WHALEKILLER GREY, William E. Cochrane

"The truth? About whales, lad? Ah, now, you must remember; a whaling story be never true. If you'd tell it exactly-as-it-was, why then whalekillers and aficionados alike will know you for an ill outsider, and a lubberly one, at that. What's more, lad, they would not find it to believe your story, see you. For there's no man, who follows the great whales, has he ever told the whole truth about anything - not your blessed Herman Melville, nor my fore-oar boy on last year's cruise. Ya see, lad, there be only one truth; the great whale and the man who do kill him. One truth, I say, not two things.

"As for this here tale I tell, it is as true as most... ." - Unknown foc'sle hand -Off South Georgia Island, CE 2244

Master Whalekiller Robert Grey sat in the third prayer position on the whalebone stool and prepared to kill himself. It was the afternoon of the seventh day and outside twenty men and a prime sperm whale waited to help him do it. He had this brief hour to himself, in seclusion by custom, then he would get up and meet a destiny he had begun twelve years ago in the Azores.

I owe a life to the sea, to the cold South Atlantic, and now the time seems right... . The thought interrupted the prayer phrases in his mind. Robert Grey was well along on the mental path he needed to take in order to will his own death. Jeninne is dead! Oh, Jeninne! His thought cried his pain and the face of his love, her black hair and shining eyes, dimmed the altar, shimmering it before his eyes. His breath plumed out in a smoky cloud of condensed moisture, fogged the silvered surface of the symbolic lance he held before his lips, calling his mind back to the ritual.

The ship's cabin, his private quarters and shrine, had been chilled during the last hour until it was near the ambient temperature of the South Atlantic, rolling and tossing outside. Grey barely heard the motion of the ship, or the noises in the passageway, his whole concentration was on the cardiovascular exercises designed to warm his body - the movements of the ritual prayers. In a few moments he would be outside and, within the hour, swimming in the South Atlantic. He was wearing, the inner liner of a double wet-suit, but he needed all the body heat he could generate - hence the exercises; or at least, a practical reason for the ritual. Robert Grey did not own a bone-bred allegiance to the whale-lore religion, but he was mystic enough, had followed the killing-boats long enough, to believe where he could not recognize logic.

He moved through the ritual, shifting the silvered killing-lance to his left hand, and reciting the short, chopping rhythm of the chant in a low tone, breathing the words, with little vocalization.

The door behind him opened noisily, there was a sea-wind whining through the deck structure of the ship. He turned slowly, the warming peace of the ritual was too much with him for the noises to startle.

"Pardon, Majestad." Konrad, his boatmaster and dresser, was upset. At disturbing the ritual? No, something more... .

"The arena president to see you," Konrad explained.

"Here? At this time?" By custom and tradition of cetomacy, Grey and his quintada - his boat crew - were always alone on the whale-catcher ship at this time. Grey's privacy was nearly sacred.

Then his mind opened and the memories he'd been rigidly denying himself came flooding in. Jeninne ... his wife ... the crude, brutal kidnap message he'd received just as the whaling fleet sailed from Grytvken Harbor ... Jeninne, his warm, beautiful Jeninne, was dead. There could be no other reason for the president coming to him - for breaking his prayer ritual.

Grey shifted the killing-lance gently and reached to lay it on the altar table. He had been attuning himself to the death ritual out in the arena, his stoic appearance was set by the prayers, and covered the intense agony of loss he was feeling. He turned completely on the stool, still seated, to face the door. His hand, when it left the lance, was steady; his body obeyed smoothly; still, he couldn't trust himself to stand. The heavily ornamented weather cape hid the slump of his shoulders, and he pulled it across his chest, against a cold that welled out from his spine.

"He came down in a biggish copter," Konrad was saying. "Landed full on our aft deck. See him, Majestad!"

Grey nodded. "Aye, let him in," he said, and his voice obeyed him briefly; none of his fear showed.

Herald MacNeal, the arena president, was a large, bulky Scot. His face was red from the cold, his eyes a shiny blue and his teeth a brilliant white in a wide grin. He wore an orange flight-coverall and overjacket - Antarctic survival colors that glared brightly against the sea-blue and grey of the chapel color scheme. President MacNeal filled the room with a bright-noon sunlight.

"Ishmael, Majestad," he greeted Grey.

"Have ye news of my wife?" Grey ignored the greeting. The man was a British official, technically a magistrate administering Twenty-first Century British whaling law as it applied to cetomacy and the Ceremony in the arena, but he wasn't a whaler. Actually, he managed the Cetus Ceremonies and was in near-despotic control of nearly two hundred miles of sea, with all the souls and machines in it - the whalecatcher fleet, the TV and news planes; men, women and penguins - everything. But his pretense to whalelore didn't even have an aficionado's sincerity. Grey didn't like him.

"No. Nothing." The man's face went sad, like a great dog, even that appearing false in its quickness. "The Interpol net of four countries is tied into my commcenter on the factory ship. I'll hear." He dismissed Grey's problem and went on to one of his own. The change of thought played across his face.

Grey's irritation began to rise through the calming that the ritual had laid on him.

"Grey, lad," MacNeal said, his Scots burbling into his voice, "I've got just a moment to check with you. You're all right, heh?"

"Yes." Grey succeeded in controlling his voice, but it thickened into whaleboat dialect. "I dan'not like visitors aboard the Skua Harvest afore a Cetus. But, I'm a'right."

"I'm no visitor, mon! We have a Ceremony to start and I have to check every little detail. Millions of people will be watching. Do ye know, we will be beaming off the new South Atlantic satellite? The Russians have orbited communications satellites in a Sky Net spread across sixty degrees south latitude. Just for the arena. Your Single Cetus will be the first to use them.

A great honor, heh? You'll have to give them a Master's performance this time, Grey. Do ye know, I've got more TV aircraft in the press cordon than ever before? Even more than for Buelega's Cetus back in '32. You remember, that's the one where he was ..."

"... Killed? Yes," said Grey. "I was rowing harpoon-oar in the Greenland arena that year. When Buelega's whale took him, I paid in my own quintada and we have rowed to the whales for twelve years. In six, I was better than Buelega."

"But what about now, lad?"

"Now?"

"Aye. We all know your wife may be dead by now."

"I have thought on that possibility," Grey said bleakly.

