Evrim laid a terminal flat on the table. On its screen was the sequence:

“First, I want to take you through the assumptions I have made. When we see the octopuses ‘speaking,’ the shapes descend down their bodies, moving toward the ocean floor and the edge of their mantles, so I am assuming that the sequence would be ‘read’ from top to bottom. Second—I am assuming that these ‘hieroglyphs’ the octopus is producing are visual. That they represent concepts. In a sense they are both ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ at the same time. So, I am assuming that they are communicating in a sequence of moving pictures on their skin. Think of one of those old analog films, on a strip moving through the gate of a projector. When they ‘hold’ a symbol on their skin, the way the Shapesinger did, they hold it on the mantle, centrally—that’s a focal point. But I have been watching the clips we captured over and over again. And as I told you before, it is clear that there are two patterns—a ‘forepattern’ of darker shapes, and a ‘backpattern’ of these ghostly gray, but very intentional, lighter forms. So—if you remove the forepattern here, and leave just the backpattern, you get this:

“Which I think is a sequence just like the forepattern is. A single bar or line at the top, then this bar, which is widened at the sides, and then a circle. The last shape appears to be a circle overlaid across the widened bar. I think that last one is an abstract symbol—but I think the other three are icons. I followed Ha’s idea that, if the octopus is using symbols, it will be using things from its environment that have inherent meaning to it—that its symbolic language will emerge out of its interaction with its environment and out of its own form, the same way our language and symbols emerged out of our environment and our form. I spent all night watching footage taken of the octopuses moving in their environment—concealing themselves, hunting and hiding. I was looking for three things in the environment that it found of importance—three objects. And after hours of this, I finally saw what was right in front of me. This is not three objects: it is a single object, in three states. Here: I’ll show them to you grouped in a left-to-right, horizontal sequence.

“Do you see it now?”

Altantsetseg, who had wandered out from the lobby where she was performing maintenance on one of her control gloves, leaned over the screen. Ha glanced up at her. The new translation unit was not clipped to her collar. Instead, there was the old, battered unit.

“Center shape is bow tie. Octopus tell you it like to go to fancy dress party. Drink cocktail.” She stalked off toward the beach. “Then drown you.”