* * *

One day, sitting on the lawn beside the homearium, after she had finished reporting to Blum about the day’s progress, he asked if she wanted to get high.

Given her hearing and how hard she had to concentrate on words, slang at times confused her. A familiar word but a different meaning. She looked around, searching perhaps for a ladder. Then she understood.—Oh. No, thanks.

Each time he took one of Leary’s pills, his pupils got large, and he stared at things that were not there. He reminded her a bit of her grandma after the stroke.

He said—What about Junior? Would he like it?

—What?

—Would Junior like to get high?

She blinked at him in surprise.—Why would you even ask that?

He cocked his head.—It might help him learn faster. Help him break through.

She paused, collecting herself. There was a certain intensity in his face. He was very serious. She spoke in the clearest, shortest sentences she could.—He breathes air. He could get confused about what is air and drown. He could simply forget to breathe.

She said—Do not give him drugs.

She said—Do not do that.

* * *

Any time Tibbet got in the water, Mother and Kat would swim in close in order to sonar his gut. They moved around him, clicking at his belly, eyeing him. They seemed concentrated. They investigated him slowly and gently, not splashing him. This was so different from the way they treated Cora or the other men. It seemed to her that his gut had gotten a little bigger over the last few weeks.

He continued his experiment. From inside the blind, where they couldn’t see him, he tossed the white square on the string over the blind on Kat’s side so she could see it. Mother, unable to see the shape, was supposed to tap the matching white square on her side. If she did, both Mother and Kat were rewarded with ten fish.

They were given no food anymore other than what they earned through this experiment. Under these circumstances, it seemed logical Mother and Kat would try their best.

If they could select the matching shape at a rate higher than random chance, this would suggest that Kat was communicating the answer.

From behind him on the shore, Cora could watch Tibbet in the blind, running the experiment and recording the results. She saw his intensity from 40 feet away. His head went up at each wrong answer. He would pause, watching Mother for a moment through the observation slot in the blind, before he exhaled and noted the tally on the paper.

Mother raised her head, looking at the opaque blind that he hid behind. Did her sight work the same as human sight? What about her other senses? Could she hear his paused breath, his exhale? Could she smell his happiness at each wrong answer?

Whatever the reason was, her rate of correct answers continued to decline. There were only three choices. She should stumble on the right answer a third of the time. However her rate decreased each day: 16 percent, then 15 percent, then 12 percent. The two of them getting fed less and less. Each day, she got a little worse at the task.