Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 27~28

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENThe Found WorldThe whale transport receptiveed its mouth, and Nate and the crew spilled out onto the shore deal sentient drool, which was nigh coincidence, since thats exactly what lay beneath the laborious shell of the landing. They were met by a conference of whaley boys, integrity of whom buy the farmed Nate a pair of Nikes, accordingly went kill to trade clicks and squeals and greeting rubs with the returning crew. It was so b even off after approximately ten twenty-four hourss in the whale ship that Nate couldnt immediately guarantee what was happening. The rest of the human crew were wearing sunglasses as they sit d birth on the ground to put on their shoes, sole(prenominal) a some feet from the ships mouth. From the rigid feel of the ground, Nate thought they tycoon be on a dock of round kind, total if therefore Cal Burdick besidesk finish up his own sunglasses and handed them to Nate.Go ahead. Ive been regarding at wholly of this for a bargain of years, but I think youll reign it interesting.With the dark glasses, Nate was up to(p) to capture. His affectionatenesss were fine, but his mind was having a hard time bear upon what they were telling him. It was as light as sidereal daylight (on an overcast day, at least), but they were non outdoors. They were inside a grot so spacious that Nate could not in time make out the edges of it. A dozen stadiums could draw fit inside the s stride and still left room for a state fair, a casino, and the Vatican if you snipped off a basilica or twain. The sinless ceiling was a source of light, cold light, it appe argond nigh sections scandalmongering, rough bluing owing(p) blotches of light in irregular shapes, as if Jackson pollock had painted a solar storm crosswise the ceiling. Half of the grot was water, flat and reflective as a mirror, the smoothness broken by sm each(prenominal) whaley boys porpoising here and in that location in groups of f ive and six, their blo heartys imparting up synchronized blasts of steam eery few yards. Whaley kids, he thought. Fifty or so whale ships of antithetic species pulled up to the shore, their crews approach path and acquittance. Huge separate pipes that looked equal giant earthworms were attached to to each one of the ships, one on each side of the head, and ran off to connections on shore. The ground the ground was exit, and as hard as linoleum, polished, yet not quite calendered. It ran out for hundreds of yards, peradventure over a mile, and appe ard to continue fractional look up the w entirelys of the immense grotto. Nate could see openings in the w eachs, oval incite by means ofages or door demeanors or tunnels or something. From the sizing of the quite a critical and whaley boys passport in and out, he could tell that some of the openings were perhaps thirty feet roughly, darn revolutionary(prenominal)s seemed only the size of normal doors. There were wi ndows next to some of the littler ones or what he guessed were windows their shapes each curves and slopes. There wasnt a right slant in the grotto. Hundreds of people moved astir(predicate)(predicate) amid as m each whaley boys, maintaining the ships, moving supplies and equipment on what seemed very normal hand trucks and carts.Where in the hell are we? Nate verbalise, nearly wrenching his neck move to look at all of it at once. I mean, what in the hell is this?Pretty amazing, Cal said. I give care to watch people when they see gooville for the first time.Nate ran his hand over the ground, or floor, or whatsoever this surface was they were sitting on. What is this freeze? It appeared smooth, but it had texture, pores, a abstruse roughness, equivalent stoneware or Its buy the removedmlihood carapace. Like a lobster shell. This whole blank is living, Nate. Everything the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the passageway in from the sea, our homes its all one huge organism. We skirt it the Goo.The Goo. Then this is Gooville?Yes, Cal said, with a big smile that revealed perfect teeth.And that would make you?Thats right. The Goos. Theres a wonderful Seussian logic to it, dont you think?I cant think, Cal. You k this instant how all your animateness you hear people talk about things that are mind-boggling? Its bonnie a meaningless clich a hyperbole like verbalize that youre scurvy or that something is bloodcurdling?Yep.Well, Im boggled. Im totally boggled.You thought the ships were impressive, huh?Yeah, but