The tremendous red disk rose slowly again, bringing some warmth immediately. They found themselves being supped off by creepers and waited until the vegetables had had their fill. Then they rose and washed themselves with water from pods and drank. The water paralyzed them as usual, but the creepers, as if knowing that the two had given their share, did not approach them.
They continued north, sleeping four times, catching the twin-noses and cockroaches, which tasted much like crabs, and several other animals, including a flying snake. This was one of the few beasts of the air which lacked a gas bladder. Some of its ribs had developed into great wings which it was able to flap up and down in crude imitation of a bird's wings. Another night passed with its perils, and another sun arose.
"How long before we reach your city?" Ishmael said.
"I do not know," she said. "By ship, it would take us, I calculate, about twenty days. Perhaps it will take us five times that long."
"About four hundred of the days of my world," he said. He did not groan, because time was not such a precious currency to a whaler. But he would have preferred to ride. It was heavy and exasperating labor to force a path through this dense complex. He envied the beasts that sailed with such seeming effortlessness through the clouds.
At noon of that day, they saw another of the many immense clouds of billions of tiny red animals, each borne by its umbrella-shaped head. And there were the leviathans that followed and fed upon the air brit. And there was a great ship of the air. Namalee stood up, dropping the white meat of the insect she had caught only an hour before. She stood silent for a long time after an initial gasp. Then she smiled.
"It is from Zalarapamtra!"
The ship looked like a huge, rather elongated cigar beneath which hung a very thin mast and yardarms and sails and on both sides of which, at right angles to the hull, were two masts and sails. The sails, fore-and-aft rigged, were so thin that the dark-blue sky could be seen through them. At the stern were horizontal and vertical rudders.
"It's not as flat as it looks from here," she said in answer to his question. "If you could see it closer up, you would see that in profile it is twelve men high." The ship was following a pod of about thirty leviathans, which, spreading out their double pair of dragon-shaped wings, veined with red and black and green and purple, their tremendous cylindrical bodies and huge heads gleaming silver, were driving through the clouds of air brit.
"How. . .?" Ishmael said, and she put a hand on his arm.
"Watch," she said.
The ship had a full spread of sails. It was traveling swiftly but not swiftly enough to catch up with the whales. Then a smaller object, followed a moment later by another, put out from the big ship.
These were needle-shaped, and the crew lay down in them, Namalee told him, standing only when there was work to be done. The extra rounding on the nose contained a larger bladder than elsewhere. This was necessary because the harpooner stood there when the time came to strike and because the harpoon and its long line were stored there.
He watched as masts were extended above and below the whaleboat and out to both sides. Then the transparent sails were unfurled, and the boat began to speed toward the red cloud.
"How do they manage to drop and furl the sails without going out on the arms?"
"It's done from on board," she said. "The arrangement was invented, so it is said, by Zalarapamtra, but I think that it was used a long time before he was born."
A whaling boat sped on the trail of a leviathan that seemed to be unaware of it. It passed through stratum after stratum of redness, the density of population of the animalcules varying from time to time. It came even with the great beast, and passed on the other side of the red cloud, so that Ishmael could not see it.
Ishmael turned to watch the passing creatures and then he saw the leviathan in the rear of the pod suddenly rise. A silvery sheet fell from it, the ballast of water which it stored in a bladder for two reasons: one, to draw upon when its body needed it; two, for emergencies, when it loosed it to gain levitation swiftly.
Ishmael could see the whaling boat now, connected to the beast by a thin line, one end of which was buried in the head. The wind whale was doing the opposite of sounding; it was soaring for the upper reaches of the heavens.
"It can float for a long time in air in which men would strangle in a short time," Namalee said. "And sometimes a whale is great enough to drag a boat up there, and then the harpooner must cut the line before he becomes too confused to know what he is doing."
