CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Booty and the Beasts

The second time Amy came out of the bedroom, she was dressed in her familiar hiking shorts, flip-flops, and a WHALES ARE OUR PALS T-shirt. "Better?"

"I don't feel any better, if that's what you're asking." Nate sat at the table with a can of grapefruit juice and a pint of vodka in front of him.

"I mean, are you more comfortable now that I'm dressed? Because I can be naked again in a flash  - »

"You want a drink?" Nate needed to forget the whole naked encounter as quickly as possible. Applying alcohol seemed like the most efficient method at this point.

"Sure," she said. She pulled a glass out of one of the kitchen cubbies, the clear door folding back like the protective cover of a frog's eye. "You want a glass?"

Nate had been sipping alternately from the juice can and the vodka bottle until he had enough room in the can to pour in some vodka. "Yeah. I don't like reaching into the cupboards."

"You're kind of squeamish for a biologist, but I guess it does take some getting used to." Amy set the glasses in front of him and let him mix the drinks. There was no ice. "You adjust."

"You seem to have adjusted. When did they take you? You must have been really young."

"Me? No, I was born here. I've always been here. That's why I was perfect to work for you guys. The Colonel has been teaching me cetacean biology for years."

It occurred to Nate that he had seen a few human children around and hadn't really thought about growing up in Gooville. Someone had to teach them. Why not the infamous Colonel? "I should have known. When you were trying to locate the whale by listening for it that last day. I should have known."

"Correction, when I did locate the whale by listening for it, for which you still owe me dinner."

"I think this is one of those all-bets-are-off situations, Amy. You were a spy."

"Nate, before you get too angry, you need to remember the alternative to my spying and finding out what you were working on in detail. That would have been to just kill you. It would have been much easier."

"You and Ryder act like you did me a favor. Like you saved me from some great danger. The only danger I was in was from you in the first place. So stop trying to impress me with the quality of your mercy. You did it all  -  tore up the lab, sank Clay's boat, all of it  -  didn't you?"

"No, not directly. Poynter and Poe tore up the lab. The whaley boys sank Clay's boat. I took the negatives out of the packet at the photo lab. I kept them informed, and I made sure you were where they needed you to be, that's all. I never wanted to hurt you, Nate. Never."

"I wish I could believe that. Then you show up here like that, trying to convince me that this is a great place to live right after Ryder has given me the speech." He drained his glass, poured himself another drink, this one with just a splash of grapefruit juice over the top.

"What are you talking about? I haven't seen Ryder since I've been back. I just got in a few hours ago."

"Well, then it's always been a part of the plan: Let Amy lure the biologist into staying."

"Nate, look at me." She took his chin in her hand and looked him right in the eye. "I came here of my own free will, without any instructions from Ryder or anyone else. In fact, no one knows where I am, except maybe the Goo  -  you can never be sure about that. I came here to see you, with all the masks and the role-playing out of the way."

Nate pulled away from her. "And you didn't think I'd be mad? And what was with the whole 'Look how luscious I am' act?"

She looked down. Hurt, Nate thought. Or acting hurt. If she cried, it wouldn't matter. He'd be useless.

"I knew you'd be mad, but I thought you might be able to get over it. I was just trying to be floozish. I'm sorry if I'm not very good at it. It's not a skill you get to use a lot in an undersea city. Truth be told, the dating pool is sort of shallow here in Gooville. I was just trying to be sexy. I never said I was a good floozy."

Nate reached over and patted her hand. "No, you're a fine floozy. That's not what I was saying. I wasn't questioning your... uh, floozishness. I was just questioning its sincerity."

"Well, it's sincere. I really do like you. I really did come here to see you, to be with you."

"Really?" What was the biological analog for this? A black widow spider male falling for one of her lines, knowing innately where it was going. Knowing right down to his very DNA that she was going to kill and eat him right after they mated, but he would worry about after. So time and again Mr. Black Widow passed his dumb-ass, sex-enslaved genes on to the next generation of dumb-ass, sex-enslaved males who would fall for the same trick. Spinning a little conversation: Interesting name, Black Widow. How'd you come about that? Tell me all about yourself. Me? Nah, I'm a simple guy. I'm doomed by my male nature to follow my little spider libido into oblivion. Let's talk about you. Love the red hourglass on your butt.

"Really," Amy said. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it gently.

"Amy, I don't want to stay here. I'm not  -  I want  -  I'm too old for you, even if you weren't a lying, destructive, evil  - »

"Okay." She held his hand to her cheek.

"What do you mean, 'okay'?"

"You don't have to stay. But can I stay with you tonight?"

He pulled his hand back from her, but she held his gaze. "I need to be way more drunk for this," he said.