this? One living organism shaped itself into this complex what? System? Im boggled.Imagine how the bacteria who live in your intestinal tract feel about you.Well, right straight I think theyre pissed off at me.A group of whaley boys was gathering about ten yards external from them, pointing at Nate and snickering.Theyre coming dump to check out the new tote upr. Dont be surprised if you shake up rub make out up against in the streets. Theyre retributive saying hi.Streets?We birdcall them streets. Theyre classification of streets.Now, out of the dim yellow light of the whale ships, Nate realized that there was a wide var. in the whaley boys coloring. Some were actually mottled blue, like the skin of a blue whale, man others were black like a pilot whale, or light gray like a minke whale. Some even had the black-on-white coloring of killers and Pacific white-sided dolphins, while a few here and there were exacting white like a beluga. The body shapes of all were very like, differing only in size, with the killer whaley boys, who were taller by a foot and heavier by perhaps a hundred pounds, having jaws twice the width of the others. He also detect in the brighter light that he was the only human who had a tan. The people, even Cal and the crew, looked healthy it fair appeared that none of them had ever seen the sun. Like the British.Nuez came over and helped Cal, and then Nate, to his feet.How re the shoes? she asked Nate.Theyre strange after not wearing any for so long.Youll be wobbly for a few hours, too. Youll feel the motion when you deliver still for a day or so. No different from having been at sea in normal ship. Ill produce you to your new quarters, show you around a little, conk you settled in. The Colonel will probably send for you originally too long. People will help you out, humans and whaley boys. Theyll all see youre new.How many, Cielle?Humans? Al roughly five thousand live here. Whaley boys, maybe half that many.Where is here? Where are we?I told him about Gooville, said Cal.Nuez looked up at Nate and then pulled her sunglasses downcast on her nose so he could see her eyes. Dont freak out on me, huh?Nate move his head. What did she think, that whatever she was going to tell him was going to be weirder, grander, or wampumier than what hed seen already?The roof in a higher place this ceiling which is thick rock, although were not exactly reliab le how thick anyway, its around six hundred feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Were about two hundred miles off the coast of Chile, under the continental shelf. In fact, we came in by means of a lessening in the continental rise, a cliff face.Were six hundred feet underwater right instanter. The pressure?We came in through a very long tunnel, a series of pressure locks that pass the ships along until were at surface pressure. I would maintain shown you as we came through, but I didnt insufficiency to wake you.Yeah, thanks for that.Lets get you to your new house. Weve got a long walk ahead of us. She headed away(predicate) from the water, motioning for him to follow.Nate nearly stumbled trying to look back at the whale ships lining the harbor. Tim caught him by the arm. Its a lot to exhaust in. People really give way freaked out. You dependable have to accede that the Goo wont let anything bad happen to you. The rest is simply a series of surprises. Like life. Nate looked into the younger mans dark eyes to see if there was any irony showing there, but he was as open and sincere as a bowl of milk. The Goo will take care of me?Thats right, said Tim, helping him along toward the grotto wall, toward the actual colonisation of Gooville, with its organically shaped doorways and windows, its knobs and nodules, its lobster-shell pathways, its whaley-boy pods establishing together or playing in the water, where was ho employ an entire village of what Nate assumed were all happy human wackjobs. subsequently two long time of looking for meaning in hash label on waveforms and ones and ohs on legal pads that were hastily typed into the machine, Kona install a surf hop oner/hacker on the North Shore named Lolo who agreed to write it all into a Linux routine in exchange for Konas old long board and a half ounce of the dankest nugs1.Wont he just take cash in? asked trunk.Hes an artist, explained Kona. Everyone has cash.I dont contend what Im goin g to put that under for the accountant.Nugs, dank? the Great Compromiser looked forlornly at the legal-pad pages piling up on the desk next to where Margaret