Jupe paid no attention to him. He had just seen something on the screen that Slater had missed — a flash of Constance swimming forward. Now her hand reached out toward the lens. The light on the monitor shrank to a pinpoint. The screen went black. Constance had switched off the camera.
“Here. You take the wheel.” Slater grabbed Pete’s arm. “And try to hold her steady.”
Jupe watched Slater hurry over to the rail of the boat. He followed the man slowly as Pete took the wheel. But Jupe didn’t join Slater at the rail. He walked softly past him to the stern and stood by the locker there. He kept his eyes on the surface of the ocean, waiting.
He didn’t have to wait very long. Twenty yards away Constance’s head bobbed up. Jupe could see she no longer had the coil of nylon cord over her shoulder.
Fluke was swimming beside her. As the little whale raised his head, Jupe saw something else too. The camera and the searchlight were gone. In their place, bound to the canvas harness on Fluke’s head, was the flat green metal box.
Jupe opened the locker and snatched out the sealed plastic bag Pete had hidden there. He tore open the bag and took out the walkie-talkie. He pulled the antenna to its full length and switched the walkie-talkie on to Send.
“Bob,” he said urgently into the speaker of the walkie-talkie. “Bob. Start playing.”
He glanced at Slater. The bald man was leaning far out over the rail. He was shouting at Constance.
“Bring it in!” Slater yelled. “Bring that box in, you hear?” “Start playing, Bob!” Jupe repeated insistently. “Start playing Fluke’s song.”
“Roger, Jupe. Over and out.”
Bob switched off the walkie-talkie and put it on the rock beside him.
There was no sight of Slater’s boat from the cove. He had no idea how far away it might be. But he knew from his research in the library that whales had incredibly acute hearing. They had no external ears, the way people did, only tiny pinpricks in their skin just behind their eyes.
But their internal ears were much more efficient than humans’ were. They could pick up their own sonar, the echo of their own voices, so accurately they could tell the exact size and shape of any submerged object hundreds of yards away.
They could hear one another’s greetings or calls of distress for miles underwater.
Bob shucked off his sweater and sneakers. Then he picked up the recorder in its airtight metal case and waded into the sea. He lowered the case into the water and held it there while the tape slowly unwound. Fluke’s song, the recording of his voice, was being broadcast at full volume out into the ocean.
No human ear would be able to hear it. But maybe Fluke would.
On board Slater’s boat Jupe was still standing in the stern. He slipped his walkie-talkie quickly back into the locker.
Twenty yards away Fluke and Constance were floating side by side. Slater was still shouting at her to bring the box on board.
Jupe raised his hand in the signal he had arranged with Constance. It meant he had managed to get through to Bob at the cove.
Constance waved back. She had understood. She patted Fluke’s head and they dived together.
Slater straightened from the rail. “What’s going on?” he yelled. He hurried to the cockpit and pushed Pete away from the wheel. Gripping it himself, he swung the bow around until he was headed for the spot where Fluke and Constance had disappeared.
He was almost there when Constance bobbed up. Slater brought the boat to a stop beside her and gave the wheel back to Pete.
“Hold her right here,” he ordered as he ran back to the rail.
“Where’s that box?” he shouted down to Constance.
She didn’t answer. She was holding the searchlight and the camera in one hand. She gripped the rail with the other and swung herself on board.
“Where’s that whale?”
Constance still didn’t answer. She took off her mask and slipped the air tank off her back.
“Where is it?” Slater was peering over the side. “Where is it? Where did it go?”
Constance shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. Slater.”
“What do you mean?” Slater turned to Jupe. “Give me those binoculars.” Jupe handed them over. Slater raised them to his eyes, searching the ocean around him.
There was no sign of Fluke. Wherever he was, wherever he was heading, he was swimming underwater.
“Whales can be funny that way,” Constance explained. Slater had his back to her. She glanced at Jupe and winked. “They’re so friendly and then, I don’t know, they get a sudden yen to be free and they just go off and leave you without even saying goodbye.”
Slater lowered the binoculars. “He’s got my box!” he shouted. “You tied it to his head.” He glared suspiciously at Constance. “Why did you do that?”
Constance shrugged again. “I had to,” she said. “It was the only way I could get it to the surface. You must admit Fluke did a wonderful job. He swam right down into that cabin and under the bunk. He had the clothes hanger in his mouth and he managed to slip the hook under the handle of the box. He pulled it out of the cabin. Then I hauled in the line and brought the box up —”
“Why didn’t you bring it to the boat?”
“Please don’t interrupt me, Mr. Slater. I was a long way down. There was no way I could swim to the surface with that great heavy metal case containing all those —”
“It wasn’t so heavy. It was —”
“I asked you not to interrupt me, Mr. Slater.” Constance was looking down at him with her clenched hands on her hips. “The only way I could possibly manage to get that heavy metal case with all those calculators in it back to the boat was to take the camera off Fluke’s head and tie the box to his harness instead.”
She picked up the towel that was hanging over the rail and began to dry her dark, feathery hair with it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Slater,” she went on. “But it’s just as bad for me. Half those calculators belong to my father. I lost as much as you did when Fluke swam away.”
“Swam away,” Slater repeated. There was a bitter helplessness in his voice. He raised the binoculars to his eyes again.
“Where would that stupid, ungrateful animal swim to?” he demanded. “Where did he go?”
Constance glanced at the First Investigator. “What do you think, Jupe?” she asked.
“It’s just a guess.” Jupe’s mind was working fast. Fluke had at least fifteen minutes start on them now. Even at full speed Slater could never catch up with him. And Bob was alone at the cove. He might need help.
“It’s just a guess,” Jupe repeated. “But I think it’s possible Fluke returned to the cove. The place we put him back in the ocean this morning.”
“Why would he do that?” Slater was glaring suspiciously at Jupe now.
“Sort of a homing instinct,” Jupe suggested innocently. “I told you it was just a guess, Mr. Slater.”
“Mmmm —” Slater looked toward the shore. “Okay,” he decided. “You take the wheel, boy, and head back to the cove.”
He walked quickly away onto the forward deck. Jupe took the wheel from Pete. “Full speed!” Slater shouted down to him, raising his binoculars.