He was the researcher, the established scientist, the showman. By standing here and talking, he claimed all the credit. She and Junior were no longer active participants who had worked hard and achieved the results. They were the experiment.

* * *

Each morning Blum started the day by floating for an hour in the isolation tank, followed by yoga on the lawn. He was reading a series of books by Krishnamurti with titles that contained words like Awakening or Freedom.

At least once a week Blum’s pupils seemed very dilated, and he would stare at a coffee cup or a fork or the wall for extended periods, his lips moving.

* * *

Junior mastered several new words each week now. He learned shapes and colors: ir-kuh (circle), i-guh (triangle), and g-een (green) and err-ed (red). He could count to three: ohn, eww, t-ee. His effort was clear, the word spoken slowly, each syllable separate. Because she lived with him, observing him closely all day long, she could translate what he said when the men were not sure.

As a reward for his work, she gave him food and rubbed his back and played ball with him. And of course, once a day, she let him rub against the back of her calf. His rubbing was rougher now and took longer, and she had to brace herself against the pool wall. She didn’t think anyone standing by the pool, looking down into the water, would know what was happening underneath. It would look as though he was roughhousing, the exact movements indistinct. However she only allowed him to do this rubbing in the pre-dawn, when the men were not yet awake.

After Junior had finished, she’d lie on the inflatable ring in the deep end, watching the sun come up. Junior would float beside her, examining her human limbs hanging in the water. She’d feel him clicking at her arms and legs, the sonar pinging in her bones. He studied her fingers and toes with the greatest attention. They were so unlike a flipper. He seemed to find every part of her endlessly fascinating.

* * *

One afternoon he made a new humanoid sound.

She’d just finished scrubbing his back gently with her fingers. Normally at that point, he would swim to a distant corner of the pool and recover there from the intensity of the sensation. This time, however, he turned and looked her in the eye as his blowhole said—Khh.

She wasn’t sure why he made this noise, since she hadn’t asked him to speak, and this didn’t sound like any of the words she’d taught him.

That day, he said the word several more times, his pronunciation gradually changing. Khh. K-ohh.

He seemed to expect some sort of reaction, watching her each time he spoke.

Could this be a sound that was just fun to make? Or had he invented a new word? Or was he doing a very bad job of pronouncing one of the words she’d been trying to teach him?