Painborne was typing. He handed a roll of bills over to Kona. Go. Buy nugs. total him back. Bring back my change.Im throwing in my board for the cause, said Kona. I could use some time in the mystic myself.Do you want me to tell auntie Clair that you tried to extort me? cadaver had taken to using Clair as a sort of sword of Damocles/assistant principal/evil dominatrix threat over Kona, and it seemed to work swimmingly.Must blaze, brah. Cool runnings.Suddenly something sparked in Clays head, a dj vu trigger snapping electric with connections. Wait, Kona.The surfer paused in the doorway, dark.The first day you came here, the day that Nate sent you to the lab to get the film did you actually do it?Kona shook his head, Nah, boss, the Snowy Biscuit see me going. She say nurse the money and she go to the lab. When I come back with my ganja, she give me the pictures to give to Nate.I was sort of afraid of that, Clay said. Go, blaze, be gone. Get what we subscribe.So three days later they all stood watching as Lolo hit the return list and the subsonic waveform from a blue-whale call began scrolling across the bottom of the screen, while above it letters were transcribed from the data. Lolo was a year older than Kona, a Japanese-American burned nut brown by the sun with ducky-yellow minidreads and a arras of Maori tattoos across his back and shoulders.Lolo spun in the chair to face them. I sundry(a) down a fifty-minute trance track with sixty percussion loops that was way harder than this. Lolos prior forays into sound processing had been as a computer DJ at a dance club in Honolulu.Its not saying anything, said Libby Quinn. Its just random, Clay.Well, thats the way its gone so far, right? notwithstanding theres been nothing since that first day.We knew that might happen, that there couldnt be message s on all of them. We just have to find the right ones.Libbys eyes were pleading. Clay, its a brief season. We have to get out in the field. Now that you have this program, you dont need the manpower. Margaret and I will bring back more tapes we have them coming in from people we trust but we cant afford to blow off the season.And we need to go public with the torpedo range, Margaret added, less sympathetic than Libby had been.Clay nodded and looked at his bare feet against the hardwood floor. He took a muddy breath, and when he looked up, he smiled. Youre right. But dont just blow a whistle and hope psyche will notice. Cliff Hyland told me that the diving data was the only thing they were worry about. Youre going to need proof that kyphosiss dive close to the bottom of the channel, or the navy will claim that youre just being whale buggers and theres no danger to the animals. Even with the range.Youre sanction if we go public, then? asked Libby.People are going to know a bout the torpedo range soon enough. I dont think thats dangerous for you. Just dont say anything about the rest of this, okay?The two women looked at each other, then nodded. We have to go, Libby said. Well call you, Clay. Were not running out on you.I know, Clay said.after they left, Clay turned to the two surfers. Thirty years working with the best scientists and different in the world, and this was what it came down to two stoner kids. If you hombres need to go do things, I understand.Outta here, said Lolo, on his feet and bounding toward the door.Clay looked at the screen where Lolo had been sitting. Scrolling across it WILL ARRIVE GV APPRX 1300 MONDAY__HAVE__SIZE 11 SNEAKERS WAITING FOR QUINN__END MSS__AAAA__BAXYXABUDAB.Get him back, Clay said to Kona. We need to know which tape this was.Libby gave them all to him.I know that. I need to know where she got it. Where and when it was recorded. Call Libbys cell phone. See if you can get hold of her. Clay was trying to make the sc reen print in the first place the message scrolled away. How the hell does this thing work?How you know Im not go forth?You woke up this morning, Kona. Did you have a reason to get out of bed other than waves or pot?Yah, mon, need to find Nate.Howd that feel?Im handicraft Libby, boss.Loyalty is important, son. Ill go catch Lolo. Confirm which tape it was.Shut up, boss. Im trying to dial.Behind them the cryptic message scrolled out of the printer.CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTSingle-Celled toolStockholm syndrome or not, Nate was starting to get tired of the whole hippie-commune, everything-is-wonderful-and-the-Goo-will-provide attitude. Nuez had come by for three days running to take him out on the town, and every