The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond (5 page)

Harrison studied the image while scratching his head.

“Come on, Mister Recon Expert!” She nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. “Tell me what you see!”

Harrison gazed at the photo for another ten seconds, and then he sneered, “You playin’ a practical joke on me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Is this photo linked to the surveillance of the Navy’s operation near Hawaii?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re tellin’ me crop circles are poppin’ up in the middle of the ocean?”

The squeak of a nervous chuckle escaped through the tunnel of Tamara’s windpipe. “That’s what I thought too, but that’s impossible.”

“What about those rumors . . . that the Navy’s testin’ an advanced sonar weapon?

“You think that would cause these halo patterns?”

“Who knows,” he replied. “And even if they did, they’d never admit it.”

She sighed. “So do you think I should kick this up the chain of command?”

Harrison replied with an incredulous expression. “Ever hear what happened in the 1950’s, to the Air Force pilots who swore their planes were being shadowed by UFOs? All endured psychiatric evaluations. They were never promoted, and some were even hounded out of the Force. Does that answer you?”

“I get the message.”

As Harrison ambled back to his workstation, he turned around and drawled, “I need a good laugh. Why don’t you copy that pic over to my workstation? I’ll give it another looksee.”

“Why not?”

A
M
ESSAGE FROM
O
N
H
IGH

Haleakala Crater Summit Lookout, Maui—early evening

When Dmitri opened his eyes, he saw Mercury and Mars gleaming in the twilight. Greg sat beside him, eyes closed and legs pretzeled into a lotus pose. An awesome silence, like shruti vibrations, filled everything. He braced his arms against the Haleakala mountain chill.

With the darkness intensifying, Dmitri’s thoughts tunneled through the lingering scar of his father’s untimely death, back to his first memorable experience of the night sky. To celebrate his eighth birthday, Dmitri had joined his father, Michael, and older brother, Paul, for an inaugural family camping trip. Experiencing a child’s first-night jitters, he’d whined about the scary shadows and wailing coyotes. He’d known his dad would comfort him with a spellbinding story, and he was not disappointed.

Lying side by side in the blackness, he heard the reassuring sound of his father’s voice. “David, want to see something cool? Reach your hand up to the sky.” With a rush of anticipation, he’d lifted an arm. His dad grasped his wrist and said, “Now just let go and follow my lead.” They’d begun with the Big Dipper. Michael Dmitri had guided David Dmitri’s hand from star to star, drawing a connect-the-dots picture with David’s pointed finger. Their hands journeyed across the heavens: Aquila the eagle, Cygnus the swan, Hercules the warrior, and Sagittarius the centaur. As they’d finger painted the firmament, Michael regaled his sons with tales about the ancients and their personification of the constellations’ patterns into their mythology and stories. Enraptured by his father’s narrative, David had imagined himself living during those olden times.

No longer afraid, David had wished the night would never end. When his father’s deep breathing confirmed he’d fallen asleep, David had marveled at the Milky Way from the cocoon of his sleeping bag. So many stars, he’d thought, and every one a gigantic sun like ours. Maybe even with planets of their own, his dad had explained. As he’d felt his heart beat and tried to imagine the immensity of the universe, David thought his brain would burst. Then, from out of the void, he had heard the voice of God speaking directly to him, sounding like Oz booming from beyond the stellar curtain to proclaim the glory of His creation.

Years later, when Dmitri had shared the reminiscence with his mentor, McPinsky had a provocative explanation. “Your child’s mind was hardwired to respond to its first glimpse of the infinite, thus evoking the auditory image of the divine creator.”

Dmitri again shut his eyes and recollected the details of McPinsky’s surprising response. The professor had told him about the sensory deprivation experiments pioneered by the neuroscientist and dolphin researcher John Lilly. “Lilly immersed his human subjects in a flotation tank of body-temperature water while wearing opaque eye patches and ear plugs. After a brief period of sensory starvation, many experienced auditory and visual hallucinations. Lilly hypothesized that the brain is so conditioned to process information, it generates its own ‘lucid daydreams’ to compensate for the absence of external sensations.”

