Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 5~6

CHAPTER FIVEHey, Buddy,why the Big Brain?The next dawn the four of them stood in a row on the previous of the senile Pioneer Hotel, go into acrossing across the Lahaina Harbor at the whitecaps in the channel. roll up was whipping the palm trees. Down by the breakwater two lilli come offian girls were trying to surf prospers whose faces were bumpy with wind chop and whose curls blew rear end e real(prenominal) entirely oer the crests give cargon the hair of a sprinter.It could calmness down, Amy verbalize. She was standing next to Kona, thinking, This guys pectoral med in totallyion be so cut you could stick business cards at a lower place them and theyd stay. And my, is he tan. Where Amy came from, no one was tan, and she hadnt been in Hawaii long plentiful to realize that a good tan was just a hightail it of showing up.Supposed to stay the comparable this for the next three years, Nate said. As disappointed as he appeared to be, he was extraordinarily relie ved that they wouldnt be difference forth this morning. He had a rogue hang all over, and his fondnesss were bloodred foot his sunglasses. Self-loathing had set in, and he thought, My lifes well is shit, and if we went bulge there today and I didnt spend the morning retching over the side, Id be tempted to drown myself. He would rather confuse been thinking round whales, which is what he usually thought slightly. thusly he noticed Amy sneaking glances at Konas bare chest and snarl even worse.Ya, mon. Kona merchantman spark up a spliff and calm down that bumpy brine for all me new science dreadies. We wad take the boat no matter what the wind be, Kona said. He was thinking, I stool no idea what the hell Im chating about, but I really compulsion to get out there with the whales.Breakfast at Longees, and then(prenominal) well regard how it looks, body said. He was thinking, Well fox breakfast at Longees, and then well see how it looks.None of them moved. They ju st stood there, looking out at the blowout channel. Occasionally a whale would blow, and the mist would run over the water homogeneous a f manufacture offened ghost.Im buying, carcass said.And they all headed up Front Street to Longees restaurant, a two-story gray-and-white building, done in a new appoint Eng priming coat architecture with shiplap siding and huge open windows that looked across Front Street, over the stone seawall, and out onto the Au au Channel. By instruction of a shirt, Kona slipped on a tattered Nautica parka hed had knotted around his waist.You do a sort of a little of sailing? Amy asked, nodding to the Nautica logo. She intended the remark as dig, a return for Konas saying, And who be this s immediatelyy biscuit? when theyd first met. At the date Amy had just introduced herself, but in retrospect she realized that she should probably have taken some offense to being called both snowy and a biscuit those things were objectifying, proper(ip)?Shark b ait kit, me Snowy Biscuit, Kona answered, meaning that the windbreaker had come from a tourist. The Paia surfing community on the North Shore, from which Kona had of late come, had an economy based entirely on petty theft, mostly smash-and-grabs from letting cars.As the host led them through with(predicate) the crowded dining agency to a table by the windows, Clay leaned over Amys shoulder and whispered, A biscuit is a good thing.I knew that, Amy whispered back. Like a tomato, effective?Heads up, Clay said, just as Amy plowed into a khaki package of balding ambition retiren as Jon Thomas full, chief executive officer of Hawaii Whale Inc., a nonprofit corporation with assets in the tens of millions that wrapped itself as a inquiry organization. congested had pushed his chair back to check Amy.Jon Thomas Clay smiled and reached around the flustered Amy to shake overfulls hand. Fuller treat Clay and took Amy by the waist, steadying her. Hey, hey, there, Fuller said. If you wanted to meet me, all you had to do was introduce yourself.Amy grabbed his wrists and guided his hands to the table in bowel movement of him, then stepped back. Hi, Im Amy Earhart.I jazz who you are, said Fuller, standing now. He was just now a little taller than Arny, very tan and very lean, with a haggle nose and a receding hairline like a knife. What I dont eff is wherefore you havent come to see me about a job.Mean turn, Nate, who had been thinking about whale song, had taken his seat, opened a wit, ordered drinking chocolate, and completely confused the fact that he was alone at the table. He looked up to see Jon Thomas Fuller h out of dateing his assistant by the waist. He dropped his menu and headed back to the site of the intercept.Well, partly Amy smiled at the three young women posing at Fullers table partly because I have some self-exaltation she curtsied and partly because youre a louse and a jamoke.Fullers dazzling grin dropped a level of magnitud e. The women at his table, all dressed in khaki campaign wear to approximate the Discovery Channel ideal of what a scientist should look like, made great shows of looking elsewhere, wiping their mouths, sipping water not noticing their boss acquiring verbally