person he met was just a little too damn satisfied with the whole idea that they were living inside a giant organism six hundred feet under the ocean. Like this was a normal thing. Like he just wasnt getting with the program because he continued to ask questions. At least the wha ley boys would blow wet raspberries at him and snicker as he walked by. At least they had some hotshot of the absurdity of all this, despite the fact that they shouldnt even have existed in the first place, which did seem to be a extended point of defense force on their part. Theyd installed him in what he guessed was a premier apartment, or what youd call an apartment, on the second floor, looking out over the grotto. The windows were oval, and the glass in them, although perfectly clear, was flexible. It was like looking out on the world through a condom, and that was just the beginning of the things that creeped him out about this place. He had a kitchen sink, a bathroom sink, and a shower all of which had big honking sphincters in the bottom of them and the seal on the door around his refrigerator, if thats what you called it, appeared to be do out of slugs, or at least something that left an iridescent guck on you if you brushed up against it. There was also a fine- tooth(prenominal) garbage disposal in the kitchen, which he wouldnt even go near. The defeat of it was that the apartment didnt make any attempt to conceal that it was alive. His first day there, when the human crew from the whale ship had come by for a drink a housewarming there had been a scaly knob on the wall by the front door that when pushed would cause the door to open. After the crew left and Nate returned from his shower, the doorknob had healed over. There was a scar there in the shell, but that was all. Nate was locked in.There was a tom-tom thrumming of stones bang his front picture window. Nate went to the window, looked out on the vast grotto and harbor, then down on the source of his torment. A pod of whaley-boy kids was winging stones at his window. Thump, thump-a, thump. The stones bounced off, expiration no mark. When Nate appeared at the window, the thumping became more furious, as the whaley kids picked up the pace and aimed right at him, as if a well-pl aced shot might record him in a dunking tank.Theres a reason cetaceans dont have hands in the real world Nate screamed at them. You are that reason You little freaksThump, thump-a, thump, thump, clack. on occasion a missed throw hit the shell-like frame of the window, sounding like a marble hitting tile.I sound like experient Man Spangler yelling at my brother and me for raiding his apple trees, Nate thought. When did I turn into that true cat? I dont want to be that guy.There was a soft knock on the shell of his front door. As he turned, the door flipped open like shutters, two pieces of shell retracting on muscles hidden in the wall. Nate tangle like a surprised box turtle. Cielle Nuez stood in the doorway with canvas shopping bags folded under her arm. She was a pleasant woman, attractive, competent, and non-threatening Nate was sure thats why shed been chosen to be his guide.You ready to do some shopping, Nate? I called to tell you I was coming, but you didnt answer.The apa rtment had a speaking apparatus, a sort of ornate tube thing that whistled and buzzed green metallic hang wings when there was a call. Nate was afraid of it.Cielle, can we drop any pretense that we are just buddies out for the day? You lock me in here when you leave.For your own safety.Somehow that always seems to be the argument the piece of ass uses.You want to go get some food and clothes or not? Nate shrugged and followed her out the door. They walked along the perimeter of the grotto, which seemed a cross amid an old English village and an Art Nouveau hobbit housing project irregularly shaped doors and windows looking into shops that displayed baked goods and other fain foods. Evidently the Goo wasnt big on having fire around for home cooking. All the cooked foods were prepared somewhere else in the complex. There was a warming cabinet in Nates apartment that looked like a breadbox make out of a giant armadillo shell. It worked great. You rolled the top open, put the food in, then promptly lost your appetite.Lets get you something to wear today, Cielle said. Those khakis are on loan. Only the whale-ship crews are enounced to wear them.As they walked, a half dozen whaley kids followed them, chirping and giggling all the way.So Id get in trouble if I started kicking whaley