Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

he made his first break for the back orifice. He'd nearly made it, too. Had dived at it just like he'd seen the whaley boys do, except that only one arm had gone through, and he ended up stuck to the floor of the whale, his face against the rubbery skin, his hand trailing out in the cold ocean.
    "Well, that was phenomenally stupid," said Poynter.
    "I think I've dislocated my shoulder," Nate said.
    "I should leave you there. Maybe a remora or two will latch on to your hand and teach you a lesson."
    "Or a cookie-cutter shark," said Poe. "Nasty bastards." The whaley boys turned in their seats and snickered, bobbing their heads and blowing the occasional raspberry, which could inflict considerable moisture off a four-inch-wide tongue. Evidently Quinn was a cetacean laugh riot. He'd always suspected that, actually.
    Poynter got down on his hands and knees and looked Nate in the eye. "While you're down there, I'd like you to think on what might have happened if you'd been successful at launching yourself through that orifice. First, we're at – Skippy, what's the depth?" Skippy chirped and clicked a number of times. "A hundred and fifty feet. Beyond the fact that you'd probably have blown out your eardrums almost immediately, you might think on how you were going to get to the surface on one breath of air. And should you have gotten to the surface, what were you going to do then? We're five hundred miles from the nearest land."
    "I hadn't worked out the whole plan," Nate said.
    "So, actually, I might be looking at success, right? You just wanted to test the outside water temperature?"
    "Sure," said Nate, thinking it might be best to stay agreeable.
    "Can you feel your hand?"
    "It's a little chilly, but, yes."
    "Oh, good."
    And so they'd left him there a couple of hours, his hand and about six inches of his arm hanging out in the open sea as the whale ship swam along, and when they finally pulled him up, they put him in his seat and kept him restrained except to eat and go to the bathroom. He'd tried to relax and observe – learn what he could – but then a few minutes ago these waves of uneasiness had started hitting him. "He's got the sonic willies," said Poe.
    Poynter looked away from Skippy's console. "It's the subsonics, Doc. You're feeling the sound waves even though you can't hear them. We've been communicating with the blue for about ten minutes now."
    "You might have said something."
    "I just did."
    "Couple of hours you'll be in the blue, Doc. You can stand up again, walk around a little. Have some privacy."
    "So you're communicating with it in low-frequency sound?"
    "Yep. Just like you thought, Doc, there was meaning in the call."
    "Yeah, but I didn't think this, that there were guys, and guylike things, riding about inside whales. How in the hell can this be happening? How can I not know about this?"
    "So you're giving up on the being-dead strategy?" asked Poe.
    "What is it? Space aliens?"
    Poynter unbuttoned his shirt and showed some chest hair. "Do I look like a space alien?"
    "Well, no, but them." Nate nodded toward the whaley boys. They looked at each other and snickered, a sort of wheezing laughter coming from their blowholes, paused, looked back at Nate, then snickered some more.
    "Maybe on their planet sentient life evolved from whales rather than apes," Quinn continued. "I can see how they might have landed here, deployed these whale ships, and kept under the radar of human detection while they looked around. I mean, man obviously isn't the most peaceful of creatures."
    "That work for you, Doc?" asked Poynter.
    "On their planet they developed an organically based technology, rather than one based on combustion and manipulation of minerals like ours."
    "Oh, that is good," said Poe.
    "He's on a roll," said Poynter. "Unraveling the mystery, he is."
    Skippy and Scooter nodded to each other and grinned.
    "So that's it? This ship is extraterrestrial?" Quinn felt the small victory rush that one gets from proving a hypothesis – even one as bizarre as space aliens riding in whale ships.
    "Sure," said Poe, "that works for me. You, Cap?"
    "Yeah, moon men, that's what you guys are," Poynter said to the whaley boys.
    "Meep," said Scooter.
    And in a high, squeaky, little-girl voice, Skippy croaked, "Phone home."
    The whaley boys gave each other a high four and collapsed into fits of hysterical wheezing.
    "What did he say?" Nate nearly snapped his neck trying to turn around against the restraints. "They can