Epics of the Deep, was a typical Big Media over-production, but interesting in its implications: The Mad Cetologist gets hold of TKI Technologies’ Pyramid Human-Animal Language Translator (HALT), used to prove to vegetarians, “animal liberation” activists and other Viral Deviants, that while animals have a certain instinctual “intelligence,” they are far from human, and their liberation would not only result in a dearth of protein for the Citizens of The Nation, but the animals’ certain death from car accidents, starvation, not to mention immense health hazards caused allowing pigs, cows, chickens, sheep and goats roam “free” through Cities of The Nation.
But The Mad Cetologist had been studying various clicks, whistles, whirs, and bellows made by whales and dolphins, and detected patterns. He set out to prove, using his illegally gotten HALT software, that cetaceans were indeed as “intelligent” as Homo Sapiens.
Before his journey, as he readied his boat, he was approached by a young woman who identified herself as a “student” of marine biology who had a particular knack with animals. The Cetologist, who did indeed need an assistant for his task, hired her on.
Together they went in search of whales. They found a school of Humpback, keeping their distance. To The Mad Cetologist’s amazement, The Student dove into the water and swam toward the fearsome creatures—and they toward her. The leviathans nuzzled her and allowed her to stroke their immense backs. Next morning, The Mad Cetologist was surprised to see his boat surrounded by Humpback whales, circling, as they dived into and emerged from the dark deep.
Having fed many gigabytes of recorded whales sounds — he chose Humpback specifically — into HALT, he created a translator for cetaceans wired to a microphone lowered into the water. He spoke the language of The Nation, and received a reply: clicks, whistles, whirs, translated to the language of The Nation.
The first conversations were relatively pedestrian: “Hello’s,” courteous greetings, introductions and so forth.
But an interesting discovery was made, not only among the Humpback, but other cetacean species, including schools of bottle-nosed dolphins sewing the sea like silver thread stitching a great green quilt.
“Epic poems” passed down “orally,” for lack of a better term, from generation to generation, through the eons were a consistent feature of all cetacean life. The epics described details of whale and dolphin life, as each school and species traversed the oceans, from the dawn of Time. The themes and stories of the great poems remained constant, repetitive journals of the ancient past, although each generation altered the tale they inherited, with its own particular “style”— varying, of course, from school to school.
Certain specifics remained consistent: the first Great Holocaust by Man only centuries before, for instance, and the myth (memory?) that some whales had developed legs, hundreds of millions of years ago, and crawled up to land, then, wisely, crawled back to swim free again.
Mostly the epics concerned the fundamentals of living — searching for food and clean temperate water; mating; long swims in search of the safest, least human-contaminated regions in which to pursue the fundamentals. By far the most “time-in-tensive” pursuits included a combination of aimless wandering; play; exploration of what remained of the great ocean paradise and the rapidly disappearing life-forms born into it; communication of impressions and “ideas” accumulating in their enormous brains, and just being the creatures life had meant them to be—what human beings would commonly describe as “goofing off,” or “doing nothing,” said descriptions usually followed by stern injunctions to “get a life,” or at the very least, “get a job.”
The Mad Cetologist and The Student published their collections of the Humpback, Sperm whale and Bottle-nosed dolphin as “Epics of the Deep,” — each translated from the language of the particular genus, the same poems passed on and refined, refined, refined with each generation, but seldom amended — with few “approved” exceptions: such as the halcyon era of Great Floods; the Death Days of mass hunting to near extinction by humans — as if time stood still, or rather, spun in cycles, like planets, galaxies, atoms, through eons…
TKI Pharmaceuticals began to dissect cetacean brains in pursuit of the chemical that enabled the creatures to memorize such vast stores of information. From this research evolved the drug, Cetanax, which increased memory and worker production — workers would not have to waste time consulting books and on-line manuals, but could learn computer languages a specie and reproduce tera-bytes of data in seamless sync with the machines.
TKI Inc. began to “farm” whales and dolphins of every specie in closed areas ocean owned by The Company, taking what was needed for production of Cetanax and ensuring abundant supply of cetaceans; hence, unlike the Dodo or other useless animals, whales would not become extinct, but kept in bountiful supply as befitting necessary fauna — cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, chickens, turkeys and other edibles.
Out on the boat, The foolish Mad Cetologist transmitted a rambling “apology” to various schools of whales and dolphins, cutting the receiver, for he, crazed man, could not “bear” to hear their reply—as if they would do anything but thank him for allowing them to serve The Nation! The Mad Cetologist and The Student shared a long “dark night of the soul,” so to speak, made love for the first time, and in the sheets entwined, The Student admitted she was none other than The Missing Girl, that most VIRAL of Deviants, Pied Piperess of The Missing Young!
Rather than expressing righteous outrage, the Mad Cetologist was gladdened by her disgraceful revelation, for in his sick mind they were fellow impediments to the progress of The Nation. But in a moment of clarity, The Mad Cetologist realized that The Nation must thrive while they, despite their great contribution that led to increased citizen productivity (thanks to Cetanax — although via illegal use of HALT) which he perversely viewed as a “desecration and betrayal” of cetacean life — as if THAT were equal to the productive life of The Nation.
At dawn, The Mad Cetologist, and now unmasked Missing Girl, doused the boat and themselves with gasoline, kissed good-bye, and lit two matches. Their final, productive deed: destroying their potentially useful but deliberately useless selves, despite the serendipitous discovery of the epics which led to mass production of Cetanax, for the good of The Nation.
Such people as The Mad Cetologist and The Missing Girl despite occasional productive work, cannot but impede the progress of The Nation. Thus, their one truly great act was their suicide, the immolation of their infected selves for the good of The Nation’s clean, healthy, productive citizenry.
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