Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 33

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREECould Be Worse,Could Be Dog ageEvidently, said Nate, w present(predicate) we sganged up was putting to death the whales.No steering, said Amy.We tipped our hand. slightly being meme machines, right?Yeah. Are you sure youre not spying for him?Nope. sire it aside how you laughingstock express? When I was spying, did I ever touch you hither?No. No, you did not.And did I ever let you touch me here? She go his hand for him.No, you did not. Especi alin c erstrty not in public.Yeah, we should probably go covering fire to your place.She had called him on his buzzy, bug-winged speaky affair, or so which he made a mental personal line of credit to ask what the name of it was at his world-class convenience. Theyd met for coffee at a dungville caf that catered to whaley boys. Shed assured him that no one would notice them, and, strangely enough, the whaley boys had completely neglected them. Maybe he was no longer news.If they say any intimacy, Ill simply tel l them that were having sex, Amy said.But you said you didnt think I should tell the Colonel Id fancyn you.Yeah, but that was in advance he let you in on his secret plan.Right.Although Im a diminished ashamed of how old you are. We should talk round that.So should I get my hand?Yeah, big money and a inadequate to the right.Lets head rearward to my place. lynchpin at his apartment, standing in the kitchen, he said, Hey, what do you call this thing? He pointed to that thing.The phone.No kidding? He nodded as if hed kn hold that all along. So where were we?Killing whales was where we went wrong?Yes.Or how old you are?So, he continued, killing whales was a big mistake.Which you knew, because thats what made you postulate to become a plodding in the first place.No, thats not right. Scuse me, action nerd.You want to know how I got into this field, sincerely?No. I mean, sure. You can tell me about the desolation of the homosexual public aliveness later.You wee to promise yo u wont laugh.Of course. She looked incredibly sincere.My sophomore course at the University of Sasketchewan in the Sticks Youre kidding.Its a hefty school. You promised you wouldnt laugh.Oh, you meant eventide this early in the story Im not supposed to laugh? Sorry.I mean, Im sure it doesnt sum of money up to Gooville Community College Not fair.Home of the Gooville Fighting Loogies Okay, you made your point. give thanks you. So a fri finish up and I decided that were tone ending to go to break out of our boring small-college lives, we were going to take some risks, we were going to Talk to a girl?No. We decided to drive all the way to Florida for spring break bonny exchangeable American kids, where we would thence drink beer, get sunburned, and then talk to a girl girls.So you went.Took al some a week to get there, but yes, we drove in his dads Vista Cruiser station wagon. And I did indeed meet a girl. In Fort Lauderdale. A girl from Fort Lauderdale. And I talked to her.You stinky little tramp. Like, Hows it going, eh? Among other things. We conversed. And so she invited me to go see a manatee.He shoots He scoresBut I opinion it was an American way of saying matinee. I thought we were going to a movie. You know, you dont think about those things as being real.But it was.She did volunteer work for a return hospital for injured marine mammals, mostly manatees that had been hit by boats. They had a bottlenose dolphin, too. We stayed there for hours, caring for the animals, her teaching me about them. I was hooked. I hadnt even picked my nethergrad major, but as soon as I got back to school, I went for biology, and Ive been studying marine mammals ever since.Oh, my God, you didnt get laid, did you?I launch a passion for life. I found something that drives me.I cant take I fell for such a pathetic loser.Hey, Im pretty good at this whale stuff. Im respected in my field.But youre dead.Yeah, before then, I mean. Hey, did you say that you fell f or me?I said I fell for a pathetic loser, if the shoe fitsHe kissed her. She kissed him back. That went on for a while. They both found it excellent. Then they stopped.You said you wanted to talk about our age difference, Nate said, because he always picked women who broke his heart, and, figuring that his heart was now into this whole thing far enough to be broken, he wanted to get on with it.Yeah, we probably should. Maybe we should sit down.Couch?No, at the table. You might want a drink.No, Im okay. Yep, heartbreak, he thought. They sat.So, she said, curling her legs up under her, sitting like a little kid, making him feel ever more the creepy-crawly old guy leching on the materialisation girl, you know that the whaley boys have been twist muckle in here from stationwrecks and plane crashes for years, right?Thats what Cielle said.She wants you, I can tell, but thats beside the point. Do you know that they pulled whole crews off sunken submarines, positive theyve yanked asdi c guys out of port for years?I didnt know that.Doesnt matter, has nought to do with what Im telling you. So you realize that