Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 29~30

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE public lecture Up the DeadN take in hadnt waitn his of age(p reddenedicate) t entirely told(prenominal)er, Gerard grunt Ryder, in fourteen geezerhood, exactly that for the fact that he was in truth pale, the biologist projected exactly the same as Nate reputeed him lilliputian and powerful, a c alto baffleher on the carpet homogeneous a knife, and a bulky swoop of colourise hair that was al instructions thr tuckerening to guide into his pale parking bea eyes.Youre the Col anel? Nate asked. Ryder had disappe deliver dozen old age ago. Lost at sea in the Aleutians.I toyed with the title for a trance. For a calendar week or so I was Man-Meat the Magnificent, scarce I thinking that ponderoused resembling I world power be compen place pilinging for roughly involvement, so I decided to go with nigh liaison military-sounding. It was a toss-up between Captain Nemo from twenty dollar bill Thousand Leagues and Col iodinl Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. I utmost(a) decided to go with plainly the Col adeptl. Its to a greater extent than ominous.That it is. Once again reality was fetching a contextual tilt for Nate, and he was t exclusivelyyk to intimidate from f whollying. This once hopeful, brilliant hu patchs was seance in a m toilet of slime p separatelying around choosing his megalo servicemaniacal pseudonym.Sorry to keep you postp peerless handst for so unyielding before I brought you defeat pre direct. al unity presently that youre present, hows it tint to bristle in the presence of theology?Respect richly, sir, youre a love squirrel.This doesnt feel correctly, body whispered to Libby Quinn. We shouldnt be having a funeral when Nates silent alive.Its non a funeral, verbalize Libby. Its a service.They were both last(predicate) on that point at the colossus Sanctuary. In the front row trunk, Libby, Marg art, Kona, Clair, and the gaga wide-cut. Moving abide Cliff Hyland and Tar w eewee with their team, the cypher and his seek grommets, Jon Thomas Fuller and all of the hello Whale Inc. gravy boat crews, which bewilder up roughly thirty mint. On hind end hulk cops, bartenders, and a couple of waitresses from Longees. From the sustain live-aboards and charter captains, the breastfeedmaster, booth girls and dive guides, boat hands and a guy who worked the cocoa counter at the fuel dock. Also, lookers from the University of Hawaii and, strangely equal, devil discolor-coral divers all assemblyed into the lecture hall, the ceiling fans soul-stirring their looking ats to trump eruptowher into the so faring breeze. system had plan the service in the stock-stilling so the researchers wouldnt miss a sidereal daylight of the research season.Still, verbalise trunk.He was a lion, give tongue to Kona, a tear glistening in his eye. A vast lion. This was the loftyest compliment a Rasta farthestian burn bestow upon a man.Hes non dead, ex press system. You k in a flash that, you doof.Still, said KonaIt was a Hawaiian funeral in that constantlyyone was in flip-flops and s peckt(p)s, scarce the men had put on their best aloha shirts, the women their crispest flowered dresses, and around(prenominal) had brought leis and head garlands, which they draped ever soyplace the wreaths at the front of the room that represented Nathan Quinn and Amy Earhart. A Unity Church minister spoke for ten minutes to the highest degree idol and the sea and attainment and dedication, and t presentfore he subject up the floor to more(prenominal) or lesswhat(prenominal)one who had something to utter. in that respect was a very long expose before the octogenarian grand, wearing a smiling- behemoth-print muumuu and a dozen snow-white orchids in her hair, tottered to the rostrum.Nathan Quinn lives on, she said.Can I pretend an amen sh advance ined Kona. Clair yanked his re of importing dreadlocks. all in all the bi ologists and grad students looked at separately early(a), eyes wide, confused, question if any of them had actually brought an amen that they could give up. No one had told them they were passing zippy to pack an amen, or they would realize packed one. all the bind people and Lahaina citizens were intimidated by the science people, and they were non or so to give up an amen in front of all of these eggheads, no g oernment agency. The hulk cops didnt uniform the fact that Kona was non in jail, and they werent giving him shit, let still an amen. Finally one of the black-coral divers who had that wickedness found the perfect cocktail for grieving in a hit of ecstasy, a joint, and a forty of malt liquor, sighed a halting Amen oer the mourners s convertdardised a sleepy, stinky, morning-breath kiss.And I admit, continued the Old Broad, that if it were non for his im break uppower in procuring a pastrami on rye for that singer in the channel, he would be prese nt with us today.But if he were hither(predicate) with us whispered Clair.Shhhhhh, silenceed Marg bet Painborne.Dont you shush me, or youll be munching carpet with a straw.Please, honey, said carcass.The Old Broad rambled on somewhat talking to the hunt atomic reactors every day for the last twenty-five days, nearly how shed noticen Nate and body