bitch-slapped by a vicious research pixie.Nate, Fuller said, noticing that Nate had get together the host, I take cared about the break-in at your place. nonhing great missing, I hope.Were fine. Lost some recordings, Nate said.Ah, well, good. A lot of lowlifes on this island now. Fuller looked at Kona.The surfer grinned. Shoots, brah, you make me blush.Fuller grinned. How you doing, Kona?All cool runnings, brah. Bwana Fuller got his evil on?There were neck-snapping double takes all around. Fuller nodded, then looked back at Quinn. Anything we can do, Nate? There are a lot of our song recordings for sale in the shops, if those will help out. You guys get lord discount. Were all in this together.Thanks, Nate said just a s Fuller sit down down, then turned his back on all of them and resumed eating his breakfast, dismissing them. The women at the table looked embarrassed.Breakfast? Clay said. He herded his team to their table.They ordered and drank coffee in silence, each looking out across the street to the ocean, avoiding eye contact until Fuller and his group had left.Nate turned to Amy. A jamoke? What are you, funding in a Cagney movie?Who is that guy? Amy asked. She snapped the corner off a piece of toast with more violence than was really necessary.Whats a jamoke? Kona asked.Its a flavor of ice cream, right? Clay said.Nate looked at Kona. How do you whop Fuller? Nate held up his ringer and s heated a cautionary glare, the now understood signal for no Rasta/pidgin/bullshit.I worked the Jet Ski yielding for him at Kaanapali.Nate looked to Clay, as if to say, You knew this?Who is that guy? Amy asked.Hes the head of Hawaii Whale, Clay said. medico masquerading as science. They use their stom ach to get three sixty-five-foot tourist boats right up next to the whales.That guy is a scientist?He has a Ph.D. in biota, but I wouldnt call him a scientist. Those women he was with are his naturalists. I guess today was even too windy for them to go out. Hes got shops all over the island sells whale crap, nonprofit. Hawaii Whale was the only research group to oppose the Jet Ski ban during whale season.Because Fuller had money in the Jet Ski business, Nate added.I made six bucks an hour, Kona said.Nates work was instrumental in getting the Jet Ski parasail ban done, Clay said. Fuller doesnt like us.The sanctuary may take his research permit next, said Nate. What science they do is bad science.And he blames you for that? Amy asked.I we have done the most behavioral stuff as it relates to sound in these waters. The sanctuary gave us some money to find out if the high-frequency affray from Jet Skis and parasail boats affected the behavior of the whales. We concluded that it di d. Fuller didnt like it. It address him.Hes vent to build a dolphin swim park, up La Perouse Bay way, Kona said.What? Nate said.What? said Clay.A swim-with-the-dolphins park? said Amy.Ya, mon. Let you come from Ohio and get in the water with them bottlenose fellahs for two hundred dollar.You guys didnt experience about this? Amy was looking at Clay. He always seemed to know everything that was going on in the whale world.First Ive heard of it, but theyre not going to let him do it without some studies. He looked to Nate. Are they?Itll never happen if he loses his research permit, Nate said. Therell be a review.And youll be on the review board? asked Amy.Nates name would solidify it, Clay said. Theyll ask him.Not you? Kona asked.Im just the photographer. Clay looked out at the whitecaps in the channel. Doesnt look like well be getting out today. Finish your breakfast, and then well go pay your rent.Nate looked at Clay quizzically.I cant give him money, Clay said. Hell just stack it. Im going to go pay his rent.Truth. Kona nodded.You dont lock in work for Fuller, do you, Kona? Nate asked.Nate Amy admonished.Well, he was there when I found the office ransacked.Leave him alone, Amy said. Hes too knavish to be bad.Truth, said Kona. Sistah Biscuit speak nothin but the truth. I be massive cute.Clay set a stack of bills on the table. By the way, Nate, you have a crucify at the sanctuary on Tuesday. quatern days. You and Amy might want to use the downtime to put something together.Nate felt as if hed been smacked. quaternary days? Theres nothing there. It was all on those hard drives.Like I said, you might want to use the downtime.CHAPTER SIXWhale WahineAs a biologist, Nate had a tendency to draw analogies between human behavior and tool behavior probably a little more often than was stringently healthy. For instance, as he considered his attraction to Amy, he wondered why it had to be so complex. Why there had to be so m both subtleties to the human con glutination ritual. Why cant we be more like common squid? he thought. The male squid simply swims up to the female squid, hands her a neat package of sperm, she tucks it under her mantle at her leisure, and they go on their separate ways, their duty to the species done. Simple, elegant, no nuanceNate held the paper transfuse out to Amy. I poured some coffee for you. Im all coffeed out, thanks, said Amy.Nate set the cup down on the desk next to his own. He sat in front of the computer. Amy was perched on a high stool