“And you think there is something else?”
Chris nodded. “I do. The vast majority of animals have very limited cognitive abilities. Their brains are simply too small. And yet the communication between them is surprisingly sophisticated. More than the cognitive capacity of their brains should be capable of. Not to mention how they sense things in each other, or even in another species. Animals, for example, that can read us. That seem to know what we’re feeling. Fear. Grief. Love. How do they know that? It can’t simply be through scent. Most animals don’t have the olfactory receptors of dogs. Nor can it simply be through instinct. The most logical explanation is that there’s something missing. A level of communication that lies between instinct and cognition. Something that we’re not aware of.” Chris ended with his eyes directed at Alison. “At least not yet.”
Clay smiled when the room fell silent. “That sounds like a hell of a paper.”
“I thought it was,” Chris grinned. “Especially now. Because if we’re actually seeing what we think we are between Dulce and Sally, it could be one of the greatest biological discoveries ever made. And as much as I hate to say it,” Chris said to Lee, “given how little I understand all the tech stuff, IMIS is at the center of it all.”
Alison cleared her voice. “I guess we have some checking to do.” She flipped through the sheets of Lee’s transcript. “Beginning with what is missing from these pages.”
22
Inside the habitat, DeeAnn Draper raised an arm and, using a sleeve, dabbed a bead of perspiration from her forehead. The morning sun was hotter than usual, blazing through the thin netting above her. Coupled with the absence of any breeze, it left the habitat warmer than even the African continent it was supposed to emulate.
Dulce and Dexter seemed unperturbed, sitting calmly beneath the broad cover of a rosewood tree. Dulce was attempting to show the smaller capuchin how to match colored blocks on top of a short wooden table. The smaller monkey watched intently but made no effort to participate.
He was highly intelligent, but his desire to communicate did not match his aptitude. His only communication was through Dulce and in short spurts. Sounds that DeeAnn’s vest could not seem to detect. It had puzzled Lee to no end.
DeeAnn ignored the heat, instead reading through the sheets of paper and shaking her head. When she finished, she looked back up to Alison and Lee with a look of incredulity.
“Is this for real?”
Lee nodded.
“It’s… incredible. I mean this is a breakthrough beyond anything we were expecting.” She flipped back to the first page and reviewed with amusement one of the first lines that Dulce had asked Sally — how she got in there. From an anthropological standpoint, what IMIS had just done was simply off the charts.
“How did she get out?” DeeAnn asked.
“She learned the code to the door.”
DeeAnn rolled her eyes and looked back at Dulce, sitting on the ground. “Of course she did.”
“I guess we should have thought of that,” Alison said.
Lee nodded at the papers in her hand. “Did you notice there're fewer translations on the subsequent pages?”
“I did,” DeeAnn looked again. “I presume these midnight visits were shorter.”
“Actually,” Lee mused, “they were longer.”
“Wait. What?”
“They were longer,” he repeated.
“So they spoke less?”
Alison grinned. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What does that mean? Either they were talking, or they—” DeeAnn’s face froze before she could finish her sentence. The implications had just caught up to her question. The possibility hit her like a freight train.
“Are you kidding me?!”
Alison and Lee both shook their heads.
“That’s impossible!”
“Is it?” Alison shrugged. “We’ve already seen this between Dulce and Dexter. IMIS can’t hear them speaking.”
“That’s because it’s more innate. Species-specific. This is different.”
“It might not be as different as we think, Dee. There’s a possibility that they both have genes that we don’t. Or at least genes that are still working.”
“That allow them to talk? With Dirk and Sally?!”
“We don’t know. Not for sure anyway. But it’s a possibility.”
“And it may not be talking,” added Lee, “as much as another form of communication.”
DeeAnn raised a hand and covered her mouth. “My God. If that’s true, I can’t even begin to imagine what it could mean.”
“Yeah. Neither can we.”
23
Hello Alison.
“Hello, Sally.”
You want talk.
“Yes, I’d like to talk.”
I want talk.
“Good. Sally, where’s Dirk?”
Dirk gone. Come back soon.
Alison nodded. Dirk was developing a habit of disappearing for short periods of time. And she had no idea where to, or why.
You question Alison.
“I do,” she mused. “I have a lot of questions.” She paused in front of Sally, who was studying her through the glass wall. Before, she had marveled at how Sally was able to read her so well. She now wondered if they were beginning to finally understand.
“Sally,” Alison said, “I understand that you’ve met Dulce.”
The speaker on the desk beeped with a bad translation, but Sally’s response showed she had gotten enough of it.
Yes. Dulce. Little person.
Alison frowned thoughtfully. Little person is what Sally had called Dulce in the transcripts, which was clearly a generic term, given that dolphins would have no word for gorilla.
“You’ve been talking to Dulce?” she asked.
When the translation sounded through the underwater speakers, Sally swished her thick tail with interest.
Yes. Talk Dulce. New friend.
Alison grinned. “What did you talk about?”
She already knew most of the answer based on the transcripts. But what Alison really wanted to know was what had IMIS not picked up?
The answer surprised her.
She want swim.
Barely a hundred yards away in the habitat, DeeAnn peered curiously down at Dulce.
“You want what?”
Dulce clapped her black hands together and rocked from side to side.
Me want swim fish.
DeeAnn’s brow lowered. “You want to swim with the fish.”
Yes. Swim Sally.
DeeAnn looked up at Lee, standing beside her, for his reaction.
He smiled. DeeAnn hadn’t caught the relevance of Sally’s name being translated, but he had. He blinked but said nothing.
“Dulce,” she replied. “It’s not that simple. Swimming with Sally is… complicated.”
A quick tone sounded on her vest.
She corrected herself. “Swimming is hard.”
Dulce’s grin faded and changed to a look of confusion. She thought for a moment before replying.
Me like swim.
DeeAnn opened her mouth to speak but stopped, considering what it had taken to make diving gear for little Sofia. That was one thing. But trying to explain it to Dulce suddenly left her at a loss.