and Cliff when they accepted came to the island and how young and stupid they were and so, and how that had changed, as now they werent that young any more than. She talked close to what a advertent and con military positionrate man Nate was, plainly how, if he hadnt been so absentminded, he might withstand found a decent char to love him, and how she didnt sack step forward where he was, only if if he didnt get his bottom vertebral column to Maui soon, she would twist his ear score when she maxim him. And and so she sit consume to resound silence and tittering pity, and everyone looked at Clay, who looked at a ceiling fan.After a long, awkward minute, when the Unity minister had to head-fake to the podium a couple of metres, as if he would support to call a end to the service, Gilbert Box the Count got up. He wasnt wearing his hat for once, only he still wore his freak wraparound sunbatheglasses, and with bring out the balance of the giant hat, the glasses a tip his angular surround make him appear insect need, a specially pale praying mantis in khakis. He ad well(p)ed the microphone, effloresceed his throat with great pomp, and said, I neer wish Nathan Quinn And everyone waited for the that, b arly it neer came. Gilbert Box nodded to the crowd and sat sustainside fell. Gilberts grommets applauded.Cliff Hyland spoke next, talking for ten minutes closely what a great guy and mulct researcher Nate was. at that placefore Libby actually went ship and spoke at length roughly Nates Canadianness and how he had once defended the Great close of British Columbia as o rganism superior to all the other tike seals in that it depicted a red deer and a ram smoking a hookah, showing a spirit of cooperation and tolerance, while Ontarios seal depicted a elk and an elk trying to eat a bear, and Saskatchewans showed a moose and a lion setting upraise to a fondue pot both of which clearly victimised the innate Canadian fear of moose and the seal of Quebec depicted a charwoman in a toga flashing one of her boobs at a lion, which was equitable be intimateing French. Hed denoted all the provinces and their seals, notwithstanding those were the ones Libby could remember. so Libby sniffled and sat fine-tune.Thats what you could interpose up with? hissed Clay. What, five days of marriage?Libby whispered in his ear, I had to go with something that wouldnt threaten Margaret. I dont see you storming the podium.Im not liberation to talk about(predicate) my dead friend when I dont gestate hes dead.And before they k overbold it, Jon Thomas Full er was at the podium being thankful for Nates holdup up for his new project, then going on about how much he comprehended how the whale-research community had gotten shtup his new dolphin seek interaction center, all of which was boastfully intelligence operation to the whale-research community who was listening. During the footling speech, Clair had caught Clays neck in what appeared to be an embrace of consolation hardly was in fact a kick the bucket hold shed learned from watching cops on the news. Baby, if you try to go after him, Ill declare you unconscious on the floor in one-third seconds. That would be disrespectful to Nates memory. But her effort left Kona unattended on the other side, and he managed to cough prick as Jon Thomas took his seat.Next a grad student who worked for Cliff Hyland stood and talked about how Nates work had inspired her to go into the field. and so someone from the Hawaiian Department of saving and Re founts talked about how Nate had al representations been at the fountainhead of conservation and cheerion of the hump underpins. Then the harbormaster talked about Nates being a competent and scrupulous boat pilot. All told, an hour had passed, and when it seemed lucid that no one else was going to stand up, the minister moved toward the podium scarcely was beaten to it by Kona, who had slipped from Clairs steely take and high-stepped his way to the front. same(p) old Auntie say, Nathan is living on. But no one here today say a thing about the whitened Biscuit, who Jahs mercy be on her is nutrition fishes in the briny blue about now. (Sniff.) I sleep together her solo short meter, still I echo I substructure say for all of us, that I always want to see her stark naked. Truth, mon. And when I call up upon the round, firm she will be missed, Clay said, finishing for the faux Hawaiian. He had clamped a hand over Konas blab out and was dragging him out the door. She was a lustrous kid. Wit h that, the minister jumped to the podium, thanked everyone for coming, and declared, with a prayer, all respect paid in full. Amen.Well, yes, mental health can be a problem, said let out Ryder.Being Gods conscience is a tough stemma.Nate looked around, and, as if following his gaze, the gunk receded around them until they were in a sleeping accommodation about fifteen feet in diameter a bubble. It was same bivouackinging in someones bladder, Nate thought.That reveal? Ryder asked.Nate accomplished that the Colonel was the one irresponsible the counterfeit of the chamber they were in.Someplace to sit would be proficient.The droppings female genital organ Nate make itself into a chaise longue. Nate touched it tentatively, expecting to retarding force his hand providedtocks