Another Tongue

At age one, the boy was already making strange noises around the family’s dogs, pigs, sheep. By the time he learned to speak (English), they realized he’d already been speaking (animal) for a while. Scientists were desperate to study him. His value to nearly every industry and aspect of human civilization—agriculture, fishing, factory farming, pest control...everything we consume, manufacture, and do—was measurable not in mere billions or trillions of dollars, but in GDPs. But when you can talk to the animals—when they'll transport you, defend you, hide you—you can stay hidden. I only wish he weren’t my little brother.