"So have I, lad. So have I. Do ye know, I can't stop the Ceremony. The TV contract; the national funds spent in preparation; the aficionados - I can't stop it. You will have to fight. But I am prepared to be lenient, if we can find a way. I can allow you extra harpoons, from your quintada boats, more boat-lances than you usually use. A formula could be worked out."

"Are ya making the offer that I bribe you, MacNeal?" Grey snarled, his voice thick with anger.

"What? No, damn it! You know me better than that, Grey."

"Then don't bribe me. Ya don't know me, at all."

"But, you can't just go out there and let the whale kill you! Grey, if that happens - I'm warning you, if you do that, every aficionado in the world will know you made a deal with the gambling syndicate over your wife's kidnaping. Huh, 'better than Buelega', say you. That doesn't matter one bit and you know it. A single mistake, mon, and the aficionados will drop you so fast you'll sink. One sniff of a smelly fight, 'special from you, who's been so snobby an' pure about the art, like you have - why they'd scratch your name off all the trophies ye ever rowed for, lad. Do ye know, I, myself, would see to ruining your reputation."

"Threats, MacNeal? Threats. So, at the end, mon, you are no better than them that took away my Jeninne, are you? Threats, to me. Do ye know, MacNeal, what I face, out there in the sea?"

"Aye, forebye. A male sperm whale. A great beauty. Do ye know, I, myself, followed him down the whole coast of Africa with the selection boat. I measured him, myself. So, I know he's good. Seventy-five feet long; weight estimate eighty tons - he is the biggest ever, Grey! You must make a good fight!"

"A whale? Ah, no, it's the Kinga-Death, do ye see." Grey's voice ran down as he talked until he was barely whispering. "The biggest, strangest death ye can know. A ship's bow out o' the sea; a mountain avalanche falling onto a's face; any dream ye've dreamed like falling from a great height onto a grey rock - a bigger, harder, heavier death than any you've known, MacNeal." His voice was just audible at the end.

"Stop this talk, Grey. You're not to get killed, do ye know? I've told you what I expect. Now you must do it!"

"Have ya tol' the whale?" Grey laughed, two painful barks. Then, with an eye-tricking twist of movement, he reached behind him for the silver lance-point, held it point-wavering toward MacNeal.

"Get out!" Grey was suddenly sick of the Scot's red face and overwhite teeth.

"Grey, I'm warning you! I am the law at this arena!"

"Get out! You can't warn me, whale-gut, and you can't law me. Whatever I find to do - out there in the sea, live or die - you have naught to do with it, scum. Not you - not them, the gamblers - not ... not even Jeninne, dear heart. There be only the whale ... and me. We decide who lives and dies."

"Very noble! But you're not on TV. I want a straight, classic fight from you, Grey, do ye know. No extra-daring tricks, no brio lances to get you killed on purpose, just classic cetomacy or I will beach your whole quintada - for life. Understand me?"

"An' you? You, an arena president for five years, and you don't understand. You really don't, do you? GET OUT!" Grey raised the ceremonial lance to throwing position; its head quivered with his rage.

The president, unable to meet the violence in Grey's eyes, backed out the door. Konrad, silent through the whole exchange, held the door, waiting for orders, or the dart of the lance; even he wasn't sure which.

Grey's breath sighed out, a flat cloud of vapor in the cold room - a whale-spout as he broached from the depths of his anger and fought his pulse back to normal.

"Stand ready by the men, ol' friend," he said finally. "I'm for this whale. Cetus est. Ahhh! How is the time?"

"Twenty minutes, Majestad," Konrad's voice was soft. "Ishmael!"

Grey nodded and turned back to the altar, his hands returning the prayer-lance to the peace-and-rest position in his lap as he sought the white, ivory image of the swimming whale on the altar. Peace-and-rest; he must calm his mind and body for the Ceremony to come.

A sperm whale, a male - the very best whale there was - and, oh, the way he had to fight it! Pressure to let the whale win - death or maiming for himself - from the vast gambling interests. Oh, Jeninne. Are you still alive, love? His own president ordering him to win - ah, what a doubt that showed, when the whole art of cetomacy was designed to let the whalekiller win. Pressure from half a world of aficionados, watching eagerly for the slightest mistake, sure that they would see his death today; waiting for it. Classic cetomacy, MacNeal had said. The aficionados would count it a depressing failure if he fought a standard Ceremony. They expected - demanded - more from Robert Grey.

He had been prepared to die, without thought, simply an easier path to follow than others he could see. Now, that was denied him, or seemed to be. MacNeal was a stuffy fool, but he could make good his threat - the quintada would suffer. Grey must kill his whale, he could not lose. His mind whirled between the two choices. Oh God, what a frame of mind to be in, now, before the Ceremony. He had to have flexibility. Cetomacy was a formal art, but it had to have room for mistakes. And Grey had been left no room.

His eyes rested on the ivory image - the whale. Who had told the whale: Lose, whale! The President wants it. Would the whale hear Grey crying: Win, whale! Jeninne, my Jeninne wants it. Grey bowed his head, forced his tumbling mind to recite the whispered prayers, moved the lance through the symbolic motions. He let the prayers take hold of him, bring forgetting. He had only twenty minutes; it wasn't enough time, but the whale was waiting to kill him. Hopelessly, Grey could only meet it.

Grey came out of the cabin, braced himself against the wind's whip and turned his head to review the two ranks of his boatmen drawn up abeam of the mid-deck. His weathercape and spread-leg stance made Grey look short and square. He was not tall and his heavy-muscled harpooneer's legs gave him a crouched appearance when he stood. His early years at a boat oar had thickened and muscled his arms, shoulders and back; squared and seamed his face to match the bulky lines of his body. Grey, knowing his bulk was unusual for a whalekiller, rarely stood in public appearances.

He moved now, aft along the deck, and the cape-shrouded body moved like a great cat, perfectly balanced, smoothly flowing from step to step. He went to the rail to look at the boats of his quintada, bobbing in the water off the port boom. The boats were Konrad's job and never in the twelve years they had been together had there been a mistake in the boats. But checking them was Grey's privilege and he did it before each killing. This time he stared down at the thin, wooden hulls dancing and bobbing in the choppy swell and forced his mind to look at details of rope tubs, oars, and harpoon shafts. He was driving Jeninne's grey eyes, soft lips and warm body back - back - into the forgetting part of his mind. The prayer ritual had helped.