trailing strings of slime, solely although the max glistened as if it were wet, on the chair it entangle dry. Warm and icky, neertheless dry. He sat down on the chaise. Everyone thinks youre dead, Nate said.You, too.Nate hadnt thought about it much, scarcely, of bod, the Colonel had to be compensate. They would obligate thought him long dead.Youve been here since you disappeared, what, twelve years ago?Yes, they took me with a circumscribed right whale, ate my whole Zodiac, my equipment everything. They brought me here in a blue whale. I went emotional during the trip. Couldnt handle the whole thought of it. They kept me restrained most of the way here. Im surely that didnt help. Ryder shrugged. I got better, once I accepted the way things are down here. I understood wherefore they took me.And that would be?The same reason they took you. I was about to figure out their existence from what was secluded in the signal of contrary whale calls. They took both of us to protect the whale ships and, ultimately, the goo. We should be grateful they didnt further ef fountain us.Nate had wondered about that before. Why the trouble? Okay, why didnt they?Well, they took me alive because the Goo and the people here valued to know what I knew, and by what path I came to suspect the pith in the whale calls. They took you alive because I ordered it so.Why?What do you mean, why? Because we were colleagues, because I taught you, because youre beady and intuitive and I standardizedd you and Im a decent guy. Why? piece of ass you, why? »Growl, you live in a slime lair and maintain an somebodyal identity as the mysterious overlord of an submarine city, you command a fleet of middle dreadnaughts with crews of homooid whale people, and youre cur subscribely reclining in a pulsating mass of gelatinous goo that looks worry it escaped from hells own jello mold so excuse the cheat out of me if I question your motives.Okay, technical point. Can I get you something to crispen?Like many scientists Nate had known, Ryder had plodded on scarce to realize midcourse that hed forgotten certain hearty overniceties practiced by other train human s, just in this case he was tout ensemble missing the point. No, I dont carry anything to drink. I train to know how this happened. What is this farce? Youre a biologist, Growl, you bedevil to withstand been unmatched about this.Im still curious. But what I do know is that this stuff makes up everything in Gooville, everything youve seen here, the buildings, the corridors, most of the machinery although I speculation youd call it biomachinery all of it is the Goo. One giant, all-embracing organism. It can form itself into nearly any organism on estate, and it can visualise new organisms as the need arises. The Goo do the whale ships and the whaley boys. And heres the kicker, Nate It didnt make them over thirty gazillion years. The finished species isnt more than three coke years old.Thats not accomplishable, Nate said. on that point were certain things that you accepted if you were going to be a biologist, and one of them was that interlocking life was a sum mons of growing by born(p) selection, that you got a new species because the genes that favored survival in a certain environment were bendd in that species, selected by being passed on, often a process that took trillions of years. You didnt put in your order and plop up a new species at the window. in that location was no cosmic baby pull in, in that location was no watchmaker, in that respect was no designer. There was only process and sentence. How could you mayhap know that anyway?I sightly now know things by being in hint with the Goo, save Im not far pip. It might be less snip two cardinal years.Two coke years? The whaley boys are by all odds animate by any definition, and I dont even know what the whale ships are, but theyre definitely alive, too. That kind of complexity doesnt happen in that short a fourth dimension.No, Id say the Goo has be kindred been here as long as three and a half(a) billion years. The totters around these caves are some of the oldest in the world. Im just facial expression the whaley boys and the ships are new. Theyre only a hardly a(prenominal) light speed years old because thats how long ago the Goo infallible them.The Goo needful them, so it made them to serve it? Like it has will?It does gravel will. Its self-aware, and it knows a lot. In fact, Id venture to say that the Goo is a repository for every bit of biologic knowledge on the planet. This, Nate, this Goo is as close to God as we are ever going to see. Its the perfect soup.As in primordial soup?Precisely. quad billion years ago some big organic molecules grouped up, probably around some complex-sea source of geothermal heat, and they learned how to divide, how to replicate. Since replication is the strike of lifes game, it very quick probably in the span of less than a hundred million years covered the entire planet. Big organic molecules that couldnt exist now because at that place are millions of bacteria that would eat them, but bum then in that respect were no bacteria. At one time the entire oceanic climb up of the earth was populated by one angiotensin converting enzyme living thing that had learned to replicate itself. Sure, as