Dawn

I read somewhere that the reason Sequoia trees stop growing to the height of four-hundred and twenty feet is because of gravity. That if the earth’s pull were to be slightly less than it is, we’d have taller trees. Earth, bound by the constraints of physics, maintains her uniqueness, in the transient nature of her processes. Once yearning to coax more forms into being, she whispered into the waters “Multiply yourselves.” As if on cue, the waters split; salt and fresh pockets sprang up in new places, with many new forms to fill them. And Earth knew, that from rich beds of mosses would clamber ferns reaching for land, so she told them to “go, and find land.” No longer bound to be sea-dwelling, they rapidly towered over the teeming waters below them and filled the atmosphere with oxygen, volatile, reactive, and catalyst. But the Earth’s belly had not settled down yet, and so from rich inner churnings came thick plumes of carbon, and a molten red sea, that did not stop until it reached the ocean.

The rich and deep history of our planet is limited by what is knowable. We come from the line that chose to rule on land, consequently, the seas are unknown to us. The sea, like space, has a depth that is hostile to the land-dwelling. We cannot adjust our bodies to the pressures of the ocean, but all of that will change. My research with cetaceans is bridging the communication gap between humanistic and oceanic languages. Technological advances, using Artificial Intelligence and materials engineering have enabled us to build a device that is capable to observe in real-time, the complex and contextual use of cetacean language. The supreme beings of the sea, much like us, have their histories and knowledge, passed down through their matrilineal social structure. This knowledge rich with insights into the stories of the Earth, from deep time, will for the first time, be accessible to land-dwelling minds.

I had memorized the contents of my presentation so well that the words and images lingered even into the earliest mornings. Today, was not a day for standing in front of a group of investors to defend the philosophical importance of my work. Today, beautiful, and sunny, was a day to get out on the water, prep Serenity, and see Dawn. Dawn is the matriarch of her pod. She was finally convinced that joining our study was safe, possibly from the understanding that there would be ample supplies of fish and rays as payment for her time (an incentive like this would never be explained so blatantly to any human research participants). But Orcas are straight to the point. Once Dawn was in, the rest of her family was eager to join, and our boat has since been unhindered by the recent attacks on the engine. A behaviour that once was only isolated to the Iberian coast but has since spread worldwide to California's coast.

The youngest Orca, whom we named Nisha, for “night” in Hindi, is a female of three years. Nisha is very curious and will linger past the gathering of our data. She swims parallel to our boat as we head back to dock it, with Dawn always monitoring close behind. Some of the scientists have singled her out as the most playful of the young calves, with recordings from her referring to Serenity as a “noisy whale”. We don’t know for certain whether it is in jest, contempt, or observation. Her body language is not hostile, and she always seems at ease.

A bit of background on our study: we are creating an Orcadean language library; teaching an Artificial Intelligence how to interpret and translate the Orca language for human understanding. Once Orcadean has been finished, we plan to move on to other cetaceans. This has proven challenging for obvious reasons; the clicks, whistles, and vibrations which Orcas use to communicate have no written language anchor and are twice as difficult to interpret in comparison to primitive human languages. Their bodies having evolved differently than ours, have gestural equivalences that are hard to read and must only be learned in context. Despite the Defence Departments' generous funding, we keep operational costs low by utilizing only two devices when necessary. Our data bank is almost complete, and the team and I are delighted that this might be the year of completion. We were lucky that the US Military became interested in cataloguing cetacean language when we put a feeler out for resources, with its history of training cetaceans for use by the Navy, the floodgates opened. Guided by more ethical constraints than in the past, we happily merged our department with the select team provided.

Our research device, Seti, was designed by naval engineers with the full capacity to shadow Dawn's pod in its environment. Seti needs only to surface once a month, for calibration, service, cleaning, and testing to ensure proper function. Primitive versions of Seti were once used as data loggers, fixed to a permanent position, and collecting data readings passively. This Seti, however, is a historian’s dream, she takes chemical, temperature, and salinity readings while storing high-resolution videos; all while being about the size and shape of a football. When Seti returns, we upload the data into a large data bank, which we call The Ark, and the translation AI rapidly locates the patterns and context. Without Seti, we would be confined to a life of clunky submarines, scuba gear, and the exhausting task of long hours of underwater breathing. Our bodies never evolved for life in the sea, but Seti is our soundless metal envoy, this age’s very own Rosetta stone.