The prayers had set his mind. But, then, the president's doubt of him, compounded by his own guilt - he had been intending suicide - had boiled to anger in him. Anger, and a driving will to live, to prove the Scots fool wrong, that was as dangerous as the death wish had been. In the end, he'd had to change the whole content of his emotions; force out the death drive he'd been building, then strive just as hard to repress a rebirth to life again.

He raised his eyes to look at the sea - a short, wicked swell with a wind-driven chop flickering white, monks' heads on every wave. The wind was not bad. These seas drew winds gusting up to one hundred miles an hour, in screaming williwaws. This was a good day, windy, but good.

A ghost-grey fan of whale's spout caught his eye across the arena. The forward tilting spout of the sperm whale, as distinctive to Grey's eye as a fingerprint, burst in the air, then was torn to a flag by the wind.

Higher up in the sky, circling the arena outside and above the closed airspace over the sea, were the formations of TV planes. MacNeal had been right, there were more than Grey had ever seen. They flew north to south, counterclockwise around the perimeter of the arena with cameras and TV lenses focused on every detail of the Ceremony. Grey knew that zoom lenses were now carrying his face, in full close-up, to the watching aficionados of every nation on the Earth that could boast a receiver. The swirling aircraft swarmed like carrion gulls - and for much the same reason ...

The whale's spout shot a fan of movement out of the sea, calling Grey back to the surface of the arena. Out there was the whale - waiting for him.

He murmured the final stanza of the shrine prayer, striving for calmness. A whalekiller cannot enter the arena with too great a desire for life burning in him - or too much of the world around him. His anger must be purged, lest it lead to deadly mistakes - even fear. Jeninne must be thrust away, for a time. The world of TV planes and aficionados, forgotten, put out of mind. His world was to be down there in those boats, driven by those oars, out on that sea; rowing against ... the whale.

He stepped back, away from the rail, turned to the waiting ranks of boatmen. Their faces were stiffly formal, but they were all looking at him, searching his face for a sign of weakness. The president, worry-sick MacNeal, had driven a wedge into his crew that had never been there before. Twelve years of success was wiped away. He was a tyro again. They would take the boats out with him, but he could expect no brilliance, no help from them, until he showed his brio first - showed them the direction he was going to take with the sperm whale.

Grey was alone, again. Jeninne flickered and receded.

He returned their grim stares with a mocking grin, pure brio, and folded his arms elaborately. A signal gesture that could be seen by all the watching aficionados, and a signal to Muldoon in the look-out high up on Skua's masthead.

"Blows! Blows! Thar-a-point. She blo-o-ows!" he cried down the beginning call of the whale hunt.

"Man the boats! Boats away!" Captain Olsen, Skua Harvest's skipper, added his ancient call to an ancient business and the Cetus Ceremony began. It could not be stopped. It would run inevitably to its conclusion, through movements as formal as a figured dance, never changing, as it had for over two hundred years of arena ceremony - a stylized expression of whalehunts that derived from two thousand years of man's past experience in chasing and killing the giant sea mammals.

Robert Grey paced slowly to his boat, climbed down the net and dropped easily into the pitching hull - timed by a sharp bark of noise from Konrad. He was the last of the quintada to enter the boats and he sat, cape-wrapped, in the stern as the boats pulled away to form the line of parade and move into the arena.

The South Atlantic arena was a one-mile circle of ocean, forty-five degrees south latitude, zero degrees longitude. A bowl of sea curtained off by a sonic net to contain the Ceremony's whale - a giant sperm, the lonely giant of the South Polar seas. This one, a prime male, had been hand-picked for Grey's Single Cetus off the coast of Africa and herded to the sea off South Georgia Island, then led into the arena. Here it waited, circling the sonic fence endlessly, waiting for its appointed meeting with Robert Grey.

In a line-abreast formation, the five boats rowed into the arena and slowly out toward its center. They rowed with a measured beat - six men at the sweeps, a harpooneer and a boatmaster steering for each boat. The number-one boat carried Master Whalekiller Robert Grey as well, sitting on the cuddy-board beside his boatmaster, Konrad.

Grey felt the tingle of the sonic fence as the boat crossed the barrier line and entered the arena. From all around, drowning out the wind and creak of oars, floating speakers blared out the opening trumpet bars of the Melville Overture. The oarsmen took up the pulling rhythm of the clashing chords and the boats paraded slowly into the center of the unmarked circle.

The music died. The boats drifted to a halt; oars lifted clear of the water. Only the wind sighed across the waves, even that seeming calm by comparison with the music.

The harpooneer in Grey's boat sat intently erect, his feet and hands braced against the thin wooden hull. Across the water, in the number-three boat - on Grey's left - the Basque harpooneer bent over dog-fashion, feeling the boat hull with bared hands and feet, oblivious to the cold and wet. All waited. The boats tossed up and down in the short chop, the thin sun flashing on Grey's decorated cape.

The sea was good - and bad - good in that the steep, vertical waves, the wind-driven whitecaps, hid the outline of the boats from the whale; bad, in that a smoother, flat sea would transmit the underwater motion of the whale to the boat hulls evenly and quickly. Grey had felt it himself on such occasions. And it was these underwater motions the harpooneers were waiting for, feeling for with their every sense. The sea was good and bad.

Below the surface, below the testing harpooneers, swimming deep, was the sounding grey sperm whale - the prime antagonist in the Ceremony. The tossing boats were waiting for his rise.

Grey watched the number-three boat. In this sea, the Basque would be the first. He was uncanny in his sensing of a whale's movement. On a calm sea, they were all good - in this chop ...

The Basque cried out; singing out the syllables. Grey translated his language by recognition: "She rises!" He looked to his own harpooneer. The man frowned and shook his head.

"Bro-oach-eess!" the Basque sang out, dragging out the single English word he ever used. He was pointing forward and to port.

The great, square head broke water and surged up - up - until the domed dorsal hump was clear of the water. The long, pencil-shaped lower jaw gaped open, its teeth ranked in picket-fence deadliness, and snapped shut. Grey thought the sperm was going to lay over on its back, so high did it jump on this first broach. But it didn't. It dropped back into the sea with a white-water surge that reached half-way to the boats and began swimming away from them. Its spout sighed up into the air, audible over the wind, a visible flag to the boats and to the millions of TV-watching aficionados.

"Cetus est! First spout!" The phrase rang a silent cry in Grey's thoughts. The roaring plume of breath was the whale's challenge to the killing-boats and the combat was begun.

