Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Listen!Mao Mao is singing

Judge Soden called his name, and Holloway rose from the defense seat, walked to the witness stand and sat down.The judge reminded him that he must testify truthfully.Holloway looked over to Brad Langdon, who was sitting in the back of the courtroom, and said he would.Langdon nodded at him almost imperceptibly. Isabel followed Holloway's gaze and saw Langdon.Her gaze returned to Holloway, and the expression on her face changed. "Mr. Holloway, please state your full name and occupation," Janice Meyer said to Holloway. "I'm Jack Holloway, and I've been a contract surveyor on Zara 23 for the past eight years," he said.

"How long have you known Dr. Vangar?" Mayer asked. "I met her shortly after she arrived at Zara 23," said Holloway, "and I got to know her a year later at Chad Burn's annual party for his surveyors. We started dating a few months later, and we broke up after about two years, for the reasons already mentioned." "What's your relationship with Dr. Vangar now?" Mayer asked. Holloway looked at Isabel, her face expressionless at the moment. "We're friends, but I have something to apologize to her," he said. Mayer nodded. "You recently discovered the creature that you and Dr. Vangar dubbed 'Shaggy,' didn't you?"

"About a month ago, yes," Holloway said, "one of the Fluffy broke into my cabin." "How long was Dr. Vangar with them during this period?" Mayer said. "She spent a week in my treehouse studying them," Holloway said. "It doesn't seem like a very long time," Meyer said, "especially to determine whether these animals are intelligent or not." "Isabelle is a scientist and she knows what to look for," Holloway said. "I reckon she thinks her observations are good enough to make a judgment, otherwise she wouldn't have announced it."

"Do you support her judgment?" Mayer asked. "Isabelle knows I have a different view on this than she does," Holloway said. "The last time we talked about it, I reiterated my belief that furries are not intelligent." "What do you think is the reason you think differently?" Mayer asked. "Are you talking about reasons other than the fact that I discovered a sun mine, and as long as the Mao Maos are ruled not to be intelligent creatures, I can get billions in income?" Meyer blinked at that. "I think we all know you're a contract surveyor for the Zara Group," she said.

"Well, other than that, I've been watching Mao Mao longer than Isabel," said Holloway, "although I'm not a scientist, just a layman with an interest, and Mao Mao initially seemed to me to be nothing more than an intelligent animal. Like a monkey or the smartest cat in the universe." "They're so smart, aren't they easy to train?" Mayer asked. "I think there's no doubt about it," Holloway said. "I train my dog ​​to do a lot of tricks, and any Fluffy is smarter than my dog." "Are they learning enough tricks to mislead a biologist?" Mayer asked.

"If the biologist is not an expert in extraterrestrial intelligence, and she is too excited about this discovery, she is negligent and fails to observe some obvious features, of course it will cause misunderstandings." Holloway said. "You're implying that Dr. Van Gar's observations were wrong," Meyer said. "Her observation was fine, but I knew she would miss some details," Holloway said. "You can't make this kind of accusation against Zara 23's chief biologist without any basis." "I'll give you an example," says Holloway, "when I discovered Fluffy, I assigned them gender roles out of my own inference: males are more aggressive and energetic, females are softer and more maternal. So I Call them Papa Fluffy and Mama Fluffy, and so on. In the first few days, Isabel also thought that Fluffy had both sexes, even though, as the biologist in charge of the planet, she knew that the vast majority of creatures on the planet had no gender distinction , completely different than on Earth. She admitted to me that she initially thought the fuzzies were gendered because I told her so, and she thought I checked."

"This missing detail is quite important," Mayer said. "I don't think you have any circumstantial evidence other than your own words?" Holloway pointed behind Isabel. "Mr. Sullivan, who was sitting over there, heard her admit it," he said. "Of course, Isabel finally found out. She only misunderstood for a few days." "Because you misled her in the first place," Meyer said. "Well," Holloway said, "I didn't mean to mislead Isabel, that was just my inference, and there was no malice. But in the end I did mislead her."

