Fluke or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings - By Christopher Moore Page 0,126

it's a prayer, and that the torpedo base and LFA will harm a God-fearing animal." Nate paused to let it sink in, but Tarwater just looked at him like he was an annoying rodent that had crawled in from the cane fields.

"How could you possibly know that, Quinn?"

"Because their prayers are answered." Nate took a portable tape recorder out of his shirt pocket and set it on the desk next to the seawater, into which he'd already mixed part of the Goo that Amy had given him. He pushed the «play» button, and the sound of humpback-whale song filled the office.

"This is ridiculous," Tarwater said.

"Watch," Nate said, pointing to the water, which began to swirl, a tiny pink vortex forming in the middle.

"Get out of here. I'm not impressed with your Mr. Wizard tricks, Quinn."

"Watch," Nate said again. As they watched, the pink vortex expanded while the whale song played, until half the jar was filled with a moving pink stain. Then Nate turned off the tape.

"So what?" Tarwater said.

"Look more closely." Nate opened the jar, reached in, strained out some of the pink, and threw it on Tarwater's desk. Tiny shrimp - each only an inch long - flipped about on the blotter. "Krill," Nate said.

Tarwater didn't say anything. He just looked at the krill, then scraped a couple into his hand and examined them more closely. "They are krill."

"Uh-huh."

"What, it's like Sea Monkees, right? You had brine-shrimp eggs in there."

"No, Captain Tarwater, I did not. The humpbacks are praying, and God is answering them, giving them food. We could run this little experiment a hundred times, and that water would be clear when we started and full of krill when we ended. Trust me, I've done it." And he had. The little bit of Goo in the water created the krill out of the other life in there, the ubiquitous SAR-11 bacteria that existed in every liter of seawater on the planet.

Tarwater held up the krill. "But I thought they didn't eat when they were here."

"You're thinking on too small a scale. They don't feed for four months, and then they do nothing but feed. They're thinking in advance - the way you might think about breakfast before you go to bed at night. Doesn't matter, really. What you need to do, Captain, is everything in your power and influence to stop the range and the LFA testing."

Tarwater looked stunned now. "I'm just a captain."

"But you're an ambitious captain. I can have a jar of seawater on the secretary of the navy's desk in ten hours. Do you really want to be the one to explain to this administration that you're hurting an animal that prays to God? Particularly this administration?"

"No, sir, I do not," said Tarwater, looking decidedly more frightened than he had been just a second before.

"I thought you were an intelligent man. I trust you'll handle this, and this will be the last anyone will hear of my jar."

"Yes, sir," Tarwater said, more out of habit than respect.

Nate took his tape recorder and his jar and walked out, grinning to himself, thinking about the praying humpbacks. Of course, it's not your particular God, he thought, but they do pray, and their god does feed them.

He headed back to Papa Lani to make the calls and write the paper that would torpedo any hope of Jon Thomas Fuller's ever building a captive dolphin petting zoo on Maui.

A pirate's work is never done.

Three months later the Clair cruised into the cold coastal waters off Chile on her way to Antarctica to intercept, stop, harass, and generally make business difficult for the Japanese whaling ship Kyo Maru. Clay was at the helm, and when the ship reached a precise point on the GPS receiver, he ordered the engines cut. It was a sunny day, unusually calm for this part of the Pacific. The water was so dark blue it almost appeared black.

Clair was below in their cabin. She'd been seasick for most of the voyage, but she had insisted on coming along despite the nausea, using her saber-edged persuasive skills on the captain. ("Who's got the pirate booty? All right, then, help me pack.")

Nate stood on the deck at the bow, his arm around Elizabeth Robinson. Above them swung an eighteen-foot rigid-hull Zodiac on a crane, ready to drop into the water whenever it was needed. There was another one on the stern, where once the submarine had been stowed. Up on