Like many of the other scientific articles, she found the writing to be awkward and hard to parse. The only mention of the authors was their names under the title. The text was written as though the experiment had occurred on its own, the words assembling themselves on the page, as though nothing as imperfect as a human had ever been associated with this project.

The researchers had put two different groups of dogs in two different metal cages. They wired the cages so electric shocks could be delivered through the floor. With one group, the bell went off, and a moment later the dogs were shocked no matter what they did. After enough of these trials, these dogs just lay on the floor whining. The second group of dogs could escape the shock if they pressed a lever when the bell rang. At the sound of the bell, these dogs did not lie down whining but instead jumped to press the lever. The article concluded the first group of dogs had learned to be helpless.

The animals’ suffering distilled to a chart of numbers. She wondered who could possibly need the obvious spelled out this way.

Tibbet saw her sitting by the lagoon reading the article, and he nodded in approval.—Great research. Huge discovery.

She looked at him, understanding.

EIGHTEEN
July 26–Aug. 1, 1965

In the morning, the dock in the lagoon seemed to have sunk a bit, the water further up its sides. After a moment of looking around, confused, Cora realized that the water in the lagoon was backed up again.

She swam over to the exit stream. The gate looked like it was lower than it had been last night when she left. She wondered if one of the men had decided to lower it, or if there’d been a big wind last night, large enough to shift the metal gate, to rock it off its notch.

Mother had her head out of the water, watching her.

After breakfast, Tibbet noticed and walked over to the exit stream. When he saw the position of the gate, he cocked his head and looked at it, then around at the lagoon, just like she had. He slid the gate back up three notches and pushed it into position, rocking it there to make sure it was firmly in the notch.

Mother floated in the water, watching this.

* * *

When Cora said, Talk, all the dolphins now responded with one noise.

When she said, Talk more, most of the dolphins responded with something close to two sounds. Their response a little like a barbershop quartet on helium.

When she said, Talk three sounds, their reactions were more confused. Generally it was just Kat who would call out three sounds.

Kat was always the best, the showoff, repeating the rhythm, teaching the rest what was required. Her noises were rich and varied, rumbles and pops and trills, a parrot experimenting. She played, bored and innovative.

Each time Cora tossed Kat a fish as a reward, she swallowed it and paused, her head cocked, to hear Cora call out her praise. Not much else to achieve in the lagoon.