Next month, Dawn's pod earned itself a month of privacy. Seti has been showing signs of wear and files have been found stored in non-chronological order, indicating some discrepancies. Nothing gets by Dawn, so as soon as she noted that only half the usual load of fresh catch was supplied, the translator picked up “Less hunted”, or, why only half? The twenty-five thousand pounds of salmon, squid and rays released alive to the wolf pack of fifteen was communicated as “no eye-seeing calf next hunt.” No additional youth pack member until the next hunt. Their intervals of time are measured by spatial anchors to places or events with hunt-focused activities. The phrase “until next time” and “time” as humans know it, has no Orcadean equivalent.

Back at my office, the word “time” as a computer organization prompt was still useful. Reordering the video files into chronological order resulted in a couple of new words for the Orca Dictionary and more conversations for the AI to scan through. A backup Seti II was being prepared to take the next month’s data, while the Navy’s engineering department checked on Seti I. A date has been proposed to get our main means of data acquisition back into the water by next month. The robustness of the data is dependent on the fact that the same “recorder” was used every time. Using Seti II to the completion of the project might raise some red flags on the quality of our study methods by switching devices at the last minute.

The first attempt to swap in Seti II to Dawn's pod went poorly. As usual, we set down Seti II, in the same manner we would generally do with Seti I. To begin the acclimation process, the robot requires a few hours of in-water testing to ensure that the transition across the different atmospheres of air and water goes smoothly. Dawn circled Seti II three times, then proceeded to send Seti II flying through the water a few feet. Tail flick hunting manoeuvre. All staff, and Bill, the dock security, tried to stifle a laugh yet failed.

“What did I tell you? Those fish can tell the difference”

“They are not fish Bill,” I had failed too. “The robot is okay and won’t be damaged. It’s been tested with simulated hunting exercises that the Orca’s use to stun rays. In a second you will see it just float back up to us to continue. Dawn's tail might be a little hurt though”. It was metal, not bones and flesh.

“Dawn hurt?” I typed into the translator. Then came a series of squeaks.

“Dawn play” she responded.

Getting off the phone with the engineering unit, the two Setis are indeed distinguishable once underwater. I guess they can tell. Regardless of how undetectable the difference is to human ears, the Orcas can hear what we can’t. Sound travels differently through the water, and every one of Dawn's pod can sense even the tiniest vibrations. She has expressed before that sea kind are very intolerant to noise, and part of the deal struck early in the program was that our boats must remain free floating when in proximity to the pod if we didn’t want to keep getting attacked by hers, or other pods. The mischievous initiation rite was over, and Seti II was off with the pod.

Finally got the reports back from the Engineering checks on Seti I. They found nothing wrong with her software. It must have been a glitch in the system, they said and advised that sending both Seti I and Seti II simultaneously for a month-long data run would be an efficient opportunity to determine if Seti I was indeed glitching, or if it was something else that was interfering with the robot’s capacity to function during the long journey. Another thing, the Naval Engineering department somehow missed that Seti I registered readings at a depth of one thousand and twenty-five meters. Which was the maximum depth Orcas have been recorded diving. Ever. It is not often that they do this, so the reason must have been worthwhile. Wrote a note so I wouldn’t forget, change study catch payments- choice prey- deter deep dives. If we wanted to finish the study without setbacks, we could definitely justify spending a little more money to secure better incentives.

The conditions for getting out on the water to release Seti I again were perfect; sunny, with only a mild breeze. California, still one of the wealthiest states in the world was not spared the effects of global warming, just for being pretty and warm. What was once known as the place of perpetual summers shifted to temperamental and sporadic windstorms a few days each month. On the coast, this made conditions for the marine animals which the Pods depended on heavily for food, challenging. The Seti could always submerge underwater, but the crew and catch fishermen, unfortunately, would have to circumvent tumultuous waters. As usual, fifty thousand pounds of fresh catch would be loaded into the trucks and driven down to Serenity. The ethical oversight committee calculated that for a pod of fifteen, this was half of the intake required in a month’s time for optimal health. The justification was that by maxing out on half of the dietary intake requirements only, we were deterring the whales from becoming too reliant on the study pay as a means of existing. There had been issues with previous studies, and weaning-off amendments were helping. Noticing that the catch looked well today, the good omen sufficed. Dawn's pod wasn’t starving on study payout, and Seti I and II would be leaving together this time. Everything was going to work out fine.

A month later, two location pings reading the same area sent the desktop software to a pick-up location. The coordinates looked almost identical. Almost. There were no statistically significant discrepancies between Seti I and II in terms of logging atmospheric conditions, but the divergence was evident when our two cameramen decided to split. Seti II’s data logged readings at a depth of one thousand and twenty meters, while Seti II never deviated from the expected depths. It still wasn’t clear why the oldest members of the pod were diving so deep. Nothing pulled up on the literature search mentioned why the older members of a pod would leave the younger members near the surface. It was bizarre behaviour. The Navy archives were not accessible with our limited research clearance, so as soon as the current data was analysed, Id submit a report.