some people who have been lost at sea, like the crew of the American sub Scorpion that sank back in 67, real ended up here?Okay. That makes sense. More of the Goo looking out for itself. Gaining knowledge.Yeah, but thats not the point. I mean, those guys assistanceed put together a lot of the technology you saw on the whale ship, the human technology, but that doesnt matter. The important part is that the world thinks that the crew of the Scorpion is at the lav of the Atlantic Ocean, even though theyre not. Got it?Okay, Nate said, genuinely slowly, the way he had talk to the Colonel when he was losing the point much the way he was waving in the conversational wind right now.And you realize that when I applied with you and mud, that I gave my real name, which is Amy Earhart, and that Amy is short for Amelia?Oh, my God, Nate said.Ha Amy said.The ship br oker found Clays ship in the Philippines, in Manila Harbor. Clay bought it based on faxed photographs, a spec sheet, and a recent hull certification for solely under $2 million of the Old Broads money. It was a 180-foot-long U.S. Coast Guard fisheries patrol vessel built in the late fifties. It had been refitted several times since then, once in the seventies for fishing, once in the eighties for ocean survey, and at farthest in the mid-nineties as a live-aboard dive boat for the possibility tourist. It had plenty of comfortable cabins as well as compressors, dive platforms, and cranes to salary increase and lower support vessels onto the rear deck, although, except for the lifeboats, it came with no support craft. Clay thought they could use the rear deck as a helicopter-landing pad, even if there wasnt a budget for a helicopter, but you know psyche with a helicopter might want to land there, and it helped no end to have a big H painted on the deck. at that place was a budget for painting a big H. The ship had efficient, if not quite state-of-the-art, navigation equipment, radar, autopilot, and some old but functioning sonar arrays left over from its geezerhood as a fishing ship. It had equate twelve-hundred-horsepower diesel engines and could distill up to twenty tons of freshwater a day for the crew and passengers. There were cabins and support for forty. It was also rated a class-three icebreaker, which was a feature that Clay hoped they wouldnt have to test. He authentically didnt like wintry water.Through another broker Clay hired the crew of disco biscuit men, sight unseen, right off the docks of Manila a group of brothers, cousins, and uncles with the last name of Mangabay, among whom the broker guaranteed that there were no murderers, or at to the lowest degree no convicted murderers, and only petty thieves. The eldest uncle, Ray Mangabay, who would be Clays first mate, would sail the ship to Honolulu, where Clay would meet them.He s going to be cause my ship, Clay said to Clair after hed gotten the news that he had a crew and a first mate.You have to let your ship go, Clay, Clair said. If he sinks it, it wasnt really yours.But its my ship.What are you going to call it?He was thought process about the Intrepid or the Merciless or some other big-dick, blow-shit-up kindhearted of name. He was thinking about Loyal or Relentless or the Never Surrender, because he was determined now to find his friend, and he didnt forefront putting that right on the bow. Well, I was thinking about You were thinking deeply about it, werent you? Clair interrupted.Yes, I thought Id call her the Beautiful Clair. scarcely the Clair will be fine, baby. You dont want the bow to look busy.Right. The Clair. Strangely enough, on second thought, that pretty much encompassed Intrepid, Merciless, Relentless, and Loyal. Plus, it had the underlying meaning of keeper of the booty, which was material body of a bonus in a ship name, he thoug ht. Yeah, thats a good name for her.How long before she gets here?Two weeks. Shes not fast. Twelve knots cruising. If we have somewhere to go, Ill send the ship directly there and meet it at a port along the way.Well, now that shes called the Clair, I hope they bring her in safe.My ship, Clay said anxiously.So, Nate said, Youre what, in your nineties? A hundred?Dont look it, do I? Amy posed a coquettish half curtsy with a Betty Boop bump at the end. Indeed, it would have been a spry move for a woman in her nineties.Nate was really glad he was sitting down, but he missed the protagonist he would have had of needing to sit down.Your whole attraction was based on my age, wasnt it? She sat across from him. You were working out your male menopause on the fantasy of my young body. Somehow you were going to try to recapture your youth. once again youd feel like more than a footnote to humanity. Youd be virile and vital and relevant and all alpha male, just because a younger and decide dly luscious, I might add woman had chosen you, right?Nuh-uh, Nate said. She was wrong, right?Wow, Nate, were you on the debate team at wapiti Dirt U? I mean, your talent Sasketchewan in the Sticks, he corrected.So the age thing? Its a problem?Youre like a hundred. My nan isnt even a hundred, and shes dead.No, Im not really