“See what?” said Desperandum.
Chapter 13
A Conversation with a Young Nullaquan Sailor
The illness vanished almost immediately once we were out of Glimmer Bay. We did not go to Perseverance after all.
Three weeks into our fifth month at sea we discovered a pod of whales and slaughtered all day. I think we attracted upwards of two hundred sharks.
We butchered the whales more quickly than seemed humanly possible. Everyone was pressed into the effort. Even Desperandum wielded bis mighty axe with the rest. The crew wore cleats on their shoes when they attached the hoisting hooks; a single slip would have sent them into the rending jaws of the sharks, and not even Desperandum’s vindictive lance could have saved them in such an eventuality.
No matter how quickly we pulled our massive victims onto the deck, their bellies were still ripped to oozing tatters by the scavengers. Several of our men were grieviously bitten by pilot fish; one lost a finger. We hacked and butchered and hoisted all day, and the sulfurous fires of the try-pots wore kept burning far into the night, staining our white sails with a thin coat of soot At last the crew fell into their bunks like dead men.
Next morning Desperandum officially announced that the holds were full. The crew pulled off their masks for a brief moment to give a single cheer, then walked into the galley tent to settle down to a gala breakfast.
Despite the vastly increased workload that this day of celebration cost me, I was in a good mood. Dalusa, her scouting trips no longer necessary, worked hard at my side. After numerous false starts she was showing promise of becoming a talented cook. Besides that, I had four flasks of quality syncophine hidden securely in the kitchen, surely all that I could possibly smuggle off planet.
Later that night the crew began to drink heavily. It seemed that only one of us was not swept away by the holiday mood: Captain Desperandum. The captain had been sulking in his cabin for the past few days, perhaps ill from his arm, which had still not healed. I got stumbling drunk, and Dalusa went to talk to the captain. She never drank alcohol, and the sight of drunkenness made her uneasy. She could not accustom herself to the altered behavior patterns.
As we sailed on toward the Highisle it became obvious that something was occupying the captain’s mind. Days passed, and the crew settled into a dumb torpor, whiling away the hours with scrimshaw. Not so Desperandum. He paced the triple deck restlessly, scanning the horizon. On one occasion he even climbed up to the crow’s nest, though the mainmast groaned alarmingly under his weight.
On the morning of the seventh day we spotted another whale. To the surprise of everyone, Desperandum ordered the crew to pursue it. They were happy to do so; everyone aboard was suffocating with boredom. Desperandum called me to his side.
“I knew we’d find one more,” he told me quietly. “I need this whale for science, Newhouse. For knowledge. For human dignity. I won’t be kept in ignorance, you see. I can’t allow it. I have to take this opportunity; I’ll stake everything on it. You’ll see, John.”
As we drew closer to the whale Desperandum took one of the harpooneer’s posts himself, although it was against all custom. “Steer as dose to the monster as you can, men!” he shouted at us from behind the gun. “It has to be done with one shot.”
Desperandum anointed his harpoon with his own blood and loaded the gun. The whale was unusually skittish; it sounded well before we were in range. Desperandum second-guessed it with uncanny accuracy, however, and it surfaced almost under our bow. The captain aimed deliberately and fired into a weak spot between two sections of armor. The whale gave a single blood-choked shriek and dented the Lunglance’s bow with its tail. Desperandum had fired with telling effect, and the crcature died in less than a minute.
Desperandum lumbered across the deck and shouted, “Now, menl Haul it on board before the sharks can bite through its hide! But use the slings, not hooks. I don’t want any more holes in the beast.”
I had been wondering about those slings. Using them was slow and clumsy. But strangely, the sharks, which appeared in under five minutes, seemed less than enthusiastic. A trio of them swam alongside the Lunglance, just out of reach of our whaling spades. They seemed to be watching and waiting.
Desperandum did not give them a second thought. As soon as the whale was on deck he pulled out the harpoon with his own hands and began to give orders._The harpoon stab was lengthened into a six-foot slash in the animal’s left side. The crew cut through the tough flesh and cartilage between two of the ribs and, under the captain’s directions, they began to hollow out the creature, throwing its intestines overboard to the suspiciously languid diaries.
Desperandum pitched into the work with the eagerness of a total fanatic. When he rolled up his sleeves I saw that the long festering slash on his arm was finally healing.
It was exhausting work, and it ate up the rest of the day. I brooded on it after the rest of the crew had gone to sleep. It was not only the operations on the whale that bothered me. Several times I had seen Desperandum step back from the work to converse with Murphig. Murphig could not reply, of course, wearing his dustmask, but he certainly seemed to listen attentively.
It preyed on my mind. I couldn’t sleep. I got up, dressed, put on my mask and crept quietly up the stairs for another look at the whale.
It was only a dim bulk in the starlight on the deck over our starboard hull. As I moved quietly between the sleeping tents I noticed the blurred glow of a lantern behind the monster’s flukes. I crept closer. Suddenly I heard something metallic bounce on the deck and roll off over the railing into the sea. The sound came from the other side of the whale. Silently, I ran forward and flattened myself against the shadowy side of the monster. As I moved cautiously toward the source of the light, I heard something that startled me: the sound of a real human voice, undistorted by speakers.
“You’re going to give me some more of what was in that bottle.”
It was Murphig’s voice. I moved closer, crouching, till I could look over the flattened flukes of the dead dustwhale.
“I will not buy it,” Murphig said tightly, and sneezed. He pressed his dustmask against his face and took a deep breath. There would be a trace of dust between the mask and his face, but his hairy nose could probably handle that He had a harpoon in his other hand.
Calothrick’s peeling mask hid his face, but I could see his fear from his posture. He had backed away a little and had his opened hands slightly spread before him, palms downward.
“My addiction was your responsibility. I’m not the fool you think I am . . . off-worlder.” There was hatred in Murphig’s voice. He took another breath; distorted shadows touched his face from the lantern on the deck. “You’re as guilty as sin, you galactic.” A breath. “Oblivion will take you. I want you to think of that.” Breath. “We have achieved perfect stability. While you may live for hundreds of years you can’t maintain the same personality, sinful as it is. We both know that in a few years you will manage to kill yourself. You will be dust and less than dust. Even your culture will be rotten and forgotten. But we’ll be alive and unchanged. And stable. For millions of years. Until the very sun goes out. And even then our ship is waiting. Do you see that little star up there? The one that moves? It’s a small one. You probably never even noticed it. Oh, it’s an old ship. Not like the kind you galactics ride. But it’s still in orbit, waiting our call. Someday it will hold us again. And well still think the same things, and believe in the same God, and be the same people. And all of us will be remembered. Not like your people. And we’ll find another planet, maybe your planet, after you are all dead. My descendants will dance on your ashes, Calothrick. If you live long enough to get back to that planet. Which you won’t unless you give me more of that drug. That’s the Confederacy’s drug, isn’t it? You don’t have to say anything. I know it is. You alien parasite. Either you give it to me—" he shook his harpoon “—or it’s through the guts and over the side for the sharks. Everyone will think you fell overboard.”