Fluke or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings - By Christopher Moore Page 0,124
hangover."
Nate thought about how quickly his wounds had healed, too - weeks, maybe months of healing overnight. There was no other explanation. He thought about spending his life with only fleeting glimpses of sunlight, and he said, "I don't care. I'll stay."
"No you won't. I won't let you. You have things to do." She shoved the specimen jar in his pocket, then kissed him hard. He kissed her back, for a long time.
The hatch at the top of the dry exit tower on the sub opened, and Clay popped up to see Nate and Amy for the first time since they'd both disappeared.
"Well, that's unprofessional," Clay said.
Amy broke the kiss and whispered, "You go. Take that with you." She patted his pocket. Then she turned to Clay as she checked her watch again. "You're late!"
"Hey, missy, I set a time when I'd be at the coordinates you sent - six hundred and twenty-three feet below sea level - and I was there. You didn't mention that I had another mile of submarine cave with some of the scariest-looking rock formations I've ever seen." He glanced at Nate. "They looked alive."
"They are alive," Amy said.
"Are we close to the surface? The pressure is - »
"I'll explain on the way," Nate said. "We'd better go." Nate stepped onto the sub as Clay slipped down inside the hatch to allow him to pass. Nate crawled into the hatch and looked back to Amy before he closed it.
"I'll stay, Amy. I don't care. For you I'll stay. I love you. You know that, right?"
She nodded and brushed tears out of her eyes. "Yeah," she said, Then she spun around quickly and started walking away. "You take care of yourself, Nathan Quinn," she shouted over her shoulder, and Nate heard her voice break when she said his name.
He climbed down into the sub and secured the hatch above him.
Clay had watched Amy walk away from the big, half-submerged Plexiglas bubble in the front of the sub.
"Where's Amy going?"
"She can't come home, Clay."
"She's okay, though?"
"She's okay."
"You okay?"
"I've been better."
They were quiet for the long ride through the pressure locks to the outside ocean, just the sound of the electric motors and the low hum of instruments all around them. The lights of the sub barely reached out to the walls of the cave, but every hundred yards or so they would come to a large, pink disk of living tissue, like a giant sea anemone, which would fold back to let them pass, then expand to fill the passageway once they had gone through. Nate watched the pressure gauge rise one atmosphere every time they passed through one of the gates, and it was then that he realized he wasn't escaping at all. The Goo knew exactly where and what they were, and it was letting him go.
"You're going to explain what all this is, right?" Clay said, not even looking away from the controls.
Nate was startled out of his reverie. "Clay, I can't believe - I mean, I believe it, but - Thanks for coming to get me."
"I never told you, you know - it's not really appropriate or anything - but I have pretty strong feelings about loyalty."
"Well, I respect that, Clay, and I appreciate it."
"Yeah, well, don't mention it."
Then they were both a bit embarrassed and both pretended that something was irritating their throats and they had to cough and pay attention to their breathing for a while, even though the air in the little submarine was filtered and humidified and perfectly clean.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Pirates
Nate was standing with Clay on the flying bridge of the Clair as she steamed into the Au'au Channel.
"You'd better put on some sunscreen, Nate."
Nate looked down at his forearms. He'd lost most of his color while in Gooville, and he could feel the sun cooking him, even through his T-shirt.
"Yeah." He looked off toward Lahaina, the harbor he'd piloted into a thousand times. They'd have to anchor far outside the breakwater with a ship this size, but it still had the feeling of coming home. The wind was warm and sweet, the water the heartbreak blue of a newborn's eyes. A humpback fluked about eight hundred yards to the north of them, its tail glistening in the sun as if it were covered with sequins.
"There's still a month left of the season," Clay said. "We can still get some work done."