Surfacing

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Humans interacted with whales for centuries before they learned to speak with them, and even now the speech is limited and often confused. I’ve only been here two and a half years.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “you could use some help. Write those papers of yours. Publish the data.”

  He turned away. “I’m doing fine,” he said.

  “Glad to hear it.” She took a long breath. “What did I do, Anthony? Tell me.”

  “Nothing,” he said. Anthony watched the marina waters, saw the amphibian surface, its head pulled back to help slide a fish down its gullet. Philana was just standing there. We, thought Anthony, are in a condition of non-resolution.

  “I work alone,” he said. “I immerse myself in their speech, in their environment, for months at a time. Talking to a human breaks my concentration. I don’t know how to talk to a person right now. After the Dwellers, you seem perfectly…”

  “Alien?” she said. Anthony didn’t answer. The amphibian slid through the water, its head leaving a short, silver wake.

  The boat rocked as Philana stepped from it to the dock: “Maybe we can talk later,” she said. “Exchange data or something.”

  “Yes,” Anthony said. “We’ll do that.” His eyes were still on the seal. Later, before he went to bed, he told the computer to play Dweller speech all night long.

  *

  Lying in his bunk the next morning, Anthony heard Philana cast off her yacht. He felt a compulsion to talk to her, apologize again, but in the end he stayed in his rack, tried to concentrate on Dweller sounds.

  I/We remain in a condition of solitude, he thought, the Dweller phrases coming easily to his mind. There was a brief shadow cast on the port beside him as the big flying boat rose into the sky, then nothing but sunlight and the slap of water on the pier supports. Anthony climbed out of his sleeping bag and went into town, provisioned the boat for a week. He had been too close to land for too long: a trip into the sea, surrounded by nothing but whales and Dweller speech, should cure him of his unease.

  Two Notches had switched on his transponder: Anthony followed the beacon north, the boat rising easily over deep blue rollers. Desiring sun, Anthony climbed to the flybridge and lowered the canvas cover. Fifty miles north of Cabo Santa Pola there was a clear dividing line in the water, a line as clear as a meridian on a chart, beyond which the sea was a deeper, purer blue. The line marked the boundary of the cold Kirst current that had journeyed, wreathed in mist from contact with the warmer air, a full three thousand nautical miles from the region of the South Pole. Anthony crossed the line and rolled down his sleeves as the temperature of the air fell.

  He heard the first whale speech through his microphones as he entered the cold current: the sound hadn’t carried across the turbulent frontier of warm water and cold. The whales were unclear, distant and mixed with the sound of the screws, but he could tell from the rhythm that he was overhearing a dialogue. Apparently Sings of Others had joined Two Notches north of Las Madres. It was a long journey to make overnight, but not impossible.

  The cooler air was invigorating. The boat plowed a straight, efficient wake through the deep blue sea. Anthony’s spirits rose. This was where he belonged, away from the clutter and complication of humanity. Doing what he did best.

  He heard something odd in the rhythm of the whalespeech; he frowned and listened more closely. One of the whales was Two Notches: Anthony recognized his speech patterns easily after all this time; but the other wasn’t Sings of Others. There was a clumsiness in its pattern of chorus and response.

  The other was a human. Annoyance hummed in Anthony’s nerves. Back on Earth, tourists or eager amateur explorers sometimes bought cheap translation programs and tried to talk to the whales, but this was no tourist program: it was too eloquent, too knowing. Philana, of course. She’d followed the transponder signal and was busy gathering data about the humpback females. Anthony cut his engines and let the boat drift slowly to put its bow into the wind; he deployed the microphones from their wells in the hull and listened. The song was bouncing off a colder layer below, and it echoed confusingly.

  Deep Swimmer and her calf, called the One that Nudges, are possessed of one another. I and that one am the father. We hunger for one another’s presence.

  Apparently hunger was once again the subtheme of the day. The context told Anthony that Two Notches was swimming in cool water beneath a boat. Anthony turned the volume up:

  We hunger to hear of Deep Swimmer and our calf.