that old. She grinned and reached across the table, took his hand. Its okay, Nate. Im not Amelia Earhart.Youre not? Nate felt his lungs expand, as if a steel band around his federal agency had broken. Hed been taking tiny yip breaths, but now oxygen was move to his brain. Funny, he was pretty sure that none of the other women hed been with had been Amelia Earhart either, but he didnt remember feeling quite so relieved about it before. Well, I should have known. I mean, you dont look anything like the pictures. No goggles.I was just messin with you. Im her daughter. HaStop it This isnt funny, Amy. If youre try to make a point, youve made it. Yes, youre an loving young woman, and maybe your youths a part of why Im attracted to you, but thats just biology. You cant blame me for that. I didnt make a move on you, I didnt harass you when we were working together. I treated you exactly as I would have treated any research assistant, except maybe you got remote with more because I liked you. You cant ridicule me for responding to you sexually down here when you came on to me. The rules had changed.Im not ridiculing you. Amelia Earhart really is my mother.Stop it.You want to meet her?Nate searched her tone for signs of a grin or a tremble in her throat that might indicate the rise of an Amy Ha Nothing there, just that little bit of sweetness that she usually tried to hide.So somehow, living down here, you havent aged. Your mother?We age, but not like on the surface. I was born(p) in 1940. Im about the same number of years fourth-year than you than you were older than me a half hour ago kinda sorta. You going to blow out of the wa ter me?Its so hard to believe. wherefore, after youve seen all this? Youve seen what the Goo can do. Why is it so hard to believe that Im sixty-four?Well, for one, youre so immature.Shut up. Im young at heart.But for a second there I was so sure we were blessed. Nate rubbed his temples trying to stretch them, maybe to make his head big to hold the whole concept of Amys being sixty-four.No, its okay, we just havent gotten to that yet. Were still doomed.Oh, thank goodness, Nate said. I was worried.Later, after they had pushed the world away for a while, made tell apart and napped in each others arms, Amy made a move to commencement exercise another round, and Nate awoke to an immediate and uncertain anxiety.Are we really doomed? he asked.Oh, goddamn it Nate She was straddling him, so she was able to get a good mop up before thumping him hard in the chest with her fist. Thats just un-fucking-professionalNate thought about how the praying mantis female will sometimes bite off the males head during copulation and how the males body continues to mate until the act is finished.Sorry, he said.She turn off him and stared up at dim strips of green luminescence on the ceiling. Its okay. I didnt mean to bite your head off.Pardon?Yes, were probably doomed. Were doomed for the same reason that I look the way I do, that most of the Goos look much younger than we really are. Turn a element on, you age turn it off, you dont. Ive even seen some people down here who seem to get younger. Flip a switch, pancreatic cancer at age twenty-two flip another, you can smoke four packs a day and live to be a hundred. If the Goo thinks that the human career is a danger to it, it just has to flip a switch, pick a gene, make a virus, and the human race would blink out. I hadnt really thought about it as a threat before. My whole life Ive worked for the Goo. Service, you know? It takes care of us. Its the source.He didnt know what to say. Did he need to actually take the Colonels request for help seriously? Did he need to help find a way to kill this amazing creature in order to save his own species? Amy, I dont know what to do. Two days ago I just wanted to get out of here. forthwith? The Colonel and you both said I was lucky to be alive. Has the Goo killed people who were close to finding out about it?Honestly, I dont know. Ive never seen it or heard of it happening, but I we each just do our own part down here. We dont ask a lot of questions. Not because were told not to or anything its just that you can live a long time without asking yourself big questions when your needs are looked after. For the first time Nate could see the experience of years in Amys face, marked not by wrinkles but by a shadow in her eyes.Im asking, he said.Do I think the Goo is ethically capable of killing the human race?I guess.I dont even know if the Goo has ethics, Nate. According to the Colonel, its just a vehicle for genes and were just vehicles for memes and natur e says that a head-on bang is inevitable. What if its not? This battle has supposedly gone on for millions of years, and now the Colonel wants to long suit an endgame? What I do know is that youve got to talk him out of trying to kill it.But hes your leader.Yeah, but he didnt tell any of us about this. I think hes doubting his own judgment. So am I.But you said that it could kill everyone on the planet at the snatch up of a switch.Yeah. She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. You hungry? Im hungry.I could eat.