"Me, too." She went over to the scary fridge thing. "Do you have more vodka?"

"There's another bottle over there in that thing  -  that other thing that I'm afraid of." He caught himself watching her bottom while she found the bottle. "You said 'okay. You mean you know a way out?"

"Shut up and drink. You gonna drink or you gonna talk?"

"This isn't healthy," Nate observed.

"Thank you, Dr. Insight," Amy said. "Pour me one."

"Nice red hourglass."

"What?"

Back at his bungalow at Papa Lani, Clay sat on the bed with his head in his hands while Clair rubbed the knots out of his shoulders. He'd told her the Old Broad's story, and she'd listened quietly, asking a few questions as he went along.

"So do you believe her?" Clair asked.

"I don't even know what I'm admitting to believing. But I believe she thinks she's telling the truth. She offered us a boat, Clair. A ship. She offered to buy us a research vessel, hire a crew, pay them."

"What for?"

"To find Nate and her husband, James."

"I thought she was broke."

"She's not broke. She's loaded. I mean, the ship will be a used one, but it's a ship. It will still run in the millions. She wants me to find one  -  and a crew."

"And could you find Nate if you had a ship?"

"Where do I look? She thinks he's on an island somewhere, some secret place where these things live. Hell, if she's telling the truth, they could be from outer space. If she's not... well, I can't just run a ship around the world stopping at islands and asking them if they happen to have seen people crawling out of a whale's butt."

"Technically, baby, whales don't have butts. You have to walk upright to have booty. This is why we are the dominant species on the planet, because we have booty."

"You know what I mean."

"It's an important point." She slid into his lap, her arms around his neck.

Clay smiled despite his anxiety. "Technically, man is not the dominant species. There's at least a thousand pounds of termites for every person on earth."

"Well, you can have my termites, thanks."

"So man isn't really dominant, whether it's brains or booty."

"Baby, I wasn't saying that man was the dominant species, I was saying that we are the dominant species. Wo-man."

"Because you have booty?"

She wiggled on his lap by way of an answer, then leaned her forehead against his, looked in his eyes.

"Good point," Clay said.

"What about this ship? You going to let the Old Broad buy it for you? You going to go look for Nate?"

"Where do I start?"

"Follow one of these signals. Find whatever is making it and follow them."

"We'd need location for that."

"How do you do that?"

"We'd need to have someone working the old sonar grid the navy put down all over the oceans during the Cold War to track submarines. I know people at Newport who do it, but we'd have to tell them what we're doing."

"You couldn't just say you were trying to find a certain whale?"

"I suppose we could."

"And if you have your ship and that information, you can follow the whale, or the ship, or whatever it is to its source."

"My ship?"

"Roll over, I'll rub your back."

But Clay wasn't moving. He was thinking. "I still don't know where to start."

"Who has the booty? Turn over, Captain."

Clay slipped off his aloha shirt and rolled over onto his stomach. "My ship," he said.

Nate was suddenly cold, and when he opened his eyes, he was pretty sure that his head was going to explode. "I'm pretty sure my head is going to explode," he said. And someone rudely jostled his bed.

"Come on, party animal, the Colonel sent for you. We need to go."

He peeked between the fingers he was using to hold the pieces of his head together and saw the menacing but amused face of Cielle Nuñez. It wasn't what  -  who  -  he expected, and he did a quick sweep of the bed with one leg to confirm that he was alone. "I drank," Nate said.

"I saw the bottles on the table. You drank a lot."

"I didn't get a knob so just anyone could use it anytime they want."

"I noticed your knob. It looks out of place."

About that time Nate realized that he was naked, and Nuñez was standing over his naked body, and he was going to have to let the pieces of his head go where they may if he was going to cover himself. He felt for a sheet, pulled it up as he sat up and threw his legs off the bed.

"I'm going to need a moment."

"Hurry."

"I have to pee."

"That will be fine."

"And throw up."

"Also fine."

"Okay. You go away now."

"Brush your teeth." And she left the room.

Nate looked around the room for signs of Amy, but there were none. He didn't remember where her clothes were, but the last time he'd seen them, he was pretty sure they weren't on her. He stumbled into the bathroom and looked into the basin, mother of pearl with its little siphon fixtures and the green sphincter drain. Seeing that pretty much did it for him, and he heaved into the sink.

"Hi," Amy said, poking her head out of the retracting shower door.

Nate tried to say something  -  something about trapdoor spiders, in keeping with an arachnid theme he was developing with regard to Amy  -  but it came out more bubbly and moist than he intended.

"You go ahead," Amy said. "I'll be in here." And the door clicked shut like a frightened clam.