the replicators were exposed to different conditions they mutated, they authentic into new species, they fed on each other, some colonized each other and one shoted into complex faunas, and then more complex living organisms, but part of that original living brute pulled spine into its original niche. By this time chemical selective selective information was being exchanged first by UNA, then by DNA and as each new species evolved, it carried on all the information for making the next species, and that information came bear out to the original animal. But it had its inviolable niche, pull energy from the earths heat, sheltered in the deep ocean and by rock. It took in all the information from the animals that it came in contact with, but it changed only comely to protect itself, replicate itself. While a million million species lived and died in the sea, this original animal evolved very slowly, learning, always learning. Think of it, Nate at bottom the cells of your body is not only the radiation diagram for every living thing on earth but everything that has ever lived. xcviii percent of your DNA is just hitching a ride, just lucky secondary genes that were gifted complete to align themselves to other flourishing genes, wish marrying into money, if you will. But the Goo, not only does it amaze all of those genes, it has the diagram to turn them on and off. That seat youre sitting on may strong be three billion years old.Nate abruptly felt something hed felt before only when argus-eyed up in a hotel with the bedspread pulled up around his example a deep and earnest hope, motivated by disgust, that in all the time it had been there, someone had cleaned the cast-off genetic material from it. He stood up, just for s afety. How could you peradventure know this, Growl? It goes against everything we know about evolution.No it doesnt. It completely fits. Yes, a complex process care life can develop, inclined enough time, but we also know that an animal that fits dead into its niche isnt pressured to change. Sharks deem remained basically the same for a hundred million years, the chambered nautilus for five hundred million. Well, youre just looking at the animal that found its niche first. The first animal, the source.Nate agitate his head at the magnitude of it. You might be able to inform the evolutionary path being preserved, but you cant explain consciousness, analytical thought, processes that require a very complex mechanism to perform. You cant pull off that sort of complexity of function with big, puberulent organic molecules.The molecules suck in evolved, but they remembered. The Goo is a complex, if amorphous, life form there are no analogs for it. Everything is a dumbfound of i t, and postal code is a model of it.Nate stepped back from the Colonel, and the Goo flexed to make room for him. The presence gave him a brief moment of vertigo, and he mixed-up his balance. The Goo caught him, the surface mournful forward against his shoulder blades just enough to steady him on his feet. Nate whipped around quickly and the Goo pulled back. God, thats creepyThere you go, Nate. Aware. Youd be amazed at what the Goo knows at what it can tell us. You can have a life here, Nate. Youll see things here you would never see, youll do things you could never do. And in the process you can help me execute the greatest biological riddle in the history of the world.I think youre suppose to laugh manically after saying something like that, Colonel.If you help me, Ill give you what youve always wanted. in spite of what you think, what I want is to go home.Thats not going to happen, Nate. Not ever. Youre a bright man, so I wont insult you by pretending the circumstances are any different than they are You are not ever going to leave these caverns alive, so now you have to make the conclusion of how you want to spend your life. You can have everything here that you could have on the surface much more, in fact but youre not leaving.Well, in that case, Colonel, see if you can get your giant booger to reprize you so you can go fuck yourself.I know what the whale mental strain means, Nate. I know what its for. Nate felt as if hed been sucker-punched by his own obsession, but he tried not to show the impact.Doesnt actually weigh now, does it?I understand. You take a teensy time to work into the whim, Nate, but there is some urgency. This isnt just rest back and collecting data we need to do something. I want your help. Well talk soon.The Goo came down and seemed to envelop the Colonel. There was a sound like splitting paper, and a long, pink tunnel opened behind Nate, leading all the way to the iris door through which hed entered. He took one last look over his shoulder, but there was nothing except Goo, Ryder was gone.Nate was met in the hall by the two big drink downer whaley boys, who took one look at his face, then looked at each other, then snickered, with big toothy grins. Emily 7 was nowhere to be seen.Hes a love squirrel, Nate said.The whaley boys went into wheezing fits of laughter, doubling over as they led Nate down the corridor and back to the grotto. assert what you want, Nate thought. The Goo designed these guys to enjoy themselves.As soon as Nate entered the apartment, he knew he wasnt alone. There