kids down the street?Of course, Cielle laughed. We have laws here, just like anywhere else.Evidently not ones that forbid kidnapping and unjustified imprisonment.Nuez stopped and grabbed his arm. Look, what are you complaining about? This is a good place to be. Youre not being mistreated. Everyones been kind to you. Whats the puzzle?Whats the problem? The problem is that all you people were yanked out of your lives, taken away from your families and friends, taken from everything that you knew, and you all act like it doesnt bother you in the least. Well, it bothers me, Cielle. It get it on bothers me a lot. And I dont understand this whole colony, or city, or whatever this thing is. How does it even exist without anyone knowing about it? In all these years, why has no one gotten out and spoiled the secret of this place?I told you, we were all going to drown Bullshit. I dont buy that for a second. That gratitude toward your rescuer only lasts for a short while. Ive seen it. It doesnt take over your life. Everyone Ive met is blissed out. You people worship the Goo, dont you?Nate, you dont want to be locked in, you wont be locked in. You can have the run of Gooville go anywhere you want. Theres hundreds of miles of passages. Some of them even I havent seen. Go. Leave the grotto and go down any one of those passages. But you know what? Youll be back looking for your apartment tonight. You are not a prisoner, youre just living in a different place and a different way.You didnt answer my question.The Goo is the source, Nate. Youll see. The Colonel Fuck the Colonel. The Colonel is a fucking myth.Should we get some burnt umber? You seem grumpy.Damn it, Cie lle, my caffeine headache is not relevant. very it was, sort of. He hadnt had any coffee today. Besides, how do I know its coffee were drinking? Its probably some mutant sea otter/coffee bean hybrid beverage.Is that what you want?No, thats not what I want. What I want is a doorknob. And not an organic nodule thing I want a dead doorknob. One that always has been dead, too. Not something that you used to be friends with.Cielle Nuez had backed away from him several feet, and the whaley kids whod been following them had quieted down and gone into a defensive pod formation, the big kids on the outside. People who were out walking, and who ordinarily made a point of nodding and smiling as they passed, took a wide detour around Nate. There was an inordinate amount of go among the milling whaley boys.That going to do it for you? Nuez asked. A doorknob. I get you a doorknob, youre a happy man?Why should he be discomfit? Because hed scared the kids? Because hed made his captors uncomf ortable? Nevertheless, he was embarrassed.I could use some earplugs, too, if you have them. For sleeping. For ten hours out of twenty-four, the grotto went dark. Cielle explained that this was for the comfort of the humans, to help them keep some semblance of their normal circadian rhythms. People needed day and night without the change many people couldnt sleep. The problem was, the whaley boys didnt sleep. They rested, but they didnt sleep. So when the grotto went dark, they went on about their business. In the dark, however, they were all constantly emitting sonar clicks. At night the grotto sounded like it was being marched upon by an armament of tap dancers. Consequently, so did Nates apartment.Nuez nodded. We can probably do that. You want to go get a steaming hot cup of sea otter now?What?Im just kidding. Lighten up, Nate.I want to go home. Hed said it in front he even realized it.Thats not going to happen. But Ill send word. I think its time you met with the Colonel.Th ey played out the day going to shops. Nate found some cotton slacks that fitted him, some socks and underwear, and a pile of T-shirts from one tiny shop. There was no currency exchanged. Nuez would just nod to the shopkeeper, and Nate would take what he needed. There was little variety in any of the shops, and most of what they carried was goods from the real world clothes, fabric, books, razor blades, shoes, and small electronics. But a few shops carried items that appeared to have been grown or made right there in Gooville toothbrushes, soaps, lotions. All the packaging seemed to come out of the seventeenth century the shopkeepers captive parcels in a ubiquitous oilcloth that Nate thought smelled vaguely of seaweed and indeed had the alike olive color as giant kelp. Patrons brought their own bump arounds to carry oils, pickles, and other soft goods. Nate had seen everything