"No one accuses you of deliberately hindering Dr. Vangar's professional competence," Meyer reassured him. "But Mr. Holloway, is it possible that you misled Dr. Vangar in other ways as well? Not because you told her something , but because you didn't tell her something?" Holloway looked uncomfortable. "Yes," he admitted at last, "I think I did mislead her. I'm ashamed of it now. I wish I didn't have to admit it." "You must admit, Mr Holloway," said Judge Sowden. "I know," Holloway said, "I'll tell. I figured I could explain the situation better if I could borrow the screen that Isabelle had set up for the demonstration. Can I?"

"How long will it take?" Soden asked. "As soon as I can," Holloway said, "believe me, I want to get this done too." "Okay," Thorden said. Holloway pointed to the defense table. "I need some information from the information board." "You can leave the witness box, but you are still testifying, and the testimony must be true in its entirety," Soden said. "I understand," Holloway said.He stood up and left the witness stand and walked to the defense table, where his message board was placed.Instead of taking it, he stopped in front of Isabel.She couldn't look him in the eye at all.

"Isabel," he called. "Please do not speak to other expert witnesses at this time, Mr Holloway," Thorden said. "Sorry, Your Honor," Holloway said, "but I don't need the information on my board. I need hers." "I don't understand," Thorden said. "I don't understand either," Mayer said. "The information on Isabel's information board is a confidential video, which was filmed by a camera specialized in scientific research video, and its authenticity is recognized by law." Holloway said, "I know that my testimony at the table will be questioned by many parties, including Isabel here. I hope everyone can believe what I have to say, that I have not tampered with the evidence presented."

