Chapter 38 What Whale Song Represents

Asimov lingered for a long time over this page of the story.

On one hand, he was amazed by the ingenuity of Enny’s narrative, which used a simple, absurd plot to launch a sharp and satirical attack on reality.

On the other hand, he felt a deep sense of admiration for Enny’s courage in expressing such viewpoints.

For a creator, the hardest thing is never plotting a story, but rather "telling the truth."

[...General Werner and Hopkins squeezed into the transparent little capsule. A ton of strategic supplies, packed in waterproof bags, rested on the back seat. General Werner decided to go in person; he needed to ensure this mission, highly valued by both the President and Congress, was successfully completed. Without a doubt, this would be the most thrilling journey of his life. Sailors on the warship gently lowered the capsule into the sea with cables, and then the vessel slowly steamed away from it.

The two men inside the capsule immediately felt the rolling swell of the ocean. The capsule sat halfway exposed above the water, and the sunset of the Atlantic poured into the cabin. Hopkins pressed a few keys on the remote control to summon the blue whale. They heard a deep churning sound of seawater in the distance, growing louder and louder until the massive mouth of the blue whale broke the surface and bore down upon them. The capsule seemed to be sucked into a black hole at lightning speed; the luminous space rapidly shrank into a thin line and finally vanished...

The capsule seemed to rest upon a soft mire, the surface of which constantly writhed. Above them was a vaulted ceiling where arches formed by gigantic ribs could be seen. Both the "muddy ground" and the overhead arches sloped backward toward a large, black opening... He knew that opening was the throat of the blue whale...

Following the exact same procedure out on the open sea, twenty-nine other "capsules" were lowered from warships into the ocean and swallowed into the giant mouths of summoned whales. Under General Jonah's command, the transport whale fleet vanished from the surface of the sea at the exact same moment—they plunged into the ocean depths, heading toward the British coast in a manner guaranteed to remain entirely undiscovered.]

Reading up to this point, Asimov calculated in his mind that, factoring in the swimming speed of a blue whale along with the necessary time for foraging and resting along the route, this journey would take about twelve to fifteen days.

Of course, the span of time in a novel can be infinitely compressed. Yet an exceptional author should not simply skip over a passage that seemingly held no "plot conflict" for the narrative. On the contrary, the true test of an author's mastery is the ability to make mundane episodes shine.

Asimov knew that Enny would undoubtedly handle this "long journey" brilliantly.

He continued reading, and sure enough, Enny did not skip this segment. Instead, he utilized the dialogue between General Jonah and Hopkins to introduce some popular science.

For instance, the blue whale's feeding methods and biological habits were woven into the narrative from the novel perspective of "General Jonah and Hopkins inside the whale's mouth," creating a fascinating scientific exposition with the wondrous flavor of a Jules Verne work.

[...When that pile of fish, weighing two or three tons, vanished into the massive throat of the blue whale, a sound like a crumbling mountain echoed through the deep.

The sheer shock of the blue whale's feeding left General Werner blankly silent for a long time. Suddenly, Hopkins nudged him. "Listen to music?" With that, he turned up the volume of the sonar loudspeaker.

Werner heard a low, rumbling sound and looked at Hopkins in bewilderment.

"That is Poseidon singing. That is the whale song."

Gradually, out of this low, intermittent roar, Werner began to discern a certain rhythm, and even a melody... "What is it doing? Courting?"

"Not entirely. Marine scientists have studied whale songs for a long time, but they still cannot fathom their meaning."

"Perhaps there is no meaning at all."

"Quite the contrary—the meaning is too profound, too deep for human comprehension. Scientists believe it is a musical language, yet it expresses many things that human language struggles to convey."

The whale song resonated, the singing of the ocean's soul. In the whale song, primeval lightning lashed at the primordial seas, and life flickered like fireflies in the chaotic waters; in the whale song, life opened eyes filled with curiosity and fear, using scaly feet to step out of the ocean for the very first time onto a land where volcanoes still burned; in the whale song, the empire of dinosaurs perished in the cold, time flew, oceans turned into mulberry fields, and wisdom sprouted like grass in the first warmth following the glaciers; in the whale song, civilizations emerged like phantoms across every continent, and Atlantis plunged to the ocean floor amidst flashes of light and deafening roars... Battle after naval battle stained the seas red with blood; countless empires were born and perished, all of it fleeting like passing smoke... The blue whale sang the song of life with its unimaginably ancient memory, completely unaware of the tiny sin it held within its mouth...]

Asimov was shaken. This passage of barely two hundred words was simply too magnificent and solemn!

