Eye of the Whale: A Novel - Hardcover

Abrams, Douglas Carlton

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196 ratings by Goodreads

9781416532545: Eye of the Whale: A Novel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416532544 ISBN 13: 9781416532545

Publisher: Atria Books, 2009

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National bestseller Doug Abrams delivers a captivating ecological thriller about a marine biologist whose fate is altered after the unexpected appearance of a humpback whale sends her on a race to discover the meaning of its mysterious song.

Elizabeth McKay is a dedicated scientist who has spent almost a decade cracking the code of humpback whale communication. Their song, the most complex in nature, may in fact reveal secrets about the animal world that no one could have imagined. When a humpback whale swims up the Sacramento River with a strange and unprecedented song, Elizabeth must decipher its meaning in order to save the whale and ultimately much more. But as her work with the whale captures the media’s interest and the world’s imagination, many powerful forces emerge who do not want the whale’s secrets to be revealed. Soon, Elizabeth is forced to decide if her discoveries are worth losing her marriage, her career, and possibly her life. As timely as today’s ecological challenges and as timeless as the whales themselves, this novel takes readers into the mysterious world of humpback whales and great white sharks. In writing Eye of the Whale, Abrams worked closely with leading scientists to uncover the shockingly true facts on which it is based. This powerful story will transform how readers see their relationship to other species and the fragile world in which we live.

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About the Author:

Douglas Carlton Abrams is the nationally bestselling author of The Lost Diary of Don Juan, which has been published in thirty languages. He writes fact-based fiction and did extensive research for his new novel, including swimming with and recording humpback whales, meeting present-day whalers, and cage diving with great white sharks. Previously an editor at the University at California Press and HarperCollins, he is the cofounder of Idea Architects, a book and media development agency.

Prologue: Siren Song

11:14 p.m.

Thursday, February 15

Near Socorro Island, Pacific coast of Mexico

18�48'N, 110�59'W

Clear night, wind SW 5 knots

Apollo hovered silently as a school of hundreds of hammerheads encircled him in the rich upwelling --

His massive forty-foot body hung just below the surface, cradled by the swell of the sea --

Moonlight filtered through the shrouded water of night --

Every inch of his skin straining to hear --

Waiting --

Silence --

Only the slow throb of his giant heart -- the pulse pounding in his skull --

Slowly his tail floated up until he hung upside down -- his twelve-foot pectoral fins splayed outward from his sides like a cross --

Rotating almost imperceptibly -- he began to sing again --

Creaks and moans -- cries and whistles -- animated the water with the pulsing power of song --

The echoes cascaded back to him off the ocean floor as the sounds revealed the texture of the deep --

Then again silence --

At last -- he heard two other males singing -- amplifying the sound --

Then others -- males and females -- young and old -- swam closer and closer --

The Pacific Squall bobbed on top of the cresting waves, the steel hull of the research vessel vibrating from the whale song. The otherworldly music spilled out from the speakers strapped to the walls as whale biologist John Maddings accompanied on the cello. His weathered fingers, graying hairs surrounding each knuckle, pressed the strings against the neck as if taking its rhythmic pulse. The other hand lovingly rocked the delicate bow across the strings in a hypnotic melody.

With his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side in concentration, Maddings effortlessly played along with this year's song. He had begun to accompany whale song out of musical curiosity, but it had proved a powerful research method that let him enter and understand the structure in a way that his most technologically advanced spectrographic software could not. Now, six weeks into the breeding season, he knew this year's slowly evolving song practically by heart.

Although he had studied many kinds of whales, there was nothing quite like the song of the humpback. Its rhythm was scored to the rolling ocean; its haunting sounds gave voice to the abyss.

Maddings suddenly stopped playing. Quickly he put the cello in its case and jumped to the computer console. His trembling fingers flicked on a desk lamp. Its bulb cast a spotlight revealing the computer, a black synthesizer, and a photograph of a gray-haired woman in her fifties whose radiant smile made her beautiful.

Anxiously, Maddings adjusted the black knobs of the recording equipment, unable to believe the sounds coming from the directional hydrophone. Built in to the hull of the boat, this underwater microphone picked up the sounds echoing through the sea. Maddings made sure he was recording and then grasped the black joystick. He rotated the hydrophone 360 degrees. In every direction the song was the same -- in every direction the song was new.

"Switch to the sonobuoys, old man. Switch to the sonobuoys." Maddings barked directions to himself in what was left of his British accent after years of living abroad. The other members of the crew were all asleep or up on deck.

Maddings squeezed his eyes closed to focus his mind completely on the sounds coming in from the sonobuoys. Used by the U.S. Navy to listen for enemy submarines, declassified sonobuoys now allowed marine biologists to listen for whales in vast expanses of the ocean. There was no doubt -- the song was definitely diverging, shifting dramatically.