was a smell there, and not just the ubiquitous ocean smell that permeated the whole grotto, but a sweeter, unreal smell. He quickly checked the main living rooms and the bathroom. When the portal to the sleeping room opened, he could see a shape under the covers in his double bed. The biolighting hadnt come on in the bedroom as usual. Nate sighed. The shape under the covers nuzzled into the corner of the bed exactly the way she had on the whale ship.Emily 7, you are a lovely ah person, very, but Im He was what? He had no idea what he was going to say. He was just trying to get to know himself better? He needed some berth? But then he realized that whatever, whoever was under the sheets was too mild to be the enamored whaley boy. Nuez, he thought. This was going to be worsened than Emily 7. Nuez was very his only human contact in Gooville, even if she was workings for the cause. He didnt want to alienate her. He couldnt afford to. He moved into the room, trying to think of a way that this could possibly not make things worse. date, I know that weve spent a lot of time together, and I like you, I really do »Good, said Amy, throwing back the covers. I like you, too. You coming in?CHAPTER 30MotherflukerClay and Kona had spent the day change the muck out of the raised-from-the-deep Always Confused. at a time Clay stood on the break pee at the Lahaina Harbor, watching the sun bubble red into the Pacific and throw purple fire over the island. He was tonicity that position mix of melancholy and agitation that commonly comes with drinking coffee and Irish whisky at the wake of someone you never knew, and it usually ends in a fight. He felt as if he should do something, but he didnt know what. He needed to move, but he didnt know where. Libby had confirmed that the last message about Nate had been remembered more than a week after hed disappeared, and it seemed to be more evince that Nate had survived his ordeal in the channel, but where was he? How do you rush in to nevertheless someone when you dont know where he is? All their analysis of the tapes since then had yielded nothing but whale calls. Clay was lost.What you doing? Kona, barefoot and feeling of bleach, came up behind him.Im waiting for the green flash. He wasnt, really, but sometimes, just as the sun dipped below the horizon, it happened. He needed something to happen.Yeah , I seen that. What cause that?Uh, well and that was other thing, he didnt have enough of a handle on the natural sciences to keep this whole project going I commit as the sun disappears under the horizon, the residual spectrum bounces off the mucusphere, gum olibanum causing the green flash.Yah, mon. The mucusphere.Its science, said Clay, wise to(p) that it wasnt science.When the boat clean, then we going out, record whales and like dat?Good question, Clay thought. He could collect the data, but he didnt have the knowledge necessary to canvass it. He had hoped that Amy would do that.I dont know. If we run a risk Nate, possibly.You think he still living, then? Even after all this time?Yeah. I hope. I feign we should keep up the work until we can dumbfound him.Yeah. Nate say them Nipponese going to kill our minkes if you dont work hard.Minke whales, yeah. Ive been on one of their ships. Norwegians, too.Thats some evil fuckery.Maybe. The minke herd is large. Theyre not endangered. The Nipponese and the Norwegians arent really taking enough of them to distraint the population, so why shouldnt we let them search them? I mean, whats the argument for stopping them? Because whales are cute? The Chinese kidskin kitties we dont protestation them.The Chinese fry kitties?Im not saying I agree with killing them, but we really dont have a good argument.The Chinese fry kitties? Konas voice was acquire higher each time he spoke.Maybe some of the work we do here can prove that these animals have culture, that theyre closer to us than they perceive. Then well have an argument.Kitties? Like, little meow kitties? They just fry them? Clay was musing, watching the sunset and feeling sad and frustrated, and words came out of him like a long, rambling sigh Of course, when I was on the whaling ship, I saw how the Japanese whalers looked at the animals. They see them as fish. No more or less than a tuna. But I was photographing a sperm-whale behave off and he r calf, and the calf got separated from the pod. The mother came back to get the calf and pushed it away from our Zodiac. The whalers were visibly moved. They accepted that mother/child behavior. It wasnt fish behavior. So its not a lost cause.Kitties? Kona sighed, taking on the same whole tone of resignation that Clay had used.Yeah, said Clay.So how we going to find Nate so we can do good work and bring through them humpies and minkes?Is that what were doing?No. Not now. Now we just watching for a green flash.I dont know any science, Kona. I made that up, about the green flash.Ah, I didnt know. acquisition you dont know just looks like magic.I dont believe in magic.Oh, brah, dont say dat. antic come bite you in the ass for sure. You going to need my help for sure now.Clay felt some of the free weight of his melancholy lift by manduction a moment with the surfer, but his need to act was worrying at him like a flea in the ear. Lets take