By tightly weaving ancient whale songs with the evolution of the Earth and the birth of life, it spanned the origin of life and the rise and fall of civilizations across the vast expanse of time, perfectly forging a profound and solemn literary atmosphere.

And the "whale song" felt like a "minstrel" drifting from the ancient dawn, chanting a predetermined destiny, inevitably stirring reflections on the future and fate... This philosophical depth and historical perspective, transcending the story itself, were breathtaking.

Asimov eagerly wanted to know the ending.

He continued reading. After a long voyage, the blue whale reached the British coast at midnight. Everything that followed went astonishingly smoothly. Having handed over the cargo, General Jonah embarked on his return journey with the two hundred pounds of gold prepaid by the British side.

[...During the calm voyage beneath the waves, Werner fell asleep. He knew not how much time had passed when he was shaken awake by Hopkins. He checked the chart and trajectory on the small screen; nothing seemed amiss. Hopkins told him to listen closely, and he heard the sound of a vessel navigating the surface. This had been commonplace throughout the previous journey, and he looked at Hopkins in confusion. But as he continued to listen, he knew something was wrong: unlike before, the volume of the sound remained unchanged.

That ship was following the blue whale.

Shortly afterward, more ships locked onto the transport whale fleet as it surfaced to catch its breath.]

[...Suddenly, a muffled thud echoed through the sonar, and a vibration rippled through the capsule. Then came another identical impact. This time, the whale's movements turned frantic. The capsule rolled back and forth inside the whale's mouth, crashing heavily against the oral walls several times with cracking sounds, nearly knocking the two men unconscious.

"That ship is firing on us!" Hopkins screamed in terror. Using the remote control, he desperately tried to stabilize the blue whale and issued a dive command to the pod, but not a single blue whale obeyed. They continued to race blindly across the surface. Hopkins felt a tremor—a tremor originating from the massive body of the blue whale itself, a tremor born of agony.

"We need to get out, or it will be too late!" Werner shouted.

Hopkins issued the command to expel the capsule. This time, the whale complied. The capsule shot out of its mouth at astonishing speed and quickly bobbed to the surface.

The morning sun had already risen over the Atlantic, its glare blinding them momentarily. But they soon realized their feet were submerged in water; the violent collisions inside the whale's mouth had cracked the capsule in several places, and seawater was pouring in. The entire cabin was severely deformed, and despite their utmost strength, they failed to pry open the hatch to escape.

They began plugging the leaks with anything they could find, even resorting to the bars of gold from their suitcases, but it was useless.

Through the vast expanse of the Atlantic, they saw the pod of whales being shelled by numerous, numerous ships. He saw the strange-nosed cannons at the bows, saw the flashes of fire at the muzzles, and saw arrow-shaped, rope-trailing shells striking the struggling spines of the blue whales. With its final strength, the blue whale churned up giant waves upon the ocean surface, and its blood stained a vast stretch of the sea crimson... The capsule sank, plunging downward through the boundless, blood-red mist of the dying whale pod.

"Whose hands have we died in?" Werner asked when the water had reached his chin.

"Whaling ships," Hopkins replied.

Werner burst into a final, hysterical laugh.

"International conventions completely banned whaling five years ago! Those sons of bitches!!" Hopkins cursed furiously.

Jonah continued his wild laughter as he caught sight of the men aboard the whaling vessels—those high-bridged noses, deep-set eyes, and pale pupils belonging to the Germans: "Hahaha... They have no morals... Hahaha... The Germans... Hahaha... The Japanese... Hahaha... Utterly devoid of morals..."

Aboard ship after ship of the whalers, the Germans tasked with finding food and fuel for the front-line soldiers pressed their palms together, thanking God for sending this precious pod of blue whales. Whale oil would be refined into fuel, whale meat processed into canned rations, baleen crafted into musical instruments, whale bones pulverized into fertilizer, whale skin tanned into leather, and viscera boiled into ointments... Wiping away tears of gratitude, they raised their rifles, loaded their ammunition, and barked orders to slaughter the Americans and the blue whales struggling for survival on the sea.

In the sunlight and glittering ripples of the Atlantic, they fired bullets manufactured from metal sold by the United States, swung rifles forged in machine tools exported by the United States, and operated whaling vessels powered by oil supplied by the United States...

Seawater swallowed everything within the capsule. Amidst their fading consciousness, Hopkins and Werner heard the blue whale Poseidon chanting its solemn whale song once more. That final song of life pierced through the blood-stained waters, echoing long and lingeringly across the Atlantic...]