The Whiteness of the Whale: A Novel

by David Poyer

  “Oh, oh sure. I can spare.”

  Bodine came back through the salon and she dogged after him. “So what’s he got, then? Jamie, I mean?”

  “Chills and fever.” He stopped opposite the kitchen, and frank worry filled his eyes instead of the barrier that had been there before. “Bacteremia. What used to be called septicemia. And before that, blood poisoning.”

  “But you gave him antibiotics.”

  “Enough for a horse. Trouble is, whatever’s in his bloodstream is resistant to cipro. Obviously. I’ll give him more, but unfortunately, that’s the only antibiotic we have.”

  “If it doesn’t work?”

  He shrugged. “His organs will shut down, and he’ll die.”

  “But…” She struggled briefly with the logic. “Then we have to go back. Get him to a hospital. At least, someplace with different antibiotics.”

  “Where? He’ll be dead long before we reach Ushuaia, or anywhere else with a doctor. He’s strong. But that may not be enough.” He held her gaze for a second, then turned back for the mate’s cabin. Leaving her standing in the passageway, hugging herself.

  * * *

  Their new guest was sitting at the table in blue CPL ski pants, a blanket over his shoulders. His breath plumed in the still air, and he looked rather green. Eddi Auer was fussing across the salon, setting up a videocamera on a tripod, a light. Anemone rolled, and she snapped a bungee around the tripod as it teetered. “This boat moves a great deal more than ours,” the Japanese said. Made a hesitant gesture. “You are—?”

  “Dr. Sara Pollard.”

  “That is right. Dr. Pollard. I will remember next time.” He rubbed his head, looking lost.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Eddi, who told her Perrault wanted a recorded statement from the new arrival testifying that he was being well treated. “For publicity, or to avoid any legal problems—I’m not exactly sure,” she added. Sara hesitated, then took a seat beside him. Close up he smelled of saltwater and some kind of liniment or alcohol rub.

  Eddi had just turned on the light when Dorée came forward. She was in a skintight black sweater, hair pulled tight to her skull in a French braid. She wore full makeup, eyeliner, everything. She sat down on Kimura’s other side as Eddi began, reading from a card, “This is an interview aboard the French-flagged Cetacean Protection League vessel Black Anemone, with a castaway picked up earlier today. Sir, please state your name and nationality.”

  “I am Hideyashi Kimura, graduate student at Tokyo University. I live in Chiyoda, Japan. I am a Japanese citizen.”

  Dorée said, “I have a lot of fans in Japan.”

  Kimura looked confused. He half turned to her. “I am sorry?”

  “I have a lot of followers in Tokyo. A huge fan club.”

  “So desu ka. You are…?”

  She smiled. “You must not have heard. Of course not; you were so frozen. I’m Tehiyah Dorée. You’ve seen my films.”

  She held out a hand and Kimura took it hesitantly. He looked from Dorée to Auer. “You both make films?”

  Sara found herself suddenly choking. She caught Eddi’s ironic glance and had to turn away not to laugh out loud. Dorée bit her lip. “Never mind.” She glared from one woman to the other. “Do your fucking interview, then. I’ll be in my cabin. And be sure to edit that out.”

  “I’ll do that, Tehiyah.”

  When she left they both burst out laughing. Their guest looked puzzled. Finally Eddi asked what ship he’d been on, whether he’d gone overboard on purpose, and if he wanted to be returned. To the last question he said firmly, “No. I leave for ethical reasons. I do not wish to be returned against my will. I send respect to my father, mother, and family. I am being treated well here and wish to stay.”

  “Anything else?” Eddi asked him, and he shook his head. She shut off the lights. “I’ll get this uploaded,” she said, and took the camera off the stand and went forward.

  Leaving Sara with him. Okay, she thought. Dru wants to know if he’s really a neurobiologist. She opened with, “So how did you meet Dr. Matsuzawa? You said you knew him.”

  “Yes. My adviser, I think that is the word, was one of his students. He came to Tokyo University to give a lecture.”

  “What on?”

