The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond (6 page)

“What a beautiful set of instruments.” Dmitri gazed appreciatively, first at Melanie, and then upon the gleaming assemblage of black-and-white tube structures housing the array of large mirrors and electronic components. “I never expected an encounter with such sophisticated equipment here on the mountain.”

Melanie stood center stage, her silver earrings and yin-yang pendant glistening beneath an intense spotlight. “I’ll bet you didn’t know the LURE Observatory was built in 1974 and that LURE is an acronym for Lunar Ranging Experiment?”

“Not a clue,” replied Greg, “but it’d be a great Jeopardy question.”

“You SoCalSci guys don’t miss a beat.” Melanie pointed up at the sky. “With the LURE telescope, our UH scientists can measure the time it takes for the laser’s light pulses to bounce back from reflectors on the moon.”

“You’re telling us there are laser reflectors on the moon?” Dmitri glanced over at Greg.

“Everyone remembers the grainy videos of Neil Armstrong and his merry band of Apollo astronauts doing kangaroo bounces on the moon. What people don’t know is that they installed the reflectors just for the LURE experiment. We can measure the distance between the moon and the earth to an accuracy of less than two centimeters.”

Dmitri fiddled with the touch screen on his iPhone. “Outstanding! That’s a precision of one part in ten billion.”

“Not too shabby, huh?” Melanie’s smile accentuated her cheekbones. “Taking the measurements at different times of the day and month, it’s just basic trigonometry to accurately compute the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates, to measure the length of a day based upon the rate of change of the Earth’s rotation, and to calculate the precession of the Earth’s axis.”

“Answering another Jeopardy question, it cost the U.S. taxpayers twenty-five billion dollars to land on the moon,” said Greg. “Considering that the reflectors went along for the ride, it’s quite a bargain in return for the amount of science that’s been reaped.”

“Forty years later and they’re still working,” said Melanie. “My all-time favorite LURE discovery is the lunar orbit measurement accurate enough to confirm Einstein’s prediction using general relativity.”

“You reminded me of my all-time favorite Einstein quote,” said Dmitri. “‘Spend a week in Maui and it seems like a day. Spend a day at work and it seems like a week. That’s relativity.’”

“That’s special relativity,” she replied. “But I can’t picture Albert Einstein in a speedo.” Melanie’s laughter resonated with a distinct musical quality, delighting Dmitri.

Greg was in a more serious mood. “I recently read an article in
Scientific American
about the measurements of continental drift. I vaguely remember the mid-Pacific plate is moving in a northwesterly direction and dragging the Hawaiian Islands along with it.” He motioned with his arm to illustrate the point. “Does the data from LURE confirm this?”

“Correcto, about five inches per year, moving toward Japan. This is really fascinating for us locals because it explains the formation and spacing of the Hawaiian Islands predicted by plate tectonics. Here, follow me.” She paused and, with a dancer’s grace, motioned them toward a freestanding whiteboard.

While Greg asked the questions, Dmitri’s own visual tracking system scanned the contours of Melanie’s East-meets-West fusion features, shaped, he surmised, by the merging of Asian, Pacific, and North American genetic tectonic plates. He was pleasantly distracted by the multiple images of her movements reflected back to him from the glass and metal surfaces of the telescope.

Melanie grabbed a marker pen and drew a schematic map of the Hawaiian Islands. “Geologists have discovered a huge column of upwelling lava that lies at a fixed location called the mid-Pacific Ridge. As the ocean floor moves over this hot spot at about five inches a year, the lava rises to the surface and creates a steady succession of new volcanoes.”

“I’m picturing a gigantic conveyor belt of volcanic islands spreading away from the source,” said Dmitri.

“The Hawaiian archipelago of nineteen islands was built by this lava plume over millions of years,” she told them. “New islands are being born as we speak.”

“Which is great for your tourist industry,” interjected Greg. “Sorry to drift off of the subject, but we noticed the laser beam had a greenish hue—” He stopped in mid-sentence when Melanie started scribbling some esoteric numbers on the whiteboard.