A wave of excitement flooded Maddings's body as his hands grew hot and his breath short. A voice in his head warned, You're too old to get excited about what might just be your imagination or faulty equipment or both. But he didn't believe this lying voice of caution.

Maddings wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. He hadn't felt like this in forty years, not since the day he and a colleague had discovered that the sounds made by the humpback whale were actually songs with recognizable structures. Four decades of study had documented repeatedly that the songs, sung exclusively by the males, evolved gradually over a season, even over years. New musical phrases were introduced by individual singers and gradually adopted by all males, but whole songs were not completely replaced in a night. What Maddings was hearing over the speakers was contradicting forty years of careful research.

He checked the recording levels again. The sound was getting louder as he picked up more singers. He turned the volume down to avoid distortion; the lights flickered green and stopped erupting red. Maddings needed confirmation. He grabbed the watertight case and pulled out the sat phone. From memory he dialed the number of his closest collaborator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

"Mike, Maddings here. Sorry to wake you. Something...something unprecedented is happening."

"Maddings, good to hear from you. For you to use the word 'unprecedented' must mean you're talking about a goddamn miracle."

Maddings knew that neither of them believed in miracles, but he had woken Mike in the middle of the night only once before, and that call had made both of their careers. Perhaps that was why Mike was so uncharacteristically courteous even at this hour. "What is it?"

"I'm still in Socorro, recording song. There's rapid transformation. Mike, the song sung yesterday is gone. Overnight the humpback population is singing a completely new song."

"That's impossible."

"I know it is. I'm calling to find out whether you've heard about anything like this happening. I want to know if anyone else is observing it."

"Actually, there was some controversy about this a few days ago on WhaleNet. I invoked your research to dismiss her."

"Dismiss who?"

"That old graduate student of yours down in Bequia."

"Elizabeth..." Maddings said under his breath. A smile warmed his face as he began to shake his head in amazement and satisfaction. Of course it would be Elizabeth, he thought. Brilliant Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's face leaped to mind. Her unusual genetic heritage -- half Jewish, half Native American -- made her beautiful face look almost Asiatic. How she ever got a good Irish name like McKay, he never knew, but the Irish did seem to get around. Elizabeth was not only arguably the most gifted graduate student he'd ever taught, she was also a marvelous violin player and had been a vital member of his research quartet. That was until she had to follow her doctor husband across the country for his residency. It had been a great loss to the department and to him. He did become very fond of his students, which was a real liability, since they invariably left him to pursue their careers.

"Professor Maddings! Come quick!" The voice echoed down through the metal corridor from up on deck.

"I'll call you back, Mike."

Maddings felt the sharp pain in his not-so-young knees as he bounded up the stairs and practically stumbled to the gunnels, looking beyond. If it had not been for the ache in his joints, he would have sworn that he was dreaming. To see one whale breaching was always extraordinary, but to see so many was unfathomable.

As the song ended Apollo thrashed his massive tail back and forth -- propelling his forty-ton body straight out of the water --

His black shimmering skin glittered in the moonlight as white foam spilled off like a waterfall --

His winglike fins rose slowly away from his body as he began to twist --

Pivoting on his fifteen-foot fluke -- his back arching -- the spray bristling from his body --

A moment of suspended time -- weightless in the moonlight --

His earthbound bulk -- refusing to linger in the sky any longer -- fell back into the sea --

The resounding crack -- the white lava waves -- his flipper reached toward the sky as the dark waters enveloped his body at last --

All around him the others began following his lead -- countless whales launching themselves skyward under the full moon --

They tore their bodies from the water in an endless cycle of flight and fall -- erupting out of the molten water --

At last the moon reached its zenith --

Apollo and two other males began to swim quickly away from the rest of the group --

The others would follow north in the days and weeks ahead --

Yet Apollo's destination would be different from that of all the others --

ONE

12:00 p.m.

Five days earlier

Saturday, February 10

Shark Bay, Bequia, Caribbean Sea

13�01'N, 61�12'W

"There, Liza!" Milton pointed toward the bay.

Elizabeth McKay saw the blow before it vanished in the wind. The aching tiredness in her legs from five hours of standing and scanning the horizon disappeared as the excitement of the chase began.

She looked through her large waterproof binoculars. The afternoon light reflected off the water like shards of glass, making her blue eyes burn, but she forced her eyelids open wider to take in more information. She squeezed the hard rubber eagerly when she saw the back of the whale floating in the water where it had surfaced.

"Head into the wind," she said as she braced her leg against the bench.

Milton had already anticipated her command and was steering upwind of the whale. It was hard to believe that eight years had passed since they started working together, when she first came to study North Atlantic humpback whales in their most southerly breeding grounds. Finding Milton had been like discovering a treasure of devotion: He had tirelessly helped her to navigate the dangers that she and her research subjects faced in these waters.

The old Evinrude 35 whined quietly as Milton drove his beloved lime-green boat into the trade winds that end...

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