Grey pumped his hand over his head five times and knifed it forward. He was sending in Paget's number-five boat first. They would move in close, plant the first harpoon and ride out the whale's first sounding. Then the number-two boat would hook up and the two boats would drag the whale and try to plant more harpoons, tire it into swimming instead of sounding. They would give Grey a chance to see how the whale swam and discover its fighting spirit and style.

For a moment Grey watched the boat move in, its oars stroking in quick time, then he saw that Paget was pulling in on the correct line - over the flukes - and the whale was swimming straight out away from the boat. This was a good whale - no frightened soundings or deadly attacks on the boats - a good whale.

"I'll get dressed now," Grey said.

Konrad nodded and motioned to the after-oarsman. The oarsman peaked his port oar, sliding it inboard and putting the handle into a socket just below the starboard gunwhale. The oar was held, blade clear of the water, ready for instant use, but not cluttering the inside of the boat.

Konrad moved down to the thwart and opened the two polished kit boxes. His movements were semi-stylized. Each piece of the suiting and equipment had to be put on in a prescribed order and in a certain manner. Neither he nor Grey spoke to each other. Grey moved his body as required from long years of habit, keeping his balance on the pitching, bobbing boat as he dressed. He remained seated throughout the operation, his eyes distantly watching the whale move around the ring of the sonic fence. The oarsmen were turning the boat slowly so it was always pointed at the swimming whale. This also was part of the dressing ritual.

The wet-suit trousers were first, smoothed over his legs and fitted snugly at the feet. A canvas belt sealed the top of the trousers. Konrad cinched it and tucked in the ends, passing his fingers firmly over the prayer phrases sewn along the belt in raised thread. Next he presented the shirt for Grey's arms, sliding it quickly over his head, so that Grey's study of the whale would not be disturbed. The shirt was heavily ornamented with the painted design of Grey's fighting arms and he was, for the moment, conscious of the eyes of all the watching aficionados. The TV cameras in the circling cordon of aircraft would be focusing zoom lenses on him now in tight close-ups, so that each move of this ritual would be visible. He felt the weight of the watching crowds pressing in on him, but it was a familiar feeling and he shrugged it off.

The crowd, the cameras, were there, but the conflict, Grey's fight to the death, was with the whale down here in the sea.

Konrad drew out the flat air tanks, showed the gauges to in dicate their fullness and lifted them over Grey's head to lay them against his back. The harness was pulled snug and the hose and mouthpiece positioned against his left cheek. Next the hood was pulled into place and the face-mask adjusted, then pushed up to leave Grey's face clear. A waist belt with the jato propulsion squares completed the ritual, except for the swim-fins on his feet. They would go on after he placed the first killing-lance - the one he was permitted from the boat.

As Konrad sat back, Grey took the mouthpiece in one hand, put it in his mouth, under his lips, between his teeth with a practiced twist and checked the demand valve. This was the one part of the dressing ritual he did for himself.

President MacNeal turned his head at the cold airblast from the open bridge door. The radio comm-tech ducked in and stood blindly, his glasses fogging in the warm air of the factory-ship's bridge. He reasoned his problem out with visible facial contortions, took off his glasses and found Mac-Neal. He had a message form.

"Sir," he said. "A Coded-Personal to you. Relayed to us from the U.S. Naval Base at Suleberger Bay. Our incoming reception's all hash because of them up there." He waved his hand upward, meaning the circling aircraft.

MacNeal took the sheet, read. and said: "Ah, God!" His voice was loud, the phrase startled out of him by the words on the paper. "Robert Grey's wife is safe. She was rescued in Melbourne. The Navy is flying her down by long-range jet," he explained into the silence he had created on the bridge. Then he picked up his binoculars, looked out at the maneuvering killer-boats. "He's going in to the whale," he said. "He doesn't know, and he's going in. And I can't tell him." His voice was anguished on this last. Herald MacNeal was not as insensitive as his public persona forced him to be. "Oh, God!"

He turned back to the commtech and growled out an order - one of the instant decisions he could make when he was dealing with things in his field of control. "Take this message to the two pilots on the medical copters, now! By hand! They are to tell him verbally, if they go out. Only verbally; not by radio. If the press gets this, before I release it, I'll have them on the flensing deck, tried down for candle-fat. You, too! And that goes for all o' ye here!" He raised his head to the bridge crew. "Grey has a right to hear first before the damn newsies, do ye know."

A muttered, "Aye," agreed with him.

"Jump!" He sent the comm-tech out on the run. Then he went back to watching Grey with the whale, trying to keep his thoughts off the horror of the circumstances which might send out the medical helicopters. A precious message, that might be delivered only if Grey missed his kill - if Grey was ...

Konrad replaced the oarsman on top of the cuddy-board and together they unshipped the rudder and put out the twenty-two-foot steering oar. From now on the accuracy of Konrad's steering, in close to the whale, could not be left to the clumsy rudder. He needed the leverage and control of the long oar. The rudder was triced against the port side of the hull and the oarsman reset his oar, picking up the pulling rhythm with an easy grace.

"Ready, Majestad," Konrad reported, his eyes also on the whale, now.

Grey rose and went forward to the harpooneer's position in the bow. It was customary here for the boat crew to speak to him for luck, and their low, "Suerte, Ishmael, Gott mitt, Cetus est," phrases washed around him as he crossed their thwart stations. The harpooneer said nothing - they were equals, although the whale was Grey's to kill.

Grey spread his feet against the boat's hull, leaned his left leg against the notch in the clumsy-cleat and stood erect. His left hand rested on the lubber-pole for balance. The harpooneer would take the pole down when they came on the whale. To his right across the thwarts, pointing at the bow was the first killing-lance - a steel-black boat-lance, eleven feet long, with a six-foot tip, ground razor sharp at its leaf-shaped end.

Grey felt the beat pick up speed as Konrad signaled the oar tempo up and steered for the swimming whale.

The whale, a scarred, grey-blue sperm, was swimming strongly in the circle defined by the sonic ring. It had been harpooned twice, but the panic of the shocks had left it. Now, the sperm swam against the continuing pain of the toggled barbs in its side. It swam straight away, not curving from side to side as some whales did. It towed the two boats behind, pulling them easily still, but they had tired it.

