"Shhhhhhhh, Cap," Poe said. "That was gonna be a surprise."
"Meep," said Skippy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Missing Biscuit,
Flopping Tuna
"Bwana Clay, you seen the Snowy Biscuit?"
Clay and Clair sat on the lanai of Clay's bungalow drinking mai-tais and watching smoke roll out the vents of a Weber kettle barbecue. Kona had his long board tucked underneath his arm and was heading for his Maui cruiser, a lime Krylon-over-rust 1975 BMW 2002, with no windows and seats that were covered in ratty blankets.
Clay was two mai-tais south of lucid, but he could still talk, "She took Nate's truck into town this morning. Haven't seen her since."
"Sistah wanted me to teach her some surfing. Got some easy sets rolling on West Shore, good for that."
"Sorry," said Clay. "We're smoking a big hunk of ahi tuna if you'd like to join us."
"No," said Clair.
"Tanks, but I'm going down to Lahaina town and see if I can find that Snowy Biscuit. We going to work tomorrow?"
"Maybe," said Clay, trying to think through a rum cloud. They'd pulled the Always Confused up out of the bottom of the harbor, and the boatyard had said it would be a week or so before it was ready to float again, although even then it would need some major cleaning. Still, they had Nate's boat. He looked at Clair.
"You're not sitting home tomorrow whining to me about your hangover," Clair said. "You get out there on the water and be sick like a proper man." She'd revised her thoughts on Clay's staying off the water. He was who he was.
"Yeah, plan on going out if it's not too windy," Clay said. "Hey, we supposed to have wind?" It occurred to Clay that he hadn't checked the weather since Nate had disappeared.
"Calm morning, trades in the afternoon," Kona said. "We can work."
"Tell Amy when you see her, okay. Take my cell phone with you. Call me when you find her. You sure you won't have dinner with us?"
"No," said Clair.
"No," said Kona, grinning at Clair. "Auntie, you embarrassed that Kona seen you naked? You look fine, yeah."
Clair stood up. "You go ahead, call me 'Auntie' again, see if I don't snatch out the rest of those dreads and use them to make cat toys."
"Ease up, I'm going to find the Biscuit." And he loped to the Beemer, slid the long board in through the back window, hooked the skeg over the passenger seat to secure it, and then drove off to Lahaina to look for Amy.
It was two in the morning when the phone in Clay's bungalow rang. "Tell me you're not in jail," Clay said.
"Not in jail, Bwana Clay, but maybe you need to sit down."
"I'm in bed sleeping, Kona. What?"
"The truck, Bwana Nate's truck. It's here at the kayak rental in Lahaina. They say Amy rent a kayak this morning, about eleven."
"They're still there?"
"I waked the guy up."
"They don't know where she went? They let her go alone? He didn't call us when it got dark?"
"She said she was just using it to tow behind the boat, for research. He know she a whale researcher, so he didn't think nothing of it. Sometime they take kayaks two, three days."
"You checked? She's not on the boat?"
"You mean the not sunk one?"
"Yes, that would be the one."
"Yeah, I check. The boat in the slip. No kayak."
"Stay there. I'll be down in a few minutes. I have to get dressed and call the Coast Guard."
"This kayak guy says it not on him — she signed a wafer. That some kind of religious thing?"
"Waiver, Kona, she signed a waiver. Are you high?"
"Yes."
"Of course. Sorry. Okay, I'll be right there."
Nate was three days inside the whale before he asked, "Your names aren't really Poynter and Poe, are they?"
"What?" said Poynter. "You're eaten by a giant whale ship and you're worried that we might be traveling under assumed names? Go for it, Poe."
"Give us a flush, boys!" Poe said.
Water came gushing down the floor of the whale from the front. Pantsless, Ensign Poe took three steps and went into a slide toward the tail like he was sliding into third base on a wet rain tarp. As he reached the end of the chamber, he spread his arms out to his sides at right angles. There was a sucking sound, and he sank up to his armpits into an orifice that only a second ago had appeared as just an impression in solid skin.
"Wow, that's cold," said Poe. "How deep are we?"
Scooter clicked and whistled a couple of times.
"Ninety feet," said Poynter. "Can't be that bad."
"Feels colder. I think my 'nads have crawled up inside my body."
Nate simply stared, gape-jawed, at the arms and head of the ensign, just above floor level.
"You see, Doc," said Poynter, "most of the time we call it the 'back orifice' instead of the anus, you know, because otherwise, with us moving in and out of it, there's implications. His lower body is in the sea right now, at three atmospheres, yet the back orifice is sealed around him and it's not crushing his chest. It's not crushing your chest, is it, Poe?"
"No, sir. It's snug for sure, but I can breathe."
"How is that possible?" asked Nate.
"You're a diver. You've been down, what, a hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty feet?"
"A hundred and fifty, by accident, but what does that have to do with this?"
"You never had sphincter failure at that depth, did you? Blow up like a puffer fish?"
"No."
"Well, there you go, Nate. This here is just advanced poop-chute technology. We don't even understand it ourselves, but it's the key to sanitation on these small ships, and it's how we get in and out. Normally the mouth on these humpback ships doesn't even open, which gives us a lot more room, but this one was made specially to retrieve 'Dirts. That's you people."
"Made? By whom?" Of course they were made. Nothing like this could have evolved.
"Later," said Poynter. "Poe, you done?"
"Aye, aye, Captain."
"Get back in here."
"Mighty cold out here, sir. I'm telling you, my tackle's going to look like I'm posing for a baby picture."
"I'm sure the doc will take that into account, Poe."
Nate could feel a slight change in pressure in his ears, and Poe oozed back into the whale. The orifice sealed behind him, leaving almost no water on the floor. The ensign sidled, crablike, to the front of the ship, shielding his privates with his hands. He retrieved his pants from a storage nook that opened with a flap of skin like the blowhole on a killer whale. The whale's interior was lined with the storage nooks, but you couldn't even see the seams by the dim bioluminescence when they were closed.
"You're going to learn how to do that, Nate. It's just the civilized thing to do until we transfer you to the blue. Can't have you doing your business in the ship."
When he'd had to go to the bathroom, they'd sent Nate to the back of the whale, where he'd gone on the floor. Seconds later the whaley boys had let a bit of water in through a crack in the mouth, which washed across the floor and effectively flushed the mess out the back orifice.
"The blue?" Nate asked.
"Yeah, we can't take you where they want you in this little thing. We'll transfer you to a blue and send you on. You'll have to go through the poop chutes."
"So there's a blue-whale ship as well?"
"Ships," Poynter corrected. "Yeah, and other species, too."
"Right whales are my favorites," Poe said. "Slower than hell, but really wide. Plenty of room. You'll see."
"So they — the whaley boys — can regulate the pressure that precisely? They can let in water, expel it, keep the pressure in here from giving us the bends? Allow us to transfer from one of these ships to another?"