from a modern mayonnaise jar to hand-thrown crockery that had to have been made a hundred years ago.Ho w long, Cielle? he asked as he watched a shopkeeper count sugared dates into a hand-blown glass jar and seal it with wax. How long have people been down here?She followed his respect to the jar. We get a lot of the surface goods from shipwrecks, so dont be impress if you see antiques the sea is a good preserver. We may have salvaged it only a week ago. A friend of mine keeps potatoes in a Grecian wine amphora thats two thousand years old.Yeah, and Im using the holy Grail to catch my spare change. How long?You are so unlike today. I dont know how long, Nate. A long time.He had dozens, hundreds more questions, like where the hell did they get potatoes when they didnt have sunlight to grow anything? They werent bringing potatoes up from a shipwreck. But Cielle was letting him get only so far before claiming ignorance.They had lunch at a four-stool lunch counter where the proprietor was a striking Irishwoman with stunning green eyes and a ample spill of red hair and who, like every one, it seemed, knew Cielle and knew who Nate was.Got you a Walkman then, Dr. Quinn? Whaley boys will need you to drink with that sonar at night.Were going to get him some earplugs today, Brennan, Cielle said.Music, thats the way to wash the whaley-boy whistles, the woman said. Then she was off to her kitchen. The walls of the cafe were decorated with a collection of antique beer trays, glued in place, as Nate had learned, with an adhesive that was similar to what barnacles secreted to fasten themselves to ships. Nailing things up was frowned upon, as the walls would bleed for a while if injured.Nate took a bite of his sandwich, meatballs and mozzarella on good crusty French bread.How? he asked Cielle, blowing crumbs on the counter. How does any of this push up get made if theres no flame?Cielle shrugged. No idea. A bakery, Id guess. They make all the prepared food outside the grotto. Ive never been there.You dont know how? How can that be?Cielle Nuez put down her own sandwich and leaned on one elbow, smiling at Nate. She had remarkably kind eyes, and Nate had to inspire himself that she had been ordered to be his friend. Interesting, he thought, that theyd choose a woman. Was she bait?You ever read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, Nate?Of course, everybody does.And that guy goes back to Camelot from the late nineteenth century and dazzles everyone with his scientific knowledge, mainly because he can make gunpowder, right?Yes, so?Youre a scientist, so you might do better than most, but take your average citizen, a guy who works at a discount store, say. Drop him in the duodecimal century, you know what hell achieve?Make your point?Death by bacterial infection, more than likely. And the last words on his lips will probably be, Theres such a thing as an antibiotic, really. My point is, I dont know how this stuff is made because I havent needed to know. Nobody knows how to make the things they use. I suppose I could find out and get back to you, b ut I promise you Im not holding out on you just to be mysterious. We do a lot of salvage on the whale ships, and we have a trade network into the real world that gets us a lot of our goods. When a freighter leaves pallets of goods for the people on remote islands in the Pacific, all they know is that theyve been paid and theyve delivered to shore. They dont stay to see who takes the goods away. The old-timers say that it used to be that the Goo provided everything. Nothing came in from the outside that wasnt on their backs when they got here.Nate took a bite of his sandwich and nodded as if considering what shed just said. Since hed arrived in Gooville, he had spent every waking moment thinking about two things one, how this whole place could possibly function and two, how to get out of it. The Goo had to get energy from somewhere. The energy to light the huge grotto alone would require tens of millions of calories. If it got energy from outside, maybe you could use that same pathwa y to get out.So do you guys feed it? The Goo?No.Well, then-Dont know, Nate. I just dont know. How does dry-cleaning work?Well, I assume that they use solvents, that, uh Look, biologists dont have a lot of stuff that needs to be dry-cleaned. Im sure its not that complicated a process.Yeah, well, right back at you on all of your questions about the Goo.Cielle stood and gathered up her parcels. Lets go, Nate. Im taking you back to your apartment. Then Im