The Solar Sea (4 page)

The vessel was in Frederick Sound to perform a routine count of humpback whales. While there, Dr. Myra Lee recorded the enigmatic, hypnotic music of the giant beasts. Lance Naftel thought there were enough recordings of whale song in the world. However, Dr. Lee had proposed a theory that there might be long-term cycles to the songs. To test her theories, she needed a large, yearly database. The previous night, though, as she analyzed her most recent set of recordings, something happened that sent her into a flurry of activity.

The captain had been sitting in his tiny cabin, drinking a cup of coffee when someone pounded on his door. Before he could acknowledge the impatient sound, the door burst open. “We have to stay for a couple more days, Skipper,” said Myra.

Naftel blinked a couple of times and stated he could only do so with permission from the Oceanographic Institute in Juneau. At that point, Dr. Lee darted from the cabin to make the call. Permission came within the hour. A day later, Captain Naftel still had no idea what had sent the marine biologist into such a frenzy. As the sky went from indigo to black, the captain decided it was time to find out.

He walked inside the ship and stepped down a narrow ladder. He rapped on a dark wooden door. Just as he was about to knock again, he heard a vaguely distracted voice call, “Come in."

The captain opened the door to find a thin woman sitting at a large wooden table covered in graphs with dates marked at the top. It appeared they were arranged in chronological order. Next to the graphs was a set of headphones connected to an expensive digital audio system. The system held several compact disks, one of which recorded the sounds coming from the hydrophones. Another disk held an older recording. Myra Lee poured over the graphs.

"Isn't it getting a little late for the whales to be singing?” asked Naftel.

Myra looked up from the charts. “Normally, I'd say yes.” She looked toward the silently oscillating pattern of red lights on the audio system's meter. “However, except for breaks to feed and sleep, they've been singing almost constantly since yesterday afternoon."

"What?” The captain tugged at the collar of his beige turtleneck sweater.

"What's more,” Myra continued quietly, as though she were speaking in church, “their songs have changed."

The captain stepped up to the table and glanced at the charts. He saw they were graphs of whale songs recorded over several years. “What's unusual about that?” The captain rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I thought humpback whales changed their songs all the time."

"They do.” There was a slight glimmer in her brown eyes. “But this is different. They completely changed their song yesterday, at almost exactly one o'clock in the afternoon.” Carefully, she laid the charts she had been looking at on the table. “This is a graph of the frequency of one whale's song from three days ago.” She traced the undulating pattern of dots with her thin finger. “If you look, you can see that there are about six distinct phrases in this whale's song."

The captain looked and nodded, again tugging on the neck of his sweater.

"Each of the whales I've been recording had been singing almost exactly these six phrases since we got out here a week ago."

"Sounds normal,” mused the captain.

"Perfectly.” Myra reached over and retrieved another graph. “This graph was made from songs recorded yesterday.” She drew some lines across the undulating dots with a black pen to help him see the phrases. “Notice that the first three phrases are exactly the same as the beginning of the songs recorded before.” The biologist then stabbed her finger on the graph, pointing to the fourth phrase. “Then right at one o'clock, the song changed. It's a completely new pattern."

Captain Naftel looked at the charts and saw what she meant. He also saw that shortly after that, the chart seemed to become a jumble of dots. “What's all that?"

Myra sighed and ran her fingers through long, straight brown hair. “That's the beginning of the chorus. All the whales started singing then."

"You say they've been singing the new song since yesterday?” The captain moved to the wall and leaned against it. “I take it the song always starts with those same three phrases."

Myra pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, the whales started singing the old song, then changed to a completely new song. As far as I can tell, they repeated the new song twice. After that, all the whales not singing before, joined in."

"So if you have the new song from the one whale, why are we still recording?” The captain tapped his foot impatiently.

"Confirmation, mostly. I want to see if this is an aberration and the whales go back to their old song, or if this is going to continue. I'd at least like to stay until they quiet down a bit."

