"Moore, Christopher - Fluke" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Christopher)

"Anomalous data," Nate said.
"Anomalous data," Amy repeated into the radio.
There was a pause. Then Clay said, "Uh, right, understood. That stuff gets into everything."
The harbor at Lahaina is not large. Only a hundred or so vessels can dock behind her breakwater. Most are sizable, fifty- to seventy-foot cruisers and catamarans, boats full of sunscreen-basted tourists out on the water for anything from dinner cruises to sport fishing to snorkeling at the half-sunken crater of Molokini to, of course, whale watching. Jet-skiing, parasailing, and waterskiing were all banned from December until April, while the humpbacks were in these waters, so many of the smaller boats that would normally be used to terrorize marine life in the name of recreation were leased by whale researchers for the season. On any given winter morning down at the harbor at Lahaina, you couldn't throw a coconut without conking a Ph.D. in cetacean biology (and you stood a good chance of winging two Masters of Science working on dissertations with the rebound).
Clay Demodocus was engaged in a bit of research liars poker with a Ph.D. and a naval officer when Amy backed the Mako into the slip they shared with three tender zodiacs from sailing yachts anchored outside the breakwater, a thirty-two-foot motor-sailor, and the Maui Whale Research Foundation's other boat (Clay's boat), the Always Confused, a brand-new twenty-two-foot Grady White Fisherman, center console. (Slips were hard to come by in Lahaina, and circumstances this season had dictated that the Maui Whale Research Foundation -- Nate and Clay -- perform a nautical dog pile with six other small craft every day. You do what you have to do if you want to poke whales.)
"Shame," Clay said as Amy threw him the stern line. "Nice calm day, too."
"We got everything but a measurement on one singer," Amy said.
The scientist and the naval officer on the dock behind Clay nodded as if they understood completely. Clifford Hyland, a grizzled, gray-haired whale researcher from Iowa stood next to the young, razor-creased, snowy-white-uniformed Captain L. J. Tarwater, who was there to see that Hyland spent the navy's money appropriately. Hyland looked a little embarrassed at the whole thing and wouldn't make eye contact with Amy or Nate. Money was money, and a researcher took it where he could get it, but navy money, it was so. . . so nasty.
"Morning Amy," said Tarwater, dazzling a perfectly even, perfectly white smile. He was lean and dark and frighteningly efficient-looking. Next to him, Clay and the scientists looked as if they'd been run through the dryer with a bag of lava rock.
"Good morning, Captain. Morning Cliff."
"Hey, Amy," Cliff Hyland said. "Hey, Nate."
Nathan Quinn shook off his confusion like a retriever who had just heard his name uttered in context with food. "What? What? Oh, hi, Cliff. What?"
Hyland and Quinn had both been part of a group of thirteen scientists who had first come to Lahaina in the seventies ("The Killer Elite," Clay still called them, as they had all gone on to distinguish themselves as leaders in their fields). Actually, the original intention hadn't been for them to be a group, but they nevertheless became one early on when they all realized that the only way they could afford to stay on the island was if they pooled their resources and lived together. So for years thirteen of them -- and sometimes more if they could afford assistants, wives, or girlfriends -- lived every season in a two-bedroom house they rented in Lahaina. Hyland understood Quinn's tendency to submerge himself in his research to the point of oblivion, so he wasn't surprised that once again the rangy researcher had spaced out.
"Anomalous data, huh?" Cliff asked, figuring that was what had sent Nate into the ozone.
"Uh, nothing I can be sure of. I mean, actually, the recorder isn't working right. Something dragging. Probably just needs to be cleaned."
And everyone, including Amy, looked at Quinn for a moment as if to say, Well, you lying satchel of walrus spit, that is the weakest story I've ever heard, and you're not fooling anyone.
"Shame," Clay said. "Nice day to miss out on the water. Maybe you can get back with the other recorder and get out again before the wind comes up." Clay knew something was up with Nate, but he also trusted his judgment enough not to press it. Nate would tell him when he thought he should know.
"Speaking of that," Hyland said, "we'd better get going." He headed down the dock toward his own boat. Tarwater stared at Nate just long enough to convey disgust before turning on his heel and marching after Hyland.
When they were gone, Amy said, "Tarwater is a creep."
"He's all right. He's got a job to do is all," Clay said. "What's with the recorder?"
"The recorder is fine," Nate said.
"Then what gives? It's a perfect day." Clay liked to state the obvious when it was positive. It was sunny, calm, with no wind, and the underwater visibility was two hundred feet. It was a perfect day to research whales.
Nate started handing waterproof cases of equipment to Clay. "I don't know. I may have seen something out there, Clay. I have to think about it and see the pictures. I'm going to drop some film off at the lab, then go back to Papa Lani and write up some research until the film's ready."
Clay flinched, just a tad. It was Amy's job to drop off film and write up research. "Okay. How 'bout you, kiddo?" Clay said to Amy. "My new guy doesn't look like he's going to show, and I need someone topside while I'm under."
Amy looked to Nate for some kind of approval, but when he simply kept unloading cases without a reaction, she just shrugged. "Sure, I'd love to."
Clay suddenly became self-conscious and shuffled in his flip-flops, looking for a second more like a five-year-old kid than a barrel-chested, fifty-year-old man. "By calling you 'kiddo' I didn't mean to dimmish you by age or anything, you know."
"I know," Amy said.
"And I wasn't making any sort of comment on your competency either."
"I understand, Clay."
Clay cleared his throat unnecessarily. "Okay," he said.
"Okay," Amy said. She grabbed two Pelican cases full of equipment, stepped up onto the dock, and started schlepping the stuff to the parking area so it could be loaded into Nate's pickup. Over her shoulder she said, "You guys both so need to get laid."
"I think that's reverse harassment," Clay said to Nate.
"I may be having hallucinations," said Nate.
"No, she really said that," Clay said.

* * *

After Quinn had left, Amy climbed into the Always Confused and began untying the stern line. She glanced over her shoulder to look at the forty-foot cabin cruiser where Captain Tarwater posed on the bow looking like an advertisement for a particularly rigid laundry detergent -- Bumstick Go-Be-Bright, perhaps.
"Clay, you ever heard of a uniformed naval officer accompanying a researcher into the field before?"
Clay looked up from doing a battery check on the GPS. "Not unless the researcher was working from a navy vessel. Once I was along on a destroyer for a study on the effects of high explosives on resident populations of southern sea lions in the Falkland Islands. They wanted to see what would happen if you set off a ten-thousand-pound charge in proximity to a sea lion colony. There was a uniformed officer in charge of that."
Amy cast the line back to the dock and turned to face Clay. "What was the effect?"
"Well, it blew them the fuck up, didn't it? I mean, that's a lot of explosives."
"They let you film that for National Science?"
"Just stills," Clay said. "I don't think they anticipated it going the way it did. I got some great shots of it raining seal meat." Clay started the engine.
"Yuck." Amy untied the bumpers and pulled them into the boat. "But you've never seen a uniformed officer working here? Before now, I mean."
"Nowhere else," Clay said. He pulled down the gear lever. There was a thump, and the boat began to creep forward.
Amy pushed them away from the surrounding boats with a padded boat hook. "What do you think they're doing?"
"I was trying to find out this morning when you guys came in. They loaded an awfully big case before you got here. I asked what it was, and Tarwater got all sketchy. Cliff said it was some acoustics stuff."
"Directional array?" Amy asked. Researchers sometimes towed large arrays of hydrophones that could, unlike a single hydrophone, detect the direction from which sound was traveling.
"Could be," Clay said. "Except they don't have a winch on their boat.