  That was the human response: limited in its phrasing and context, direct and to the point.

  I and Deep Swimmer are shy. We will not play with humans. Instead we will pretend we are hungry and vanish into deep waters.

  The boat lurched as a swell caught it at an awkward angle. Water splashed over the bow. Anthony deployed the drogue and dropped from the flybridge to the cockpit. He tapped a message into the computer and relayed it.

  I and Two Notches are pleased to greet ourselves. I and Two Notches hope we are not too hungry.

  The whale’s reply was shaded with delight. Hungrily I and Anthony greet ourselves. We and Anthony’s friend, Air Human, have been in a condition of conversation.

  Air Human, from the flying yacht. Two Notches went on.

  We had found ourselves some Deep Dwellers, but some moments ago we and they moved beneath a cold layer and our conversation is lost. I starve for its return.

  The words echoed off the cold layer that stood like a wall between Anthony and the Dwellers. The humpback inflections were steeped in annoyance.

  Our hunger is unabated, Anthony typed. But we will wait for the non-breathers’ return.

  We cannot wait long. Tonight we and the north must begin the journey to our feeding time.

  The voice of Air Human rumbled through the water. It sounded like a distant, throbbing engine. Our finest greetings, Anthony. I and Two Notches will travel north together. Then we and the others will feed.

  Annoyance slammed into Anthony. Philana had abducted his whale. Clenching his teeth, he typed a civil reply:

  Please give our kindest greetings to our hungry brothers and sisters in the north.

  By the time he transmitted his anger had faded. Two Notches’ departure was inevitable in the next few days, and he’d known that. Still, a residue of jealousy burned in him. Philana would have the whale’s company on its journey north: he would be stuck here by Las Madres without the keen whale ears that helped him find the Dwellers.

  Two Notches’ reply came simultaneously with a programmed reply from Philana. Lyrics about greetings, hunger, feeding, calves, and joy whined through the water, bounced from the cold layer. Anthony looked at the hash his computer made of the translation and laughed. He decided he might as well enjoy Two Notches’ company while it lasted.

  That was a strange message to hear from our friend, Two Mouths, he typed. “Notch” and “mouth” were almost the same phrase: Anthony had just made a pun.

  Whale amusement bubbled through the water. Two Mouths and I belong to the most unusual family between the surface and cold water. We-all and air breathe each other, but some of us have the bad fortune to live in it.

  The sun warmed Anthony’s shoulders in spite of the cool air. He decided to leave off the pursuit of the Dwellers and spend the day with his humpback.

  He kicked off his shoes, then stepped down to his cooler and made himself a sandwich.

  *

  The Dwellers never came out from beneath the cold layer. Anthony spent the afternoon listening to Two Notches tell stories about his family. Now that the issue of hunger was resolved by the whale’s decision to migrate, the cold layer beneath them became the new topic of conversation, and Two Notches amused himself by harmonizing with his own echo. Sings of Others arrived in late afternoon and announced he had already begun his journey: he and Two Notches decided to travel in company.

  Northward homing! Cold watering! Reunion joyous! The phrases dopplered closer Anthony’s boat, and then T
wo Notches broke the water thirty feet off the port beam, salt water pouring like Niagara from his black jaw, his scalloped fins spread like wings eager to take the air…

  Anthony’s breath went out of him in surprise. He turned in his chair and leaned away from the sight, half in fear and half in awe… Even though he was used to the whales, the sight never failed to stun him, thrill him, freeze him in his tracks.

  Two Notches toppled over backwards, One clear brown eye fixed on Anthony. Anthony raised an arm and waved, and he thought he saw amusement in Two Notches’ glance, perhaps the beginning of an answering wave in the gesture of a fin. A living creature the size of a bus, the whale struck the water not with a smack, but with a roar, a sustained outpour of thunder. Anthony braced himself for what was coming. Salt water flung itself over the gunwale, struck him like a blow. The cold was shocking: his heart lurched. The boat was flung high on the wave, dropped down its face with a jarring thud. Two Notches’ flukes tossed high and Anthony could see the mottled pattern, grey and white, on the underside, distinctive as a fingerprint… and then the flukes were gone, leaving behind a rolling boat and a boiling sea.

