"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.
"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 striking 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.
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.