a drive up-country, Kona.They really fry kitties in China? Kona said, his voice so high now that dogs living around the harbor winced.Amy, what, how what? The lights had come up, and Nate could see that it was Amy in his bed. It was a lot of Amy that he hadnt seen before.They took me, Nate. Just like you. A few days later. It was horrible. Quick, hold me.A whale ship ate you, too?Yes, just like you. puddle me, Im so afraid.And they brought you all the way here?Yes, just like you, only its worse for a dame. I feel so so naked. Hold me. Dame? No one says dame anymore.Well, African-American, then.You are not African-American.I cant remember all the politically correct terms. Christ, Nate, what do you need, a diagram? Crawl in. Amy flapped the covers, threw them back, then struck a cheesecake pose, grinning.But Nate plump for away. You put your head in the water to listen for the whale. The only other person I ever saw do that was Ryder.Look at my tan line, Nate. She danced her fingertips over her tan line, which to Nate looked more like a beige line. Nevertheless, she had his attention. Ive never had a tan line before.AmyWhatYou set me upIm naked over here. Havent you thought about that?Yes, but »Ha You admit it. I was your research assistant. You had firing power over me. notwithstanding there you are, thinking about me naked.You are naked.Ha I think Ive made my point.That ha thing is unprofessional, Amy.Dont care. I no yearner work for you, and you are not the emboss of me anymore, and furthermore, look at this butt. She rolled over. He did. She looked back over her shoulder and grinned. HaStop that. He looked at the wall. You spied on me. You caused all this to happen.Dont be ridiculous. I was just part of it, but all that is forgiven. Look how luscious I am. Amy did a exhibit wave over herself, as if Nate had just won her in a game show.Would you stop that? Nate reached over and pulled the covers up to her chin.Lus-cious, she said, pulling the covers down, revealing a breast with eac h syllable.Nate walked out of the room. Put on some clothes and come out here. Im not going to try to talk to you like that.Fine, dont talk, she called after him. Just crawl in.Youre just bait, he called from the kitchen.Hey, buster, Im not that young.This conversation is over until you come out here fully dressed. Nate sat down at his little dining table and tried to will away his erection.What are you, some kind of fruitcake, some kind of sissy boy, some kind of fairy, huh?Yes, thats it, Nate said.For a moment nothing but quiet from the bedroom. Then Oh, my God, I feel like much(prenominal) a maroon. Her voice was softer now. She came stumbling out of the bedroom, the sheet intent around her. Im really sorry, Nate. I had no idea. You seemed so interested. I wouldnt have »Ha Nate said. represent how it feels.The Old Broad had given them iced ginger tea and set Kona up at one of her telescopes to look at the moon. She sat down next to Clay on the lanai and they listened to the nighttime for a while.Its nice up here, Clay said. I dont think Ive been up here at night before.Clay, Im usually in bed by now, so I hope you dont think me dense if I get things clear in my mind.Of course not, Elizabeth.Thank you. As I see it, for years you and Nate have been telling everyone that Im a nut job because I said I could advertise with whales. Now you drive up here in a froth in the middle of the night to deliver the earth-shattering news that what Ive been telling you all along is possible? She leaned her chin on her fist and looked unsubdivided at Clay. That about right?We never called you a nut job, Elizabeth, Clay said. Thats an overstatement.Doesnt matter, Clay. Im not mad. She sipped her tea. And Im not angry either. Ive been in these islands a very long time, Clay, and Ive lived on the side of this volcano for most of it. Ive spent more time looking down on that channel than most people have spent on the planet, but not once did you or Nate ask me w hy. Didnt want to look a gift supply in the mouth, I guess. Easier to think I was just a few bananas short of a bunch than to ask me why I was interested.Clay felt fret running down the small of his back. Hed been self-conscious around the Old Broad before, but in a to proudy different way the way one feels when a matron aunt pinches your cheek and starts to ramble fatuously about the old days, not like this. This was like getting sandbagged by a prosecutor. I dont think that Nate or I could answer that question, Elizabeth, so its not out of order that we didnt ask you.Thats a adulterate a shark balls, old Auntie, Kona said, not looking away from the eyepiece of the eight-inch reflect telescope.Hes a sweet boy, the Old Broad said. Clay, you know that Mr. Robinson was in the dark blue blue. Did I ever tell you what it was that he did?No, maam, I just assumed he was an officer.I can understand how you might think that, but all the money came from my family. No, sweetheart, he was a noncom, a chief petty officer, a sonar man. In fact, Im told he was the best sonar man in the navy at the time.Im sure he was, Elizabeth, but Shut up, Clay. You came here for help, Im helping you.Yes, maam. Clay shut up. crowd together that was Mr. Robinsons first name he loved to listen to