by Conner, Jack
The whale slipped beneath the surface. The boats slowed, and the whalers stood and coiled their arms, ready to hurl their harpoons. Where had the animal gone? The whalers remained steady, but Avery could imagine their sweat, their fear, their rapid breaths fogging their face-plates.
The whale erupted right under one of the central boats. It flung the craft high into the air and the men inside it flew in all directions, lifelines moored now only to splinters. The men struck the water and sank. Their heavy suits dragged them down. Only two managed to fling their lifelines to nearby boats in time to save them.
Before the whale submerged, Avery saw it, and he felt the blood drain from his face.
The whale had blossomed from the sea like a dark god, a mountain, mist spraying everywhere, its great jaws open, sharp teeth gleaming. Several whalers vanished between those jaws along with what was left of the boat. As the spray spread away from it, the light of the two visible moons shown down on the whale, revealing a horror covered in boils and stalks, milky blind eyes staring out from its sides. Its fins sprouted many and jagged, at odd places from its body, some ending in things that might be teeth. Sharp protrusions jutted from its flanks along with curling, groping tendril-like appendages. Some actually grew through the milky eyes. The whale’s real, functional eyes glared madly, rimmed in pustules and scars and barnacles.
Then, with a huge splash that rocked the nearby boats, the leviathan vanished from sight—but not before three or four harpoons sailed through the night and embedded in its sides and underbelly.
For several breathless minutes the boats bobbed up and down on the waves. The men that had been flung from their destroyed craft reeled themselves in and with help from their mates scrambled aboard the boats. Avery hoped their suits hadn’t ruptured.
The whale returned. It opened its huge, tooth-lined maw and shot toward another boat—the one Janx occupied. Avery felt suddenly cold. Janx had become something of a mascot to the Maul, and the crew adored him. Were he to die so would the ship’s morale. Not only that, but Avery liked the big whaler.
Visible from far away, Janx stared up at the whale, harpoon cocked and ready. He did not throw, although the men to either side of him hurled theirs right into the whale’s oncoming head.
It drove on.
With a thunderous crack, it smashed the boat to splinters, devouring several of the whalers instantly and plunging beneath the waves with such force that one of the nearby boats capsized in the swell. There was no sign of Janx or the other whalers that had been on the destroyed boat.
“Damn,” Avery said.
Hambry snorted. “Maybe he’ll find his nose in the afterlife.”
Mist blew across the sea, and somewhere a few leagues off a burst of lightning must have struck a gas bubble, as a furious ball of orange and white expanded over the water. Expanded, then faded. By its light Avery saw one of the other ships of the line, several leagues to the east, he couldn’t tell which one. The night was too dark for him to see any of the other ship’s boats, though they must be out there, too, hunting, hunting. The whole fleet would be scrambling.
The whale emerged from the depths.
This time it breached more slowly, and for a moment Avery thought it had grown arrogant, that it would leisurely move to destroy the remaining boats. As if it had heard his thoughts, it swam toward the nearest one, and the men there braced themselves, ready to throw their harpoons.
The whale closed in, mouth agape, but for some reason the men didn’t throw. As it neared them, its mouth began to close, and its tail slowed.
Limp, the whale drifted, carried by momentum, until finally it reached an utter stop.
A ragged cheer drifted across the waves.
Only then did Avery see, as one of the moons came out from behind a cloud, that a tall, broad figure stood on the whale’s head, leaning on a harpoon—Nancy, it must be Nancy—driven deep into the creature’s skull.
Avery laughed and clapped Hambry on the shoulder. “It’s Janx!” he said. “He’s alive! He’s alive! The bloody idiot! He must have ridden it as it went under! Ha!”
The others on the deck—there was quite a crowd—laughed and cheered. Out on the water, the whalers ringed the animal and Janx climbed down its sides to much slapping on the back.
Hooked ropes sliced the air. Sharp steel sunk deep into fatty flesh. The boats began to haul their catch back toward the Maul, the boats small and puny against the vast blackness of the whale. They searched for survivors as they went, but there were none. The whale had slain perhaps ten men.
And yet Avery could not help but feel an enormous sense of relief. With the amount of hot lard that would be harvested from the monster, the machines that powered Ghenisa’s defenses could be fueled for dozens of hours. Though other substances were used, few were as readily (if not easily) obtainable as the lard of a whale from the Atomic Sea—hot lard. Not radioactive in the traditional sense, but holding powerful concentrations of energy just the same. With the whale slain, the army of Octung might be staved off, at least for a time. Hopefully the other ships of the fleet would make kills, as well.
The whaling boats drew their prize to the Maul, and whalers and sailors coordinated tying it to the sides. A celebration broke out. Avery wasn’t sure if Captain Sheridan had called for it or not, but she certainly seemed to allow it. Janx clambered aboard and was instantly surrounded by admirers. With him in their center, men and women retreated inside, removed their suits, and were passed double rations of grog. Avery followed. Somewhere around a corner, he heard Janx toasting the dead. “Tonight they dance in the deep!” Others echoed him.
Before Avery could remove his suit and pour a glass of his finer officer’s whiskey, Ensign Tapor ran up to him. Her breath masked her face-plate, and he could just see her wide eyes behind it.
“Doctor, you must come quickly.”
Avery had just been in the process of taking off his helm. “Is it necessary?” he said. “I was just about to—”
“It’s an emergency.”
She sounds odd. “Show me,” he said.
He snapped his helmet back on, and the ensign hurried him through the air-lock and outside again. Assaulted anew by wind and mist, he grumped. He’d been looking forward to warmth and whiskey, to toasting Paul’s memory and Janx’s victory.
Overhead a great gas-squid floated against the stars, tentacles squirming, moonslight filtering through its half-translucent flesh, making it seem to glow in places with a ghostly sheen. Celebrating sailors near the bow took pot-shots at it, laughing.
Ensign Tapor led Avery to the port gunwale amidships. Ropes strained and creaked, and when Avery looked over the side, he saw that they ran from the ship to the whale, which had been tied off snugly—a huge, misshapen, cancerous growth sprouting from the Maul, its sides slip-slapping against the ship. Avery had thought all the boats had been raised and secured, but to his surprise he saw that one remained on the water directly below. It bobbed, oddly, in front of the whale’s mouth, which sagged open. Something was being lifted from the boat toward the ship’s deck in a canvas sling.
Avery’s frown deepened. “I don’t ... Did that thing come from the whale’s mouth?”
He glanced sideways. Ensign Tapor stared downward at the ascending shape, but she turned to look at him, a mix of fear and wonder in her eyes. “Yes, Doctor. She did.”
“She?” Avery frowned. “A woman?” When Tapor didn’t answer, he said, “A crewwoman from one of the other ships of the line?”
“I don’t think so, Doctor.”
The body reached the gunwale, and Avery rushed over to assist the sailors in setting it down. Only then did he step back, away from it, and see it for the first time.
Impossible.
It was a woman, naked, breathing, with hair too long for her to be Navy, and showing no obvious signs of sickness.
“Amazing,” he said. “She should be dead. No one could survive those waters, uninfected, without a suit ...”
; Thunder rolled, and lightning lit up the seas. Avery hardly noticed.
****
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