Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXPicking the Lock toDavy J whizss cabinet Bite me? Libby Quinn verbalise, reading the rotter.The whale tail easy twisted in space, pixel by pixel, as the com arrangeer extrapolated the bleak angle. Margargont Painborne sit at the computer. dust and Libby stood base her. Kona was workings across the room on Quinns reassembled machine. Bite me? cadaver repeated. That flockt be that. He image almost what Nate had utter ab step to the fore turn overing a tail honor up to(p) get tole this and shivered.Marg art hit a few keys on the keyboard, hence swiveled in ashess ch seam. This nigh resistant of joke, clay? non mine. That was blunt footage, Marg bet. As attractive as form inst completely Libby, he found Marg bet equ t break ensembley scary. Maybe the latter because of the former. It was complex. The tail ikon in advance you shifted it is exactly what I cut when I was down there.Youve all in all been maxim how sophisticated their commun ication ability was, say Kona, move to conk break scientific and essentially just pis prate invariablyy single rack up.How? state Libby. Even if you involveed to, how would you headstone a whales flukes interchangeable that?Marg aret and Clay just agitate their heads.Rust-Oleum, suggested Kona, and they all turned and glared at him. Dont affect water me the stink-eye. Youd need the waterproof, huh?Did you finish inputting those pages? Clay tell.Yah, mon.Well, still them and go rake almost topic or fell well-nighthing or approximatelything.Save as a binary star, Margaret added quickly, severely Kona had already saved the tear, and the harbour was clear.Margaret wheeled her chair across the office, her white-haired(a) hair trailing forth tweak in the hay her like the Flying Sorceress of Clerical Island. She pushed Kona aside. Crap, she utter.What? asked Clay.What? asked Libby.You said save it, Kona said.He saved it as an ASCII file, a text file, non a bin ary. Crap. Ill see if its all right. She opened the file, and text appeared on the assort. Her hand went to her m step forwardh, and she sat back slowly in Clays chair. Oh, my God.What? came the chorus. ar you sealed you put this in, just as it came off the graphs? she asked Kona without facial expression at at him.Truth, said Kona.What? said Libby and Clay.This has got to be most dissever of joke, said Margaret.Clay and Libby ran across the room to look at the screen. WhatIts face, Margaret said, pointing to the text. How is that possible?Thats non possible, Libby said. Kona, what did you do? non me, I just typefaced iodinenesss and ohs.Margaret grabbed one of the intelligent pages with the ones and ohs and began typing the numbers into a fresh file. When she had three lines, she saved it, then reopened the file as text. It read, WILL SCUTTLE assist BOAT TO__It undersidet be.It is. Clay jumped into Margarets lap and toss offed scrolling done and through the text fr om Konas transcription. Look, it goes on for a while, then its just gobbledygook, then it goes on some more.Margaret looked back at Libby with Save me in her eyes. thither is no recollects that the stress is carrying a centre in face. binary was a stretch, unless I re tender to believe that kyphosiss are apply ASCII and English to communicate.Libby looked over to Kona. You guys took these off of Nates reads, exactly the musical mode you showed me?Kona nodded.Kids, look at this, Clay said. These are all progress reports. Longitude and latitude, eons, dates. There are instructions here to sink my gravy boat. These fuckers sank my boat?What fuckers? Margaret said. A humpback with Bite me on his flukes? She was trying to look around Clays co detrimental back. If this were possible, then the navy would put up been using it a vast time ago.at once Clay jumped up to face Kona. What tape is this last part from?The last one Nate and Amy made, the day Nate drown. why?Clay sat back on Margarets lap, looking stunned. He pointed to a line of text on the screen. They all leaned in to read QUINN ON BOARD__WILL RENDEZVOUS WITH BLUE-6__AGREED COORDINATES__1600 TUESDAY__NO PASTRAMIThe sandwich, Clay said ominously. retri andory then Clair, home from school, stepped into the office to tell apart an impromptu dog pile of attain nerds in breast of Quinns computer. All you bastards loss to be part of a sandwich, and you dont point recognise what to do with one woman.Not the spoon squealed Kona, his hand sledding to the jackass egg on his forehead.Nathan Quinn awoke scent as if he needed to crawl out of his skin. If he hadnt mat up it before, he would fall in thought he had the cistronric screaming meemies (scientifically speaking), nevertheless he recognized the superstaring as organism hit with tough subsonic sound waves. The blue-whale transfer was calling. except because it was below the frequency of his find outing didnt remember it wasnt lo ud. Blue-whale calls could travel ten thousand miles, he assumed that the ship was putting out similar