Paget's boat, the first to fasten, was riding on a long line. Cooper's number-two boat had shortened line and was riding in close to the whale, the thirty-eight-foot boat dwarfed three times over by the plunging back and high, square head of the swimming animal. Both boatmasters were playing the harpoon lines around the loggerhead in the stern of their boats to keep a good distance from each other and they were steering on the inside of the whale's circling path, the drag of their boats helping to force it into turning properly around the arena. The boats were sliding through the sea, their oars peaked out of the water, like skimming spiders.

But now Grey was watching the whale, timing its fluking, noticing how far under the massive forehead dipped, how high the hump rose as it swam. These details were vital to him. They set a rhythm he must match when the boat drove him in close.

Earlier, when he had assumed his wife dead, lost to him, Grey had decided to ignore the whale; to let the first lance be clumsy; to meet the whale as a welcome bringer of death. The attitude had been easy to assume, frighteningly easy. He had merely let go; given up his life, back there on the Skua. He could trust the whale to do the rest for him.

Thinking about it, even now, brought back a hesitation; a pause. Grey's desire to live was a flame in him now, and twice as dangerous as the death wish had been. Now, he had to read the whale sign exactly. The whale was an enemy and could kill him quickly, effortlessly, if he made a mistake. The whale didn't know about Robert Grey's change of mind - his renewed will from dying to life.

So, whale, Grey thought as he absorbed the movements of the great beast. I ha' to watch you most well this time, whale. You're not like the others, I can see. Ah, ye dip your head, so! Well, this is a sea for it, but you will lose, ma whale. 1 must be sure an' kill you. Aye, no doubt. And I don't, you'll kill me - surely. Grey very rarely talked in the boat. It was part of his reputation - his brio. But he always talked to the whales - silently, inside his head. Sometimes, in the speed of action, during a Cetus, he would not remember talking; but afterward he knew he had done so. In part that was why he was always silent in the boat. He feared that he would one day speak out loud from the boat and men would know something about him that Grey did not want known.

Konrad was closing on the whale. He was steering head on, cabeza-a-cabeza. The sperm whale had a blind spot. Its eyes were good for seeing to the side, and a little forward. It couldn't see behind - the harpoons were set overthe-flukes by rowing up from behind - and it was blind directly in front. Head-to-head, a boat could approach, move in fast and set a killing-lance before the whale sounded, when it saw the boat at last. This was the way Master Robert Grey made all of his kills - a brio signature.

Grey bent to pick up the lance, moving it forward to get the balance and holding it in a two-handed grip. The harpooneer pulled away the lubber-pole. Grey held his balance with a leg against the clumsy-cleat. He kept his eye on the closing sperm, sighting its hump just to the right of the spout. Konrad was on the correct line. Now, the square forehead was visible under the bow-swell the whale was shoving over its back. There it broke water, scarred and discolored from unknown battles in its own deep hunting-seas. Then, down again and still closer - less than five fathoms.

"'Stribor!" Konrad called, and the boat swung wide to starboard, away from the whale, all oars peaked out of the water.

The sperm's great forehead rose out of the water, cleared the port oars by a foot only. The small, staring eye with its own curling wash of wave, was even with Grey.

"Habor!" Konrad leaned his weight against the steering oar. All of the pulling oars dropped and dug, shoving the boat back in, directly at the head. The bow touched, then the wave-wash of the moving whale shoved it back.

In that moment, Grey, bending out over the body of the sperm, stabbed down deep with his lance.

He had raised it high above his head, then thrust out and down, jacknifing his body below the gun-whale as he drove the lance through skin and blubber. His thrust and the whale's motion toward him drove the lance a full five feet into the whale, just behind its head - deep in the body ...

But the lance didn't go deep! It struck something - a bone, perhaps the skull - and stopped. Grey swung off balance, caught at the bow cleat with one hand. The lance bent, then sank into the whale again.

The lance tore from Grey's hand. He let it go. Left it in the whale to work, and cut and kill if it would. It was a bad lance.

Despite his control, his will to live, Grey had almost killed himself. He could have fallen out of the boat... the whale, hurt, could turn on his boat; might still. No, it was sounding. Diving to escape the boats that tormented it.

The oarsmen backed the boat, riding the whale's wash away, to clear the upflung tail. The whale sounded and the following boats towed along behind.

Grey saw the harpoon line on the number-two boat kick and snap as it burned out between the bow chocks. Cooper was giving the sounding whale line, letting him dive. At fifty fathoms an underwater sonic floor closed the arena - the sperm would rise soon.

Grey made his way back to the aft cuddy-board. He came back in silence, the oarsmen avoiding him. He had failed on the first lance. They knew it and they thought they knew why. Grey wanted to shout at them, yell out: "It was a mistake! I make mistakes!" But he couldn't. MacNeal, with his worrying tongue ... no one had left him any room to make mistakes. They were all waiting for him-to die - expecting it - prejudging him. They had forgotten twelve years of whalekilling skill - brio of the first class - forgotten every whale they had fought together ...and all over one bent lance.

Grey wrapped himself in the silence and sat heavily on the cuddyboard.

Konrad was letting the boat ride idly clear. The other rushing boats were already a quarter of a mile away. When the whale broached, spouting and still swimming away from the boats, Grey raised his hand, pumped it three times, signaling the number-three boat in. The whale had two harpoons and the lance in its port side. It would turn that way to ease the pain - too quickly perhaps. Lucas would plant his harpoon on the starboard side. The drag of his boat would keep the whale swimming on the proper line. Grey sat, and let the after-oarsman fit his flippers. He was glad to sit and there was no pressing reason to stand. The TV cameras would be watching the harpooning, and he no longer cared if they caught him sitting down. If anybody saw, it would look like part of a dressing ritual.

"Fast boat," Konrad said. He was standing high, watching the harpooning. Lucas' boat had set its harpoon in the whale and was being towed. Konrad steered the boat back toward the line the whale would follow, coming to them. This sperm was swimming a nearly perfect Ceremony. Except for the one lance it was a perfect Cetus. The whale had made three circuits of the arena now, keeping an exact distance - about fifty fathoms - from the sonic fence. There had been no turning, twisting, charging at the boats - things that made a bad fight. This was a good whale.

But Grey could see that it was swimming slower. Soon it might stop. Then the boats would have to go in and use lances to prod it into motion. This was dangerous for the boats and it would spoil the unity of motion of the Ceremony. It would waste a good whale.

