Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

blowhole pictures of a gray whale who had a hideous head cold? Wasn't I hit by a basketball-size gob of whale snot nearly every time the whale surfaced? And wasn't I, ultimately, grateful for the opportunity to get out in the field and do some real research? Of course I was. Therefore, I am being neither cruel nor unprofessional by sending this young man down again and again to perform a hand job on the singer.
    The radio chirped, signaling a call from the Always Confused. Nate keyed the mike button on the mobile phone/two-way radio they used to communicate between the two boats. "Go ahead, Clay."
    "Nate, it's Clair. Clay went down about fifteen minutes ago, but Amy just dove after him with the rescue tank. I don't know what to do. They're too deep. I can't see them. The whale took off, and I can't see them."
    "Where are you, Clair?"
    "Straight out, about two miles off the dump."
    Nate grabbed the binoculars and scanned the island, found the dump, looked out from there. He could make out two or three boats in the area. Six or eight minutes away at full throttle.
    "Keep looking, Clair. Get ready to drop a hang tank if you have one set up, in case they need to decompress. I'll be there as soon as I get the kid out of the water."
    "What's he doing in the water?"
    "Just a bad decision on my part. Keep me apprised, Clair. Try to follow Amy's bubbles if you can find them. You'll want to be as close to them as you can when they come up."
    Nate started the engine just as Kona broke the surface, spitting out the snorkel and taking in a great gasp of air. Kona shook his head, signifying that he hadn't accomplished the mission. "Too deep, boss."
    "Come, come, come. To the side." Nate waved him to the boat. Quinn brought the boat broadside to Kona, then reached over with both hands. "Come on." Kona took his hands, and Quinn jerked the surfer over the gunwale. Kona landed in a heap in the bottom of the boat.
    "Boss -"
    "Hang on, Clay's in trouble."
    "But, boss -"
    Quinn buried the throttle, yanked the boat around, and cringed at the bunny-in-a-blender screech as the hydrophone cord wrapped around the prop, sheared the prop pin, and chopped itself into a whole package of expensive, waterproof licorice sticks.
    "Fuck!" Nate snatched off his baseball cap and whipped it onto the console.
    The hydrophone sank peacefully to the bottom, bopping the singer on the back as it went. Nate killed the engine and grabbed the radio. "Clair, are they up yet? I'm not going to be able to get there."
    * * *
    Amy felt as if someone were driving huge ice picks into her eardrums. She pinched her nostrils closed and blew to equalize the pressure, even as she kicked to go deeper, but she was moving too fast to get equalized.
    She was down fifty feet now. Clay was a hundred feet below her, the pressure would triple before she got there. She felt as if she were swimming through thick, blue honey. She'd seen the whale tail hit Clay and toss him back, but the good news was that she hadn't seen a cloud of bubbles come up. There was a chance that the regulator had stayed in Clay's mouth and he was still breathing. Of course, it could also mean that he was dead or that his neck had snapped and he was paralyzed. Whatever his condition, he certainly wasn't moving voluntarily, just sinking slowly, relentlessly toward the bottom.
    Amy fought the pressure, the resistance of the water, and did math problems as she kicked deeper. The rescue tank held only a thousand pounds of air, a third of the capacity of a normal tank. She guessed that she'd be at around a hundred and seventy-five to two hundred feet before she caught Clay. That would give her just enough air to get him to the surface without stopping to decompress. Even if Clay was unhurt, there was a good chance he was going to get decompression sickness, the bends, and if he lived through that, he'd spend three or four days in the hyperbaric decompression chamber in Honolulu.
    Ah, the big palooka is probably dead anyway, she thought, trying to cheer herself up.
    * * *
    Although Clay Demodocus had lived a life spiced with adventures, he was not an adventurer. Like Nate, he did not seek danger, risk, or fulfillment by testing his mettle against nature. He sought calm weather, gentle seas, comfortable accommodations, kind and loyal people, and safety, and it was only for the work that he compromised any of those goals. The last to go, the least compromised, was safety. The loss of his father, a hard-helmet sponge