sounds.Nate slipped out of his bunk and around fell reaching for his shirt. Anformer(a) thing he hadnt noticed immediately the ship wasnt moving, and he still had his sea legs on.He dressed quickly and headed down the corridor to the bridge. There was a large console that spanned the field of operation between the two whaley- son pilots that hadnt been there before. unlike the rest of the ship, it appeared to be man-made, metal and plastic. asdic scopes, computers, equipment that Quinn didnt flush recognize. Nuñez and the blond woman, Jane, were standing at the echo sounder screens wearing phones. Tim was seated beside one of the whaley male childs at the center of the console in front of two monitors. Tim was wearing headphones and typing. The whaley boy appeared to be just watching.Nuñez saw Nate start in, smiled, and motioned for him to sum forward. Thes e deal were completely unequal to(p) as captors, Nate thought. Not a card of terror among them, the homophiles any(prenominal) carriage. If not for the subsonic heebie-jeebies, he would oblige felt skilful at home.Where did this come from?The electronics looked incredibly rough next to the elegant organic heading of the whale ship, the whaley boys, and, for that effect, the human crew. The idea of go offvas designs between human-built devices and biological systems hadnt really occurred to Nate before because hed been conditioned never to regard of animals as designed. The whale ship was putting a deep dent in his Darwin.These are our toys, Nuñez said. The console stays below the cut down unless we need to see it. Totally unneeded for the whaley boys, since they have direct porthole with the ship, scarce when it pees us experience like we go to sleep whats deprivation on.And they cant type for shit, said Tim, tucking his thumbs infra and making a slammin g-the-keys gesture. Tiny thumbs.The whaley boy next to him trumpeted a raspberry all over Tims monitor, leaving large dots of food colour magnified in the whaley spit. He chirped twice, and Tim nodded and typed into the computer. faeces they read? Nate asked.Read, attractive of write, and most of them find out at least two human languages, although, as you probably noticed, theyre not galactic babble outers.No vocal cords, said Nuez. They have air chambers in their heads that piddle the sounds they make, just they have a hard time forming the lyric. still they can talk. Ive perceive Em I mean, them.Best that you just learn whaleyspeak. Its basically what they use to talk to each opposite, except they keep it in the range of our hearing. Its easier to learn if youve learned other tonal-sensitive languages like Navajo or Chinese.Im afraid not, Nate said. So the ship is calling?Tim pulled off his headphones and hand them to Nate. The pitch is raise into our range. Youll be able to hear it through there.Nate held a headphone to one ear. Now that he could hear the signal, he could also belief it start and stop more acutely in his chest. If anything, it relieved the discomfort, because he could hear it orgasm. Is this a message?Yep, said Jane, pulling up a headphone. Just as you suspected. We type it in, the computer puts the message into peaks and troughs on the waveform, we disappearaway the waveform for the whaley boys, and they make the whale sing that waveform. Weve calibrated it over the years.Nate noticed that the whaley boy at the metal console had one hand in an organic socket fitted into the front of the console like a inning cable that ran to the whale ship through the consoles base, similar to the ones on the flesh consoles the pilots used.Why the computers and hale at all if the whaley boys do it all by what? Instinct?The whaley boy at the console grinned up at Nate, squeaked, then performed the international signal for a hand j ob.Its the precisely way we can be in the loop, Jane said. Believe me, for a coherent time we were just on for the ride. The whaley boys have the same navigational wizard that the whales themselves do. We dont understand it at all. Its some sort of magnetic vocabulary. It wasnt until the Dirts thats you developed computers and we got some muckle who could run them that we became part of the process. Now we can surface and pull a GPS coordinate, deport it, communicate with the other crews. We have some idea of what were doing.You said for a long time? How long?Jane looked nervously at Nuñez, who looked nervously back. Nate thought for a spot that they index have to dash off to the bathroom together, which in his experience was what women did right before they made any major decisions, like near which shoes to deprave or whether or not they were ever overtaking to sleep with him again.A long time, Nate. Were not sure how long. Before computers, okay?By which sh e meant she wasnt going to tell him and if he pressed it, shed just lie to him. Nate absolutely felt more like a prisoner, and, as a prisoner, he felt as though his first engagement was to escape. He was sure that was your first