“The YAG laser produces one-centimeter-diameter light pulses of 200 picosecond duration every 200 milliseconds,” she said. “The wavelength of the light of a YAG laser is 5,320 angstroms, corresponding to the visible green light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Dmitri cleared his throat and raised a hand like a schoolboy. “What’s a YAG?”

“YAG is an acronym for yttrium, aluminum, garnet crystal.”

Dmitri smiled. “Only a laser ranger could shed such a stimulating light on the optics of angstroms and picoseconds.”

“Just think,” she replied. “In the four-billion-year history of our solar system, no photon of light could make the 500,000-mile, round-trip trek to the moon and come back to the exact location it started from.” Melanie extended her arms and twirled a full three-hundred-sixty degrees. “That is,” she added, “until lasers were invented and the reflectors were delivered to the moon’s surface. And I’m the lucky laser ranger operating all of this amazing technology, firing the zillions of photons heavenward.”

When she arched her back and reached for the sky, Dmitri was mesmerized. He’d never imagined a planetarium show could combine astronomy with graceful dance movements.

“Even then,” she continued, “only a handful survives the round-trip. We need a special amplifier to capture and detect those few photons so we can measure the time of their journey.”

“Those photons remind me of the few salmon who survive the round-trip to spawn their species,” said Greg.

“Very interesting,” replied Melanie, looking thoughtful. “I never thought about it quite that way.”

“So much for the conspiracy theory that the moon landings were a hoax,” said Dmitri.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re an adaptable species, but it’s also our nature to cling to the security of existing belief systems. There’s been a status quo resistance to new ideas throughout history.”

“Like the Creationists rejecting the theory of evolution,” added Greg. “Although we’re just a few DNA base pair degrees of separation removed from the genomes of our simian relatives.”

Dmitri nodded his agreement. “It’s unfortunately true. Humanity’s vision is skewed. We filter objective awareness through the lens of our insecurities and ideological bias.”

Melanie grasped her pendant. “That’s interesting. I’ve been reading about the Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti. He advocated that the ideal state of right thought is attained by awareness without judgment.”

Dmitri’s mouth was agape. “Simply amazing,” he replied. “My college advisor and mentor quotes Krishnamurti.”

“Great minds think alike.” She tossed him wink. “Bet you didn’t know that, in 1924, Joseph Campbell accidently bumped into Krishnamurti while sailing back from Europe. Although Campbell was only twenty years old, they discussed Asian philosophy and the Hindu and Indian belief systems.”

“That I didn’t know,” said Dmitri, impressed by the breadth of Melanie’s interests. “Their conversation probably influenced Campbell’s ideas on the relationship of myth and the human psyche.”

“Very cool,” replied Greg. “We should all be so fortunate as to chance upon such an inspirational mentor.” He winked at Dmitri.

“Here’s my take on the photon round-trip,” Dmitri announced. “It’s a metaphor for the process of self-discovery. We learn about ourselves by building a bridge of symbols with others and reflecting upon information reflected back to us.”

“I like that,” said Melanie. “The earth will discover itself by reflecting information to and from its lunar brother.”

Dmitri nodded and smiled. “Whereas the Hubble Telescope is harvesting one-way photons emitted long, long ago and far, far away so we can discover the mysteries at the edge of the cosmos.”

“Did either of you ever read the
Sirens of Titan
?” asked Greg. Melanie and Dmitri shook their heads.

In SparkNotes-like fashion, Greg summarized Vonnegut’s story of an intergalactic explorer stranded millions of years ago on Saturn’s largest moon because a critical component of his spacecraft had broken. The raw materials for this component didn’t exist on Titan, but they did on Earth. “The ET’s used their quasi-omnipotent powers to manipulate human evolutionary history to produce a civilization capable of developing such a part and, after inventing space travel, Fedexed it back to Titan,” he said.

Dmitri knew what to expect: an eccentric but brilliant conclusion.

