Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

consider an ally was sitting right there in front of him. "Cielle, the reason the Colonel called your ships back, the reason no one is allowed to leave the harbor, is that he wants you all here when the place comes down. He's got some plan to get the U.S. Navy, or somebody's navy, to attack Gooville with a nuclear torpedo. He thinks that the Goo is going to destroy the human race if he doesn't destroy it first. He wanted me to go to the navy. He thought I could convince them of the threat because of my scientific credibility, but I said no. That's when he took Amy."
    "So all that yelling I heard you doing in the amphitheater – that wasn't you talking about bringing the navy here, that was just you trying to get Amy back?"
    "Yes. He's a loon, Cielle. I don't have any interest in bringing this place down. He thinks that there's some grand war going on between memes and genes, and that humans and the Goo are on opposite sides of it."
    The whale-ship captain stood and nodded as if confirming something to herself. "Okay, then. That's what I needed to know. That's why he sent me here. I'll try to get them to send you some food."
    "What? Help me get out of here." Nate suddenly had a very bad feeling about this whole exchange.
    "I'm sorry, Nate. They have Cal. The whaley boys have him. You know how that feels. They told me I had to find out if you were plotting against the Colonel. Thank you for telling me. I think they'll let him go now."
    She walked to the door, and Nate followed her. "Get me out of here, Cielle, at least -"
    "Nate, there's nowhere to go. The only way out of here is a whale ship, and whaley-boy pilots are the only ones who can run them. They've been on notice not to let you on since we got here. Right now I couldn't leave if I wanted to." She pounded on the door. "Open!"
    The door clicked open, and two all-black whaley boys stood outside waiting. They caught Nate by the shoulders and threw him back into the apartment as he tried to rush by them.
    "My own crew, Nate," Cielle said. "See what you've done."
    "He's going to kill you all, Cielle. Don't you see that? He's crazy."
    "I don't believe you, Nate. I think you're the crazy one."
    The door slammed shut.
    * * *
    Back at Papa Lani, Clay was doing a final check on the equipment he was taking with him to meet his new ship. Diving and camera equipment lay spread out across the office floor. Kona was going through the checklist on the clipboard with a felt-tip pen.
    "So you tink the Snowy Biscuit going to be there?"
    "I'm going. I just wish that we could answer her. Tell her I'm on my way."
    "You mean, like, put the digital in the whale sound and send it?"
    "Yeah, I know, we can't do it. Did you find a canister of soda lime for the rebreather's CO 2 scrubbers?"
    "I can do that." Kona held up the canister Clay was looking for and checked it off the list.
    "You can?"
    "I been looking at it long time. She not that hard to put that message back in the call. But how you going to send it? You need some gi-grandious big speakers under the water, mon. We don't have nothing like dat."
    Clay stopped his inventory and pulled Kona's clipboard down so he could see his eyes. "You can put a message into the waveform so it would come out the same way we've been taking it out?"
    Kona nodded.
    "Show me," Clay said. He went to the computer. Kona took the chair and pulled up a low-frequency waveform that looked like a jagged comb, and then he hit a button that took a small section and expanded it, which smoothed out the jags.
    "See, this part here. We know this a letter B, right? We just cut it and paste with other letters, make a goofy whale call. I got the all the letters but a Q and a Z figured."
    "Don't explain, just do it. Here." Clay scribbled a short message in the margin of Kona's checklist. "Then play it for me."
    "I can play, but you won't hear it. It's subsonic, brah. Like I say, you going need some thumpin' speakers to send it. You know where we can steal some?"
    "We might not have to steal them."
    While Kona pieced together the message, Clay grabbed the phone off his desk and dialed Cliff Hyland. The biologist answered on the second ring. "Cliff, Clay Demodocus. I need a favor from you. That big sonar rig of yours, will it broadcast subsonic frequencies?… Good, I need you to take us out on your boat tonight, with your rig."
    Kona looked at Clay. Clay grinned and raised his eyebrows.
    "No, it has to be tonight. I'm flying out for Chuuk in the morning. If I need