The beast had by then taken the boat so high that both were lost in the dark blue. The brit-cloud was northeast of the two watchers on the ground and within half an hour would be touching the horizon. But the ship itself had turned away from the brit and was running close-hauled. Then it turned and was beating against the wind, turned, came back, turned, and was close-hauled again. The maneuvers made it evident that the men on the ship, being much higher than Ishmael, could see the wind whale and its attached boat. And they were still in the general area, vertically speaking, in which the harpoon had first been plunged into the leviathan.
After a while, Ishmael saw the whale as a very small blackish dot. It quickly became larger as it dived, and then the boat became visible. The beast was plunging straight down, its enormous wing-sails folded by its side, its body rigidly straight. The line between hunted and hunter was too thin to be seen. The boat was on a straight line behind and a little to one side of the beast at a distance of about three hundred feet.
"The whale releases its gas quickly and falls," Namalee said. "When it gets close enough to the ground, it will spread its sails and turn upward in a sharp curve. The boat, swinging around and under it, may or may not escape being dashed against the ground. It all depends upon the skill of the whale. Sometimes they err in their estimations of their speed and distance because their wounds have drained the blood from their brains. Then they crash and kill themselves but also kill the boat crew. Of course, the line can be cut before the whale gets too close to the ground, but it is a matter of honor that the harpooner does not sever the line until the very last moment. And sometimes the momentum keeps the boat going, and. . ."
She stopped. The whale, if he kept on at his present velocity and angle, would smash into the earth about half a mile north of them. The animal was now so near that Ishmael could see that this was far huger than any blue whale of his day, which was the greatest animal that had ever lived. The barrel-shaped head was much like its counterpart of the seas of Ishmael's time, but it had no lower jaw. The mouth was a round hole located in the center of the front of the head.
Ishmael asked Namalee about it, and she replied that the creature had no teeth, and its lower jaw was immovable, being grown solidly into the skull. The mouth funneled in the millions of the little red animals and, when the whale's appetite was satisfied, which was seldom, a thin film of skin fell down from inside the mouth to cover the opening.
"But there are whales that have great mouths and movable jaws and these eat the toothless whales and anything else they can, including men," she said.
"I have met such beasts," he said, thinking of the great white whale with the wrinkled forehead and the crooked jaw.
"If that beast doesn't spread its sails and start to turn upward, it will never clear the ground."
Down the gigantic body raced, showing no intention of unfurling sails. All except one of the men in the boat were hidden, doubtless clinging to whatever they used for holds. Only the head of the harpooner was visible. Ishmael expected at any moment to see the arm of the man appear and make a sawing motion with the knife at the line. But the head did not move nor any arm appear.
"Those men are very brave or very foolish," Ishmael murmured in English.
A few seconds later, he spoke in his native tongue again.
"For God's sakes, cut! Cut the line!"
Now the air whale's wing-sails were spread out so suddenly that the crack of the air st
riking them -- or perhaps it was the crack of the great muscles extending the bone and skin of the sails -- was like a volley of muskets. The descent of the creature was checked, and its tail, moving downward and jerking the boat about violently, caused it to begin to curve upward. But its initial direction was still maintained, and even though it was now angled upward, it was sinking.
The boat was now below the whale and still swinging from the maneuver which turned the whale upward. Its weight and speed were enough to oscillate it and the huge creature to which it was attached, a case of the mouse shaking the cat, Ishmael thought.
He could see the four men in the boat, three tied to the deck and the harpooner clinging with two hands. The sails had been furled, of course. Though their resistance would have slowed down the whale and tired it, the inevitable dive would have ripped off sails and masts. Even as it was, the masts had bent far under the comparatively little resistance offered by the furled sails.
"It's too late to cut now!" Namalee said. "If the boat is released, it will continue downward! Now all they can do is hang on and hope that the whale will be able to clear the ground enough so that they will not strike it!"
"They won't. . . avoid the ground," Ishmael said.