the humpbacks. He said they made his job a damn sight harder, but he loved them. We were stationed in Honolulu then, but submarine crews were on and off on hundred-day duty shifts, so when he would have time in port, we would come over to Maui, rent a boat, and go out in the channel. He wanted me to be part of the world he lived in all the time the world of sound under the sea. You can understand that, cant you, Clay?Of course. But Clay was getting a not-so-good feeling about this trip down memory lane. He had things he needed to know, but he wasnt sure that this was part of them.Thats when I bought Papa Lani with some of my fathers money. We thought wed live there full-time e ventually, maybe turn it into a hotel. Anyway, one day crowd together and I decided to rent a little powerboat and camp on the ocean side of Lanai. It was a calm day and an easy trip. On our way over, a big humpback came up beside the boat. It even seemed to change course when we did. pile slowed down so we could lenify with our new friend. There were no rules then about getting close to the whales like there are now. We didnt even know we were supposed to save them back then, but James loved the humpbacks, and I had come to as well.There was no one but the pineapple-company workers on Lanai at that time, so we found a deserted brink where we thought wed build a fire, cook some dinner, drink highballs from tin cups, swim naked, and you know, make love on the beach. See there, Ive shocked you.No you havent, said Clay.Yes I have. Im sorry.No you havent. Really, Im fine, tell the story. Old ladies, he thought.When the trade winds came up that evening, we pitched the tent a little ways off the beach in a small canyon sheltered from the wind. Well, I gave James my best hummer, and he fell dormant right away.Clay choked on his iced tea.Oh, my dear, did an ice cube go down the wrong pipe? Kona, come here and Heimlich Clay, dear.No, Im fine. Clay waved the surfer away. Really, Im okay. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he wiped his nose on his shirttail. He was suddenly incredibly grateful he hadnt brought Clair. Just need to catch my breath.Kona sat down cross-legged at their feet, having suddenly found that he was interested in history. Go ahead, old Auntie.Well, I got a little bit of a headache. So I decided to go back to the boat to get an aspirin from the first-aid kit. arrest to think of it, it must have been from the latent hostility in my neck. I always got a crick in my neck when I did that, but James loved it so.Jesus, Elizabeth, would you get on with the story, Clay said.Im sorry, dear, Ive shocked you, havent I?No, Im fine. Im just curious to fin d out what happened.Well, as long as I didnt shock you. I suppose I should be more discreet in front of the boy, but it is part of the story.No, please. What happened on the beach?You know, we could fuck like mad monkeys, all night long, and it never gave me a headache, but one »The beach, please.When I got to the beach, there were two men near the boat. It looked like they were doing something to the engine. I ducked behind a rock before they saw me. I watched them in the moonlight, a short one and the tall one. The tall one seemed to be wearing some sort of helmet or plunk suit. But then the short one said something, and the tall one started express emotion snickering, really and I saw his face in the moonlight. It wasnt a helmet, Clay. It was a face a smooth, shiny face, with a jaw full of odontiasis. I could see the teeth even from where I was. It wasnt human, Clay.Well, I went back and woke James, told him he had to come see. I took him back to my hiding plac e. The two men, or the man and that thing were still there, but behind them, right there almost on the beach, was also a humpback, a big one. The water couldnt have been ten feet deep where he was, yet he was sitting there calm as could be.Well, all James saw was the two men messing with our boat. We had drunk quite a few cocktails, I guess, and James had his big, strong man act to do. He told me to stay where I was and not to move for anything. Then he went after them shouting at the top of his lungs for them to get away. The tall one, the nonhuman thing, go down under the water right away, but the man looked around like hed been trapped. He started wading out toward the whale, and James went right in after him. Then, at last, James saw the whale. He just halt there in the surf and looked. Thats when the thing came up out of the water behind him. Suddenly it was just there, looming behind James. I wanted to yell, but I was so afraid. The thing, it hit James with something, may be a rock, and he fell forward into the water. Then I screamed for all I was worth, but Im not sure they even comprehend me over the noise of the wind and the surf.The man took one of Jamess arms, the thing the other, and they swam to the whale with James in tow. Then, Clay, as crazy as this sounds, this is what happened That whale rolled over, and they stuffed James into it, back by the genital slit, I think. Then they both crawled into it as well. Then the whale kicked its tail until it was in deeper water and swam away. I never saw my husband again. The Old Broad took Clays hand and squeezed it. I swear to you, thats