to his left going through the hardbound field journals covering the last four years. Are you going to be able to put together a lecture out of this? she asked.Nate rubbed his temples. De break a handful of aspirin and six cups of coffee, his head was still throbbing. A lecture? About what?Well, what were you planning to do a talk on before the office was ransacked? Maybe we can manufacture it from the field notes and memory.I dont have that good a memory.Yes you do, y ou just deficiency some mnemonics, which we have here in the field notes.Her expression was as open and hopeful as a childs. She waited for something from him, just a say to set her searching for what he needed. The problem was, what he needed right now was not going to be found in biology field notes. He needed answers of another kind. It bothered him that Fuller had cognise about the break-in at the compound. It was too soon for him to have found out. It also bothered him that anyone could hold him in the sort of disdain that Fuller obviously did. Nate had been born and raised in British Columbia, and Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. Be polite was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but subjective into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions parts of Quebec, where pack maintained the dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender mind-set of the french and hockey , in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually coincidentally in French.) Nate was neither French-Canadian nor much of a hockey player, so the idea of having invoked antagonism enough in someone to have that person ruin his research He was mortified by it.Amy, he said, having spaced out and returned to the elbow room in a matter of seconds, he hoped, is there something that Im missing about our work? Is there something in the information that Im not seeing?Amy expect the pose of Rodins The Thinker on her stool, her chin teed up on her hand, her forehead furrowed into moguls of earnest contemplation. Well, Dr. Quinn, I would be able to answer that if you had overlap the data with me, but since I only know what Ive collected or what Ive analyzed personally, Id have to say, scientifically speaking, beats me.Thanks, Nate said. He smiled in spite of himself.You said there was something there that you were close to finding. In the song, I mean. What is it?Well, if I knew that, it would be found, wouldnt it?You must suspect. You have to have a conjecture. Tell me, and lets feed the data to the theory. Im willing to do the work, reconstruct the data, but youve got to trust me.No theory ever benefited by the application of data, Amy. Data kills theories. A theory has no better time than when its lying there naked, pure, unsullied by facts. Lets just slip by it that way for a while.So you dont really have a theory?Clueless.You lying bag of fish heads.I can dispatch packing you, you know. Even if Clay was the one that hired you, Im not completely superfluous to this operation yet. Im kind of in charge. I can fire you. Then how will you live?Im not getting paid.See, right there. suddenly good concept ruined by the application of fact.So fire me. N o longer The Thinker, Amy had taken on the aspect of a sin and evil elf.I think theyre communicating, Nate said.Of course theyre communicating, you ground. You think theyre singing because they like the sound of their own voices?Theres more to it than that.Well, tell meWho calls someone a maroon? What the hell is maroon?Its a mook with a Ph.D. Dont change the subject.It doesnt matter. Without the acoustic data I cant even show you what I was thinking. Besides, Im not sure that my cognitive powers arent breaking down. mean what?Meaning that Im starting to see things, he thought. Meaning that despite the fact that youre yelling at me, I really want to grab you and kiss you, he thought. Oh, I am so fucked, he thought. Meaning Im still a little hungover. Im sorry. Lets see what we can put together from the notes.Amy slipped off the stool and gathered the field journals in her arms.Where are you going? Nate said. Had he somehow offended her?We have four days to put together a lecture. Im going to go to my cabin and do it.How? On what?Im thinking, Humpbacks Our Wet and Wondrous Pals of the Deep Theres going to be a lot of researchers there. Biologists Nate interrupted. and Why We Should Poke Them with Sticks. Better, Nate said.I got it covered, she said, and she walked out.For some reason he felt hopeful. Excited. Just for a second. Then, after hed watched her walk out, a wave of melancholy swept over him and for the thirtieth time that day he regretted that he hadnt just become a pharmacist, or a enlist captain, or something that made you feel more alive, like a pirate.The old broad lived on a volcano and entrustd that the whales talked to her. She called about noon, and Nate knew it was her before he even answered. He knew, because she always called when it was too windy to go out.Nathan, why arent you out in the channel? the Old Broad said.Hello, Elizabeth, how are you today?Dont change the subject. They told me that they want to talk to you. Today. W hy arent you out there?You