The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond (16 page)

“Pretty ingenious suggestion,” replied Andrew. “Like the discovery of super-massive black holes from the time-lapse pictures of stars orbiting around them.”

“Unfortunately, we’ll need more persuasive evidence than visual observation.”

“We’d have to do a statistical analysis of the Speakeasy data. It’ll take at least a week to code and test.”

“Let’s discuss it later.” Seema slumped over, resting her head on the table top. “It’s almost morning, so let’s get some sleep.”

“Give me just a few more minutes,” said Andrew. “We’ve focused our attention on these dense episodes of frequency modulation that Dmitri’s interested in.” He indicated a second monitor that displayed the non-Speakeasy, time-varying waveforms. “We’ve totally ignored the other sections of the recording. What about this?” He pointed to a sparse region of sound blips separated by many seconds of silence. “Let’s analyze this segment before calling it a night.”

“Oh, what’s the use? It looks like noise to me.” Seema lifted her head, leaned back in the chair, and stretched like a feline.

“Please, just bear with me.” Andrew steepled his fingers. “My grandfather was a Zen Buddhist. He told me that patience was a virtue and the search for meaning is revealed in the silent corners of our minds.”

Seema muttered, “Sounds like you’re quoting from last night’s fortune cookie.”

“Have you no respect for cultural values other than your own? Anyway, I got a much more clever fortune. ‘Fu-Ling-Yu say: eunuch—man cut out to be bachelor.’”

Seema responded with a dramatic groan. “My Hindu grandmother once said, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a Brahmin healthy, wealthy, and wise.’”

“Let’s make a deal. I’ll exchange my world-famous, five-minute shoulder massage for another fifteen minutes with Speakeasy.”

Seema rotated her head and shoulders. “They
are
kinda tight. Okay. How can I refuse such a noble offer?”

Andrew stood, positioning himself behind Seema’s chair. “Close your eyes and relax.” He began to knead both thumbs into her neck and shoulders. “You’ve definitely got some huge knots here.”

“Ouch, be gentle. Yes, that’s much better.”

“I’ll have these knots untied in five.”

Seema sighed with relief as Andrew worked his hands and elbows into the crevices of her upper back. “Ooooh, that feels so good. I never realized you had talents outside of engineering.”

“Anytime you want, these hands are for hire.”

“I just might take you up on your offer.” Seema purred as Andrew’s elbows sank into the taut regions of her trapezius and deltoid muscles. “Oh, God, I’m starting to feel like a new person.”

“Good, then we can work some more.” Andrew sniffed the air. “By the way, your hair smells great.”

“It’s a family-secret hair conditioner made from cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.”

“Like my favorite herbal tea.” Andrew kneaded silently for five more minutes. When he released his grip, Seema turned around and flashed a huge grin.

“That was wonderful.” She stood and surprised him with a hug. “Thank you.” She pecked him on the cheek.

Andrew hesitated. Although their relationship had been full of friendly banter, it was more collegial than personal. Now, for the first time, they were cheek-to-cheek. Sensing the warmth of her breath, he reciprocated the hug and gazed into her eyes. The brief spell lingered.

“Time to work,” they uttered simultaneously and then laughed. With some hesitation, they disengaged.

Andrew settled into his chair, typed some commands, and stared at the blank screen. To his surprise, a small, circular shape materialized in the middle of the Speakeasy display. Thirty seconds later, after the screen had auto-refreshed, a similar form appeared in a different region of the plot. The sequence of curious shapes persisted over a span of several minutes.

“What the heck.” Andrew stared and pointed. “These ring figures seem to be popping up in locations all over the frequency plot.”

“We never saw shapes like these with human speech. It sounds like a barking seal and looks kind of like a bubble. Maybe they’re like whistles.”

Andrew whistled. “We’re definitely making progress,” he said, “but my brain has finally hit a wall. Let’s call it quits for now, get some sleep, and show this to Dmitri when he’s back from Santa Barbara.”

“Finally, we agree.” As Seema began to shut down her workstation, her entire body went rigid. She stared straight ahead.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Seema raised an arm in slow motion, like a mime, and pointed at the monitor. As the whale squealed through the speakers, the Speakeasy translated its vocalizations into familiar shapes embedded in a very unfamiliar setting.

“If you’re seeing what I’m seeing,” Andrew gulped, “please tell me I’m not crazy.”

Seema faced him, wide-eyed. “You’re not crazy.”

Andrew turned back to gaze at the figures painted on the computer monitor. “So what are we gonna do about this?”

“Get some sleep.”

H
ITTING THE
B
ULL’S-
E
YE

SoCalSci University, Los Angeles, California—one day later

Dmitri sat at his desk, studying the lecture notes he’d prepared for his afternoon class when Andrew and Seema appeared in the doorway. They seemed tense, and he wanted to put them at ease. “How was your Speakeasy tutorial with Melanie?”

“She was very nice, very professional.” Seema had a gleam in her eye. “She had us up and running in less than an hour.”

“She also has a very nice voice.” Andrew accentuated the word “very.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” replied Dmitri. “What’s the scoop on the whale song data? By the way, you both look exhausted.”

“We pulled an all-nighter.” Seema’s voice sounded dreamy. “But it was worth it. You’ll see.”

“There’s an intriguing development,” said Andrew. He looked punch drunk with puffy eyelids. “Before we get to that, you should Google this link.”

Dmitri stared at the sheet of paper Andrew gave him. “What the—”

“Just enter the link into your browser, boss, and all will be revealed.”

“Okay, I’ll humor you, but this better be good.” As Dmitri typed, Andrew and Seema circled his desk and stood behind him.

