Boston

It was 6:30 in the evening by the time Dave and the Professor arrived in Boston. The normal 30 minute drive to the Bourne Bridge, joining the Cape to the mainland, had taken them almost two hours. They had spent considerable time listening to the news reports of attacks, which were obviously continuing all over the world. A new twist in the theory as to why the attacks were occurring came from the UFO believers. They were claiming that the whales were being controlled by an alien life form. Dave and the Professor had a good laugh over that one.

When not listening to the radio, Dave kept playing the tape they had borrowed from Jack Sherman. There was something about the sound that he was finding familiar, he just couldn't place it. Using the equalizer buttons on the car's tape deck, he began playing with the tones. First he eliminated all bass, then all treble. He went back to minimizing the bass. He left it there and played it over and over. The Professor did not want to interrupt Dave's concentration so he just drove, listened, and watched. After about 20 minutes, seeing Dave was getting frustrated, he interrupted and asked, "What are you up to?"

Dave explained, "I'm trying to pick up a certain series of sounds that occur in the middle of the sound chain. That's where Claire's computer program had become so helpful. Although I can usually recognize what the whales are saying, I had the problem that by the time I figured it out, the whales were long gone. Using Claire's program, what had taken me hours now can be done in micro-seconds. But this sound is just different. I can't identify any of it, and yet it's familiar. It just doesn't make sense."

As time went by, they spoke about the theory that this madness was the possible result of one animal taking revenge for the killing of his mate and her calf. But no matter how they tried to analyze it, they couldn't account for how one whale was smart enough to seek revenge, let alone communicate with so many other whale species, which actually spoke a different language or dialect. Even if it was possible for whales to communicate across species, how would that whale convince the others to go on the rampage. It all seemed so strange. The Professor jokingly took the side for alien control. Dave looked at him for a moment before realizing that he was kidding.

Just as they were approaching the University, Professor Edwards turned to Dave and said, "Dave, I have a theory. Jack told us how huge this whale is, right?" Dave agreed. "Well, as I see it, there are two possibilities that would at least support a partial explanation. See what you think, but I caution you, I don’t want you to ridicule my theories. The first is, in my opinion, not the most likely, but it is a possibility. Suppose that this animal for some unknown reason, has lived well past the average or even well past the maturity age for Humpbacks. In his many years he has developed an extraordinary intelligence. Say, well, sort of like the Moses of whales. Using this intelligence he has found a way to communicate with the other whale species."

Dave looked at the Professor. "I have thought about that too, but there are too many reasons why I concluded that it is improbable. First, we all know that as these whales age they truly show the aging process in the manner in which they slow down. If this whale was as old as we conjecture he is, then he probably would not be leading a pod. Second, the whale that attacked the boat was not an old animal. That whale was a bull in the prime of his life. Third, it just doesn't make sense to me. I mean logically it doesn't fit."

The Professor nodded his concurrence and added, "Yes, I guess I agree. As I explained, I was having trouble with that myself." He then waited a minute and went on, "I have a second theory and, quite honestly, Dave, it's the one that I believe to be the most probable, a little far-fetched mind you but the most probable explanation."

Dave looked at the Professor and said, "Shoot."

Clearly a little uncomfortable with what he was going to say, Professor Edwards fidgeted in his seat, glanced at Dave, hesitated, then, taking a deep breath, began, "What I believe we are dealing with here is, an evolutionary mutant."

"A what?” asked Dave.

"Now here me out," answered the Professor. "I said an evolutionary mutant. We know that as creatures evolve through the normal evolutionary cycle, changes occur very slowly. However, when nature so determines that a change is ready, at some point animals must start appearing with those changes. First one and then another and then a few more and pretty soon through breeding the species evolves with another finger, more feathers, a longer bill, whatever. In that chain of events we also know that it is possible for a mutant to evolve which may actually be two or three evolutionary steps ahead of the normal process. In most cases, these mutants, if the characteristic was physical, would have no real effect on the species, would live its normal life, die off, and the normal evolutionary chain would keep going. Are you following me?"

"Yes, keep going."

"Now let's suppose we're dealing with an evolutionary mutant here, but this whale is not a mutant in a physical sense, he's an intellectual mutant."