  “Well, he began with computer modeling of visual neuroscience. How to reduce … no, replicate in silicon the synaptic structures underlying primate vision. He had a model he ran on a computer. The results—very impressive. We could see how information became abstracted, passed up the chain toward the conscious level.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Kimura hunched forward, smiling, apparently forgetting his seasickness. Or trying to ignore it. “Of course. He described a model of how neural networks transmit. And at the same time, interpolate … no, interpret information an organism may perceive as important to its survival. Food. Sexual objects. Threats. Sensory transduction in a molecular cascade. How the brain, uh, short-circuits responses to stimuli it thinks might be life-threatening. Then he spoke about ethical challenges in working with advanced, uh, species. Such as primates and whales.” Kimura smiled sheepishly. “Actually I asked that question, at the end.”

  “I see. What’s your thesis on, Hideyashi?”

  He hesitated; but apparently was only trying to reformulate Japanese to English. “It centers on the analogy between what I am calling the 4, K area of the generic whale brain and the amygdala in primate brain. You know the role of the amygdala in anxiety and social disorders?”

  “The suspected role.”

  “Oh, I think it is confirmed by PET-scan studies. Most of them, of humans with selective bilateral damage. But there are so few. Mostly war victims. So Dr. Matsuzawa was employing chimpanzee subjects. They live in highly structured groups with hierarchical relationships. Thus they require to do a great deal of interpretation of social communication. The chimps, that is. He ablated—is that the word? Yes?—areas of the amygdala and observed the resultant psychopathology.”

  She was so interested now she almost forgot the purpose of the interrogation. “What were his results?”

  “He described how the amygdala operates to inhibit threat response in social situations. This slows cascading transduction and allows time for evaluation on the preconscious level. He also thinks human, what you call, social phobia or—we call it taijin kyofusho—is it, body dysmorphic disorder? To reflect a dysregulation of this discriminative procedure.” He flushed. “I am sorry, my English is not good—these are complex matters—”

  “Your English is excellent. Don’t worry about that. Did you happen to hear him mention Von Economo neurons?”

  “These are also called the spindle neurons, correct?” She nodded and he went on. “Yes, they too are involved in social interactions, in the mirroring function. You know, when you see someone dancing and your legs twitch.”

  “That’s not all they do. There are Von Economos that have nothing to do with visual processing—”

  “Perhaps I don’t understand that so well. I do know spindle neurons, though. I have dissected one hundred and forty-four humpback brains since this cruise began. I have preserved and stained over a thousand slides.”

  Eddi came back from forward, but stopped dead on hearing that. “A hundred and forty-four humpbacks?”

  He bit his lip. “Yes, miss.”

  Sara kept a firm grip on the conversation. “Tell me more about your own research.”

  Kimura reached for a napkin and began sketching. A strange, irregular outline, like a broccoli chopped in half. “Well, as I said, he found damage to amygdala caused dysfunction in social relationships. I am trying to establish what structure in whale brain corresponds to human and primate amygdala. A study at Emory University located a limbic-like structure in the brains of Orcinus orca with MRI imaging. Here, where I circle? It elucidated the gross morphology and described extensive cortical gyrification and sulcation. The cortical map is different from that of humans. No one agrees which structure
s mediate which behaviors. However, they described a cortical limbic lobe, here, and what appears to be a well-developed amygdala. For killer whales, as I said. I attempted to map the corresponding structures in the humpback—”

  “This is sickening,” Auer said. “You cut up a hundred and forty-four whales for their brains?”

  “Eddi,” Sara said.

  “What? I just asked him—”

  Anemone rocked and shuddered like an oxcart rolling over rubble. Perrault came staggering forward, rubbing his chin. When he saw Sara he raised his eyebrows. Under the table, where the man she was interviewing could not see, she pointed a thumb up. The captain nodded. “Sara, can I see you up forward?”

  In the long forepeak gear stirred uneasily in the shadows. Bodine’s worn chair was empty; he was probably still aft with Quill. Perrault eased the door shut and murmured, “Well?”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Jamie? He is strong. We’ll just have to wait and see. The Japanese?”