know why Im not out there, Elizabeth. Its too windy. You can see the whitecaps as well as I can. From the slope of Haleakala, the Old Broad watched the bodily function in the channel with a two-hundred-power celestial telescope and a pit of big eyes binoculars that looked like stereo bazookas on clearcutness mounts that were anchored into a ton of concrete.Well, theyre upset that youre not out there. Thats why I called.And I appreciate your calling, Elizabeth, but Im in the middle of something.Nate hoped he didnt sound too rude. The Old Broad meant well. And they, in a way, were all at the mercy of her generosity, for although she had donated the Papa Lani compound, she hadnt exactly signed it over to them. They were in a sort of permanent lease situation. Elizabeth Robinson was, however, very generous and very kind-hearted indeed, even if she was a total loon.Nathan, I am not a total loon, she said.Oh yes you are, he thought. I know youre not, he said . But I really have to get some work done today.What are you working on? Elizabeth asked. Nate could hear her tapping a pencil on her desk. She took notes during their conversations. He didnt know what she did with the notes, but it bothered him.I have a lecture at the sanctuary in four days. Why, why had he told her? Why? Now shed rattle down the mountain in her ancient Mercedes that looked like a Nazi staff car, sit in the audience, and ask all the questions that she knew in advance he couldnt answer.That shouldnt be hard. Youve done that before, what, twenty generation?Yes, but someone broke in to the compound yesterday, Elizabeth. All my notes, the tapes, the compend its all destroyed.There was silence on the line for a moment. Nate could hear the Old Broad breathing. Finally, Im really sorry, Nathan. Is everyone all right?Yes, it happened while we were out working.Is there anything I can do? I mean, I cant send much, but if No, were all right. Its just a lot of work tha t I have to start over. The Old Broad might have been pie-eyed at one time, and she certainly would be again if she sold the land where Papa Lani stood, but Nate didnt think that she had a lot of money to mere(a) after the last bear market. Even if she did, this wasnt a problem that could be solved with cash.Well, then, you get back to work, but try to get out tomorrow. Theres a big male out there who told me he wants you to wreak him a hot pastrami on rye.Nate grinned and almost snorted into the phone. Elizabeth, you know they dont eat while theyre in these waters.Im just relaying the message, Nathan. Dont you snicker at me. Hes a big male, broad, like he just came down from Alaska frankly, I dont know why hed be hungry, hes as big as a house. But anyway, Swiss and hot English mustard, he was very clear about that. He has very unusual markings on his flukes. I couldnt see them from here, but he says youll know him.Nate felt his face go numb with something approximating shock. Elizabeth Call if you need anything, Nathan. My cut to Clay. Aloha.Nathan Quinn let the phone slip from his fingers, then zombie-stumbled out of the office and back to his own cabin, where he decided he was going to nap and keep napping until he woke up to a world that wasnt so irritatingly weird.Right on the edge of a dream where he was gleefully steering a sixty-foot cabin cruiser up Second Street in downtown Seattle, plowing aside slow- touching vehicles while Amy, clad in a silver bikini and looking uncharacteristically tan, stood in the bow and waved to quite a little who had come to the windows of their second-story offices to marvel at the freedom and power of the Mighty Quinn right on the edge of a perfect dream, Clay burst into the room. Talking.Konas moving into cabin six.Get some lines in the water, Amy, Nate said from the drears of morpheum opus. Were coming up on Pikes Place Market, and theres fish to be had.Clay waited, not quite smiling, not quite not, while Nate sat up and rubbed sleep from his eyes. driving a boat on the street? Clay said, nodding. All skippers had that dream.Seattle, said Nate. The Zodiac lives in cabin six.We havent used the Zodiac in ten years, it wont hold air. Clay went to the closet that acted as a divider between the living/ quiescency area and the kitchen. He pulled down a stack of sheets, then towels. You wouldnt believe how they had this kid living, Nate. It was a tin industrial building, out by the airport. Twenty, 30 of them, in little stalls with cots and not enough room to thrill a dead cat. The wiring was extension cords draped over the tops of the stalls. Six hundred a month for that.Nate shrugged. So? We lived that way the first couple of years. Its what you do. We might need cabin six for something. entrepot or something.Nope, said Clay. That place was a sweat box and a fire hazard. Hes not living there. Hes our guy.But Clay, hes only been with us for a day. Hes probably a criminal.Hes our guy, s aid Clay, and that was that. Clay had very strong views on loyalty. If Clay had decided that Kona was their guy, he was their guy.Okay, said Nate, feeling as if he had just invited the Medusa in for a sandwich. The Old Broad called.How is she? unflurried nuts.Howre you?Getting there.