Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore Page B

nerd world."
    "We're action nerds," Nate said. "Adventure nerds. Nerds of romance."
    "Nerds," Amy said.
    Nate could see the skeletal Gilbert Box standing off to the side of the crowd under a straw hat whose brim was so wide it could have afforded shade for three additional people and behind a pair of enormous wraparound sunglasses suitable for welding or as a shield from nuclear flash. His gaunt face was still smeared with residue of the white zinc oxide he used for sun protection when out on the water. He wore a long-sleeved khaki shirt and trousers and leaned on a white sun umbrella that he was never seen without. It was a half hour before sunset, a warm breeze was coming off Maalaea Bay, and Gilbert Box looked like Death out for his after-dinner stroll before a busy night of e-mailing heart attacks and tumors to a few million lucky winners.
    Nate had given Box the nickname "the Count," after the Sesame Street vampire with the obsessive-compulsive need to count things. (Nate had been too old for Sesame Street as a preschooler, but he'd watched it through grade ten while baby-sitting his younger brother, Sam.) People agreed that the Count was the perfect name for a survey guy with an aversion to water and sunlight, and the name had caught on even outside Nate and Clay's immediate sphere of influence.
    Panic rattled up Nate's spine. "They're going to know we're faking it. The Count will call us on it the first time I say something that we don't have the data to back up."
    "How's he going to know? You had the data a week ago. Besides, what's this 'we'? I'm just running the projector."
    "Thanks."
    "There's Tarwater," Amy said. "Who are those women he's talking to?"
    "Probably just some whale huggers," Nate said, pretending that all of his mental faculties were required for him to squeeze the pickup into the four adjacent empty parking spaces. The women Tarwater was talking to were Margaret Painborne, Ph.D., and Elizabeth "Libby" Quinn, Ph.D. They worked together with a couple of very butch young women studying cow/calf behavior and social vocalizations. They were doing good work, Nate thought, even if it appeared to have a gender-based agenda. Margaret was in her late forties, short and round, with long gray hair that she kept perpetually tied back in a braid. Libby was almost a decade younger, long-legged and lean, blond hair going gray, cut short, and she had once, not too long ago, been Nathan Quinn's third wife. A second and totally different wave of anxiety swept over Quinn. This was the first time he'd encountered Libby since Amy joined the team.
    "They don't look like whale huggers," Amy said. "They look like researchers."
    "How is that?"
    "They look like action nerds." Amy snorted again and crawled out of the truck.
    "That's not very professional," Nate said, "that snorting-laugh thing you do." But Amy had already walked off toward the lecture hall, a carousel of slides under her arm.
    Nate counted more than thirty researchers in the crowd as he walked up. And those were just the ones he was acquainted with. New people would be coming back and forth from the mainland all season – grad students, film crews, reporters, National Fisheries people, patrons – all hitchhiking on the very few research permits that were issued for the sanctuary.
    For some reason Amy made a beeline for Cliff Hyland and his navy watchdog, Tarwater, who was out of uniform in Dockers and a Tommy Bahama shirt, but still out of place because his clothes were ironed to razor creases – his Topsiders had been spit-shined, and he stood as if there were a cold length of rebar wired to his spine.
    "Hey, Amy," Cliff said. "Sorry to hear about the break-in. Bad?"
    "We'll be all right," Amy said.
    Nate strolled up behind Amy. "Hey, Cliff. Captain." He nodded to each.
    "Sorry to hear about the break-in, Nate," Cliff said again. "Hope you guys didn't lose anything important."
    "We're fucked," Nate said.
    And Tarwater smiled – for the first time ever, Nate