Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

of a whaling brig, now used as a floating museum. They stood side by side, watching the harbor, each with a foot propped on the seawall.
    "What's up, Clay?"
    "What are you guys working on, Cliff?"
    "You know I can't talk about that. I signed a nondisclosure thing."
    "You got divers in the water, people with underwater coms?"
    "Don't be silly, Clay. You've seen my crew. Except for Tarwater, they're just kids. What's this about?"
    "Somebody's fucking with us, Cliff. They sank my boat, tore up the office, took Nate's papers and tapes. They're even messing with one of our benefactors. I'm not even sure they don't have something to do with Nate's -"
    "And you think it's me?" Hyland took his foot off the seawall and turned to Clay. "Nate was my friend, too. I've known you guys, what? Twenty-two, twenty-three years? You can't think I'd do anything like that."
    "I'm not saying you personally. What are you and Tarwater working on, Cliff? What would Nate know that would interfere with what you're doing?"
    Hyland stared at his feet. Scratched his beard. "I don't know."
    "You don't know? You know what we're doing – figure it out. Listen, I know you guys are using a big towable sonar rig, right? What's Tarwater looking at? Some new kind of active sonar? If it didn't have a hinky element, he wouldn't be here on site. Mines?"
    "Damn it, Clay, I can't tell you! I can tell you that if I thought it was going to hurt the animals, or anyone in the field for that matter, I wouldn't be doing the work."
    "Remember the navy's Pacific Biological Ocean Science Program? Were you in on that?"
    "No. Birds, wasn't it?"
    "Yeah, seabirds. The navy came to a bunch of field biologists with a ton of money – wanted seabirds tagged and tracked, behavior recorded, population information, habitat, everything. Everyone thought the heavens had opened up and started raining money. Thought the navy was doing some sort of secret impact study to preserve the birds. Do you know what the study was actually for?"
    "No, that was before my time, Clay."
    "They wanted to use the birds as delivery systems for biological weapons. Wanted to make sure they could predict that they'd fly to the enemy. Probably fifty scientists helped in that study."
    "But it didn't happen, Clay, did it? I mean, the data was valuable scientifically, but the weapons project didn't pan out."
    "As far as we know. That's the point. How would we know, until a seagull drops fucking anthrax on us?"
    Cliff Hyland had aged a couple of years in the few minutes they'd been standing there. "I promise, Clay, if there's any indication that Tarwater or the navy or any of the spooky guys that come around from time to time are involved with trying to sabotage you guys, I'll call you in an instant. I promise you. But I can't tell you what I'm working on, or why. I don't exactly have funding coming out my ears. If I lose this, I'm teaching freshmen about dolphin jaws. I'm not ready for that. I need to be in the field."
    Clay looked at him sideways and saw that there was real concern, maybe even a spark of desperation in Hyland's eyes. "You know, your funding might be a little easier to come by if you weren't based in Iowa. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's no ocean in Iowa."
    Hyland smiled at the old dig. "Thanks for pointing that out, Clay."
    Clay extended his hand. "You promise you'll let me know?"
    "Absolutely."
    Clay left feeling totally spent. The great head of steam he'd built up through a night of fitful sleep had wilted into exhaustion and confusion. He got in his truck and sat while sweat rolled down his neck. He watched tourists in aloha wear mill around under the great banyan tree like gift-wrapped zombies.
    * * *
    Cliff Hyland's eggs were still steaming when he returned to the table.
    Tarwater looked up from his own breakfast and moved his snow-white hat away from Hyland's plate, as if the rumpled scientist might splash yolk over the gold anchors in a fit of disorganized eating. "Everything all right?"
    The young woman at the table fidgeted and tried to look invisible.
    "Clay's still a little shaken up. Understandably. He and Nathan Quinn have been working together a long time."
    "Lucky they made it this long without self-destructing," Tarwater said. "Slipshod as they run that operation. You see that kid that works for them? Not worth grinding up for chum."
    Cliff Hyland dropped his fork in his plate. "Nathan Quinn was one of the most intuitively brilliant biologists in the field.