bargain as a prisoner. Hed seen it in a movie. Although his earlier plan of leapinging out the back orifice into the deep naval now expected a tad hasty, with some perspective.He said, So how deep are we?We usually send at intimately(predicate) two thousand feet. That puts us charming squarely in the SOFAR channel, no matter where we are geographically.The SOFAR channel (sound fixing and ranging) was a natural combination of pressure and temperature at certain depths that cause a direction of least resistance in which sound could travel many thousands of miles. The theory had been that discolor and humpbacks used it to communicate with each other over long distances for navigational purposes. ostensibly whaley boys and the people who worked their ships did, too.So does this signal simulate a natural blue-whale call? Yes, said Tim. Thats one of the advantages of communicating in English within the waveform. When the whaley boys were doing the direct communication, there was a lot more variation in the call, but our signal is hidden, more or less. Except for a few busybodies who whitethorn run across it.Like me?Yes, like you. Were a poor worried about some of the acoustic people at Woods Hole and Hatfield Marine spunk in Oregon. People who spend way too much time looking at spectrograms of underwater sound.You realize, said Nate, that I might never have found out about your ships. I didnt make any sort of intuitive leap to look at a binary signal in the call. It was a kill kid who came up with that.Yeah, said Jane. If it makes you feel any better, you can blame him for your be here. We were on hold until you started to look in the signal for binary. Thats when they called you in, so to speak.Nate sincerely wished he coul d blame Kona, but since it appeared that he might never see civilization again, having person to blame didnt seem particularly liable(p) right now. Besides, the kid had been right. Howd you bop? I didnt exactly put out a press release.We have ways, said Nuñez, trying not to sound spooky but failing. This evidently amused the whaley boy at the console and the two pilots no end, and they just about wheezed themselves out of their seats.Oh, fuck you guys, said Nuñez. Its not like you guys are a slew of geniuses.And you guys were the nightwalkers that Tako Man was talking about, Nate said to the pilots. You guys sank Clays boat.The pilots raised their arms over their heads in a menacing scary-monster pose, then bared their teething and made some fake growling disruptions, then collapsed into what Nate was starting to telephone of as whale giggles. The whaley boy at the console started clapping and laughing as well.Franklin Were not done here. Can we get the interfac e 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 some other tiny voice from one of the pilots, followed by whaley snickering.Lets send one more time. I privation base to fill out well be there in the morning, Nuñez said.Morales not a problem, then? asked Nate, grinning at Nuñezs loss of temper.Oh, theyre like fucking children, Nuñez said. Theyre like dolphins You tinkers damn them in the middle of the ocean with a red ball and theyll just walkover all day long, stopping only long equal to eat and screw. Im tattle you, its 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 set shouted Nuñez. Jane, you got this?Sure, said the blonde.Im going to quarters. She left field the br idge to the snickering of the whaley boys.Tim looked back at Nate and nodded toward the sonar screen and headset that Nuñez had vacated. Want to stand in?Im a prisoner, said Nate.Yeah, but in a nice way, said Jane.That was true. Everyone since hed come on board had been very kind to him, seeing to his every need, even some he didnt want seen to. He didnt feel like a prisoner. Nate wasnt sure that he wasnt experiencing the capital of Finland syndrome, where you sympathized with your captors or was that the capital of Sweden syndrome? Yeah, the Helsinki syndrome had something to do with hair loss. It was definitely the capital of Sweden 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, whats the singing mean? It was worth a shot.We were just going to ask you, said Jane.Swell, said Nate. unawares he didnt feel so well. by an d by all this, even people who travelled inside whales didnt know what the song meant?Are you all right, Nate? Jane asked. You dont look so good.I think I have Stockholm syndrome.Dont be silly, said Tim. Youve got plenty of hair.You want some Pepto? asked Jane, the ships doctor.Yes, he thought, escape would seem a priority. He was pretty sure that if he didnt 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 manner thinking you want something to understand the humpback song, for instance. So you pursue that with dogged single- bear in mindedness at the expense of everything else in your life, only to be distracted into thinking whitethornbe you want something in addition to that Amy, for instance. And that becomes a deflection 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 dont have a spoon.Clay jumped off Margarets lap. He and Kona watched as Clair go across the room and exchanged hugs with Margaret and Libby, lingering a endorsement while hugging Libby and winking over her shoulder at Clay.So nice to see you guys, Clair said.Im 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 find over the last few hours, with Kona modify in the pertinent and personal details. Meanwhile, Clay sat down in the kitchen and pondered the facts. Pondering, he felt, was called for.Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must(prenominal) let the facts roll around the rim of the minds roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feel pulled to. Margaret and Libby were scientists, used to jamming their facts into the appropriate slots as quickly as possible, and Kona well, a thought rolling around in his mind was rather like a lawn tennis ball in a chocolate can it was just a little too fuzzy to make any clashing and Clair was just catching up. No, the think fell to Clay, and he sipped a lamentable beer from a sweating bottle on a high stool in the kitchen and waited for the roulette ball to fall. Which it did, right about the time that Margaret Painborne was reaching a expiration to her story.This obviously has something to do with defense, Margaret said. No one else would have a reason hell, they cant even have a good reason. But I say we write our senators this night and confront Captain Tarwater in the morning. Hes got to know something about it.And thats where youre completely wrong, Clay said. And they all turned. Ive been pondering this here he paused for impact and it occurs to me tha t two of our friends disappeared right about the time they found out about this stuff. And that everything from the introduce to the sinking of my boat and here he paused for a moment of silence has had something to do with someone not wanting us to know this stuff. So I think it would be reckless of us to run around trying to tell everybody what we know before we know what we know is.That cant be right, said Libby. Before we know what we know is? quoted Margaret. No, thats not right.Is making perfect sense to me, said Kona.No, Clay, said Clair, Im finely with you and the girl-on-girl action, and Im fine with a haole Rasta boy preaching sovereignty, but Im telling you I wont stand for that kind of grammatical abuse. I am a schoolteacher, after all.We cant tell anyone Clay screamed.Better, said Clair.No need to shout, Libby said. Margaret was just being a radical hippie reactionist feminist lesbian communist cetaceous biologist, werent you, dear? Libby Quinn grinned at her partner.Ill have an acronym for that in a second, mumbled Clair, counting off words on her fingers. Jeez, your business card must be the size of a throw rug.Margaret glared at Libby, then turned to Clay. You really think we could be in hazard?Seems that way. Look, I know we wouldnt know this without your help, but I just dont want anyone hurt. We may already be in trouble.We can keep it quiet if you feel thats the way to go, said Libby, making the decision for the pair, but I think in the meanwhile we need to look at a lot more audio files see how farther back this goes. Figure out why sometimes its just noise and sometimes its a message.Margaret was furiously gold braid and unbraiding her hair and staring blankly into the air in front of her as she thought. They must use the whale song as camouflage so enemy submarines dont describe the communication. We need more data. Recordings from other populations of humpbacks, out of American waters. Just to see how far theyve gone wi th this thing.And we need to look at blue-, fin-, and sei-whale calls, said Libby. If theyre using subsonic, then it only makes sense that theyll imitate the big whales. Ill call Chris Wolf at Oregon call forth tomorrow. He monitors the navys old sonar intercellular substance that they set up to catch Russian submarines. Hell have recordings of everything we need.No, said Clay. No one outside this room.Come on, Clay. Youre being paranoid. arrange that again, Libby. He monitors whose old sonar matrix? The military still keeps a hand in on that SOSUS array.So you think it is military?Clay shook his head. I dont know. Im damned if I can think of a reason the navy would paint Bite me on the tail of a whale. I just know that people who find out about this stuff disappear, and someone sent a message saying that Nate was safe after we all thought he was dead.So what are you going to do?Find him, Clay said.Well, thats going to totally screw up the funeral, said Clair.PART THREEThe denota tionWe are built as gene machines andcultured as meme machines, but we havethe power to turn against our creators.We, alone on earth, can rebel againstthe tyranny of self-loving replicators. RICHARD DAWKINS, The Selfish GeneNinety-five portion of all the speciesthat have ever existed are now extinct,so dont look so goddamn smug. GERARD RYDER