Dave, now staring at the Professor, listened intently.

"Now this intellectually advanced whale has had twenty or thirty years roaming the seas. If he truly is intellectually advanced, why couldn't he learn the other whale dialects? Why couldn't he be smart enough to figure out he wants to take revenge and then, through his superior intelligence and his ability to speak other whale dialects, why couldn't he choreograph this bizarre series of events?"

"But Professor, an intellectual mutant?"

The Professor went on, "Dave, think about it for a second, the human race has been full of what I will call intellectual mutants, we just don't call them that." He repeated himself, "Dave remember, human history is full of intellectual mutants. Men and women who advanced science not by small steps, but by giant strides. The names are endless; Plato, Socrates, da Vinci, Einstein. Need I go on?"

Dave looked towards the Professor for a second, not sure what to say, and then responded, "Why would you call an intellect, who has made a discovery or an invention, a mutant?"

"I'm not calling every person who makes a discovery a mutant," replied the Professor. "You may have broken the secret to whale communications, you're not a mutant! But there are certain men who were far ahead of their time. For instance, take Leonardo da Vinci. Do you realize that during his life, which I believe was about 1450 to about 1519 or 20, that he made discoveries and talked about things that caused other men to believe he was crazy. He described building tunnels underwater, making bombs, he designed a mortar, an airplane, even a submarine. Leonardo knew more about anatomy, botany, and geology than any man of his time. Time and time again, he foresaw discoveries and inventions that were not to come for one or two centuries. Yes, Dave one or two centuries! In view of all that, he was also one of the supreme painters of his age." He let his comments sink in. Then assuring sufficient time had passed, he added, "Dave, Leonardo, can only be described as an intellectual mutant."

Dave thought for a moment. The Professor's theory offered an explanation, that is if this whale was the cause of the problem. Then Dave asked, "Okay suppose you're right, what about the whale's size, how do you explain that?"

"Who knows," replied the Professor, "Maybe he is so smart he just eats better. It could simply be his reasoning powers of where, when, and how to catch food are better, I really don't know. But I'll tell you something, if we could study his pod and if the whole family is larger than equivalent animals of the same age in other pods, then you could start proving the intelligence theory."

Dave was taken back. The Professor's strange theory was making sense. He replied; "The intelligence theory would explain a lot of things, wouldn't it? Just think of the irony of it, we start whaling again after a twenty-year moratorium, and the first whales killed are the from the family of the world's smartest whale."

The Professor laughed. "It sure would be interesting to find out how smart this beast really is. Who knows, maybe he's smarter than us."

Dave thought about that for a moment and said to himself, that's not very funny. He glanced at the Professor and said, "Leonardo da Vinci, a mutant !"

Edwards turned to him and smiled.

Turning into the university's parking lot and pulling into the first spot they could find, Dave slipped the cassette into his pocket as he got out of the car. Walking across the campus to the computer center, he looked around at the stone buildings surrounding him. The architecture always amazed him. It just looked majestic representing an age when skilled craftsmen cut stone by hand and fitted each one in place so it complemented the one next to it, above it and under it. The buildings, in Dave's mind, resembled a different era and again he thought about Leonardo.

As they walked up the steps to the computer center, Dave couldn't get the Professor's theory out of his mind, an evolutionary mutant! The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

In the lobby of the building, Dave heard his name called out. Looking up, he saw Claire standing on the second landing. She rushed down the stairs to him. They threw their arms around each other and kissed. Separating after a minute, Claire turned to the Professor and said, "I'm going to let him spend more time with you, he's learning a lot." They all laughed.

"C'mon up to the computer room," she said, "I think we're learning a lot, we may be close to a better understanding of how the language works." As they walked up the stairs, Claire asked, "What did you learn from the crew of the Rainbow Savior?"

Dave and the Professor explained that because of the circus at the laboratory, they had only met with Jack Sherman. They quickly explained his position on the crew and his observations. When they got to the part about the sound the whale had made, Dave took the cassette out of his pocket and showed it to Claire.

Reaching the computer room where she had been working, Claire introduced Dave and the Professor to the people who were helping her. Besides Sandra Livingston and George Samuels, they had been joined by Alice Ruetter, and Mary Evans. Introductions complete, Claire pointed to a small table at the end of the room and said, "Why don't we all have a seat."

