In the middle of the night, a linguist receives a call to meet with others in a dark room. In this dark room, the group learns that intelligent toys designed to learn human language have come up with a language on their own. These toys, which look like baby seals, have created a language that humans cannot understand. The linguist proposes to speak with them directly to figure out what they’re saying, and they go to meet with the seal toys to have a talk.