Raft

by Stephen Baxter

  Gord smiled faintly.

  The Boneys, still singing, emerged from their huts. Their eyes were fixed on the whale and they carried spears of bone and metal.

  Gord leaned close to Rees and said through the song, "Sometimes they just attach ropes to the creatures, have the whales drag the colony a little way out of the Nebula. Adjusting the orbit, you see; otherwise they might have fallen into the Core long ago. This shift, though, it seems they need meat."

  Rees was puzzled. "How can you kill a creature like that?"

  Gord pointed. "Not difficult. All you have to do is puncture the skin. It loses its structure, you see. The thing simply crumples into the worldlet's gravity well. Then the trick is to slice the damn thing up fast enough to avoid us all being smothered by flesh..."

  Now the first spears were flying. The song broke up into shouts of victory. The whale, evidently agitated, began to turn its flukes more quickly. Spears passed clean through the translucent flesh, or embedded themselves in sheets of cartilage — and at last, to a great cry, an organ was hit. The whale lurched toward the surface of the worldlet, its skin crumpling. A mighty ceiling of flesh passed no more than ten feet above Rees's head.

  "What about this, miner?" Quid stood beside him, spear in hand. The Boney grinned. "This is the way to live, eh? Better than scratching in the vitals of some dead star—"

  More spears hissed through the air; with increasing precision they looped through the compound gravity field of planet and whale and found soft targets within the body of the whale.

  "Quid, how can they be so accurate?"

  "It's easy. Imagine the planet as a lump below you. And the whale as another small lump somewhere about there—" He pointed. "—Close to its center. That's where all the pull comes from, right? So then you just imagine the path you want your spear to follow and — throw!"

  Rees scratched his head, wondering what Hollerbach would have made of this distillation of orbital mechanics. But the need for the Boneys — trapped on their little world — to develop such spear-throwing skills was obvious.

  The spears continued to fly until it seemed impossible for the whale to escape. Now its belly was almost brushing the rooftops of the colony. Men and women were producing massive machetes now, and soon the butchery would start. Rees, in his starved, dreamy state, wondered if whale blood would smell different from human—

  And suddenly he found himself running, almost without conscious thought. With a light motion he hauled himself to the roof of one of the sturdier huts — could he have moved so cleanly without his recent weight loss? — and stood, staring upwards at the wrinkled, semitransparent roof of flesh that slid over him. It was still just out of his reach — and then a fold a few feet deep came towards him like a descending curtain. He jumped and grabbed with both hands. His fingers passed through flesh that crumbled, dry. He scrabbled for a firm hold, believing for one, panicky second that he would fall again; and then, his arms elbow-deep in pulpy flesh, his fingers bit into a shank of some tougher material and he pulled himself higher onto the whale's body. He managed to swing his feet up and embed them in the fleshy ceiling; and so upside down, he sailed over the Boney colony.

  His boarding seemed to galvanize the whale. Its flukes beat the air with renewed vigor and it rose from the surface with wrenches that threatened to tear Rees from his precarious hold.

  Angry voices were raised at him, and a spear whistled past his ear and into the soft flesh. Quid and the other Boneys waved furious fists. He saw the pale, upturned face of Gord streaming with tears.

  The whale continued to rise and the colony turned from a landscape into a small, brown ball, lost in the sky. The human voices faded to the level of the wind. The warm skin of the whale pulsed with its steady motion; and Rees was alone.

  10

  ITS TORMENTORS FAR BEHIND, the great beast moved cautiously through the air; the flukes turned with slow strength, and the vast body shuddered. It was as if it were exploring the dull pain of the punctures it had suffered. Through the translucent walls of the body Rees could see triple eyes turn fully backwards, as if the whale were inspecting its own interior.

  Then, with a sound like the wind, the flukes' speed of rotation increased. The whale surged forward. Soon it had climbed clear of the bone world's gravity well, and Rees's sensation of clinging to a ceiling was transformed into a sense of being pinned against a soft wall.