When everyone was seated, she started, "What we have found is that the conclusions that you had drawn, Dave, about the sound chains and the 4th and 5th elements of those chains is absolutely correct. The sounds represent what we would call the key noun, adjective, or verb of the communication. However, from there the exact meaning of the communication becomes extremely complex. As we now know from your studies, the key phrase, that is the 4th and 5th element, is repeated three times. However, the sound chain preceding it and following it may differ. What we have discovered is that the order, volume, speed, and content of this sound chain all contribute to the exact meaning, making this language extremely complex. In order to totally understand the true meaning of the communications signal, we are going to need many more observations of sounds versus actual reactions."

Dave interrupted, "Does that mean the computer has not added to what we already know?"

Claire answered, "No, the computer has given us a lot more information, I just didn't want to give you the impression that we were going out tomorrow and hold a detailed conversation with some whale."

Dave replied, "Okay. What have you learned and what can we do?"

Claire went on, "It appears that besides the 4th & 5th elements of the sound chain, there are some other key variables that we now understand. First Dave, the analysis that we have completed has increased our vocabulary of the meanings of the 4th & 5th elements." Reaching for a computer printout, she handed it to Dave. "We now understand the meaning of 16 elements and as you will see from the second list, we think we understand 12 others." Dave looked at the printout and opened it so the Professor could view it concurrently. They both carefully went down the list.

"That's quite impressive," replied the Professor, "but how accurate are these?"

"Oh they're accurate," explained Claire. "Dave proved that on our trip. Clearly, as a result of Dave's research and now with additional phrases the computer has identified, we have a basic understanding of what they're saying and we demonstrated, we can repeat their signals in real time opening up a basic communications link. The problem we have is true communications with the animals like we're doing here. How do we exchange thoughts?

But we do have some other basic understanding that you need to see." Again she reached for a computer printout. Opening it on the table so they could view it, she began, "The computer analysis has indicated that of the other variables that I discussed earlier that we need to understand, we believe we know the meaning of two of them. Speed, for instance. If the speed in the first sound chain is rapid and then rapid in the last of the three sound chains, that seems to indicate that the communications are routine, with no specific urgency."

"Rapid is routine?" replied the Professor.

"Yes we questioned that too, but remember, what is logical to us might not be logical in this language. You have to throw out preconceived ideas when studying these sounds as communications."

She went on, "To the contrary, in the proper context, slow appears to signify danger, an order, or a challenge."

Dave thought for a moment, slapped his hand on the table, then added, "When you think about that it may actually make sense. Suppose you are the leader of a pod and suddenly you are threatened by Killer Whales. Communicating slow does several things: it prevents misinterpretation, does not show fear to the threatening whales, and finally it may actually get the attention of the pod members better than a rapid sound." He hesitated....."It does make sense."

Claire continued, "The slower the sound, the more urgency, or threatening, the greater the challenge, etc. So speed in whale communications represents the intensity of the communications. On the other hand, volume is the reverse; the louder the signal the more intense the message, while the lower the signal the less meaningful the message. Do you follow me so far?"

Both the Professor and Dave indicated they understood. Dave interrupted and asked, "Claire, how sure are you that the computer analysis is accurate?"

"It is only as accurate as our observations, Dave. If we fed the information in correctly, then we can assume the output is fairly accurate. Remember, we spent a lot of time recording the communication received versus the response we observed."

"Yes, I remember that, but I don't recall anywhere in our discussion, speed or volume," observed Dave.

"I know we didn't discuss either of those attributes of the signal, but the artificial intelligence module in the laptop noted them and recorded them. Luckily this information was captured and when we connected the laptop to the mainframe, the mainframe exercised these questions and made the connection. Also you must remember, communication speed variances may be so slight that they might not even be discernible by our ears.”

The discussion continued for a considerable time. Claire even had the computer simulate the sounds at different speeds and volumes to show the differences in meaning of what appeared to be the same sound. She then concluded, "We are closer than we were to a solution, but a total solution still eludes us. We need to make more observations with computer back-up as we did on Kwoletee' Tyme, before we will have a total solution," she concluded.