Grey stood up and stepped backward, heel first in his flippers, up onto the cuddy-board beside Konrad. It was time to begin his part; his solo Cetus with the whale.

"Another boat-lance, Majestad?" Konrad asked. The question showed Konrad's opinion of the first lance. Grey was entitled to set two boat-lances, but he never had. His brio had kept him from it, even with difficult whales, and this was an easy whale. Konrad was suggesting that he start over again, from the beginning.

Grey shook his head, pointed his finger to the lance rack and beckoned. The gesture was for the aficionados. His oarsmen knew what was needed and were already passing him the second lance. Grey took it and stood it on the deck, tip high over his head. He stood straight with a hand on Konrad's shoulder for balance and looked out toward the whale.

One mistake. The next mistake might give the whale its chance to kill him. He didn't think about fear, because fear happened to him very quickly when he went into a whale; very quickly, then it passed. He was used to this reaction of his body and worked with it. He didn't fear the thought of making a mistake, either, but if it happened, Grey decided that he would let it happen under the water, where he could not be seen so readily. He was going into the sea for his second lance.

Konrad started the boat toward the whale.

At one hundred fathoms, when he was certain of the whale's line, Grey slapped his hand down on Konrad's shoulder; slapped it once as a command - and a parting.

Konrad turned his head, his teeth shining in his twisted-pirate grin. "Ishmael!" he yelled. His boat-voice, loud enough to carry to the whale, was meant to shock courage into Grey - his method of sharing emotions.

Grey stepped backward off the boat, carrying the lance with him, and entered the sea with a blue-white flash of shock as the cold struck at him.

He had fitted his mouthpiece and brought down the face-mask in a quick economy of motion, before he'd stepped off. His body was protected and the double wet-suit would soon warm him. The cold was only relative and he ignored it.

He bobbed to the surface, found the boat - Konrad had peaked oars, then backed down so that he was now behind Grey pointing the line to the whale - and began swimming strongly to meet the whale. He carried the lance in his right arm, the off-whale side, and swam using a flipper kick. The jato belt would be used later, to give him swimming speed to match the whale.

From his height in the waves he could no longer see the whale, but he could hear it. With his head under the water, the bleating squeals of the sperm were clear and loud. The cries were echo sounding against the arena fence, but there was pain, too. No fear. The whale swam away from the harpoon-pain, not in fear of the boats.

Ye're not afraid, are ye, King-aDeath? Grey was thinking. You did that wi' our first dart, did you not? Now you swim so to meet me, but not as you're afraid, whale. Nay, that's not a mistake I'll make.

Grey submerged, swimming down to his negative buoyancy level a few feet under the surface. There, the sea-change caught him as it did during every Cetus. The brief thrill of fear flooded him and the water lifted away his weight; freed his muscles from gravity. His heart pounded, forcing his blood to flow against the cold; his muscles, swimming without effort in the sea, brought a clear bright quality to his nerves and his thoughts. The depression, the sense of failure at the first lance, was gone. It had disappeared with the rest of the world on the surface above. Down here the pressures were gone. The TV cameras might see his decorated suit down under the waves; they couldn't see his face. The president couldn't see him at all and no power could touch him, down here in the sea. Even the boats of his own quintada were out of sight and touch.

The death wish that he had been fighting washed out of his head, bubbled away out his exhaust valve as the air from his tanks breathed out his lungs. He was Robert Grey, Master Whalekiller! All sense of failure was gone. This was his work and he was here, in the sea, to kill the whale. In the sea to face his whale, doing a job that only he, of all the men in the South Atlantic, could do - a professional.

He stroked his flippers, driving straight to meet the whale. No thoughts of death or fear or mistake, he was surely competent; Grey knew exactly how he would plant this lance he carried. His brio was riding high, carrying him to the meeting with the sperm.

He drove up to the surface, porpoising briefly to check his line. The whale was close enough to see - the blowing spout, the hump sweeping up and down.

Grey reached to the shaft of the lance. A ring at its base came away to give him a short barb on a ring - a steel symbol of Mars; of manhood.

He went below the surface again. His approach was head on to the whale, in the blind spot again, as with the boat, but here in the water he was exposed to the sperm's deadly, toothed jaw. He had to see it as he attacked.

The house-wide, square head loomed out of the water's dimness.

With the heel of his left hand, Grey activated two of his jato packs. His speed tripled. He and the whale, now equals in swimming speed, rushed together at better than twenty miles an hour.

Now we decide, whale! Grey thought, driving himself up and angling off to the side. Meet me, whale! Ishmael! He had only seconds to react. The whale's giant cry shivered the water in an echoing hoot. The mouth gaped open, the whale's own ivory tooth-lances hooked at Grey's rising legs. Its eyes swept by; a feature in a streaking wall of blue-grey flesh. Grey's head broke water. He rode upward on the foreswell of the massive flipper. His position was just right.

He stabbed out with the ringed dart. The barb caught in the grey skin and held. He pivoted, his arm muscles locked, and he felt his feet hit the shoulder of the flipper. The flipper was driving up, the whale peaking it like a boat oar, just before he sounded. Konrad's boat was in front of the sperm. The whale would dive to avoid the now-noisy, splashing oars. Grey rode the peaking flipper up out of the water, abandoning the dart and gripping the lance to thrust it deep; deep to the full length of the steel shaft; in one convulsive spasm of his muscles. The shock and shudder of the stab ran up his arms - a true thrust - a killing-lance.

No mistake this time. The exultation of his pride roared, pulsed his blood in a silent cry of emotion. Ishmael!

Grey's balance was a thing of combined movements and timing. He lost it instantly and tumbled off into the water, diving deep. Both hands slapped at the jato packs and he drove down and away. He had seconds to avoid the whale's descending flukes and behind them the two whaleboat lines whipping through the water from the harpoons.

Blamm-whurrp!

The concussion of the whale's upflung flukes slapped through the water, deafening Grey, but telling his safe distance from the stroking tail. He was safe; swimming clear. He felt, rather than saw, the shadow of the whaleboat as it swept over him. The shock of the contact was leaving him rapidly, as it did, to be replaced by the triumphal elation of a good killing-lance.

He swam to the surface and raised his arm for the pickup. Konrad, with his uncanny sense of what was happening in the water, was less than three fathoms away. The boat slewed in and Grey caught the peaked after-oar and the line-oar. The oarsmen pulled him in, their faces shining with an equal triumph.