Soden nodded. "Dr. Vangar, please give your message board to Mr. Holloway," she said. Isabel handed over the information board. "Thank you," Holloway said, "Can all your videos be turned on?" "I've logged into my account." Isabel said bluntly.She avoided saying a word to Holloway unless necessary. "Did you change the filename of the video?" Holloway asked. "No," said Isabelle. "Okay," said Holloway, "thanks." Isabel didn't answer.Holloway glanced at Sullivan, who was not looking very friendly.He also found that the true nature of this hearing is just a formality. Holloway tapped on the message board, and a data cable popped up to connect to the screen.The screen flickers and starts up, waiting for data input. "We have confirmed that Dr. Vanja, although an excellent scientist with strong professional ability, sometimes makes inferences that do not conform to her observation ability and understanding of species on this planet." Holloway said.His voice began to grow into a cadence and a firmness, the voice Holloway used to have when he was a barrister.Both Thorden and Meyer were a little taken aback by the sudden change in tone.Holloway noticed their surprise, and continued calmly: "Misunderstanding my words, thinking that Maomao has a gender distinction is an obvious example. But she missed one more thing." Holloway pressed the message board again, and a video was broadcast: Mao Mao's father, mother, and grandpa sat together in a semicircle, eating Pendi. "As we all know, an important indicator of the identification of intelligent organisms is the ability of language. According to the ruling of 'Cheng v Blue Sky', this ability refers to 'meaningful communication beyond the immediate or immediate response'. Until now, the three species The communication of the three species meets this criterion: Humans, Urals, and Mudpimples. This ability is shared by all three species. "However, humans, the Ula tribe, and Mudpimple also have one thing in common: their conversations are vocal, and the sound frequencies of the three species' conversations are all within the acceptable range of human ears. In fact, humans are the sound frequency of the three The widest, and the slime is the narrowest. The point is, we can hear the human, the Ula, and the slime talking." Holloway pauses the video. "A few weeks ago I visited the Zara Group's new site for mining the Sun Mine that I discovered. When I arrived, I saw a large loudspeaker outside the fence, making extremely high-decibel noise to scare away the Zara Velociraptor and the forest. other predators in the environment—and while I could feel the vibrations from the speakers, I couldn't hear them because they were playing at 25 kilohertz, a higher frequency than the human ear can pick up." "I'm waiting for its connection to the case, Mr. Holloway," said Soden. "That's right," Holloway said, "you want to hear the connections, but you can't because the frequencies you can hear are too low. We can hear too low frequencies. The reason there are amplifiers outside the enclosure speaker, because the predators on Zara 23 can hear higher frequencies than we do. It is not random that they can hear such high frequencies, but an evolutionary need. For example, their prey and other Small animal calls are also in this frequency range." Holloway clicked on the video and opened the settings window. "One of the advantages of the research camera that Dr. Vangar used to photograph Maomao is that, unlike ordinary cameras, it can record data that humans cannot see or hear," he said. "For example, in addition to recording the visible color spectrum, The camera also captures infrared and ultraviolet light. Of course you have to use a filter to see the data, but the data is also recorded. It can also record sounds that are outside the range of the human ear, filtering specific frequencies You can hear it later." Holloway adjusted the operation bar on the menu of the setting window, set the movie to play and filter the audio, and adjusted the sound beyond the range of human ear reception to be audible.He pressed to continue playing. It was still Mao Mao's father, mother and grandpa sitting together.But now they seem to be talking to each other. "Listen," Holloway whispered, pointing to the film, "see how they take turns talking, how they respond to each other's words." He turned up the volume on the screen, and the whispers became clearer. "You can hear the structure of language." After a while, Holloway pauses the video, closes it, and opens another video of Grandpa and Scabbers.At this moment, it seemed that besides the constant patting of the head, Grandpa Mao Mao was still yelling, occasionally mixed with Scabber's screams, sounding out of breath. Pause, close, and open a video again.This section of Mama Mama is combing the hair of baby Maomao.Mom's voice was different from the previous video, it was more soothing and softer. "My God," said Isabelle, "Mother's singing." In the film, Baby Fluffy also sang along with Mommy Fluffy, and the voices of the two little guys merged harmoniously.Everyone watched the video attentively and listened carefully for a while. Holloway stopped playing and looked at Isabel. "Sorry, Dr. Vangar," he said, walking towards her, "but this is another example of your failing to observe. You see, Zara 23 beings can hear at a higher frequency than humans, I deduce This probably means that these creatures can make the same high frequency sounds. However, just as you were misled by my inference about Mao Mao's gender, you mistakenly think that Mao Mao's verbal communication is also like that of other intelligent creatures, which you can hear Because of this, the most important point in your claim that Mao Mao is an intelligent being-their language ability-is ignored, and you don't catch it." Holloway returns the information board to Isabel.She took it, her hands shaking. Holloway turned back to Meyer, who gave him the look as if he had stripped her naked in court. "That's how I misled Isabel, Ms. Meyer, Your Honor," he said, nodding at an equally shocked Judge Soden. "I just said that the last time I spoke to her I still didn't think Mao Mao was an intelligent being. Well, that's exactly what I thought. But then I saw a furry open its mouth and order my dog ​​to sit, get down and turn over. I couldn't hear the sound, but I remembered that other animals on this planet can hear higher frequency, and so does my dog. So I went back and went through the tape and saw that Fluffy was talking all the time." "I misled Isabelle by not telling her about it," said Holloway, "by making her think that I was against her and didn't believe that Mao Mao was an intelligent being, when the opposite was true. Over the past few days, I've been completely convinced of them They are intelligent creatures. They can talk, Ms. Meyer, Your Honor. They can talk, they can discuss, they can argue, and they can sing. This is not a trick taught, and even the smartest animals, when they meet humans who can train animals, can Can’t be taught. They’re not just animals. They’re like humans, intelligent beings.” "Dr. Vangar," Holloway turned to Isabel again, "I was wrong, I shouldn't have kept this information from you, let you go to court without sufficient factual basis to support your claim, and make people question your professionalism." Reputation. I was wrong. I apologize for what I did and what happened, sorry." Holloway turned his back on Isabel and sat back on the witness stand. "My presentation is over," he told the judge.