If the earth had been one foot lower, or the beast had started to turn a few seconds sooner, the boat might have missed. But its aft end struck the earth, and it rotated, the line snapping and the men being thrown out, the harpooner losing his grip and the safety belts of the others breaking. The bones and skin of the boat's structure folded, bent, cracked, snapped, and the vessel bounced several times before disappearing into the jungle.
The whale, having discharged most of its gas, was not able to rise higher than fifty feet after it had leveled off. It would be limited to a low level until it was able to generate enough gas, provided that it had enough food in its stomach to do so. Even then, if it lacked enough food, it could draw upon its own body tissues to generate enough gas to lift it to several hundred feet. If it failed to run across a brit-cloud at this low level -- and few clouds came this low -- it was doomed. It would sail around, losing gas until it drifted down upon the jungle, crushing the plants under it. And there it would stay while air sharks, various beasts of the ground and the creepers fed upon it.
Ishmael and Namalee pushed through the interweaving growths toward where they thought the men had been thrown. After casting about for some time, they found one. His bones were broken throughout his body; he had been cast through a funnel of vines straight onto the ground. The second man was crying for help.
He lay on a crushed bush and above him were the creepers and vines sheared off by the impact of his body. But he had only a broken leg and many bruises.
The third man was lying in the middle of a great pile of vegetation. He had brought down a whole complex, leaving an empty area in the middle of the jungle. Air sharks, having appeared from nowhere seemingly, were dipping down into the depression and attempting to bite him.
Ishmael and Namalee started to drag him into the shelter of the plants standing at the edge of the cavity. He was half-conscious and groaning. The side of his head was bloodied, as if it had struck a hard-stemmed plant. He wore a kilt of bright blue on which was a black wind whale and a harpoon. A purplish whale was tattooed across his chest and smaller whales to the number of fifty were tattooed down his arms and legs. These indicated the kills he had made during his career.
"He is Chamkri, a great harpooner," she said. "Surely his ship has not heard the news, or it would be speeding homeward, not hunting."
"Here comes a shark," Ishmael said and increased the speed with which he was dragging Chamkri. Then, seeing that the beasts would be on them before they reached the wall of vegetation on the edge of the clearing, he dropped Chamkri. The air shark dipped down over the tops of the trees and folded its wing-sails to its side and glided swiftly downward, gas hissing from a bladder. Ishmael picked up a long bare plant and cut away the vines and creepers wrapped around it. When he saw that the wide jaws were about to close down on him, he thrust the pole deep into the gaping mouth. It drove past the ribbon-like pale yellow tongue and into the throat, and then the mass of the shark knocked him down. The shark slid over him, but only a small part of its weight came down. Nevertheless, his face and hands were bloodied, the creature having a skin almost as sandpapery as its counterpart of the ancient seas.
Namalee shrieked, but she had thrown herself down too, and the shark had passed over her, being deflected by an upthrust of a pile of tangled plants. It crashed into the wall of the clearing and brought down around it another tangle of plants and interlocking vines. It wriggled at first, trying to free itself gently and then, panicking, began to thrash and roll about. It only succeeded in entangling itself even more thoroughly and in breaking one of its wing-sails.
The harpooner having been dragged to safety, Ishmael approached the shark through the jungle. Other sharks swooped over it and snapped at it, but none came close. They dreaded being entangled too, and they never voluntarily settled down on the ground unless their intended meal was dead or helpless and they were free of attack.
Ishmael stepped out by the grounded shark, but not close enough to be struck by the thrashing of the tail. Though the hollowness of the tail and the lightness of its bones meant that the tail lacked massiveness, its abrasive skin was to be avoided. He threw another branchless stem straight into the gaping mouth of a shark diving at him. The jaws closed, and the plant broke in half; the shark swallowed the part in its mouth. Ishmael leaped back into the jungle. A moment later, he saw the beast writhing as if its entrails had been pierced, which was probably the case. The other sharks closed in upon it, biting large pieces of its wing-sails, its tail and its head. The wind carried the dying monster and its raveners out of sight.
