Dangling below the railing, the struggles of the huge black fish grew steadily weaker, its tail faltering in its rhythmic slapping of the water. The men kept a careful watch across the gently rolling waves, above which sea birds cruised and circled lazily, occasionally diving down to snatch up a small fish and carry it off towards the shore. Above them, the sky was still virtually empty of clouds, as it had been ever since they'd arrived in the miocene. Was there going to be a stormy season? Lowe wondered. What would they eat while the seas were too rough for the flat bottomed tenders to leave the safety of the cruise liner? What if the stormy season lasted for several months?

"Thar she blows!" shouted Kent suddenly, snapping Lowe's thoughts back to the here and now. His eyes followed the other man's pointing finger, just in time to see a long, grey shape sinking back below the surface of the water, where it disappeared from sight with a smooth grace that seemed impossible for a creature its size. Everyone gripped their harpoons tighter, their bodies stiffening with tension, and Krebbs muttered a prayer while crossing himself.

"Someone stab the fish with their harpoon," shouted Lowe. "Spill its blood into the water."

Krebbs did so, and soon the water lapping against its glossy, black skin was stained pink with blood. "That's taking a chance," said Staple doubtfully. "We could soon be dealing with sharks as well as the whale."

"If the sharks have got any sense, they'll keep away while Moby Dick's in the area," Kent told him. "That thing's got to be almost the size of a blue whale."

"A blue whale with the jaws of a sea lion," said Krebbs under his breath. "It has to be the King of the seas in these parts. Has to be. If it's not, I'd hate to meet the creature that'll take the crown from it."

"Where is it?" said Sanders, his fingers growing white when he was gripping the harpoon. "It could be right under the boat right now. Getting ready to attack."

"Last time, it just took the fish and left," Krebbs reminded him. "It doesn't care about us."

"It might when we start stabbing it," Sanders told him. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

"Too late now," said Staple. "I think it's coming this way."

Sure enough, Lowe saw, the beast was cresting the waves again, a lot closer this time. As before, the junior officer only had time for a glimpse of its tail flukes slapping the water as it dove back down, but that was enough to give him an idea of the size of the creature. That tail end alone had been the size of the Portoise, and it didn't make any difference to the threat it made that it was relatively slender. There was more than enough length to the thing to make the junior officer's hands hurt with the force with which he was gripping the radio mast.

A moment later it broke the surface again, and this time Lowe saw its head for the first time. It did indeed look like a sea lion, although on a much larger scale, but then one of its eyes fixed momentarily on his, and what he saw in them shocked him to the extent that he almost lost his grip on the radio mast and fell.

There was greed and hunger in the tiny, piggy eyes. An indignation that was unmistakable even though it should have been impossible to read emotions in the totally inhuman head. In one shocking moment, Lowe somehow knew exactly what the creature was thinking, that the huge, black fish and all others of the same kind belonged to it. The first time, it had been content to merely reclaim its property, magnanimously assuming that the strange, alien vessel had made a mistake, but this was the second fish it was trying to steal. There was clearly no mistake. It was deliberate and would no doubt continue until it was stopped. The thieves had to be punished.

"Cut it loose!" he screamed down at the men below. "Cut the fish loose!"

It was too late, though, as the whale veered aside at the last moment and dealt the boat a savage blow with its gigantic, fluked tail. Everyone was thrown from their feet as the boat lurched violently sideways, and a wave of water washed across the deck, nearly washing the crew over the side and gushing down through the open hatch into the passenger compartment below. Men clung grimly to the railing that encircled the upper deck, but Winchell fell over it, just managing to catch hold of the upper rail with one hand.
His harpoon fell from his other hand and disappeared into the sea. He screamed in terror as the others scrambled back to their feet, staring at each other in confusion.

"What happened?" cried Kent in bewilderment. "Did we hit something?"

"It was the whale," Staple shouted back. "It hit us."

"It's coming back!" Lowe shouted down at them. "Cut the fish loose. Maybe it'll..."

