Terry said, and gave her a push. Anyone else might have gone right over the transom. Yui just caught herself and stuck her tongue out at him. “They’re mammals, like us.”
“I wish I had fins,” Yui said. “That would make diving even cooler!”
“Or be able to hold your breath for 10 minutes, like dolphins,” Doc said.
“Fifteen minutes for orcas,” Terry said. He got the appraising look from Doc while Yui’s mouth became an O. Terry enjoyed knowing something Doc didn’t. “So what’s that?”
“This,” Doc said and popped the case, “is badass.” Inside were four metallic cylinders and several sets of plastic grids.
“Looks like waffles,” Yui said.
Doc winked and took one of the cylinders out. Terry reached for another, and the man gently stopped him. “Hold up until I show you,” he said. “Remember what I taught you?”
“Learn, then do,” Terry and Yui chorused.
“Bingo,” he said. Doc took the cylinder and closed the case, much to Terry’s disappointment. Holding the cylinder in his lap, he opened a regular dive case and began removing equipment. Over the next few minutes, as Krispin motored along the Molokai coast, he used tools to attach other items. A rubber head strap, a wireless monitor, and a mouthpiece.
“It’s some kind of rebreather?” Yui guessed, about a second before Terry was about to say the same thing.
“Yes, it is,” Doc said and gave her a thumbs-up. Terry scowled. Doc attached a standard dive mask and slipped the unit over his head. The silver cylinder was maybe five centimeters long, and one centimeter thick. It wasn’t much wider than the mouthpiece when Doc slipped it between his teeth. It looked kind of comical compared to the long rubber tubes linking a standard regulator to dive tanks.
“That’s it?” Terry asked.
Doc removed the mouthpiece so he could talk. “For a low dive, yes,” he said. “It’s self-contained and has one of those crazy alien batteries, so you’re good for two hours.”
“How big is the battery?” Terry asked.
Doc took the equipment off his head and popped a compartment open with a twist. The battery was a centimeter long and half the diameter of the cylinder. He showed them the intakes, which brought in seawater and extracted oxygen to breathe.
“Wow,” Terry and Yui said.
“It’s like something from ‘60s James Bond,” Doc said. Yui and Terry gave him an uncomprehending look, and Doc shook his head.
“What about the plastic waffles?” Yui asked.
“Ah, yes,” Doc said and grinned as he opened the case again. “Remember that 40-meter limit?” They both nodded as he took out the plastic pieces. “These attach with a couple little hoses, and they’re extended gas extractors. They can pull anything from the water you want them to.”
“I don’t understand,” Terry said.
“They can suck nitrogen or helium from the water,” Doc said.
“Oh,” Terry said. “So you can go deeper because you can add helium?”
“Bingo,” Doc said.
“How deep?” Yui asked.
“As deep as you want,” Doc said, and winked. “At least as long as the battery lasts, and you can hot-swap batteries.”
Terry looked at the units, and then at Doc, thinking about the dive breathers. “Where did you get them?”
“Friends in the service,” he said.
Terry knew Doc had been in the military, and that was where he’d learned to dive. It was also where he’d been hurt, though what the injury was, he’d never explained. “Are we going to use them?”
Doc checked his phone and glanced around the cabin to verify the boat’s progress. “That’s the plan,” he said. “We’re going to use them to dive down to the Dixie Maru.”
“We get to use them the first time?” Yui said in disbelief.
“No,” Doc replied and laughed. “I’ve been using them for a month now. I love you guys, but do you really think I’d test alien stuff on a couple of ten-year-old kids?”
Terry didn’t answer, because that would have been just fine with him. Doc briefed them on the basic operation of the apparatus.
“I’ve already programmed them,” he explained. “There are only a couple controls you need to worry about.”
As the boat neared their destination, Doc shepherded Yui into the cabin so she could change into her diving gear, and Terry changed out on deck. Doc was already wearing shorts and a vest. Yui came back out just as the boat throttled back, and Doc’s phone beeped. They’d arrived over the wreck of the Dixie Maru.
Doc set a sea anchor and programmed the boat to hold position. Terry ran up the red flag with its white slash, a universal dive flag to warn passing boats that people were in the water. Doc set dive lines over the side, then helped the kids get their weight belts in place.
“Now, since we have the alien breathers, rate of rise isn’t an issue. If something goes wrong, pull the release on your weight belts and come straight up. Always keep me in sight down there, and let’s go slow on the descent. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Yui said.
“Yes, sir,” Terry echoed. That was part of the deal; they were no-nonsense while diving, and had been from the first time Doc took them snorkeling.
Doc helped attach the plastic filters, which would allow them to go deeper. They were lightweight and attached to the back of their vests, where tanks would have been before. Once in place, Terry couldn’t even feel it. Then it was time to get in the water, and both kids hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” Doc asked.
“It feels weird,” Terry said. They were both standing on the diving platform, Krispin bobbing gently in the offshore swells, dunking their feet in and out of the water.
“Yeah, wrong without the tanks,” Yui agreed.
“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Doc said, rubbing his stubble-covered chin.
“No, I’m good,” Terry said and jumped in the water feet first. He quickly surfaced, put the breather in, and stuck his head back underwater. He breathed in and felt cool, delicious air. Other than a tiny lag between drawing in the breath and the pressure catching up, it was no different than a scuba regulator.
“Okay?” Doc asked.
Terry gave him a thumbs-up. Not to be outdone, Yui jumped in, too. A few seconds later, she was using the breather as well. Doc nodded and slipped over the side, entering the water as smoothly as any dolphin Terry had ever seen.
Doc gestured to the kids to take hold of the dive rope. Once he was sure they had a good grip, he pulled the release and grabbed it himself. The weight fell, and they went with it into the da
rk.
As they descended slowly into the deep, Terry experienced a feeling of excitement mixed with fear, and he tried hard to control his breathing. Then he checked the monitor strapped to his wrist and saw the battery level at 99% and not changing. He’d become used to a tank with a fixed amount of oxygen. Doc preached constantly to carefully control your breathing to maximize dive time, and to give you a safety margin in order to escape problems. He relaxed and breathed normally.
Every few meters he forced himself to swallow, equalizing pressure in his inner ear. The earplugs he wore kept any pressure damage from getting through to his eardrums. His mask pressed ever harder against his face. He drew some of the pressure away by letting it out through his nose and exhaling.
The surface light fell off to only a dim hint of illumination. It reminded Terry of being under a sheet with only his room’s light on. Merely a hint of light, without being able to see its point of origin. He’d never been down a fraction of the distance. It was amazing, and spooky.
The descent stopped suddenly, and Terry realized they were on the ocean floor. Bright light stabbed out, and he could see Yui in stark relief. Doc had turned his mask light on. Terry did the same, and Yui did so a second later. Their beams played around as they looked at the dark volcanic sand below them. Occasional plant life sprouted where there were rocky outcroppings, and a couple of light-dazzled fish swam past. Compared to the sea life he’d seen closer to the shore at shallower depths, it was almost dead where they were.
As he played his light around, a shape came out of the darkness. It had to be the ship, but it only looked like a jumble of broken wood. He got Doc’s attention by flashing his light at him, then pointed at the boards. Doc nodded; that was it.
He’d told them about the Dixie Maru more than a year ago, shortly after they’d begun diving with him. He’d been down to it a few times before. He had the equipment to do it, but had absolutely refused to take the kids down.
The boat, a fishing junk which had sunk in 1916, still had some stuff Doc called “wreck trash.” They poked around for a while, digging in the sand. Terry found an old spoon, which still showed a little engraving. Yui found an amber bottle with the decayed remnants of a cork in it.