  With some curiosity he examined the substance before his face. His fingers were still locked in the layer of cartilage beneath the whale's six-inch layer of flesh. The flesh itself had no epidermis and was vaguely pink in color; the stuff had little more consistency than a thick foam and there was no sign of blood, although Rees noticed that his arms and legs had become coated with some sticky substance. He recalled that the Boneys hunted this creature for food, and on impulse he pushed his face into the flesh and tore away a mouthful. The stuff seemed to melt in his mouth, compacting from a fluffy bulk to a small, tough lozenge. The taste was strong and slightly bitter; he chewed and swallowed easily. The stuff even seemed to soothe the dryness of his throat.

  Suddenly he was starving, and he buried his face in the whale flesh, tearing chunks away with his teeth.

  After some minutes he had cleared perhaps a square foot of the soft flesh, exposing cartilage, and his stomach felt filled. So, then, he could expect the whale to provide for him for some considerable time.

  He looked around. Clouds and stars stretched all around him, a vast, sterile array without walls or floor. He was, of course, utterly adrift in the red sky, and surely now beyond hope of seeing another human face again. The thought did not frighten him; rather, he became gently wistful. At least he had escaped the degradation of the Boneys. If he had to die, then let it be like this, with his eyes open to new wonders.

  He shifted his position comfortably against the bulk of the whale. It took very little effort to stay in place, and the steady motion, the pumping of the flukes were surprisingly soothing. It might be possible to survive quite some time here, before he weakened and fell away...

  His arms were beginning to ache. Carefully, one hand at a time, he shifted the position of his fingers; but soon the pain was spreading to his back and shoulders.

  Could he be tiring so quickly? The effort to cling on here, in these weightless conditions, was minimal. Wasn't it?

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  The world was wheeling around him. The stars and clouds executed vast rotations around the whale; once again he was clinging to a ceiling from which he might fall at any moment...

  He almost lost his grip. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers tighter into the sheet of cartilage. He should have anticipated this, of course. The whale had rotational symmetry; of course it would spin. It would have to compensate for the turning of its flukes, and spinning would give it stability as it forged through the air. It all made perfect sense...

  Wind whipped over Rees's face, pushing back his hair. The rate of spin was increasing; he felt the strain on his fingers mount. If he didn't stop analyzing the damn situation and do something, before many more minutes passed he would be thrown off.

  Now his feet lost their tenuous hold. His body swung away from the whale's, so that he was dangling from his hands. The cartilage in his clamped fingers twisted like elastic, and with each swing of his torso pain coursed through his biceps and elbows. The centrifugal force continued to rise, through one, one and a half, two gee...

  Perhaps he could head for one of the stationary "poles," maybe at the joint between the flukes and the main body. He looked sideways toward the rear of the body; he could see the linking tube of cartilage as a misty blur through the walls of flesh.

  It might have been a world away. It was all he could do to cling on here.

  The spin increased further. Stars streaked below him and he began to grow groggy; he imagined blood pooling somewhere near his feet, starving his brain. He could hardly feel his arms now, but when he stared up through black
-speckled vision he could see that the fingers of his left hand, the weaker, were loosening.

  With a cry of panic he forced fresh strength into his hands. His fingers tightened as if in a spasm.

  And the cartilage ripped.

  It was like a curtain parting along a seam. From the interior of the whale a hot, foul gas billowed out over him, causing him to gasp, his eyes to stream. The ruptured cartilage began to sag. Soon a great fold of it was suspended beneath the belly of the whale; Rees clung on, still swinging painfully.

  Now a ripple a foot high came rolling down the whale's belly wall. The whale's nervous system must be slow to react, but surely it could feel the agony of this massive hernia. The wave reached the site of the rupture. The dangling fold of cartilage jerked up and down, once, twice, again; Rees's shoulders felt as if they were being dragged from their sockets and needles thrust into the joints.

  Again his fingers loosened.

  The rip in the sheet was like a narrow door above him.

  Shoulders shaking, Rees hauled himself up until his chin was level with his fists. He released his left hand—

  —and almost fell altogether; but his right hand still clutched at the cartilage, and now his left hand was locked over the lip of the wound. He released his right hand; the weaker, numb left slipped over greasy cartilage but — now — he had both hands clamped at the edge of the aperture.