Greg finished the thought. “So, putting a Vonnegut spin on the Gaia Principle, which postulates that our biosphere is a single complex organism, maybe the Earth has evolved creatures like us to invent technologies that enable Earth consciousness to expand its self-awareness. You, Lady Melanie, as the appointed laser ranger, are the enabling agent for the Sirens of Earth Gaia. You were created by the Gaia to ascend the holy mountain and to shine the light of illumination upon planetary consciousness.”

This one tops them all, thought Dmitri. He sincerely hoped Greg’s celestial, time-travelling romp hadn’t weirded out Melanie.

Her eyes opened wide, like a child experiencing her first rainbow. When she’d begun to whistle the theme song from the
Twilight Zone
, her guests joined her in moaning their version of scary ghost sounds. Melanie raised both arms, and the spirit sounds ceased.

“Oh, guys,” her tone playful, “by the way, this is my part-time job. I also have a day job as a speech therapist. After all, what’s the use of this high-tech stuff if it can’t help improve the human condition? You’d be impressed how technology has revolutionized language training programs for the hard of hearing. If you have some free time, why not come by the University of Hawaii Speech Lab in Kahului and I’ll give you another tour?”

Greg looked both amazed and eager. “Absolutely.”

Dmitri couldn’t have been happier if he’d won the lottery. “Melanie, you sure know how to entice a couple of techies. We’re totally booked tomorrow, but the following morning we’ll be finished with the snorkel cruise to Molokini and Turtle Town by 10 a.m. and then returning to Kihei.”

Melanie responded with a charming tilt of her head. “Ooh, that’s a great dive, and say hello to the giant sea turtles. The drive from Kihei to Kahului can take thirty minutes, so let’s rendezvous at about eleven.” She jotted on a yellow Post-it. “Here’s the address. But before you leave, how about a light show?” Her index finger hovered tantalizingly above the telescope’s control panel. “Did you know there are more UFO sightings on Haleakala Mountain than practically anywhere else on the globe? Want to know why?”

With a flick of her wrist, the laser ranger unleashed another flaming emerald bolt into the Hawaiian night.

S
PEECH
L
AB–
A
B
RIDGE OF
L
IGHT AND
S
OUND

University of Hawaii Speech Lab, Kahului, Maui—two days later

The drive from Kihei to Maui’s largest retail and population center, Kahului, was one of Dmitri’s all-time scenic favorites. He assumed, therefore, that the leisurely trip through the idyllic countryside would allay his jitters about seeing Melanie again.

“This is the life!” Greg howled above the roar of the wind. “Never thought I’d play tag with giant sea turtles.”

Dmitri turned to look at Greg. “What’s your take on the laser ranger?” he shouted before focusing his attention back to the highway.

“A Renaissance woman,” replied Greg. “Brains, beauty, and multiple interests—the feminine ideal you’ve long sought. Back home, guys would be lining up around the block to date her.”

With a sideways glance, Dmitri caught his chum’s broad grin. Greg’s assessment about Dmitri’s “perfect woman” confirmed the real reason for his anxiety. Why would she be interested in someone labeled an engineering geek by more than one ex-girlfriend? He realized he had better enjoy the scenery if he hoped to unwind.

In the open-air vehicle, they were surrounded by a lush valley of sugarcane fields. Rows of cane rose from the valley floor, gradually ascending the lower slopes of Haleakala to the east and, more dramatically, climbing the jagged contours of the Maui Mountains to the west. The stalks swayed like a hula in the ocean breeze to the accompaniment of the rolling, steel-guitar rhythms of “Harbor Lights,” the Hawaiian favorite, playing on a local radio station. As the warm wind massaged his face, Dmitri stole an occasional glance at the towering, cloud-crowned summit of Haleakala. By the time they’d pulled into the University’s parking lot, he felt more relaxed.

“Where to?” asked Greg.

“This is a college campus,” replied Dmitri, leading Greg down a sidewalk shaded by acacia trees. “Someone’s gotta know about the Speech Lab.”