Dmitri was a trained skeptic, steeped in the empirical principles of the scientific method. “Sounds intriguing, Professor, but a single study isn’t conclusive.”

“Later researchers tested subjects in sensory deprivation rooms and confirmed Lilly’s observations,” replied McPinsky. “They concluded that the brain superimposes its own patterns when deprived of sensory stimuli from the environment. Depending on the circumstances, it’s unable to distinguish whether the source is internal or external, real or imagined.”

Shortly after their conversation, McPinsky had confounded the scientific community, going public with a journal article, “Cultural Psychopathology of Interspecies Communication Deprivation,” about the profound impact of human existential isolation. “Humanity is achingly alone in the vastness of the cosmos. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, humans abhor the vacuum of isolation. Our intrinsic nature compels us to connect with others and to share our inner selves. Until now, however, our species has been unable or unwilling to have a dialogue with another intelligent species on this planet or from anywhere else in the universe.”

McPinsky hypothesized that, in a manner similar to Lilly’s experiments, the collective unconscious region of our minds fabricates the illusion of contact to substitute for the absence of interspecies communications. “This,” he said, “gives rise to various paranormal phenomena such as close encounters with spirits and ET’s and even conversations with God.”

Dmitri had been galvanized by McPinsky’s challenge to humanity’s collective ego. It was part of why he still loved the professor: for his ultra, out-of-the-box mindset and the chutzpah to “stick his neck out” for his contentious theories.

“Over there!” Greg’s voice shattered the silence.

Shocked back to the present, Dmitri saw a green bolt of light blazing in the heavens.

“It’s erupting from those domes.” Greg pointed up the hill.

“The LURE Observatory!” exclaimed Dmitri. “I’ve seen those domes before, but I never realized they could shoot laser beams into the sky.”

“Hey, let’s check it out. Maybe we can talk our way into a tour of the place.”

“Absolutely! The Goddess of Fire is restless tonight. Pele’s sending us a message—a beacon to guide us to new discoveries.”

“Or a warning omen about the perils of a McPinsky-inspired quest.”

“It’s freezing out here. Let’s go stargaze.”

T
HE
L
ASER
R
ANGER

LURE Observatory, Haleakala Summit—early evening

“Watch out!” Greg gripped the passenger door safety handle.

Dmitri had nearly driven off the cliff when the flare of another laser arrow illuminated the stark volcanic moonscape. “Sorry. I feel like a fighter pilot in a dogfight.” He fought with the steering wheel as he banked left and right up the winding road leading to the LURE Observatory. The car’s high beams were as anemic as a glorified flashlight in the pitch black night.

Greg sighed with relief when they pulled into the observatory’s parking lot. When they opened the doors, their faces felt the sting of the frigid mountain air.

“And I thought you were nuts when you suggested jackets for this trip.” Greg followed Dmitri’s lead and slipped a poncho-style windbreaker over his hoodie. “I’d feel even better in a down parka.”

The two Californians stood shivering, their arms clutched to their chests. Dmitri glanced ahead to admire the floodlit, Kremlin-like profile of a single-story block building bookended by towering domed structures. Approaching the only illuminated door, he thought about the spiel that would hopefully gain them entrance into the facilities. Despite the warning sign posted on the door,
ACCESS RESTRICTED TO GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL
, they were undeterred. Greg and Dmitri never passed over an opportunity to engage other researchers, anytime or anyplace.

“Let’s just stick to our standard SoCalSci introductions,” Dmitri advised.

Greg pressed the button for the door entry buzzer. After a few impatient moments, he pressed it again. Dmitri felt the temperature plummeting and watched the swirling vapors of their breath vanish into the night sky. Greg began pounding on the door with his fists. Still no one answered. As they started to walk away, the door opened and Dmitri saw the faint crescent of an ethereal Asian face.