  “He’s the real thing, Dru. A neuroanatomist, not a behaviorist like me. But he knows his way around the whale brain.”

  Perrault considered this. “What’s he say about why he jumped ship?”

  “We haven’t gotten to that yet.”

  “Okay, let’s find out.”

  Back in the salon, the captain ranged long arms and legs in a chair and sighed. “Sara tells me you’re a brain researcher,” he began.

  Kimura nodded politely and folded his hands. “That is accurate, Captain.”

  “Cut up a lot of whales, over there?”

  “A hundred and forty-four,” Auer put in, scowling.

  “Eddi, do me a favor. Go relieve Lars, on deck. He needs to be in on this.”

  “I was going to give him a—”

  “Just for a little while. Please. I believe we are in an ice-free area, but keep a sharp lookout all the same.”

  When she was gone they waited in silence until Madsen staggered down the companionway, shedding snow and water off his mustang suit, cursing. He began stripping off the gear, leaving puddles as he walked toward them, his boots squelching.

  “How’s the visibility up there?”

  “Not so bad.” He half turned as Bodine limped out of the passageway, and the two men, each trying to get out of the other’s way, collided clumsily. “Sorry.”

  “My fault.” Bodine looked at Perrault. “He’s resting. I gave him double the dose of cipro. All I could think of to do.”

  “Will he pull through?”

  “I don’t know, Sara. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Thank you,” Perrault said. Bodine limped on forward, disappeared into his space, and closed the door.

  The captain said, “Lars, we were about to get into why Hideyashi jumped ship.”

  “Okay.” Madsen threw himself on the settee and stretched out an arm. Glanced at Sara, then back at the Japanese. “I’m listening.”

  “You cut up a lot of whales,” the captain repeated.

  “Yes.” Kimura sighed, looking at his hands. “But they were already dead, of course.”

  “You’re part of their research effort?” Madsen said, straightening again.

  “I was. Yes.”

  “He’s a bona fide neuroanatomist. I’ve established that,” Sara put in.

  “All right, then. Why’d you jump ship?”

  “I am not only a scientist,” Kimura said. “I am also the son of a priest at the Yasukuni shrine.”

  Madsen tilted his head. “What is that, exactly?”

  “The principal Shinto shrine in Chiyoda—in Tokyo.”

  “What’s that got to do with jumping overboard?”

  “I have explained some of this to Dr. Pollard. When I applied for permission to do research, the executives of the institute—”

  “That’s the Institute of Cetacean Research?” Madsen said.

  “Correct. They were very welcoming. They promised a laboratory assistant, a dedicated space, and a budget of seven hundred thirty thousand yen.”

  Sara said, “Didn’t they come through?”

  “Oh yes. They provided the grant, the lab, and the assistant. What they did not say was that I was expected to lie.”

  Madsen leaned forward. “Lie about what?”

  “To receive the grant, I had to also agree to act as the scientific observer for the—they call it an ‘expedition.’ But of course it is not. As I quickly came to understand.”

  “All right,” said Sara. “What did they want you to do—certify false results?”

  He shook his head. “My results were my own. No one cared what I was doing, anyway. They just cut out the brains and carried them up to me in buckets. What they wanted me to certify—to lie about—was the kill figures.”

  “The quotas.” Madsen still leaned forward, intent. “The Japanese government sets them. Nine hundred beaked whales—”

  Kimura frowned. “Nine hundred what?”

  The Dane hesitated. “Sometimes called minkes.”

  “Oh yes, minkes. We call them ‘cockroaches’ on the ship. That is right. Nine hundred minkes, one hundred humpbacks, and one hundred fin whales.”

  “But you said earlier you dissected one hundred forty-four humpback brains,” Sara said. Feeling sick as she remembered the eerie beauty of a symphony in the deep.

  “So they’re taking more whales than the quota permits,” Madsen bored in.

