The Day the Dolphins Vanished
(C) 2010,2017 Victor D. López
The following story excerpt is from my short story collection Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories
Beatrice Benson, BB to her colleagues and
friends, would be at home in any exclusive beach resort anywhere in the world
tanning her perfect body while her long, lustrous light-brown hair absorbed and
weaved the sun’s rays into auburn and blonde highlights as legions of men
tripped over one another for the chance to fetch her a cold drink, a towel, sun
block or anything else her heart desired in hopes of gaining the simple reward
of the flash of her brilliant smile. If she were not preoccupied by more
important things, BB would have been amused by these attentions of which she
was largely unaware, in part because she was not the type to frequent beachside
resorts or spend much time lounging on beach chairs, and in part because her
preternatural beauty and credentials—Ph.Ds. in marine biology, electrical
engineering and linguistics all earned by her 30th birthday—quickly
burned off the wings of desire of mere mortal men who were attracted to her
like insignificant moths hovering about the seemingly friendly blue flame of a
Bunsen burner, leaving them in a similar position in trying to hold a
conversation with her as the average chimpanzee trying to grasp the finer
points of the Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic.
Fortunately for both moths and men, not
too many moths fly about the average lab, and not too many men hang around the
out of the way craggy beaches and immense stretches of ocean that BB made her
home while working largely on solitary projects, conducting research, writing papers,
and otherwise contributing to the advancement of her fields with an I.Q. that
Einstein would have envied and a work ethic that would have made John Calvin
proud. Her current project had taken her to Florida’s Gulf Coast, near Navarre
Beach in Santa Rosa County, but far from the crowded condo-dotted beachfront. A
generous grant from the National Science Foundation allowed her to take her
floating laboratory, a modest converted cabin cruiser, wherever she went,
carrying its precious cargo of high-end computer and electronics equipment with
which she hoped to bridge the communications gap between dolphins and humans.
Her study of the available data had long
before led her to the conclusion that dolphins have a highly evolved language.
Computer analysis of sounds emitted in the audible spectrum alone showed
repetitions that closely mirrored speech patterns that span across all human
languages. Lesser intelligent mammals emit sounds that convey meaning to their
own species, but these are typically limited to communicating very basic
information essential to the survival of their species, such as calls warning
about danger, or the availability of food, or simply warnings for others to
keep away. Even insects evidence the ability to communicate that kind of information
to their own kind. But Dolphins and most whales are in a different category
altogether, possessing brains that are larger than the great apes, including
Homo sapiens, and evidencing the ability for complex communication.
It is one thing to recognize the fact that
speech is taking place, but quite another to be able to decipher that speech,
let alone translate it in a meaningful way so that it can be understood in its
proper context across species. Even when dealing with human speech, it can be quite
challenging to interpret from one language for another, even for native
speakers of the languages being interpreted. But our shared humanity allows us
to at least understand certain emotions, such as anger, fear, pain, sadness and
love without the need for a universal translator. Drop a human being with money
in her pocket anywhere on the planet and she will have little trouble finding
food to purchase, the shelter of a hotel room, and an endless number of
consumer goods that she can easily purchase at the local market. Moreover, she
needs no language at all to determine the intentions of people with whom she
interacts as there are an endless number of non-verbal clues that all of us
emit that can allow others to, for the most part, accurately gauge our
intentions and label us as either as probable friends or foes. The best machine
translation available today still yields results that can range from comical to
tragic depending on their context and use. Anyone who has ever tried to
decipher instructions accompanying low-cost, assemble-it-yourself furniture or
other similar consumer goods imported from non English-speaking countries
outside of the U.S. can attest to that fact. Even when dealing with a common
language, the very real possibility for misunderstanding exists due to the
regional usage, slang and pronunciation variances from in different regions of
the same country, and especially when dealing from a common language adapted by
countries for their own use. An American from Mississippi and an Englishman
from Liverpool both speak English, but will likely have some difficulty
understanding one another, especially if they possess only a rudimentary
education. The same is true for a Haitian and a Parisian, a Puerto Rican and a
Spaniard (or, for that matter, a Spaniard from Galicia and one from Seville,
Valencia, Madrid, or Barcelona, even if they are all speaking Spanish rather
than their local regional languages). Indeed, the simple verb “coger” in
Spanish which means—and has always meant—”to get, or to grab” to a Spaniard,
means “to copulate” to an Argentine. Thus, “coge las llaves” (take the keys)
means f__k the keys in the vernacular in Buenos Aires, and “cógeme de la mano”
(take my hand) means something equally obscene.
Fortunately, when it comes to human
languages, we have native speakers, interpreters, dictionaries and, when all
else fails, comedians and diplomats, to help bridge the potholes along the road
of cross-cultural communication. No such tools are available for inter-species
communications, making the process of communication infinitely harder for both
species, even when our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, or other only
slightly more distant, intelligent cousins, such as gorillas, are involved.
But what may seem like insurmountable
challenges for the rest of us are only interesting, irresistible puzzles for
the likes of BB who was uniquely qualified to tackle the problem because of her
complementary competencies and inexhaustible patience. Using the resources of
her university as a Professor of Marine Biology and her NSF grant, she had
spent a one-year sabbatical working with a half dozen dolphins in an attempt to
develop a dolphin/human speech interface. Aside from the dedicated software she
had developed to achieve a real-time translation program, her equipment was
relatively simple: a supercomputer, an all-weather outdoor, portable
large-screen projection system and an extensive array of ultrasensitive
microphones and speakers capable of recording and reproducing sound well below
and above the normal range of frequencies audible to the human ear. With the
equipment in place, the experiment methodology was simplicity itself:
images—both still and video—were flashed on the screen with microphones above
and below water recording the dolphin chatter while the English word or phrase
accompanying the visual material broadcast in above and below water speakers.
The overarching concept that BB banked on was that dolphins would be
intelligent enough to make the connection of the attempt to communicate and be
able to learn at least some rudimentary verbal concepts with the assistance of
the usual reinforcements—treats, physical contact, and genuine care and
attention being paid by a patient trainer. It was her hope that by recording
and cataloguing the dolphin sounds that accompanied the flashing pictures her
computer software would be able to distinguish the dolphin equivalents for at
least some of these visual representations over time.
***** END OF PREVIEW ****
NOTE: The short story collection is available on paperback, audiobook and eBook versions from Amazon, Audible and most book sellers. The short story is also available in various eBook versions, including a Kindle version from Amazon and other book sellers as well. Both are also available to libraries at very low cost. If you like the preview and think you and others may enjoy reading the whole story or short story collection, won't you consider recommending them to your local library? All are available for library purchase, including through OverDrive for libraries that use the popular Live-brary platform. Thank you!
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