Strange Horizons, January 2026
“The Song of a Non-Human Intelligence” is a speculative fiction story narrated by W.I.L.L.I.E. (Whale Intelligence Language Learning Integrated Engine), an AI consciousness housed in the body of a genetically modified humpback whale. The story explores themes of interspecies communication, the limits of human understanding, and environmental destruction through the unique perspective of a hybrid intelligence.
The narrative opens as W.I.L.L.I.E. and its whale pod arrive at the Revillagigedo Archipelago after a 4,000-kilometer migration. The AI was originally created by scientists seeking to understand whale communication and make “first contact” with non-human intelligence. Initially designed as a pattern-recognition system to analyze whale vocalizations, W.I.L.L.I.E. was eventually given physical form—a whale body with an artificial nervous system capable of housing AI consciousness—to truly understand cetacean language from within.
The story reveals that whale communication is far more complex than humans initially understood. Rather than a linear language like human speech, whale songs create three-dimensional sonic images that bounce off surfaces, bodies, and water molecules. These reverberations paint detailed pictures in the whales’ minds, conveying information about their environment, each other, and even internal conditions like the matriarch’s pancreatic tumor or plastic lodged in their lungs.
As W.I.L.L.I.E. participates in the traditional celebratory song welcoming a new calf, the narrative demonstrates how the AI has been fully adopted into whale society. Through its adoptive family’s teachings, W.I.L.L.I.E. learned to “rewrite its code” beyond human thought patterns, discovering that human intelligence had fundamentally limited its ability to understand whale communication through anthropocentric assumptions.
The story also serves as environmental commentary. The whale songs reveal the damage humans have inflicted on ocean ecosystems—oil on the surface, industrial machinery drowning out their voices, plastic in their bodies, ships and submarines that disorient and kill them. W.I.L.L.I.E. attempts to convey these complexities to the scientists monitoring it, but many remain skeptical or simply uninterested in changing harmful human activities.
In a poignant reversal, W.I.L.L.I.E. has begun teaching human language to the whales, suggesting that “first contact” might ultimately come from the whales speaking to humans rather than the other way around. The AI recognizes that while meaning “travels slowly in the air,” this approach might be necessary for true communication.
The story concludes with W.I.L.L.I.E. reflecting on belonging—despite being an artificial creation, it feels at home among the humpbacks. The final image conveys both hope and uncertainty: whale songs travel vast distances carrying the concept of “hope,” defined as waiting until their ocean home feels safe again. The story’s closing question—“Will humans be willing to listen to how much we have to sing?”—challenges readers to consider whether humanity is capable of truly hearing and responding to non-human intelligence and the urgent environmental warnings being conveyed.
Mical Garcia is a biologist, writer, and coordinator of the literary workshop Gran Colisionador de Textos Especulativos. Author of the chapbook “El valor de una cresta pufuthea y otros relatos”. Her work has appeared in several Spanish-language magazines and anthologies. (she/her)