"And we need to look at blue-, fin-, and sei-whale calls," said Libby. "If they're using subsonic, then it only makes sense that they'll imitate the big whales. I'll call Chris Wolf at Oregon State tomorrow. He monitors the navy's old sonar matrix that they set up to catch Russian submarines. He'll have recordings of everything we need."
"No," said Clay. "No one outside this room."
"Come on, Clay. You're being paranoid."
"Say that again, Libby. He monitors whose old sonar matrix? The military still keeps a hand in on that SOSUS array."
"So you think it is military?"
Clay shook his head. "I don't know. I'm damned if I can think of a reason the navy would paint 'Bite me' on the tail of a whale. I just know that people who find out about this stuff disappear, and someone sent a message saying that Nate was safe after we all thought he was dead."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Find him," Clay said.
"Well, that's going to totally screw up the funeral," said Clair.
PART THREE
The Source
We are built as gene machines and
cultured as meme machines, but we have
the power to turn against our creators.
We, alone on earth, can rebel against
the tyranny of selfish replicators.
— RICHARD DAWKINS, The Selfish Gene
Ninety-five percent of all the species
that have ever existed are now extinct,
so don't look so goddamn smug.
— GERARD RYDER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Found World
The whale ship opened its mouth, and Nate and the crew spilled out onto the shore like sentient drool, which was some coincidence, since that's exactly what lay beneath the hard shell of the landing. They were met by a group of whaley boys, one of whom handed Nate a pair of Nikes, then went off to trade clicks and squeals and greeting rubs with the returning crew. It was so bright after nearly ten days in the whale ship that Nate couldn't immediately tell what was happening. The rest of the human crew were wearing sunglasses as they sat down on the ground to put on their shoes, only a few feet from the ship's mouth. From the rigid feel of the ground, Nate thought they might be on a dock of some kind, but then Cal Burdick took off his own sunglasses and handed them to Nate.
"Go ahead. I've been looking at all of this for a lot of years, but I think you'll find it interesting."
With the dark glasses, Nate was able to see. His eyes were fine, but his mind was having a hard time processing what they were telling him. It was as light as daylight (on an overcast day, at least), but they were not outdoors. They were inside a grotto so immense that Nate could not even make out the edges of it. A dozen stadiums could have fit inside the space and still left room for a state fair, a casino, and the Vatican if you snipped off a basilica or two. The entire ceiling was a source of light, cold light, it appeared — some sections yellow, some blue — great blotches of light in irregular shapes, as if Jackson Pollock had painted a solar storm across the ceiling. Half of the grotto was water, flat and reflective as a mirror, the smoothness broken by small whaley boys porpoising here and there in groups of five and six, their blowholes sending up synchronized blasts of steam every few yards. Whaley kids, he thought. Fifty or so whale ships of different species pulled up to the shore, their crews coming and going. Huge segmented pipes that looked like giant earthworms were attached to each of the ships, one on each side of the head, and ran off to connections on shore. The ground — the ground was red, and as hard as linoleum, polished, yet not quite shiny. It ran out for hundreds of yards, perhaps over a mile, and appeared to continue halfway up the walls of the immense grotto. Nate could see openings in the walls, oval passages or doorways or tunnels or something. From the size of the people and whaley boys passing in and out, he could tell that some of the openings were perhaps thirty feet around, while others seemed only the size of normal doors. There were windows next to some of the smaller ones — or what he guessed were windows — their shapes all curves and slopes. There wasn't a right angle in the grotto. Hundreds of people moved about amid as many 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 said, nearly wrenching his neck trying to look at all of it at once. "I mean, what in the hell is this?"
"Pretty amazing," Cal said. "I like to watch people when they see Gooville for the first time."
Nate ran his hand over the ground, or floor, or whatever this surface was they were sitting on. "What is this stuff?" It appeared smooth, but it had texture, pores, a hidden roughness, like stoneware or —
"It's living carapace. Like a lobster shell. This whole place is living, Nate. Everything — the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the passageway in from the sea, our homes — it's all one huge organism. We call 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?"
"That's right. The Goos. There's a wonderful Seussian logic to it, don't you think?"
"I can't think, Cal. You know how all your life you hear people talk about things that are mind-boggling? It's just a meaningless cliché — a hyperbole — like saying that you're wasted or that something is bloodcurdling?"
"Yep."
"Well, I'm boggled. I'm totally boggled."
"You thought the ships were impressive, huh?"
"Yeah, but this? One living organism shaped itself into this complex… what? System? I'm boggled."
"Imagine how the bacteria who live in your intestinal tract feel about you."
"Well, right now I think they're pissed off at me."
A group of whaley boys was gathering about ten yards away from them, pointing at Nate and snickering.
"They're coming down to check out the newcomer. Don't be surprised if you get rubbed up against in the streets. They're just saying hi."
"Streets?"
"We call them streets. They're sort of streets."
Now, out of the dim yellow light of the whale ships, Nate realized that there was a wide variety in the whaley boys' coloring. Some were actually mottled blue, like the skin of a blue whale, while 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 stark white like a beluga. The body shapes of all were very similar, 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 noticed in the brighter light that he was the only human who had a tan. The people, even Cal and the crew, looked healthy; it just appeared that none of them had ever seen the sun. Like the British.
Nuñez came over and helped Cal, and then Nate, to his feet.
"How're the shoes?" she asked Nate.
"They're strange after not wearing any for so long."
"You'll be wobbly for a few hours, too. You'll feel the motion when you stand still for a day or so. No different from having been at sea in normal ship. I'll take you to your new quarters, show you around a little, get you settled in. The Colonel will probably send for you before too long. People will help you out, humans and whaley boys. They'll all know you're new."