  Anthony wiped the ocean from his face, then from his computer. The boat’s auto-baling mechanism began to throb. Two Notches surfaced a hundred yards off, spouted a round cloud of steam, submerged again. The whale’s amusement stung the water. Anthony’s surprise turned to joy, and he echoed the sound of laughter.

  I’m going to run my boat up your backside, Anthony promised; he splashed to the controls in his bare feet, withdrew the drogue and threw his engines into gear. Props thrashed the sea into foam. Anthony drew the microphones up into their wells, heard them thud along the hull as the boat gained way. Humpbacks usually took breath in a series of three: Anthony aimed ahead for Two Notches’ second rising. Two Notches rose just ahead, spouted, and dove before Anthony could catch him. A cold wind cut through Anthony’s wet shirt, raised bumps on his flesh. The boat increased speed, tossing its head on the face of a wave, and Anthony raced ahead, aiming for where Two Notches would rise for the third time.

  The whale knew where the boat was and was able to avoid him easily; there was no danger in the game. Anthony won the race: Two Notches surfaced just aft of the boat, and Anthony grinned as he gunned his propellers and wrenched the rudder from side to side while the boat spewed foam into the whale’s face. Two Notches gave a grunt of disappointment and sounded, tossing his flukes high. Unless he chose to rise early, Two Notches would be down for five minutes or more. Anthony raced the boat in circles, waiting. Two Notches’ taunts rose in the cool water. The wind was cutting Anthony to the quick. He reached into the cabin for a sweater, pulled it on, ran up to the flybridge just in time to see Two Notches leap again half a mile away, the vast dark body silhouetted for a moment against the setting sun before it fell again into the welcoming sea.

  Goodbye, goodbye. I and Anthony send fragrant farewells to one another.

  White foam surrounded the slick, still place where Two Notches had fallen into the water. Suddenly the flybridge was very cold. Anthony’s heart sank. He cut speed and put the wheel amidships. The boat slowed reluctantly, as if it, too, had been enjoying the game. Anthony dropped down the ladder to his computer.

  Through the spattered windscreen, Anthony could see Two Notches leaping again, his long wings beating air, his silhouette refracted through seawater and rainbows. Anthony tried to share the whale’s exuberance, his joy, but the thought of another long summer alone on his boat, beating his head against the enigma of the Dwellers, turned his mind to ice.

  He ordered an infinite repeat of Two Notches’ last phrase and stepped below to change into dry clothes. The cold layer echoed his farewells. He bent almost double and began pulling the sweater over his head.

  Suddenly he straightened. An idea was chattering at him. He yanked the sweater back down over his trunk, rushed to his computer, tapped another message.

  Our farewells need not be said just yet. You and I can follow one another for a few days before I must return. Perhaps you and the non-breathers can find one another for conversation.

  Anthony is in a condition of migration. Welcome, welcome! wo Notches’ reply was jubilant.

  For a few days, Anthony qualified. Before too long he would have to return to port for supplies. Annoyed at himself, he realized he could as easily have victualed for weeks.

  A human voice called through the water, sounded faintly through the speakers. Air Human and Anthony are in a state of tastiest welcome.

  In the middle of Anthony’s reply, his fingers paused at the keys. Surprise rose quietly to the surface of his mind.

  After the long day of talking in humpback speech, he had forgotten that Air Human was not a humpback. That she was, in fact, another human being sitting on a boat just over the horizon.

  Anthony continued his message. His fingers were clumsy now, and he had to go back twice to correct mistakes. He wondered why it was harder to talk to Philana, now that he remembered she wasn’t an alien.

  *

  He asked Two Notches to turn on his transponder, and, all through the deep shadow twilight when the white dwarf was in the sky, the boat followed the whale at a half-mile’s distance. The current was cooperative, but in a few days a new set of northwest trade winds would push the current off on a curve toward the equator and the whales would lose its assistance.