When Nate had finished reviewing the contents of his stomach, he rinsed his face and the sink, emptied his bladder into the thing on which he would not sit, then leaned against the sink and moaned for a second while he gathered his thoughts.

A head popped out of the shower. "So, that went well."

"The water's not running."

"I'm not showering, I'm hiding. I didn't want Nuñez to see me. The Colonel shouldn't know I've been here. I'll leave after you go. Brush your teeth." And then she was back in her shell.

He brushed, rinsed, repeated, then said, "Okay."

Out she came, grabbed him by the hair, kissed him hard. "Nice night," she said. The shower clicked shut, Amy inside.

"I'm too old for this."

"Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that. Not now, later. Go. She's waiting."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Replicator Versus

the Imitator

Nuñez bought him a large cup of coffee at a cafe where whaley boys stood around pouring down lattes the size of fire extinguishers and exchanging clicks and whistles at an irritating volume.

"If ever there was a creature that didn't need caffeine," Nate said.

Nuñez kept him moving, while he kept trying to stop to lean on things. "Don't ever drink with them," Nuñez said. "Especially the males. You know their sense of humor. You're as likely as not to get a wet willy in the ear, and it's a real wet willy."

"I may have to hurl again."

"Don't destroy yourself out of spite, Nate. Just accept things how they are."

He wasn't trying to destroy himself, and he wasn't spiteful. He was just confused, hungover, and kind of in love, or something remotely like love, except that the pain was more localized in his temples rather than being the overall, life-ruining pain it usually caused him. "Can we stop in at the Lollipop Guild and get a couple aspirins?"

"You're late already."

In the corridors she handed him off to a pair of killer whaley boys.

"You should be honored, you know?" Nuñez said. "He doesn't meet with many people."

"You can take my appointment if you want."

The Colonel had a goo recliner waiting for him when he walked through the iris door. Nate sat in it and held his coffee cup like a security blanket against his chest.

"Well, can you see now that life wouldn't be so bad here?"

Nate's mind raced. Amy said the Colonel didn't know, but maybe the Goo knew, but the Colonel was tapped in to the Goo, so did he know? Or had he sent her in the first place and this was all a scam, just like when he'd sent her to Hawaii to spy on him? She'd fooled him for a month there, why couldn't she be fooling him now? He wanted to trust her. But what was Ryder getting at?

"What's different, Growl? When I saw you nine hours ago, I was a prisoner, and I'm a prisoner now."

Ryder seemed surprised. He wiped the lock of gray hair out of his eyes furiously, as if it had caused him to make some sort of mistake. "Right, nine hours. So you've had some time to think." He didn't sound sure.

"I got drunk and passed out. In the clear, lightning-bug light of day, Colonel, I still want to go home."

"You know, time"  -  Ryder patted the living chair he was sitting in as if he were petting a dog, sending waves of blush through the pink Goo outward from where he touched. Nate shivered at the sight of it  -  "time is different down here, it's..."

"Relative?" Nate offered.

"It's on a different scale."

"What do you want from me, Colonel? What can I possibly offer you that I get the special treatment of being spared and granted multiple audiences with the... the grand pooh-bah?" Nate was going to say "with the alpha whacko," but he thought of Amy and realized that something had changed. He no longer felt like he had nothing to lose.

Rider swiped at his hair and clutched at the flesh of his chair with the other hand. He began rocking slightly. "I want someone to tell me I'm thinking clearly, I guess. I dream things that the Goo knows, and I think it knows things that I dream, but I'm not sure. I'm overwhelmed."

"You might have thought about that before you declared yourself wizard."

"You think I chose this? I didn't choose this, Nate. The Goo chose me. I don't know how many people have been brought down here over the years, but I was the first biologist. I was the first one who had some idea how the Goo worked. It had the whaley boys bring me to a place like this, where there was raw, unformed animal, and it never let me leave. I've tried to make things better for people in Gooville, but  -  " Ryder's eyes rolled up in his head as if he were starting to have a seizure, but then he was back again. "Did you see the electricity on the whale ships? I did that. But it's not  -  It's different now than it has been."

Nate suddenly felt bad for the older man. Ryder was behaving like an early Alzheimer's patient who is realizing that he's losing recognition of his grandchildren's faces. "Tell me," Nate said.

Ryder nodded, swallowed hard, pressed on  -  hardly the picture of the powerful leader he'd appeared the night before.

