Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

said. "If we deny our instincts as caretakers, we deny ourselves as women."
    "Oh, fuck off, Margaret! I'm calling to offer our help because it's the right thing to do."
    Meanwhile, on the ocean side of Kahoolawe, Cliff Hyland was sitting in the makeshift lab belowdecks in the cabin cruiser, headphones on, watching an oscilloscope readout, when one of his grad students came into the cabin and grabbed him by the shoulder.
    "Sounds like Nathan Quinn's group is in trouble," said the girl, a sun-baked brunette wearing zinc-oxide war paint on her nose and cheeks and a hat the size of a garbage-can lid.
    Hyland pulled up the headphones. "What? Who? Fire? Sinking? What?"
    "They've lost two divers. That photographer guy Clay and that pale girl."
    "Where are they?"
    "About two miles off the dump. They're not asking for help. I just thought you should know."
    "That's a ways. Start reeling in the array. We can be there in a half hour maybe."
    Just then Captain Tarwater came down the steps into the cabin. "Stay that order, grommet. Stay on mission. We have a survey to finish today – and a charge to record."
    "Those guys are friends of mine," Hyland said.
    "I've been monitoring the situation, Dr. Hyland. Our presence has not been requested, and, frankly, there is nothing this vessel could do to help. It sounds like they've lost some divers. It happens."
    "This isn't war, Tarwater. We don't just lose people."
    "Stay on mission. Any setback in Quinn's operation can only benefit this project."
    "You asshole," Hyland said.
    Back in the channel, the Count stood in the bow of the big Zodiac and watched as the Conservation and Resources Enforcement boat towed away the Constantly Baffled. He turned to his three researchers, who were trying to look busy in back of the boat. "Let that be a lesson to you all. The key to good science is making sure all the paperwork is in order. Now you can see why I'm such a stickler for you people having your IDs with you every morning."
    "Yeah, in case some other researcher rats us out to the Conservation and Resources cops," one woman said.
    "Science is a competitive sport, Ms. Wextler. If you're not willing to compete, you're welcome to take your undergrad degree and go baby-sit seasick tourists on a whale-watching boat. Nathan Quinn has attacked the credibility of this organization in the past. It's only fair play that I point out when he is not working within the rules of the sanctuary."
    The ocean breeze carried the junior researchers' under-the-breath whispers of "asshole" away from the ears of Gilbert Box, over the channel to wash against the cliffs of Molokai.
    * * *
    Nate wrapped his arms around Clair and held her as she sobbed. As the downtime passed the first half hour, Nate felt a ball of fear, dread, and nausea forming in his own stomach. Only by trying to stay busy looking for signs of Clay and Amy was he able to keep from being ill. When Amy's downtime passed forty-five minutes, Clair started to sob. Clay might have been able to stay down that long with the re-breather, but with only the tiny rescue tank, there was no way Amy could still be breathing. Two divemasters from a nearby tour boat had already used up a full tank each searching. The problem was, in blue water it was a three-dimensional search. Rescue searches were usually done on the bottom, but not when it was six hundred feet down. With the currents in the channel… well, the search was little more than a gesture anyway.
    Being a scientist, Nate liked true things, so after an hour he stopped telling Clair that everything was going to be all right. He didn't believe it, and grief was already descending on him like a flight of black arrows. In the past, when he had experienced loss or trauma or heartbreak, some survival mechanism had kicked in and allowed him to function for months before he'd actually begin feeling the pain, but this time it was immediate and deep and devastating. His best friend was dead. The woman that he – Well, he wasn't exactly sure what he'd felt about Amy, but even when he looked past the sexuality, the differences in their ages and positions, he liked her. He liked her a lot, and he'd become used to her presence after only a few weeks.
    One of the divers came up near the boat and spit out his regulator. "There's nowhere to look. It's just blue to fucking infinity."
    "Yeah," Nate said. "I know."
    * * *
    Clay saw blue-green breasts gently bobbing before his face and was convinced that he had, indeed,