The Professor stood up and started to pace. The other six people in the room watched. He stopped, looked at Claire, and asked, "You did say that all these rules hold true for all the whale species, did you not?"

"I believe they do," replied Claire.

The Professor turned to Dave. "What do you think?," he asked him.

"I think we may have an evolutionary mutant," Dave replied.

Claire and the four computer experts looked at each other, obviously confused. "What the hell is an evolutionary mutant?" asked Claire. "What the hell are you two talking about?"

Dave explained the Professor's theory. He described Leonardo da Vinci as an evolutionary mutant, exactly as the Professor had in defending his supposition. Claire and the four other computer experts were mesmerized by every word. When Dave finished, Claire was silent. Everyone in the room was silent. Obviously Dave had said a lot and there was a lot to think about.

Then Claire asked, "Can you prove your hypothesis?"

Dave stood up and reached into his pocket, his fingers grasped the cassette. Withdrawing it he said, "Let the computer analyze this sound," and handed the tape to Claire.

Claire took the tape and looked at it while she obviously took a moment to think. She then in turn handed the cassette to Sandra and asked her to put it in the cassette head. In the meantime, Claire walked over to the keyboard and started to issue instructions to the computer. Turning to Sandra she asked, "All set?"

Sandra replied, "Yes."

Claire typed in "read tape reader 3, analyze sounds, summarize meaning, Ctrl Enter." The tape started playing. Since the volume on the tape deck was turned up, the sound filled the room.

Sandra went to turn it down, but Dave said, "No, leave it on." The haunting sound continued. Nobody spoke.

Maybe it was the speaker or the acoustic qualities of the room, but suddenly Dave recognized the sounds. They were not the pure sounds of a Humpback Whale but it was like listening to a Humpback and a Gray Whale, at the same time. That's what had confused him, there were two whales in the area making sounds at the same time. But wait a minute, there was also the sound of other whales. What the hell am I listening to? Then the computer printed out its analysis. Claire walked over to the printer, read the summary. She read it a second time. Turning to Dave, she tore the sheet from the printer and handed it to him. He read it out loud:

"animal is issuing a challenge, extremely slow speed indicates a very severe fervor to

challenge, appears to be in answer to provocation, animal appears to be issuing

command, communicating in more than one whale dialect.

Intensity of communication indicates animal enraged."

Dave looked at the Professor, who responded, "More than one dialect!" He snapped his fingers and said to Dave, "We have ourselves a Leonardo." Turning to Claire he asked her where the phone was, he needed to call the Institute. Claire led him and Dave into a small office and they dialed Jack Webster. The phone conversation lasted about twenty minutes. During that time they explained to Jack all the details of their analysis, including the mutant theory, the status of the work Claire had done, and finally the analysis of the tape Jack Sherman had made. Webster listened intently, almost not believing what he was hearing. But then he couldn't believe that whales world-wide had gone mad.

Finally Webster said, "If it weren't for the fact that whales are attacking humans all around the world, I'd say you three were crazy." He thought for a moment, and told them to meet him at the UN tomorrow at 10:00 AM.

The three looked at each other, puzzled at Webster's direction. The Professor asked, "What the hell are we going to the UN for?"

"Tomorrow, the UN will be debating the current world situation. Marine biologists from all around the world will be present to answer questions. Since I will be there with Fowler, Schwartz and McConn representing the Hole, I'd like you guys there also."

They agreed to be there, and just before ending the conversation Jack asked, "In case I need you between now and then, where can I reach you?"

Claire answered, "They will be staying at my place," and she gave him her number.

"Oh, by the way, be prepared to support and describe your findings, your, well.... your mutant theory and how you believe we should address solving the current problem. And by the way, after you prepare all that, get a good nights sleep. Good night." And the phone went dead.

"What did he mean, support our findings?" asked Dave.

The Professor answered, "I believe the world may find out tomorrow that you and Claire can talk to whales."

"But we are not ready to report our findings yet, we have more work to do," Dave responded.

"Dave, if my hunches are right, the very existence of whale survival may rest in your and Claire's hands. If I were you, I'd start figuring what the hell I was going to say to this mutant of ours when you two come face to face."

Dave and Claire looked at each other. He put his arm around her. Looking at one another, they suddenly understood all too well what the Professor meant.