The captain folded his arms, almost defiantly. “We don't have that much in the way of extra supplies. I'd like to start back tomorrow morning.” He inclined his head toward the recorder. “Besides, what if they don't quiet down?"

Myra shuffled her feet on the floor, looking down at the worn, brown tile. “Can't we stay just a little longer?"

The captain removed the black cap he wore and scratched his balding head. “We have enough provisions to stay out here for forty-eight more hours. We'd have to go home then.” He replaced the cap and folded his arms. “But it's not just the provisions, there's morale to consider. Dr. Lyons and Dr. Eckhart have all the count data they need. Eckhart's getting anxious because he has classes he needs to prepare."

"Can we at least wait until one o'clock tomorrow? At that point, the whales will have been singing their new song for forty-eight hours.” Myra's voice trembled slightly.

Again, the captain tapped his foot. “Tomorrow, one o'clock,” he said firmly. With that, he opened the door and stepped out.

Myra turned her attention back to the charts. She picked up the headphones and listened to the haunting rhythms of the new song—the eerie strains, gruntings, and rumbles that could only come from humpback whales. Though mostly familiar, her practiced ear had never heard a song as agitated as this. There was a rare energy, like a wild longing, in this new song. All of the whales in the area seemed to be doing their best to memorize the song and copy it. There were few of the subtle changes that individual whales made to the songs.

She sat back and considered what the captain said about morale as the whale melodies echoed in her ears. She, too, longed to get back to port and her office. Even so, she was too captivated by the mystery of the whales’ new song to be pulled away easily. In a hundred and fifty years of research, no one had ever heard of a phenomenon as stunning as this.

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Captain and Colonel

When she was growing up in Southern Arkansas, people said Natalie Freeman was an unusual little girl. While most of the girls in her neighborhood liked to wear dresses and pretend to be princesses, Natalie liked to dress up in coveralls, make pretend space helmets out of cardboard boxes and run around shooting the boys with water guns, shouting, “Gotcha with my laser pistol!"

Neither the boys nor the girls in Natalie's neighborhood particularly understood this behavior. The girls would ask why she didn't want to play house and the boys, soaking wet, declared, “Space is dumb. No one goes there anymore.” This was not to say Natalie never played with children her own age. In fact, she did enjoy playing computer games with the girls and sports with the boys.

As she grew older, Natalie started reading history in addition to science fiction and she introduced both the boys and girls to highly involved games of strategy. Both pursuits suited her well. Her uncle James, a retired admiral from the Second Korean War, sat down with her one day. “Your grades are pretty good, aren't they?” said the old man, firmly.

"I'm top of the class, Uncle James,” said Natalie. “I only got one B last semester."

"That's pretty good.” The old man let just a hint of a smile curl his lip. Natalie found herself staring at him. He was a bit fat, but she could see how he had once been powerfully built. Her mother said he had been a heavyweight boxer once. His snow-white hair was trimmed so short, it seemed almost a light frost atop a deep brown mountain. “You know, I have some friends in Congress. I could get you an appointment to Annapolis."

Natalie's heart skipped a beat. “The Naval Academy?” She gasped. She had assumed she would be trapped in the neighborhood she grew up in all her life. She had thought of becoming a teacher to help other kids out of the neighborhood, but Uncle James had just handed her a dream. With Navy experience, she could apply to NASA, maybe even become an astronaut.

"You'll have to work hard,” warned Uncle James. “Physically and mentally."

Natalie swallowed hard. “I'll do whatever it takes."

"I'm sure you will.” He stood and saluted her. She jumped up and hugged him tight.

As Uncle James predicted, the Naval Academy proved to be a challenge. Natalie hardly breezed through. Even in the mid-twenty-first century, the male cadets made life difficult for the females and the mostly male teaching faculty wasn't very sympathetic to Natalie's plight. Still, she worked hard despite hazings and earned the respect of her fellow classmates. Despite the challenges, her grades were high, bringing her to the attention of a few senior officers at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

As a junior officer serving aboard submarines, she kept her eye on the space program and paid particular attention to the
Ares II
mission that went to Mars. Sadly, when
Ares II
returned to Earth, the president announced it was NASA's last mission. Though Natalie's dream of being an astronaut had ended, she ultimately found satisfaction first as executive officer of the Battleship
Oregon,
then as commander of one of the biggest ships in the entire United States Navy, the aircraft carrier U.S.S.
Daniel B. Sherman.