"Red flag, Majestad," the line-oarsman said. The whale had spouted blood. Grey's lance had gone into a lung or a large vein that flooded into the lung airspace.

Konrad had the boat headed across the arena circle. As soon as Grey was seated, the oars dipped and pulled to a fast beat. Two lances had been placed, cabeza-acabeza. The next phase was the blood chase - force killing the dying sperm. And Grey had to follow the boat fleet, now.

The harpooneers in the towed boats would pull in the lines and each thrust a killing-lance. Grey had put in the first boat-lance, and the second from the water, showing his skill and great brio, when the whale was fresh. Now, the boat harpooneers would lance the great sperm, wearing his massive vitality down, until he was near death.

When a Ceremony was fought with two or more Master Whalekillers, this phase was taken in turn, with each Majestad showing his skill and dominance. In a Single Cetus like this, Grey was permitted to use boat harpooneers in what was an ungraceful, bloody business. The really brutal part of cetomacy, that was always emphasized in condemning articles. A sperm male took a very large amount of killing and no one expected Master Robert Grey to risk his life in the mid-fight lancings.

The first boat was already up to the whale, when Konrad joined the fleet. Cooper's boat, its oars peaked, the men pulling it in by means of the line purchased around the loggerhead, was touching the back of the whale - forward of the hump, near the flippers. The harpooneer was poised, as the boat worked forward. He stabbed down, swung his body from side to side, to churn the lance in the whale's flesh, and was almost torn into the water. The whale slapped his flukes and put on a burst of speed, running away from the boat briefly as Cooper let the harpoon line burn out to give him a safe distance again. He steered the boat out wide with his oar and dropped back behind Paget's position.

One at a time the other two boats pulled in, lanced the stricken whale and slid out, but the great sperm still swam through the water. The Ceremony was beginning to stretch out, Grey had no real idea of the time, but it was upwards of four hours.

Grey went in the water again, taking the whale on its starboard side, a highly dangerous pass. The whale was turning to port to circle the arena and so would be turning away from Grey when he made his grab for the skin to stand up on the flipper. He would have a shorter time to plant his lance - the whale seemed to dive more quickly to port. And his boats were on the wrong side to help him. Also, he had to reckon with the heavy tail flukes. As the whale sounded it turned away from the sonic fence. The tail flukes would slap water very close to Grey if he delayed his roll-off after the lance.

He was confident enough now, sure in his dominance of this whale, to assess these factors coldly, one by one, and plan his technique to meet them. His swim-in was flawless and the starboard lance went in deep and solid. The whale spouted and Grey had the rare chance to see the red-flag - the blood spout from his own lance - before he rolled off the flipper.

Konrad was close and picked him up fast in a slap-dash manner. Grey flicked up his face-mask to see what was wrong. Konrad wouldn't have rushed a pickup unless there was something wrong. Grey came aboard at the bow and stayed at the harpooneer's station - he might be needed.

The whale had not sounded, as expected. It merely dipped under in a shallow dive and back up again. The quick move had caught Cooper's boat with its lines all running free for the sounding. They slacked; and the whale turned.

Within seconds the trawler-sized animal swerved in the sea, ran at the number-two boat, turning like a porpoise in its own length. The sperm's square forehead smashed into Cooper's oars, three-quarter on. It slid the boat sideways for a bit, breaking oars and tossing two men clear. Then the boat caught, rolled, and floated bow-down in the white wash for seconds, before the sweeping flukes smashed a thousand pounds of driving whale flesh down to drive the whaleboat into the sea.

Konrad swerved toward the wreckage, calling quick-stroke, headed for the men in the water. From the inside of the whale's circling line, Leith's number-four boat, the safety boat, was also stroking.

"Copters!" Grey called briefly. He'd seen the two medical copters lift off the factory ship. Konrad nodded and nosed into the floating wreckage.

The whale swerved back into his line and swam away, towing the two boats as if nothing had happened. It swam slower, seeming to take on a dignity now that it had struck back. No longer a fleeing animal, the lone whale had demonstrated its power against the tormenting boats. It swam steadily, proudly, but the blowing spout was tinged with pink. The steel lances were killing it.

Grey pulled his eyes away from the whale, searched for men in the wreckage. The Ceremony was suspended for the time. The men in the water had minutes to live - the Antarctic cold could kill, and only Grey wore a protective wet-suit.

They found two men, quickly dipping two oars under them to help them aboard. A copter hovered over the boat, foaming the water, and the line-oarsman caught the sling. Both men went up together, there was no time for standard procedures. The men were freezing. Grey saw Leith pick up someone, and the second copter was dragging its sling in the water.

"Grey!" A bullhorn shouted at him from the copter. "Grey! Your wife - safe! Rescued O.K. Flying here! Grey?"

Grey threw up a hand to acknowledge. His eyes blurred with emotion he had to fight. Jeninne! Oh, Jeninne! Even with the joy he felt, there wasn't time to think of Jeninne, now. He needed his eyesight to find the men in the water.

There, another! He pointed, but Konrad was already throwing his weight on the steering oar. The copter trailed them in to the pickup dangling its cable for quick recovery.

The man in the water was Cooper, alive, but too weak to get in the boat. Grey went over the side and worked him directly into the copter's sling.

"We've got them all, now." the bullhorn said. "Seven men, O.K." The copter was angling away toward the factory ship even as Cooper's dangling body rose up to the door. Seven men. The whale hadn't made a kill!

Grey swam back to his boat and went aboard over the line-oar to sit beside Konrad again.

"Get us back to the whale!!" he ordered. "Seven men, Konrad. The whale didn't make a kill. He's still mine. Get me over there, man. I'll plant the killing-lance, yet."

"Ishmael!" was Konrad's reply and he pushed up the rowing count and sheared the boat around. Leith dropped in behind and they headed back for the whale's swimming line. The attack, crash and rescue had been quick; a brief flurry to excite the aficionados, but the whale was still there, swimming, and Grey had to meet it again. This time would be the last. Grey was tiring, and the whale - the whale must be near death.

The sperm's spurt of speed had been brief. Its every spout now was pink with blood-froth - some deeper red. Runnels of color marked its head from the blowhole whenever the whale left it out of the water; which was more and more often, now. The whale didn't sound, it just made shallow dives.

Paget was rowing into the whale again, holding his line taut. His after-oarsman took up the line as they moved in to the whale. His harpooneer struck and drew a bright spout of blood - and another.