  He rested there for a few seconds, the muscles of his arms screaming, his fingers slipping.

  Now he worked the muscles of his back and dragged his feet up before his face, shoved them over his head and through the aperture. Then his legs and back slid easily over the inner surface of the cartilage and into the body of the whale, and finally he was able to uncurl his fingers. With the last of his strength he rolled away from the aperture.

  Breathing hard he lay on his back, spread-eagled against the whale's inner stomach wall. Below him, obscured by the translucent flesh, were the wheeling stars, and far above, like huge machines in some vast, dimly lit hall, were the organs of the whale.

  His lungs rattled; his arms and hands were on fire. Blackness fell over him and the pain dropped away.

  * * *

  He awoke to a raging thirst.

  He stared up into the cavernous interior of the whale. The light seemed dimmer: perhaps the whale, for reasons of its own, was flying deeper into the Nebula.

  The air was hot, damp, and foul with a stench like sweat; but, though his chest ached slightly, he seemed to be breathing normally. Cautiously he propped himself up on his elbows. The muscles of his arms felt ripped and the fingernails on both hands were torn; but the bones of his fingers seemed intact and in place.

  He climbed cautiously to his feet.

  Stars still wheeled around the whale, but if he averted his eyes he felt no dizziness. It was as if he were standing in a steady gravity well of about two gees. Looking down he saw that his bare feet had sunk a couple of inches into the resilient cartilage. With some experimentation he found he could walk with little difficulty, provided he avoided slipping on the slick surface.

  Again thirst tore at his throat; it felt as if the back of his mouth were closing up with the dryness.

  He made his way to the aperture he had torn in the cartilage sheet. The wound had already closed to a narrow slit barely as wide as his waist. He had no way of telling how long he had been unconscious, but surely it must have taken a shift at least for the healing to progress this far. He knelt down, the cartilage beneath his knees a warm, wet carpet, and pushed his face close to the wound. A breeze bore him welcome fresh air. He could see the dangling flap of cartilage up which he had scrambled to safety: the ripped skin had grown opaque and was covered in a mass of fine creases. Perhaps eventually the dangling fold would be isolated outside the body, atrophy and fall away.

  Thanks to Rees's scrambling the area of cartilage around the wound was scraped clear of flesh; only a few clumps clung here and there, like isolated patches of foliage on an old tree. Rees lay on the warm floor, took a fold of cartilage in his left hand, and thrust his head and right arm out through the wound. He swept his arm around the outer wall of the whale's belly, hauling in as much flesh matter as he could reach. As he worked the breeze of the whale's rotation washed steadily over his face and bare arms.

  When he was done he withdrew from the wound and hauled away his meager supply. He shoved a fistful into his mouth immediately. Sticky whale juice trickled, soothing, down his parched throat and fluffy flesh clung to his straggling beard; he squatted on the warm floor and, for a few minutes, ate steadily, postponing thoughts of an impossible future.

  When he was done, his thirst and hunger at least partially sated, his pile of flesh was reduced by at least half. The damn stuff would last hardly any time at all... He crammed the rest into the pockets of his filthy coverall.

  Now he became aware of another problem, as the pressure in his bladder and lower bowels began to grow painful. He felt oddly reluctant to relieve himself inside the body of another creature; it seemed an obscene violation. But, the muscles of his lower stomach told him, he didn't really have a lot of choice.

  At last he loosened his trousers and squatted over the narrowest section of the rent in the stomach wall.

  He had a bizarre image of his waste being flung through the air in a cloud of brown and yellow. It was highly unlikely, of course, but perhaps one day the stuff would reach the Belt, or the Raft; would one of his acquaintances look up in horror for the source of this foul rain — and think of him?

  He laughed out loud; the sound was absorbed by the soft wall around him. He could think of a few nominations for the recipient of such a message. Gover, Roch, Quid... Maybe he should take aim.