"I think that after the Goo found its safe haven here under the sea, it needed to have more information, more DNA sequences to make sure it could protect itself. It produced a minute bacterium that could spread throughout the oceans, be part of the great world ecosystem but could pass genetic information back to the source. We call the bacteria SAR-11. It's a thousand times smaller than normal bacteria, but it's in every liter of seawater on the planet. That worked fine to transmit information back to the Goo for three billion years  -  everything that could be known was in the sea. Then something happened."

"Animals left the water?"

"Exactly. Until then, everything there was to know  -  every piece of information that could be known  -  was transmitted through DNA, replicators, in creatures that lived in the seas. The Goo knew everything. Mind you, it might take a million years to learn how to make an arthropod's segmented shell. It might take two million years to learn to make a gill or, say, twenty million to make an eye, but it had its safe niche, so it had the time  -  it didn't have anywhere it needed to be. Evolution doesn't really have a destination. It's just dicking around with possibilities. The Goo is the same way. But when life left the water, the Goo got a blind spot."

"I'm having a little trouble seeing the immediacy of your story, Colonel. I mean, why, beyond the obvious that I'm sitting inside this thing, is this supposed to be urgent?"

"Because four hundred million years later, the land creatures came back into the water  -  sophisticated land animals."

"Early whales?"

"Yes, when mammals came back to the sea, they brought something that even the dinosaurs  -  the reptiles and amphibians that had come back to the water  -  didn't have. Something the Goo didn't know. Knowledge that didn't replicate itself through DNA. It replicated through imitation, learned knowledge, not passed on. Memes."

Nate knew about memes, the information equivalent of a gene. A gene existed to replicate itself and required a vehicle, an organism, in which to do it. It was the same with memes, except a meme could replicate itself across vehicles, across brains. A tune you couldn't get out of your head, a recipe, a bad joke, the Mona Lisa  -  all were memes of sort. They were a fun model to think about, and computers had made the idea of a self-replicating piece of information more manifest with computer viruses, but what did that have to do with  -  But then it hit him. Why he'd learned about memes in the first place.

"The song," Nate said. "Humpback song is a meme."

"Of course. The first culture, the first exposure the Goo had to something it didn't understand. What, maybe fifteen million years ago it found out it wasn't the only game in town. Three billion years is a long time to get used to living in what you think is your private house only to suddenly find out that someone moved into an apartment above you while you were sleeping.

"For a long time the Goo didn't perceive that genes and memes were at odds. Whales were the first carriers. Big brains because they need to imitate complex behaviors, remember complex tasks, and because they could get the high-protein food to build the brains the memes needed. But the Goo came to terms with the whales. They're an elegant mix of genes and memes, absolute kings of their realm. Huge, efficient feeders, immune from any predation except from each other.

"But then something started killing whales. Killing them in alarming numbers. And it was something from the surface world. It wasn't something the Goo could find out about from its ocean-borne nervous system, so that's when I think it created the whale ships, or a version of them. Late seventeen or early eighteen hundreds, I'd guess. Then, I think when it had somehow gotten back enough samples of human DNA, it made the whaley boys. To stay camouflaged but to watch, to bring people back here so it could learn, watch us. I may have been the final link that started the war."

"What war? There's a war?" Nate had a quick vision of the paranoid megalomaniacs that the Colonel said he'd considered for pseudonyms, Captain Nemo and Colonel Kurtz, both complete bedbugs.

"The war between memes and genes. Between an organism that specializes in the replication of gene machines  -  the Goo  -  and one that specializes in the replication of meme machines  -  us, human beings. I brought electrical and computer technology here. I brought the Goo the theoretical knowledge of memes and genes and how they work. Where the Goo is now and where it was before I came is the difference between being able to drive one and being able to build a car from lumps of raw steel. It's realizing the threat. It's going to figure it out."

Ryder looked at Nate expectantly. Nate looked at him as if he wasn't getting the point. When he'd studied under Ryder, the man had been so cogent, so clear. Grumpy, but clear. "Okay," Nate said slowly, hoping Ryder would jump in, "so you need me to... uh...?"

"Help me figure out a way to kill it."

"Didn't see that coming."

"We're at war with the Goo, and we have to find a way to kill it before it knows what's happening."

"Then don't you think you should keep your voice down?"

"No, it doesn't communicate that way." The Colonel looked perturbed at Nate's comment.

"So you want me to figure out how to kill your god?

"Yes, before it wipes out the human race in one fell swoop."

"Which would be bad."

"And we have to kill it without killing everyone in Gooville."

"Oh, we can do that," Nate said, completely confident, the way he'd seen hostage negotiators in cop movies tell the bank robbers that their demands were being met and the helicopter was on the way. "But I'm going to need some time."

The strangest thing was, as Nate left the Colonel's chamber after being in direct contact with the Goo for only a few minutes, his hangover was completely gone.