"Take us in!" Grey said. The whale had swung around in a short circle, turning in its own length, its tail flukes hardly rising to the surface. The lines on the port boats were all slack. They could tangle, have to be cut, if the whale ran again. But it wouldn't. Grey could place his last lance now. The death circle was a final signal.

Konrad worked the boat up toward the big body, steering over the flukes. The oars were coming out of the water, trailing carmine droplets. Grey's boat was moving through the whale's blood-wake.

Once more Grey moved to the bow. He left his flippers. This time, this lance, he would plant with a technique that was his own. No one else used it. The TV aficionados would be hanging on their seats waiting for his move.

The lubber-pole was in place again and Grey used it for balance, as the harpooneer strapped the cleat-shoes on his feet. A flemished rectangle of line covered the top of the clumsy-cleat to protect the razor-keen edges on the cleats as Grey stepped up on the thwart. He stood poised, looking at the whale. The harpooneer handed him the last lance.

Don't die yet, whale, his thought ran. We have one more trick, you and I. For the crowd, whale. Wait for me.

The boat swam through water, red with the whale's blood. This last lance was only a showpiece - for the aficionados. Grey could stand by and wait. The whale would die in minutes, no matter what he did. But the watching millions would storm him with abuse if he cheated them. His brio demanded one more lance, planted with maximum danger - or at least, with the appearance of danger.

The boat's hull touched the whale, rode along, grey-skin-to-wood.

Grey sprang outward. He landed on the whale's broad back and ran lithely forward, toward the heavy hump and the forest of harpoon sockets. His cleats knifed into the thick skin, held him on the wet surface. The whale slid through the water under him with an inert movement, barely swimming. The whale was moments from death, but to the watching TV cameras, zoomed in for close-ups, Grey's brilliantly painted wet-suit tight in their focus, his action appeared incredible, tremendously thrilling - a final act of bravery, this tiny man, alone on the back of an eighty-ton sea monster.

Grey reached the spot he had been aiming for, and lifted his lance high. With a convulsive jerk of his muscles, he stabbed deep, driving his shoulders down almost to his knees as the lance-head sank into the whale. The wide back shuddered once, an earthquake quiver beneath his feet and a slapping crack sounded behind him as the giant flukes rose and fell in a final spasm.

Grey jerked the lance out, handover-hand, and stabbed again - deeper.

The whale spouted once, a low, wide spray of bloody mist that fell around Grey, smearing his face-mask, running down his arms and shoulders as he lifted the lance a third time. The long shaft was curved and bent, now, but he thrust it deep in the thorax, half-blinded by the blood-spray.

The whale began to roll to starboard. Dead at last, it lay over against the waves.

Grey released the lance, stepped sideways to walk with the roll, and lost his footing. His cleats missed their bite and he fell.

He hit the whale face down and began to slide. His wet-suit and hands, slick with blood, could not hold him. He planed, penguin-like, down the rolling side of the whale. For an instant he fought his head up. His face-mask partly clear, showed him the horror of the whale's open jaw. He was sliding head first at the pointed ivory teeth. The whale's dying spasm would close its mouth, grinding down on Grey as he slid into its deadly bite.

Frantically he shoved out his arms, pushing at the wet skin. The whale had won after all. Grey had made another mistake; and the whale was taking him. He felt his body fall free, into the water. His arm passed straight into the gaping jaw. He saw the shape and color and number of those teeth; the rolling fold of flesh at their root; the ridged roof of the mouth; all in stark detail, then the blinding red-black flash of pain hit his shoulder. He heard the snap of his arm bone as his body swung into the sea. The conical point of a tooth bulged the fabric of his wet-suit on top of his arm, punched through as easily as it had pierced his arm, and gleamed white against the suit. A welling of blood, his blood, flowed to wash down his arm, mix with the whale-stain and dissolve away - indistinguishable in the sea - then nothing.

He came back to screaming pain, bubbling the mouthpiece away and choking on the brine. The harpooneer was in the sea beside him, lifting his arm off the spearpoint of the whale's tooth. The man had jumped in his boat-clothes; the sea-cold would kill him in minutes.

Hands dragged the two of them into the boat, heedless of pain and oars and equipment. Grey's arm must have a tourniquet; his adrenaline level, with his heart beating to keep his body warm in the Antarctic water, would pump the blood from his veins in minutes. The harpooneer fought his way back to his oar and began to row, doggedly forcing exercise to help him fight the freezing cold of wet clothes. He was wrapped in canvas as a windshield and a wine-skin was poured into him, then all the oars were manned.

Konrad was setting a crash-speed rhythm. He had to get back to the Skua Harvest. Grey and the harpooneer needed immediate medical care. And the copters were flying back to South Georgia Island with Cooper's crew. The sweeps dug deep; pulled hard.

Ear-rending trumpet blasts and timpani pulsed, swelled; the closing Melville movements welled across the arena.

The whale was fin-up and awash; Grey had made his kill; the Ceremony was over.

Someone on the Skua Harvest with binoculars on the final lance had seen Grey's accident, however, for the whalecatcher was turning inside the Arena, headed for Konrad's boat rather than the whale. Skua was steaming full, a white bow-wave already curving up on both sides as she headed in.

Behind Konrad's stroking boat, Paget had moved into the whale. He was flying his red-waif flag to signal the kill and he would pull up to recover his harpoons and, with the help of the other boat-crews, sever the sperm's great tail. The heavy flukes would be allowed to sink back into the sea - to keep the whale's spirit from swimming forever in lonely seas. So the whalekillers paid tribute to a superstition as old as their craft, and at the same time made the massive carcass ready for hauling into the factory ship. Grey's whale, no longer a violent antagonist, was destined for the flensing decks, to become food and oil - a use and purpose far beyond its short six hours of glory in the arena.

Whalekiller Grey, riding unconscious from his pain, seemed to be swimming still, through golden water. He swam in company with a mighty sperm whale, young and vigorous in its strength, and a slim, dark girl, haloed by light in her beauty. Grey swam; one of his partners faded and dimmed, the other grew strong and solid, became reality itself, until - Jeninne! Jeninne! The face with its dark halo of hair hovered over him as he was lifted onto the whale-catcher's deck.

The smoky-grey whale sounded silently into the depths, its flukes rising high and sparkling diamonds over all the world.