Even after twenty years in the Navy, Natalie remained the independent thinker she had been as a child. Though she was taught to follow orders—and she did so quite well, when needed—she also knew when and how to question them.

Soon after taking command of the U.S.S.
Sherman
, Captain Natalie Freeman was ordered to the Mediterranean Sea. Tensions between the United States and Jordan were growing. Natalie was frustrated because she realized the reason for the tensions involved a relatively simple misunderstanding between the Jordanian Prime Minister and the President of the United States, an uncompromising man named Walter Kane.

While Kane and the Jordanian Prime Minister argued, Captain Freeman took several actions that could have resulted in a court-martial. She contacted several high-ranking friends at the Pentagon who put her in touch with members of Congress’ armed services committee, including an up-and-coming favorite named Oscar Van der Wald. With their help, she developed several acceptable solutions to the crisis.

She was disappointed but not surprised when negotiations between President Kane and the Jordanian Prime Minister broke down. The president ordered her to send an air strike against Amman, the capital of Jordan. At that point, Natalie took the biggest risk of her career. She did, in fact, order an airplane to fly to Amman. However, she rode in the gunner's seat and the plane landed without firing a shot. She asked to meet with the Jordanian Prime Minister.

After an hour of intense face-to-face discussion, the Prime Minister agreed to one of the compromises suggested by Natalie's allies in Congress. Together, Natalie and the Prime Minister called President Kane. Senator Van der Wald was in the president's office and a compromise was reached. Not a single life was lost. Natalie Freeman was declared a hero. Embarrassed and humiliated, President Kane lost the following election to Oscar Van der Wald.

Two years after President Van der Wald took office, he ordered the
Sherman
to the Persian Gulf. This time, there was a dispute between the United States and Iraq. Over half a century after Iraq had been liberated, the country refused to sell more oil to the United States. President Van der Wald expected Captain Natalie Freeman to work another miracle and convince the Iraqis to sell more oil. The problem, as Natalie knew, was that the Iraqis were not being stubborn. They were simply out of oil and the president refused to believe them.

Captain Freeman stepped out on the deck of the aircraft carrier
Daniel B. Sherman
, took off her cap, and felt the warm breeze blow through her hair as she wondered what kind of miracle she could produce.

In Washington D.C., President Van der Wald sat in the oval office waiting for a call from Captain Natalie Freeman. In the office with the president was a long-time friend from his days in the Senate named Diana Aguilar. Diana left the Senate when Oscar Van der Wald became president to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Energy.

The president paced through the center of the oval office. His hand gripped a pencil tightly. Diana fidgeted in a high-backed chair. “You know, the real problem is that there just isn't that much oil left in Iraq—or anywhere for that matter."

"They've been saying that for over a hundred years and we're not out of fuel yet,” said President Van der Wald.

"It's just a matter of time.” Diana shifted, then hastily adjusted her skirt. “It always has been. You know as well as I do that the current administration in Iraq would sell us oil if they had it. The problem is they don't. I don't care how good a miracle worker Natalie Freeman is, she's not going to succeed."

Van der Wald stopped pacing and looked at his friend with sadness. “Two more years. That's all I ask, just two more years of oil, then we'll be up to the next election."

"You've seen the same reports I have.” Diana sighed. “They don't even have enough to run their own cars."

The president stepped over to the big window behind his desk. He looked out at the green grass and trees beyond. “What are our options?"

Diana shifted in the seat again. “There just aren't that many. We're getting what we can from Alaska.” She fondled a necklace from her home state of New Mexico almost longingly—a small Native American dreamcatcher. “We're even drilling in the Otero Mesa back home."