Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

And Clay Demodocus may very well be the best underwater photographer in the world, certainly when it comes to cetaceans. You have no right."
    "The world turns, Doc. Yesterday's alphas are today's betas. Losers lose. Isn't that what you biologists teach?"
    Cliff Hyland came very close to burying a fork in Tarwater's tanned forehead, but instead he slowly climbed to his feet. "I need to use the restroom. Excuse me."
    As he walked away, Hyland could hear Tarwater lecturing the junior researcher on how the strong survive. Cliff dug his mobile phone out of the pocket of his safari shirt and began scrolling through the numbers.
    * * *
    Clay was just dozing off in the driver's seat when his mobile trilled. Without looking at the display, he figured it was Clair checking up on him. "Go, baby."
    "Clay, it's Cliff Hyland."
    "Cliff? What's up?"
    "You've got to keep this under your hat, Clay. It's my ass."
    "I got you. What is it, Cliff?"
    "It's a torpedo range. We're doing site studies for a torpedo test range."
    "Not in the sanctuary?"
    "Right in the middle of the sanctuary."
    "Jeepers, Cliff, that's terrible. I don't know if my hat is big enough to hold that."
    "You gave me your word, Clay. What's with 'jeepers'? Who says 'jeepers'?"
    "Amy does. She's a little eccentric. Tell me more. Does the navy have divers in the water?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    Heinous Fuckery Most Foul
    "Jeepers," said Amy. She was at Quinn's computer. Streamers of digital videotape were festooned across her lap and over the desk.
    "Oh, that's heinous fuckery most foul," said Kona. He was perched on the high stool behind Amy and actually appeared to be trying to learn something when Clay came in.
    "They've been simulating explosions on the lee of Kahoolawe with a big towable array of underwater speakers, measuring the levels. The speaker array is what's in that big case we've seen on their boat."
    "We have a couple of explosions on the singer tapes, but distant," Amy said. "Nate thought it might be naval exercises out at sea."
    "Speaking of tapes?" Clay picked up a strand of tape. "This isn't my rebreather footage, is it?"
    "I'm sorry, Clay. I didn't get the video, but I pulled the audio off before this happened. Want to see the spectrograph?"
    Kona asked, "You think those voices in the water be navy divers?"
    Clay looked at Amy, raised an eyebrow.
    "He wanted to learn."
    "Cliff says there're no divers in the water, that his operation is it, militarily, in the sanctuary anyway. But he might not even know."
    Amy wadded up the videotape and chucked the resulting bird's nest into the wastebasket. "How can they do that, Clay? How can they put a torpedo range in the middle of the humpback sanctuary? It's not like people won't notice."
    "Yeah, she's a big ocean. Why here?" Kona said.
    "I have no idea. Maybe they don't want there to be any mistake about whose waters they're blowing up ordnance in. If they blow them up in between a bunch of American islands, maybe there can't be any misinterpretation about what they're doing."
    "Lost now," Kona said. "Does not compute. Danger. Danger. Control room needs herb." The Rastafarian had affected an accent that seemed an excellent approximation of how a stoned robot might sound.
    "Submarine warfare is all about hide and seek with other submarines," Clay said. "The crews are autonomous when they're underwater. They make decisions on whether they're being attacked and whether to defend. Maybe if the navy just shot torpedoes off in the middle of the open sea, someone might misinterpret the action as an attack. It's damn unlikely that a Russian sub is going to be cruising up to Wailea for brunch and misinterpret an attack."
    "They can't do that," Amy said. "They can't let them set off high explosives around the mothers and calves. It's just insane."
    "They'll go deep and say it doesn't bother them. The navy will guarantee they won't blow up anything shallower than, say, four hundred feet. The humpbacks don't dive that deep in this channel."
    "Yes they do," Amy said.
    "No they don't," Clay said.
    "Yes they do."
    "There's no data on that, Amy. That's specifically what Cliff Hyland asked me about. He wanted to know if we were doing any research on the depth of humpback dives. Said that it would be the only thing the navy would care about."
    Amy stood up and shoved the wheeled desk chair away. It bounced off Kona's shins, causing him to wince. "Ease on up, sistah."
    "Amy, this wasn't my idea," Clay said. "I'm just telling you what