Presently two whaling boats descended, tacking, and one settled down into the clearing while the other stayed fifty feet up, its sails furled and an anchor made of many hooks entangled in the vegetation.
Namalee recognized the first mate, a Poonjakee, who got to his knees and bowed until his head touched a pile of vegetation. He was overjoyed that the daughter of Sennertaa had been rescued but distressed that she should be in such a situation. He eyed Ishmael curiously, though the fact that the girl regarded Ishmael as a friend reassured him. But the happiness of the sailors turned to horror when Namalee, talking so swiftly that Ishmael could not follow her, told of what had happened to their mother city. Their brown skins turned gray and they wailed, throwing themselves on the vegetation and beating with their fists. Some pulled out their bone knives and gashed themselves on the arms and the chests.
Grief must pay homage, like everything else, to necessity, which is governed by time. The men ceased their wailing and applied webs to the wounds. These, Ishmael was to learn, were woven by a wingless, featherless, fuzzy bird-thing.
While two sailors cut out pieces of the shark's heart, lungs and liver and removed its stomach, others searched for the fourth man. After about fifteen minutes, he was found under a canopy of vines and great leaves. He had crawled there and died while creepers entered his wounds and sucked.
The boat in the air was drawn down and Chamkri and the injured sailor were taken aboard. Namalee and Ishmael got into the first boat, where they sat on the thin transparent skin that was both the deck and the bottom of the hull. They secured themselves with a fragile-looking but tough skin belt around their waists. The belt had a buckle of bone and its other ends were sewn into the deck-skin.
The first mate ordered that more meat be fed to the amorphous russet and pale green lump of flesh attached to the neck of each of the six bladders secured around the periphery of the boat. Presently the boat began to rise as the bladders swelled. Both vessels unfurled their side sails and, later, the undermast and its boom were lowered through the central shaft in the deck. The shaft was of hollow bone and was the center of twelve spokes which ran to the sides of the boat, where they were con
nected to the rim of bone which gave the boat its elongated oval shape. The mast was secured to the shaft with a bone pin, and the boom was lowered. Then the sail of the undermast was pulled up to catch the wind.
Some boats, as he was to find out, also had an upper fore-and-aft rigged mast, though this was always shorter and carried less sail than the undermast.
The ascent to the ship took two hours and several more feedings of the gas-generating animals attached to the bladders. Ishmael sat patiently, having mastered the art of waiting during his whaling voyages. Evidently, the sea of the air demanded even more acceptance of the demands of time.
At last, the boats approached the ship at the same altitude and on a parallel course. Lines were thrown from the boat to the ship, where sailors stood inside an enclosure of bone with three sides and a deck. These sailors were tied to the bone beams by lines around their waists so that they would not be pulled out into the air if a gust of wind or an air pocket jerked the boat outward or vertically.
The sails of the boats were furled; the masts and booms were pulled up, telescoped and folded and then locked tightly on the top and bottom of the hull. The boats were then drawn into the enclosures and tied down.
Ishmael found himself inside a long open corridor which was the main walkway. There were catwalks and ladders running up and down and horizontally and at angles all through the vessel. All were made of hard but hollow and thin-walled bones, most of which came from various species of the wind whales. The great gas bladders were secured in the upper part of the ship in two long rows of ten each. At the base of each was a round broad-mouthed beast.
Ishmael had expected the ship to be covered entirely with skin. But it was a skeleton of a ship with patches of skin here and there, most notably on the bow and aft. The central part was the most open, and this was so because the wind must not be barred from going through to push against the sails on the leeward side. Your ship of the water has no need to consider such a design, since the masts are sticking above the surface and exposed on every side to the wind. But the ship of the air had to be as drafty as possible to sail close-hauled and at the same time permit the wind to push against the square-rigged sails on both port and starboard.
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