“That’s it.” Andrew pointed at the picture displayed on Dmitri’s monitor. The headline above the photo read,
CONTROVERSIAL OCEAN CROP CIRCLE PHOTO MAY BE LINKED TO WHALES
. “Just read the first two paragraphs.”

Dmitri scanned the article, pawing his hair, squinting at the screen. “What am I supposed to be thinking? It says that an Australian marine biologist studying a satellite photo, allegedly taken in the vicinity of Hawaii, discovered geometric patterns that might be linked to humpback whale activity. ‘Alleged’ and ‘might’
don’t instill much confidence in the credibility of the guy’s theory.”

“But if you read the fine print,” said Andrew, “he also states that the concentric patterns could be related to humpback bubble-net behavior.”

“And that’s supposed to prove—”

“We found a similar pattern in the whale vocalizations,” Seema interrupted.

“What?” Dmitri heard Seema’s words but they made no sense.

“We’re as surprised as you are,” replied Andrew.

“We found a baffling geometric pattern embedded in the Speakeasy translation,” said Seema, “but didn’t know what to make of it. When Andrew stumbled across this Internet story, we thought there might be a connection.”

“Just come with us, boss.”

Five minutes later, Dmitri, Seema, and Andrew stood before a bank of three display monitors in the Signal Processing Lab. Andrew initialized the Speakeasy program.

“Check out the display.” Andrew directed his “first-down” gesture at the central monitor. “The figures being drawn sometimes take sharp turns, just as you’d predicted.”

“That’s great news.” Dmitri touched the curlicue pattern on the screen. “If you could automate the detection of these inflection points, we could build a statistical database of frequency-pair targets.”

“We’re way ahead of you, but it’ll take at least a week to launch.”

“The real reason we called you back,” Seema gushed, “was because of Andrew’s idea to analyze another section of the recording.”

Andrew replayed the video depicting the circular patterns. “We were pretty surprised to see these small ring shapes appearing at a rate of about once or twice per minute. They seem to be distributed uniformly throughout the plot, over a range of frequencies between 100 and 4,000 hertz.”

Dmitri studied the screen and massaged his scalp. Finally, he said, “Not the patterns you’d expect for the symbols of the language of a sentient species. My guess is these frequencies correspond to the sounds of whistling.” He strafed the air with a percussive sequence of high-pitched whistles. “Good try, though.”

“That’s what we thought, too, until we observed the anomalous event. Wait just a few more seconds. There!” Andrew punched a fist toward the monitor.

Dmitri leaned forward and stared as the Speakeasy translation emerged. An invisible hand, guided by an anonymous cetacean voice, rendered the perfectly round figure of a large circle, followed shortly thereafter by a smaller circle, and finally, by an even smaller one. He could not deny the reality of the image stamped on the screen. A bull’s-eye pattern of three, perfectly concentric circles hovered before his eyes. Before he could speak, the process was repeated with the same implausible detail. The second bull’s-eye was nearly identical to its predecessor and overlaid on top of the first.

Dmitri gazed without blinking for nearly a full minute, his mind unable to process the data revealed by his own senses. He turned around to face both students. As his eyes darted back and forth, the expression on his brow shifted between skepticism and wonder. He eventually fixed his gaze upon Andrew. “You know, this really isn’t the right moment for a practical joke.”

Andrew clasped both hands over his face. “Nooooooo!”

Seema laughed.

“What?” Dmitri sounded impatient. “I’m right then?”

Andrew yanked a wallet from his pocket, extracted a ten-dollar bill, and slapped it onto Seema’s waiting hand. Dmitri was befuddled by her triumphant grin.

“No, boss, you’re dead wrong, but Seema predicted your skeptical response. We placed a wager on it.”

“Wait a second. You’re telling me this is legit?” He pointed at the screen.

“We’re as stunned as you are,” replied Seema.

“Let’s pinch ourselves for a moment.” Dmitri’s voice flowed like molasses. “This
could
be an acoustic artifact. Since our analytic minds coexist with our imaginations, we’re tempted to perceive patterns where none exist.”

“Like those old NASA pictures of the giant face on Mars?” offered Seema.

“That’s a good example. We’re trained from birth to compare patterns we observe to those we’ve stored in our mental databases. Recognition of our mother’s face is our first such experience.”

“Sometimes, however,” replied Seema, “like the face on Mars, we’re deceived by a pattern that’s a close match to the ones in our memory.”

“I remember that,” said Andrew. “After NASA examined the same region from different angles and lighting conditions, they realized it looked less like a face and more like an erosion pattern.”

“Precisely.” Dmitri uttered each syllable with equal emphasis. “Engineers and scientists are trained to use math, logic, and the scientific method to avoid coming to false conclusions. A single, circular pattern has a distinct geometric quality, but we cannot logically infer that this was the intention of the whistler. What we’ve got is a complex form: the frequencies of three highly correlated whistles in a linked geometric relationship. And it satisfies the math criterion. This does not appear to be random. In
my
mind, there’s a higher probability of the whale’s intention to define some sort of geometrically based symbol. Congratulations on your great detective work.”

“Not to mention the concentric circular patterns in the water near Hawaii,” murmured Seema.

“Touché,” replied Dmitri. “The patterns are similar, and if they’re both related to the humpbacks, it could be a real breakthrough. “I say we should investigate further.”

Dmitri hugged each of his students. Despite their exhaustion, the two were clearly proud. It struck him that they seemed different with each other, but he couldn’t pinpoint how, and in his excitement, he put it out of his mind.

“So, what’s our next move?” Seema asked.

Dmitri reached for his cell phone and pressed the speed-dial button. “Good morning, Greg. Are you in the office yet? Good. We need a math expert in the Signal Processing Lab, as soon as possible. There’s something intriguing for you to ponder.
Arigato
.”