  His needs satisfied, his curiosity began to reassert itself, and he stared around at the mysterious interior of the whale. It was like being inside some great, glass-walled ship. From the leading face a wide tube stretched down the axis of the body, contracting as it neared the rear. Entrails of some kind branched off, looking like fat, pale worms that coiled around the principal esophagus. Sacs which could hold four men were suspended around the axial tube, filled with obscure, unmoving forms. Organs were clustered around the main axial canal; and others, vast and anonymous, were fixed to the inner wall of the skin.

  Beyond the body's rear Rees could make out the joint to the fluke section, and then the great semicircular flukes themselves, washing through the air with immense assurance and power. The motion of the flukes and the wheeling shadows cast by the starlight through the translucent skin gave the place a superficial impression of motion; but otherwise, apart from a subdued humming, the vast space was still and calm. Rees had read of the great cathedrals of Earth; he remembered staring at the old pictures and wondering what it would be like to stand inside such ancient, huge, still spaces.

  Perhaps it would be something like this.

  Stepping cautiously over the slippery, yielding surface, he began to make his way toward the whale's leading face.

  He neared an organ fixed to the floor. It was an opaque, flattened sphere, twice as tall as he was, and its mass tugged gently at him. He pressed his palm to the tough, lumpy flesh; beneath the surface he could feel hot liquid churn. Perhaps this was the equivalent of a liver or kidney. Crouching, he could see how the organ was attached to the stomach wall by a tight, wrinkled ring of flesh; the ring was clear enough for him to see liquid pulse to and from the dense cartilage.

  A Boney spear protruded from the organ, its tip buried an arm's length inside the soft material. Rees took the shaft and carefully slid the spear away from the organ; it emerged damp and sticky. He propped the spear safely within a fold of flesh and walked on.

  The floor slanted sharply upwards as he began to climb the slope of the body toward the axis of rotation. At last he was climbing a near-vertical, sheer surface, and he was forced to dig his hands into the cartilage. As he climbed toward the axis the centripetal force lessened, although a Coriolis effect began t
o make him stagger.

  He paused for breath and looked back over the slope he had climbed. The organs fixed to the apparent floor and walls of the chamber were like mysterious engines. The tube of the esophagus stretched away above his head; he noticed now that wrapped around it, close behind the eyes, was a large, spongy mass; filaments like rope connected the sponge to the eyes — optic nerves? Perhaps the convoluted lump was the whale's brain; if so its mass relative to its body must compare favorably with a human's.

  Could the whale be intelligent? That seemed absurd... but then he remembered the song of the Boney hunters. The whale must have a reasonably sophisticated sensorium to be able to respond to such a lure.

  At last he reached a position just below the join of the esophagus to the face. The whale's triple eyes hung over him like vast lamps, staring calmly ahead; it felt as if he were clinging to the inside of some huge mask.

  The face rippled, almost casting him free; he clung tighter to the cartilage. Staring up he saw that the center of the face had split, becoming an open mouth which led directly into the huge throat.

  Rees looked out through the face. He made out a blur of motion which slowly resolved itself into a shoal of ghost-white plates which whirled in the air before the whale. These plate creatures were no more than three or four feet wide; some of them, perhaps the young, were far smaller. The creatures had upturned rims — no doubt for aerodynamic reasons — and Rees saw how purplish veins crisscrossed the upper surface of the discs.

  The creatures scattered in alarm as the whale approached. The whale's three eyes locked on the plate animals, triangulating with hungry precision. Soon the plates were impacting the great, flat face; the cartilage resounded like a drumskin, making Rees flinch. Doomed plate creatures, still spinning feebly, slid into the whale's maw and disappeared into the opaque esophagus, and soon a series of bulges were passing down the great tube. Rees imagined the still living plates hurling themselves against the walls that had closed around them after a lifetime of free air. After some minutes the first bulge reached a branch to the semitransparent entrails. Battered plates emerged into the comparative stillness of the intestines, some still turning feebly. With vast pulses of clear muscle the bodies were worked along the entrails, dissolving as they moved through vats of digestive gases or fluids.