  Anthony didn’t see Philana’s boat that first day: just before dawn, Sings of Others heard a distant Dweller conversation to starboard. Anthony told his boat to strike off in that direction and spent most of the day listening. When the Dwellers fell silent, he headed for the whales’ transponders again. There was a lively conversation in progress between Air Human and the whales, but Anthony’s mind was still on Dwellers. He put on headphones and worked far into the night.

  The next morning was filled with chill mist. Anthony awoke to the whooping cries of the humpbacks. He looked at his computer to see if it had recorded any announcement of Dwellers, and there was none. The whales’ interrogation by Air Human continued. Anthony’s toes curled on the cold, damp planks as he stepped on deck and saw Philana’s yacht two hundred yards to port, floating three feet over the tallest swells. Cables trailed from the stern, pulling hydrophones and speakers on a subaquatic sled. Anthony grinned at the sight of the elaborate store-bought rig. He suspected that he got better acoustics with his homebuilt equipment, the translation softwear he’d programmed himself, and his hopelessly old-fashioned boat that couldn’t even rise out of the water, but that he’d equipped with the latest-generation silent propellers.

  He turned on his speakers. Sure enough, he got more audio interference from Philana’s sled than he received from his entire boat.

  While making coffee and an omelette of mossmoon eggs Anthony listened to the whales gurgle about their grandparents. He put on a down jacket and stepped onto the boat’s stern and ate breakfast, watching the humpbacks as they occasionally broke surface, puffed out clouds of spray, sounded again with a careless, vast toss of their flukes. Their bodies were smooth and black: the barnacles that pebbled their skin on Earth had been removed before they gated to their new home.

  Their song could be heard clearly even without the amplifiers. That was one change the contact with humans had brought: the males were a lot more vocal than once they had been, as if they were responding to human encouragement to talk— or perhaps they now had more worth talking about. Their speech was also more terse than before, less overtly poetic; the humans’ directness and compactness of speech, caused mainly by their lack of fluency, had influenced the whales to a degree.

  The whales were adapting to communication with humans more easily than the humans were adapting to them. It was important to chart that change, be able to say how the whales had evolved, accommodated. They were on an entire new planet now, explorers, and change was going to come fast. The whales were good at remembering, but artificial intelligences were better. Anthony was suddenly glad that Phila
na was here, doing her work.

  As if on cue she appeared on deck, one hand pressed to her head, holding an earphone: she was listening intently to whalesong. She was bundled up against the chill, and gave a brief wave as she noticed him. Anthony waved back. She paused, beating time with one hand to the rhythm of whalespeech, then waved again and stepped back to her work.

  Anthony finished breakfast and cleaned the dishes. He decided to say good morning to the whales, then work on some of the Dweller speech he’d recorded the day before. He turned on his computer, sat down at the console, typed his greetings. He waited for a pause in the conversation, then transmitted. The answer came back sounding like a distant buzzsaw.

  We and Anthony wish one another a passage filled with splendid odors. We and Air Human have been scenting one another’s families this morning.

  We wish each other the joy of converse, Anthony typed.

  We have been wondering, Two Notches said, if we can scent whether we and Anthony and Air Human are in a condition of rut.

  Anthony gave a laugh. Humpbacks enjoyed trying to figure out human relationships: they were promiscuous themselves, and intrigued by ways different from their own.

  Anthony wondered, sitting in his cockpit, if Philana was looking at him.

  Air Human and I smell of aloneness, unpairness, he typed, and he transmitted the message at the same time that Philana entered the even more direct, We are not.

  The state is not rut, apartness is the smell. Two Notches agreed readily— it was all one to him— and the lyrics echoed each other for a long moment, aloneness, not, unpairness, not. Not. Anthony felt a chill.

  I and the Dwellers’ speech are going to try to scent one another’s natures, he typed hastily, and turned off the speakers. He opened his case and took out one of the cubes he’d recorded the day before.

  Work went slowly.

  *

  By noon the mist had burned off the water. His head buzzing with Dweller sounds, Anthony stepped below for a sandwich. The message light was blinking on his telephone. He turned to it, pressed the play button.