The manufacturing department's email ensured me that the Seti’s were designed to function perfectly down to three thousand meters depth. There was going to be no technical problem. Good. The depth limit had been set for Cuvier’s Beaked whales, and Sperm whale research when the Setis had just been released. In all my years of studying Orcas, the only incidence of a single whale diving to one thousand and eighty-six meters was in pursuit of a Toothfish somewhere off the coast of the south Atlantic. Maybe Dawn’s pod had found Toothfish.

It would take a few hours to download the requested video files from Seti I and II. Accounting for this on the way home, dinner would require assembly by design. Cooking while loading and eating while watching. David was away, and the beautiful new glass screen installed recently warranted use. Regardless of the anomaly, this was a special milestone. There would be wine.

There was only darkness and a movement of planktonic “sea snow” caught by Seti’s light all the way down. Once below one thousand meters, they’d entered the midnight zone. Surface light doesn’t penetrate this deep, so Seti’s night vision mode is useless in this situation. Its cameras, however, were the best of the best, military issue, spared for civilian use. Every now and then my large black screen would break up its monotony with little sparks of bioluminescence. These creatures were so accustomed to life in the deep they were completely unphased by the lack of light.

This was definitely not Toothfish. A faint light began to emerge out of the darkness, and the Orcas could be heard clicking and whirring. Something had excited them. Or scared them. A pause in the audio was followed by a surface, massive. It took several minutes for it to pass on my screen. What the hell was a submarine doing down here? This area was off-limits to mining. The crew must have been pining for a felony on Military grounds. And they’ve freaked out my whales. Hitting replay, Id clocked the time. If I couldn’t figure out what sort of vessel it was, at least I’d get a rough estimate of how large it might be. The Navy guys would know. The Navy guys know everything that goes on in these waters.

The next morning, I managed to corral a few of the cetacean veterinarians onto Serenity. I was cleared to bring along three to confirm physical signs of the dive but had a couple more volunteers show up. Dawn and the oldest whales would need to spend a few days recovering near the surface, that was for sure. The fresh catch was brought along, since the oldest whales were too exhausted to hunt the younger calves would need to be supplemented.

I edged towards the open edge of Serenity and flipped on the translator. It always updated wirelessly.

“How Dawn?”

“Dawn hungry, Dawn rest.”

Of course, my dear.

“Dawn hunting?”

No response, she curiously bobbed her head over the water, then turned sideways to observe me. Like a bird would do.

“Dawn hunting big whale?”

No response.

“Big whale hunt Dawn?”

And that was that. She let out an unintelligible series of squeaks and disappeared underwater.

Back at the lab I went through Seti I’s footage. I click one, and another, it was the same massive metallic object caught by Seti II. But the Seti II no longer had the data from the night before.

“Hello Marc, me again. Any reason why my Seti II software would delete files on its own when downloading to a personal glass? I had some stuff go missing from last night”

“Yeah, sometimes when you update the software, it will discard any blank recording outside the subject of interest, for example, in your case I see… you are studying the behaviour of Orcas?”

“Yes, true. But the files had already been observed and cached, it really should not be deleting any of my files after that?”

“I can take a look through. Do you have time now? Seti may have recorded a ‘blank’ ocean, and the software considered it an error. It’s been programmed so that it doesn’t take hours of background noise footage.”

“I see, Let me just have a quick look, and I’ll be right over, thank you, Marc.”

Pulling up the software I quickly remembered the AI command window. Seti, retrieve any deleted files from observation day. Ten files, retrieved. Input: Why were these files deleted? Output: Error code 503. No error code 503 in the manual.

A ring. It was the vet from earlier.

“Hey, I’ve run the translator for the files from today’s audio, and nothing out of the norm. Dawns pretty funny” she laughed.

“Whys that?” I smiled, shaking off the confusion.

“It sounds like Dawn has taught Nisha and the pod a new phrase”

“Okay, what new phrase?” Perhaps the audio had caught Dawn's unintelligible squeak earlier.

“She said: ‘We’re not alone’…”

There was light-hearted laughter, followed by a low ringing that soon started to drown everything out. Faintly, as if the voice in the phone were sinking beneath the water, the muffled sound faded out to a pulse. Mine. Pinging, like audio waves travelling through the air. First across the surface of the ocean and then submerged into the water, into the ears of my mind.

“...I mean, of course, they are not alone, they are in the great big ocean…”