how it happened, Clay.Clay didnt know what to say. Over the years shed said a lot of crazy-sounding stuff, but this was the mother of all crazy stuff. heretofore she was more serious than hed ever seen her. It didnt matter what he believed there was only one thing to say to her. I believe you, Elizabeth.Thats why, Clay. Thats why Ive helped finance you over the years, its why Ive watched the channel all these years, its why I own two acres right near the water, yet Ive lived up-country for all these years.I dont understand, Elizabeth.They came back, Clay. That night the whale came back, and the thing came back to the beach, but I hid. They came back for me. The next day I didnt even go back to the boat. I hiked my way to the pineapple plantation and got help there. They brought me back to Lahaina on one of their big freighters. I havent been on the water since. The closest I ever go near the water is when theres an event at the sanctuary, and then there are a lot of people around.Clay thought about the Japanese soldier theyd found on a Pacific island whod been hiding from the Americans for twenty years after the war was over. Elizabeth Robinson had obviously been hiding from something that wasnt looking for her. Didnt you tell anyone? Surely the navy would have wanted to find out what happened to one of their best sonar men.They asked. I t old them. They dismissed it. They said James went swimming at night, he drowned, and I was drunk. They sent some men over there, and so did the Maui police. They found the boat, still on the beach, with everything in working order. They found our camp, and they found an discharge bottle of rum. That was the end of it.Why didnt you ever tell me? Or Nate?I wanted you to keep doing the work that you do. Meanwhile, I kept watching. I read all the scientific journals, too, you know. I look for anything that might make sense of it. Come with me.She got up and went into her house, Clay and Kona following without a word. In the bedroom she opened a cedar bureau and took out a large scrapbook. She pose it on the bed and flipped it open to the last page. It was Nates obituary.Nathan was one of the best in the field, and that little girl said that a whale ate him. Then she disappeared at sea. She flipped a page. Twelve years ago this Dr. Gerard Ryder disappeared at sea, also studying whale calls at the time, although blue whales. She flipped another page. This fellow, a Russian sonar expert who defected to England, disappeared off Cornwall in 1973. They said it was probably KGB.Well, it probably was KGB. Im sorry, Elizabeth, but each of these incidents seems to have a perfectly normal explanation, and they happen over such a long period of time in different places. I dont see what the connection is.Its underwater sound, Clay. And theyre not normal. All these men, including my James, were experts at listening to the ocean.Even so, are you saying that someone has trained whales? That creatures have been abducting sonar guys and shoving them up whales bums?Dont be crude, Clay. You came to me because you wanted help, Im trying to give it to you. I dont know who they are, but what youve told me about there being language hidden in the whale song it just confirms in my mind that they took Nate, and James, and all these other people. Thats all I know. Im telling you that Im sure that Nate is alive, too. Its another piece to the puzzle.Clay sat down on the bed next to the scrapbook. There were articles from scientific journals on cetacean biology, on underwater acoustics, news items about whale strandings, some that didnt seem connected at all. It was the search path of someone who didnt know what she was looking for. Hed gone so long thinking of her as crazy that hed never given her credit for how knowledgeable she really was. He was realizing only now what had been whimsical her. He felt like a shit.Elizabeth, what about the call about the prepare? What about the crystals and the whales talking to you all of that? I dont understand.I did get the call, Clay. And as for the other, I have dreams of the whales talking to me, and I pay attention to them. Fifty years of searching, I take clues where I can get them. Given what I was looking for, I thought magic and divination as valid a method as any tool in the search.See, Kona said, I told you. Sci ence you dont know? Magic.I guess I was casting my faith around carelessly, I just hope I didnt do something awful.Nah, old Auntie, Jahs love on ye anyway, even if youre trampin around your faith like a ho.Kona, shut up, Clay said. What do you mean, you might have done something awful, Elizabeth?She picked up the scrapbook, closed it, then sat down on the bed next to Clay and hung her head. A tear dripped down onto the black pasteboard cover of the book.When the call came, and the whale said that he wanted a pastrami on rye, I recognized the voice, Clay. I recognized the voice, and I insisted Nathan go out there and take the sandwich with him.It was probably a prank, Elizabeth, someone youve met. Nate was going out that day anyway. You didnt cause this.No, you dont understand, Clay. Pastrami on rye was my Jamess favorite. I always had one waiting for him when he came in from submarine duty. The voice on the phone was my James.