‘But a squid shoal is not a community like ours. They don’t play or groom. There are no leaders among them. The squid don’t show much loyalty to each other; they don’t care for their young, and individuals move between shoals every few days.
‘And they live only a couple of years, mating only once or twice. The squid live fast and die young; it’s not clear to us why such short-lived animals need such complex behaviour, communication systems and breeding rituals … Yet they have them. Ms Della, these are not like the animals you may be familiar with. Perhaps they are more like birds.’
‘And you claim that these communication systems are actually a language.’
Dan scratched his beard. ‘We’ve been able to isolate a number of primal linguistic components which combine in a primitive grammar. Even in unenhanced squid. But the language seems to be closed. It’s about nothing but food, sex and danger, as far as we can see. It’s like the dance of the bee.’
‘Unlike human languages.’
‘Yes. What we have done is open up the language of the squid. We built on the basic patterns and grammar the squid already employ. The number of signals Sheena can produce is not unlimited, of course, but even unenhanced squid have a very wide “vocabulary” taking into account the range of intensity, duration and so forth they can employ. We think they express, for example, moods and intentions with these factors. And some of this stuff is extremely ancient. Some of the simpler signals – the deimatic displays designed to drive off predators, for example – can be observed among the octopuses. And the squid diverged from them back in the early Mesozoic, some two hundred million years ago. Anyhow, building on this, we believe Sheena – or at any rate her descendants – should be able to express an infinite number of messages. Just as you or I can, Ms Della. Squid are clever molluscs. Giving them language was easy.’
‘How do you train them?’
‘With positive reinforcement. Mostly.’
‘Mostly?’
He sighed. ‘I know what you’re asking. Yes, cephalopods can feel pain. They have free nerve endings in the skin. We use low-voltage electric currents to deliver mild shocks during discrimination training. They react as if – well, as you would if I touched you with a stinging nettle. It’s no big deal. Ms Della, I hope you aren’t going to get hung up on this. I cherish Sheena – above and beyond her mission. I wouldn’t damage her. I have no interest in hurting her.’
Studying him, she realized she believed him. But she sensed a certain lack in him, a lack of a moral centre. Perhaps that was a prerequisite in any sentient creature who would inflict pain on another.
Dan was still talking. ‘… Designing the Sheena series of enhancements, we were able to prove that the areas of the brain responsible for learning are the vertical and superior frontal lobes that lie above the oesophagus.’
‘How did you prove that?’
Dan blinked. ‘By cutting away parts of squid brains.’
Maura sighed. Memo, she thought. Do not let Igor here repeat this Nazi doctor stuff in front of the cameras.
She felt uneasy on a deeper level, too. Here was Dan Ystebo hijacking the squid’s evidently remarkable communications senses for his own purposes: for capturing banal commands transmitted by humans. But Dan had admitted he didn’t know what all this rich speech was really for. What if we are damaging Sheena, Maura thought, by excluding her from the songs of her shoals?
Does a squid have a soul?
They studied Sheena. Her head was crowned by a beak surrounded by flipper-like arms, and two forward-looking eyes, blue-green rimmed with orange, peered briefly into the camera.
Alien eyes. Intelligent.
How did it feel, to be Sheena?
And could Sheena possibly understand that humans – Reid Malenfant and his associates, in fact – were planning to have her fly a rocket ship to an asteroid?
The squid school on the softscreen seemed to be hunting now. They were moving in formation around an unmanned camera buoy. The images were spectacular, Jacques Cousteau stuff.
‘They swim awful fast,’ she said.
‘They’re not swimming,’ Dan said patiently. ‘When they swim, they use their fins. Right now they are squirting water out of vents. Jet propulsion.’
‘You understand why I’m here. Malenfant is asking me to go into bat for you on the Hill Monday. I have to put my reputation on the line, to enable this project.’
‘I know that.’
‘Tell me this, Dr Ystebo. You’re sure, absolutely sure, this is going to work?’
‘Absolutely.’ He spoke with a calm conviction. ‘Ms Della, you have to see the power of Malenfant’s conception. I’m convinced Sheena will be able to function in space and at the NEO. She is smart, obviously adapted to gravity-free conditions – there’ll be no calcium depletion or body fluid redistribution or any of that crap for her – almost as if she has been evolved for the conditions of space travel, as we self-evidently haven’t. And she can manipulate her environment. We have a variety of waldo-driven instruments which will enable her to carry out her functions on the NEO.’
‘I’m told the squid are social creatures. And they’re very mobile, obviously. Whereas Sheena will be alone, and the can we’re going to cram her into –’
‘She’ll have a lot of facilities, Ms Della. Including comms, of course. We’ll do everything we can to keep her functioning.’
Functioning. ‘Why not an octopus? Squid are social creatures – in fact, isn’t it true that their consciousness arises from their social structures? Whereas octopuses, I’m told, are solitary, sedentary creatures anyhow who could stand the isolation and confinement.’
‘But not so smart,’ Dan said. ‘They work alone. They don’t need to communicate. And they rely on smell, not sight, to hunt. Thanks to those squid eyes – forward-placed for binocular vision – Sheena will be able to navigate through space for us. It had to be a squid, Ms Della. If she’s a little uncomfortable en route, that’s a price we’ll have to pay.’
‘And what about the return trip? The stresses of re-entry, rehabilitation …’
‘In hand,’ Dan said vaguely. He blinked like an owl.
In hand. Sure. You’re not the one going to the asteroid, you charmless nerd.
Maura found herself convinced. Malenfant knows what he’s doing, right down the line. I have to force the approvals through, on Monday. Sheena – smart, flexible and a lot cheaper than an equivalent robot, even when you took into account the launch costs for her life support environment – was the item that had closed Reid Malenfant’s interplanetary design.
There were some things working in her favour. Behind the scenes Malenfant had already begun to assemble promises of the technical support he was going to need. His old buddies at NASA had started to find ways to free up deep space communications, and provide support for detailed mission design and other support facilities. And it would help, she thought, that this wouldn’t be solely a NASA-related project; cooperation from Woods Hole in Massachusetts and the research institute at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California diluted the hostility NASA always attracted on the Hill.
… But, she thought, if I succeed I will be forever associated with this. And if the news about the brave little squid turns sour enough I may not survive myself.
Dan said, ‘I’ve been working with Sheena for months now. I know her. She knows me. And I know she’s committed to the mission.’
‘You