He said—What? This type of action proves their dedication. Their own bodies on the line.

If men like Blum cut off their own foreskin, there would be no limits with the animals they researched.

* * *

The men used the net again to corral the dolphins into the shallow end and then dragged them up onto the beach.

This time Blum selected Kat. They shoved the other dolphins back into the water, hefted Kat onto the stretcher and carried her into the house.

The remaining dolphins zipped from side to side in the lagoon, frantic. Cora found she couldn’t stay still. She toweled off her buzzcut and put on the hearing glasses, then began to pace, wider and wider circles, until she had enough courage to climb the stairs to the veranda.

She stood there next to the screen door, staring at the ground. Whatever the men were doing to Kat, the sound was reverberating inside the main room. She listened, but could not get herself to look inside yet.

A hammer. A thunk-thunk-thunk.

Kat was shrieking, a repetitive sound rising and falling like a siren, echoing in the tank. A child would understand what she was saying.

The men ignored this, talking back and forth over her noises, busy. Their words were hard to make out over the hammer, but the tone and pace was audible. Tibbet was saying something in a measured tone, probably recording notes for the reel-to-reel recorder. Blum asked Eh for something. Eh responded with a statement.

Then the hammer stopped, replaced by the clatter of instruments. Easier to hear now. The men talking to each other, asking questions and offering answers, trying to figure something out.

Outside the door, Cora was rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself.

Then Kat’s sounds stopped, mid-squeal.

Cora froze, her eyes flicking left then right.

Kat exhaled, the loud hydraulic release of her breath.

There was a slow moment, a thoughtful pause, and Kat started making different noises. Deliberate ones. The sounds no longer shrieks, but low-pitched hums, well within human hearing range. Hmmmm hum-a-humm, hm. The volume and pitch rising and falling. The rhythm changing.

Of all the sounds Cora had heard the dolphins make, she’d never heard anything like this.

The men didn’t seem to notice. Not having swam underwater with the dolphins, they weren’t familiar with their sounds, didn’t know what was unusual. Busy with their actions, they continued to talk, listening to each other, not the dolphin. Blum issued a command. Tibbet stated a fact. Eh asked a question.

Behind their voices, Kat hummed. Her sound accompanying their conversation, a background melody to the beat of their words.

Cora had spent years listening as hard as she could. Unable to hear every word, she squeezed all the information she could from whatever she could perceive: the pitch, the beat, the emotion. She focused, her forehead furrowed.

When she understood, her eyes opened wide.

She listened for another few seconds to make sure, her eyes staring at the flagstones of the veranda. Then she inhaled and yanked open the screen door to step into the room.