  Kimura nodded. “When it was made plain I would have to certify that only the quota had been taken, I pointed out a problem. I had over that number of samples. Publication of my paper would make obvious the quota had been exceeded. I was then ordered to destroy forty-four of my sample sets.”

  “And you refused,” Sara guessed.

  He twisted his fingers. “Of course! I could not do otherwise. They tried to reason with me. Then said I would lose my grant, and not receive my doctorate. I still would not cooperate.”

  “Then what?”

  “One morning I went to my laboratory to find that all my samples had been thrown overboard, and my data deleted from my computer. Because I had talked to others in the crew, they removed me from the processing ship and put me to work on Number 3 cleaning toilets. It was then I realized that this was kigare, that I had brought it down on myself. True research must be carried out in the spirit of truth.”

  Perrault said, “What was that word you used?”

  “Kigare? It is like karma. The kami—the spirits—ensure that one pays for what one does. Unless one expiates wrong actions, this accumulation of evil determines fate. I became convinced I was taking part in wrong, in killing these great creatures. When a man realizes this, it is his duty to cease the action and purify himself. The usual ritual involves water.” He smiled. “So you see why jumping overboard seemed appropriate.”

  Sara sat back, uncertain how to take this. A student with scientific training, believing in spirits, karma? “And you feel this … ritual … purified you?”

  Kimura chuckled. “I see your mind, Dr. Pollard. You are saying, to yourself, How can a scientist think like this? I know, it will seem not quite rational. But you forget, I am Japanese.”

  “And the son of a priest.”

  “Exactly so. I know there is nothing to these feelings. But the feelings themselves have objective reality. And I truly have come to believe killing animals with brains that show structures consistent with a capability for intelligent thought—well, you see where I am going.” He shrugged. “No doubt you feel the same way. Or you would not be trying to stop us.”

  She felt uneasy at that assumption, but didn’t contradict him. Kimura sat back and adjusted his blanket. He looked around and shivered. “It is really very cold in this ship.”

  “We don’t burn whale oil for heat,” Madsen said harshly. “So, you jumped ship to purify yourself. Like Sara asked: Are you purified?”

  Kimura gave a slight shrug. “That is for the kami to say. The spirits of nature. Not me.”

  Perrault sai
d, “What do you expect us to do with you?”

  “I will assist in whatever way I can that does not involve hurting people.”

  Madsen said, “Even if they’re doing evil?”

  The Japanese said in a modest voice, “That is difficult to say.”

  Lars threw Sara a glance she found difficult to read. Suspicion, though, was definitely part of it.

  The forward hatch creaked open. Bodine stood framed by darkness. “Captain? Answer to your message.”

  Perrault rose. “Which one?”

  “To Maru Number 3.” He waved a scrap of paper.

  “Read it.”

  “Captain Nakame demands the return of the junior research employee Kimura Hideyashi, who was restricted to his quarters pending trial in Japan for drunkenness, disobeying orders, fighting with crew members, and destroying scientific equipment. He will steam to meet us. He requests our position.”

  Perrault swayed as the deck pitched. “No response from the home office?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You will not return me,” a soft voice said. “Please? If you do, I will only jump again. And this time you may not be there.”

  They waited as Perrault swayed, shadows beneath his eyes. The captain finally drew a breath and muttered, “I won’t return you. No.”

  “Good decision,” Madsen said.

  Perrault looked at his watch. “I’ll want you back at the wheel, Sara. With those sharp eyes. Keep Eddi up there as your ice lookout.”

  “Yes, sir.” She rose.

  “Mick, send the following: ‘Message received.’ Give them coordinates one hundred miles southwest of our current position. Then shut down. Turn off our radar and running lights. Sara, head north. Away from the ice.”

  “But you’re giving up the fleet,” Madsen said. “Heading away from them. That’s not—”

  “Until we get a legal opinion,” Perrault said. “If anyone has a problem with that decision, I will be in my cabin.” He started back, then turned. “Or, no. I will be in Mr. Quill’s room.”

  When he’d left they sat or stood for a moment in the near dark. Then silently scattered, each to his or her assigned task.

  11

  The Corvette