The Solar Sea by David Lee Summers Read Free Book Online Page A

Jefferson lifted an eyebrow and O'Connell continued. “Oh, people knew him from teleconferences, but so far, I haven't met anyone who actually worked alongside him."
    "Well, Quinn Corp is a big company—lots of divisions.” Jefferson narrowed his eyes, suspiciously, belying his offhand tone. “He said something about being the pilot manager?"
    "He's going to pilot the ship.” O'Connell shrugged as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
    Jefferson took a deep breath. “I guess since it's a corporate ship, he wants to avoid giving people ranks like in the military.” He shook his head. “Could make discipline aboard ship difficult."
    O'Connell pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I don't know.... It's not like there aren't chains of command in the civilian world."
    Jefferson pursed his lips, thinking about his civilian bosses. He wondered if someone like Bill Pickett would have actually been promoted above him in the military. “What about Jerome Quinn? Have you met him? Has he been up for an inspection?"
    O'Connell shook his head. “From what people say, he rarely leaves his estate in California."
    "You'd think he'd take an interest in his highest profile project.” Jefferson inclined his head.
    "They say the old man has never been to the Moon. Maybe he gets space sick."
    "Maybe.... “Jefferson looked out the window. “He must trust this Alonzo quite a bit."
    The shuttle settled onto its landing pad with a gentle thud. The rockets shut off suddenly and the cabin became eerily quiet.
    * * * *
    Myra Lee found herself back at the Oceanographic Institute. Lisa had already read the whale song data into the computer. It was such a jumble that there did not appear to be any way to make sense out of the information. Even so, they hoped the computer's voice recognition software would be able to distinguish each whale's tones and print a plot of the individual songs.
    Staring at the plots displayed on the computer screen, Myra realized she was seeing virtually the same pattern over and over again. With just a little relief, she realized some of the individual variations each whale normally added to its songs did appear in the graphs. Still, those changes were not quite as apparent as they should have been and there were places in the songs where the whales seemed not to allow any variation at all. Myra kept being haunted by Lisa's words about the songs looking like binary encoded messages.
    She folded her hands while looking at the plots and wondered if the phenomenon she observed was limited to whales in the Frederick Sound area or if it were happening worldwide. Opening a new window on her computer, Myra fired off three email messages. One went to her graduate advisor, Dr. Stirling Cristof, who studied humpback whales out of San Francisco. Another went to a cetacean biologist in Hawaii who studied Right Whales. The final message went to a Wood's Hole biologist who worked with Spermaceti Whales.
    Within minutes, Stirling Cristof's face appeared on the computer screen. He was requesting a video chat. “Hi, Myra, got a moment?"
    With a keystroke, she was in touch with the wiry, sharp-eyed man. “I always have time. Did you get my message?"
    "I did. I have to say, I've been thinking about calling or sending a note for some time now."
    "Oh? Why so?” Myra leaned toward the computer monitor.
    "Having to do with the subject of your email. The whales down here have changed their songs as well, and just as radically. It's downright bizarre. Unfortunately, I wasn't out to sea when it happened, but I just received a disk from one of my students who got in last night.” Stirling rubbed the bridge of his hawk-like nose.
    Myra twirled the end of her hair in her fingers. “Do you have any idea what it means?"
    "None at all. Your guess is as good as mine."
    "There's got to be a good explanation,” said Myra. “But I can't get over how much the songs look like binary code.” She blushed a bit,