“Hello,” said the face. “Welcome to the LURE Observatory.” She poked her head further out the door, unveiling a Gioconda smile. “May I help you, gentlemen?”

Dmitri felt soothed by the gentle waves of her voice. She enunciated her consonants as melodiously as vowels, as if she were speaking English with a French accent. He’d dismissed his friends’ stories about their love-at-first-sight encounters, but what about “love at first sound?” He’d always felt awkward in the presence of a beautiful woman, but a beautiful voice?

“I’m Dmitri, and this is my friend and colleague, Greg.” He tapped a fist to his associate’s shoulder. “We’re from SoCalSci University on a whale watching vacation. We saw a laser flash from the lookout, and curiosity propelled us to your doorstep.”

“Well.” She hesitated. Still peeking out the door, her sober gaze scanned him top to bottom, and Dmitri held his breath. Her eyes shifted, ping-ponging over to Greg and back to him. At the conclusion of her due diligence assessment, she stepped into full view. “My name is Melanie. I’m sorry there are no whales here at ten thousand feet, but I do fire a mean laser.” She flashed Dmitri a dimpled grin, then fished into a lab coat pocket and extracted a business card.

Dmitri read the inscription:
MELANIE MARI, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, LASER RANGER.
His eyes locked onto the last two words. “Laser ranger” sounded like some mythic hero in a Buck Rogers tale. “I do declare,” he drawled. “I’ve met forest rangers and a Texas Ranger, but this is the first time I’ve ever even heard of a laser ranger. I’m actually just a humble associate professor of engineering.”

“And I’m just a garden-variety mathematician,” said Greg.

“I’m familiar with SoCalSci’s reputation. You have more Nobel Prize winners,” she tapped an index finger to her temple, “than any other university.”

“We were wondering if you could give us a brief tour of the facility?” asked Dmitri. “Of course, if you’re ever visiting our neck of the woods, we’d be more than happy to reciprocate.”

“We’re normally too busy to deal with tourists’ special requests.” Melanie’s slender fingers caressed a silvery, oval-shaped, yin-yang pendant. “I suppose I could spare a few minutes to show you the duties of a laser ranger in exchange for some details about your professional credentials. Do you two have business cards?”

They whipped out their wallets and presented their cards for her inspection. “Well, that seems to be in order. It’s cold. Come on in and take off your jackets.” She waved them inside. “This is your lucky night.”

Melanie whisked them into the central portion of the main building. Dmitri saw facilities akin to SoCalSci’s Mechanical Engineering Lab. An array of cubicles, framed by four-foot by six-foot padded wall panels, formed the perimeter of a roughly forty-foot, square-shaped room. A cluster of computer workstations and a pool of ergonomic office chairs dominated the center of an open-plan workspace.

During a brief round of introductions to her two youthful colleagues, Melanie’s take-charge attitude impressed Dmitri. She directed her guests’ attention to a pair of stations adorned by a cheerful menagerie of stuffed marine animals. “We program and operate the telescopes and the laser from these two computers.” She branched her arms and pointed left and right. “The domes for the telescopes are located at opposite ends of the control room. There are operational stations next to each of the telescopes.” With a beckoning wave, she said, “Follow me.”

The two professors trailed Melanie’s echoing metallic footsteps up the stairs of a freestanding spiral staircase. They emerged onto a second-story platform which served as the observation deck in the seven-meter-diameter dome. The exposed girders, beams, and support structures reminded Dmitri of a giant erector set.

Melanie donned a wireless communication headset as if crowning herself with a high-tech tiara. She relaxed her back and leaned against the framework supporting the various gears, belts, and motors that controlled the telescope. “The transmitting telescope has been modified to accept the collimated beam from the laser as an input source to its forty-centimeter objective lens. Notice the laser is adjacent to the telescope.” Her amplified voice reverberated throughout the room, enveloping Dmitri in its embrace.