Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

have here in the field notes."
    Her expression was as open and hopeful as a child's. She waited for something from him, just a word 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 known 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 ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people 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 enmity 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 room in a matter of seconds, he hoped, "is there something that I'm missing about our work? Is there something in the data that I'm not seeing?"
    Amy assumed the pose of Rodin's The Thinker on her stool, her chin teed up on her hand, her brow furrowed into moguls of earnest contemplation. "Well, Dr. Quinn, I would be able to answer that if you had shared the data with me, but since I only know what I've collected or what I've analyzed personally, I'd 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, wouldn't it?"
    "You must suspect. You have to have a theory. Tell me, and let's apply the data to the theory. I'm willing to do the work, reconstruct the data, but you've 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 it's lying there naked, pure, unsullied by facts. Let's just keep it that way for a while."
    "So you don't really have a theory?"
    "Clueless."
    "You lying bag of fish heads."
    "I can fire you, you know. Even if Clay was the one that hired you, I'm not totally superfluous to this operation yet. I'm kind of in charge. I can fire you. Then how will you live?"
    "I'm not getting paid."
    "See, right there. Perfectly good concept ruined by the application of fact."
    "So fire me." No longer The Thinker, Amy had taken on the aspect of a dark and evil elf.
    "I think they're communicating," Nate said.
    "Of course they're communicating, you maroon. You think they're singing because they like the sound of their own voices?"
    "There's more to it than that."
    "Well, tell me!"
    "Who calls someone a maroon? What the hell is maroon?"
    "It's a mook with a Ph.D. Don't change the subject."
    "It doesn't matter. Without the acoustic data I can't even show you what I was thinking. Besides, I'm not sure that my cognitive powers aren't breaking down."
    "Meaning what?"
    Meaning that I'm starting to see things, he thought. Meaning that despite the fact that you're yelling at me, I really want to grab you and kiss you, he thought. Oh, I am so fucked, he thought. "Meaning I'm still a little hungover. I'm sorry. Let's 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. I'm going to go to my cabin and do it."
    "How? On what?"
    "I'm thinking, 'Humpbacks: Our Wet and Wondrous Pals of the Deep -' "
    "There's 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 he'd watched her walk out, a wave of melancholy swept over