going right to the whaley-boy den and find out if they can get the Colonel to see you. Today.Nate still had a pair off bites of his sandwich left. Hey, Ive still got a couple of bites of my sandwich left, he said. very? Well, did you ask yourself where in Gooville we got meatballs? What sort of meat might be in them?Nate dropped his sandwich.Bit of the whining wussy boy, arent we? said Brennan as she came out of the kitchen to take away their plates.Nate was culture a cheesy lawyer novel that hed found in the small library in his apartment when the whaley boys came for him. There were three of them, two intumescent males with killer-whale coloring and a smaller female blue. Only when the blue squeaked Hi Nate in a mashed-elf voice did he recognize it as Emily 7.Wow, hi, Emily. Is just Emily okay, or should I always say the Seven? Nate always felt awkward with someone afterward, even if there wasnt anything for the ward to be after.She cover her arms over her chest and bugged out her left eye at him.Okay, Nate said, moving on, I guess well be going, then. Did you see my new doorknob? Brand-new. Stainless steel. I realize it doesnt go with everything else, but, you know, it feels a little like freedom. Right, Nate. Its a doorknob, he thought.They led him around the perimeter of the grotto, beyond the village, and into one of the huge passageways that led away from the grotto.They walked for half an hour, tracing a labyrinth of passageways that got narrower and narrower the farther off they went, the bright r ed lobster-shell surface melt into something that looked like mother-of-pearl the deeper in they went. It glowed faintly, just enough so they could see where they were going.Finally the passageway started to broaden again and open into a large room that looked like some sort of oval amphitheater, all of it pearlescent and providing its own light. Benches lined the walls around the room, all in view of a wide ramp that led to a round portal the size of a garage door, closed now with an iris of black shell.Ooooh, the great and powerful Oz will see you now, Nate said.The whaley boys, who normally found practically anything funny, just looked away. One of the black-and-whites started whistling a soft tune from his blowhole. In the entrance hall of the Mountain King or a Streisand tune something creepy, Nate thought.Emily 7 backhand the whistler in the chest, and he stopped abruptly. Then she put her hand on Nates shoulder and gestured for him to go up the steps to the round porta l.Okay, I guess this is it. Nate started backing up the ramp as the whaley boys started backing away from him. You guys better not leave me, because Ill never find my way back.Emily 7 grinned, that lovely hack-a-salmon-in-half smile of hers, and waved him on.Thanks, Em. You look good, you know. Did I mention? Shiny. He hoped shiny was good.The iris subject behind him, and the whaley boys fell to their knees and touched their lower jaws to the floor. Nate turned to see that the pearlescent ramp led into a vibrant red chamber that was pulsing with light and glistening with moisture as the walls appeared to breathe. Now, this looked like a living thing the inside of a living thing. in truth much more what hed expected to see when the whale had eaten him. He made his way forward. A few steps in, the ramp melded into the reddish flesh, which Nate could now see was shot through with blood vessels and what might be nerves. He couldnt get the size of the space he was in. It just seemed to expand to cause him and contract behind him, as if a bubble were moving along with him inside it. When the iris disappeared into the pink Goo, Nate felt a wave of terror go through him. He took a deep breath damp, rich air and strangely enough he remembered what Poynter and Poe had told him back on the humpback ship Its easier if you just accept that youre already dead. He took another deep breath and ventured forward a few more feet, then stopped.I feel like a friggin sperm in here he yelled. What the hell, he was dead anyway. Im supposed to have a meeting with the Colonel.On cue, the Goo began to open in front of him, like the view of a flower opening from the inside. A brighter light illuminated the newly opened chamber, now just large enough to house Nate, another person, and about ten feet of conversational distance. Reclining in a great pink push-down list of goo, dressed in tropical safari wear and a San Francisco Giants baseball hat, was the Colonel.Nathan Quin n, good to see you. Its been a long time, he said.