Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

particularly pertinent right now. Besides, the kid had been right. "How'd you know? I didn't exactly put out a press release."
    "We have ways," said Nuсez, trying not to sound spooky but failing. This evidently amused the whaley boy at the console and the two pilots no end, and they nearly wheezed themselves out of their seats.
    "Oh, fuck you guys," said Nuсez. "It's not like you guys are a bunch of geniuses."
    "And you guys were the nightwalkers that Tako Man was talking about," Nate said to the pilots. "You guys sank Clay's boat."
    The pilots raised their arms over their heads in a menacing scary-monster pose, then bared their teeth and made some fake growling noises, then collapsed into what Nate was starting to think of as whale giggles. The whaley boy at the console started clapping and laughing as well.
    "Franklin! We're not done here. Can we get the interface back?"
    Franklin, obviously the whaley boy who had been working the console, slumped and put his hand back in the socket. "Sorry," came a tiny voice from his blowhole.
    "Bitch," came another tiny voice from one of the pilots, followed by whaley snickering.
    "Let's send one more time. I want base to know we'll be there in the morning," Nuсez said.
    "Morale's not a problem, then?" asked Nate, grinning at Nuсez's loss of temper.
    "Oh, they're like fucking children," Nuсez said. "They're like dolphins: You dump them in the middle of the ocean with a red ball and they'll just play all day long, stopping only long enough to eat and screw. I'm telling you, it's like baby-sitting a bunch of horny toddlers."
    Franklin squeaked and clicked a response, and this time Tim and Jane joined in the laughter with the whaley boys.
    "What? What?" asked Nate.
    "I do not just need to get laid!" shouted Nuсez. "Jane, you got this?"
    "Sure," said the blonde.
    "I'm going to quarters." She left the bridge to the snickering of the whaley boys.
    Tim looked back at Nate and nodded toward the sonar screen and headset that Nuсez had vacated. "Want to stand in?"
    "I'm a prisoner," said Nate.
    "Yeah, but in a nice way," said Jane.
    That was true. Everyone since he'd come on board had been very kind to him, seeing to his every need, even some he didn't want seen to. He didn't feel like a prisoner. Nate wasn't sure that he wasn't experiencing the Helsinki syndrome, where you sympathized with your captors – or was that the Stockholm syndrome? Yeah, the Helsinki syndrome had something to do with hair loss. It was definitely the Stockholm syndrome.
    He stepped up to the sonar screen and put on the headset. Immediately he heard the distant song of a humpback. He looked at Tim, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, See.
    "So tell me," Nate said, "what's the singing mean?" It was worth a shot.
    "We were just going to ask you," said Jane.
    "Swell," said Nate. Suddenly he didn't feel so well. After all this, even people who traveled inside whales didn't know what the song meant?
    "Are you all right, Nate?" Jane asked. "You don't look so good."
    "I think I have Stockholm syndrome."
    "Don't be silly," said Tim. "You've got plenty of hair."
    "You want some Pepto?" asked Jane, the ship's doctor.
    Yes, he thought, escape would seem a priority. He was pretty sure that if he didn't get away, he was going to snap and kill some folks, or at least be incredibly stern with them.
    Funny, he thought, how your priorities could change with circumstances. You go along for the greater part of your life thinking you want something – to understand the humpback song, for instance. So you pursue that with dogged single-mindedness at the expense of everything else in your life, only to be distracted into thinking maybe you want something in addition to that – Amy, for instance. And that becomes a diversion up until the time when circumstances make you realize what it is you really want, and that is – strangely enough – to get the fuck out of a whale. Funny, Nate thought.
    * * *
    "Settle down, Kona," Clair said, dropping her purse by the door, "I don't have a spoon."
    Clay jumped off Margaret's lap. He and Kona watched as Clair crossed the room and exchanged hugs with Margaret and Libby, lingering a bit while hugging Libby and winking over her shoulder at Clay.
    "So nice to see you guys," Clair said.
    "I'm not going out to get the pizza, mon. No way," said Kona, still looking a bit terrified.
    "What are you guys doing?" Clair asked.
    And so Margaret took it upon herself to explain what they had