The boat gave another sudden lurch as the whale hit them again. Winchell cried out as his body swung from his precarious handgrip, and another wave of water swept over the deck. As the seas settled around them, Lowe saw that the tender was listing at an angle in the water. Had the boat been holed? He desperately hoped it was only the water that had flooded through passenger compartment that was weighing down the boat. The hull was aluminium. It should merely deform without breaking, and water in the ship could be pumped out. If that was what it was.

"Close the hatch!" he shouted. "Don't let any more water in."
Staple and Kent were too busy pulling Winchell back up onto the deck, though, and the others were clutching their harpoons tightly as they waited to see if the whale would return. "Next time we get it," said Krebbs grimly. "A spear full of cyanide, right in the eye."

Lowe stared out over the sea, looking for the whale, but it was nowhere in sight. He imagined it directly under the boat, speeding back to attack them again without ever giving them a target to aim at. "Nuckwin!" he shouted. "Can you see anything on the depth sounder?"

"What?" the pastor called back.

"There it is!" cried Krebbs, pointing to the north. Lowe looked and saw the whale a few hundred yards away, turning for another run at the boat. Then it drove towards them with terrifying speed, water breaking across its slate-grey head. Krebbs and Davis readied their harpoons. The others looked around for their weapons, but they were nowhere to be seen. They must have been washed over the side by the water.

Less than a second before the whale hit, the two men threw their harpoons with all their strength, straight down into the fleshy torpedo of rubbery flesh. Then the whale hit again, and the boat spun around under the impact. Krebbs and Davis were both washed overboard by the tidal wave of water that swept them from their feet. The Porpoise leaned over at a crazy angle. Oh God! thought Lowe in terror. It's going to capsise!

The boat settled, although it remained at an angle in the water. "Man overboard!" cried Winchell. "Krebbs and Davis! Shit, we're leaving them behind."

They'd left the boat driving forward, Lowe remembered. He looked, and saw the two men waving madly in terror in water that was churning and agitated from the whale's attack. The other men seemed incapable of any other action than just staring at them. Lowe climbed down from the roof of the cockpit, ran inside and grabbed the steering wheel, turning it around to take them back. The boat was sluggish from the weight of water it was carrying, but it started to turn.

He looked across at Nuckwin, to see his wide, terrified eyes fixed on his own. "Is if coming back?" asked the Pastor. "Is it going to attack again?"

Lowe had no idea. His only thoughts were for the two men floating helplessly in the water, sitting ducks for the whale. He saw them coming into view through the side window as the boat turned. They were hundreds of yards away. Was he about to see the whale rising up behind them, jaws opening wide to swallow them? He pushed the throttle all the way forward and the engines, miraculously undamaged, roared as the boat surged ahead.

The Pastor left the cockpit and went back to the upper deck area to join the rest of the crew standing at the railing, staring out at their colleagues in the water. "Faster!" Staple shouted back at Lowe.
"This is as fast as it'll go," Lowe shouted back, trying to push the throttle lever further forward. "We're too heavy."

"It could come back!"

"I know!"

"There could be sharks..."

"I know!" shouted Lowe furiously. He twisted the steering wheel, trying to turn the boat in a tighter circle, but it was also as far as it would go. He stared at the two men in the water, trying to urge the boat on with sheer willpower, but if anything the Porpoise seemed to be going slower. He wondered if the hull had been holed and they were taking on water.

Lowe was paralysed with terror. He looked up at the radio with a sudden desire to call the Majesty for help. Pass the responsibility to someone else. There was nothing they could do, though. Even if they launched all the other tenders and came rushing as fast as they could, they could not possibly reach the two men in time to do any good. They would only be giving the whale more targets to attack. Where the hell was the whale, anyway? Was it taunting them? Waiting until they were almost close enough to rescue the two men before rising to swallow them down?

Then he saw it, rising lazily to the surface a few yards away from Krebbs and Davis. The two men reacted with horror, swimming away from it towards the tender, and the men on the boat yelled at them to swim faster. "Where're the harpoons?" shouted Staple.
"All gone," Winchell shouted back. "We got nothing."

Every eye was fixed on the whale, waiting for it to make its move, but the creature just floated there, rising and falling with the gentle waves that passed under it. Then, to their wonder and astonishment, it rolled onto its side, revealing its pale underbelly. As the tender drew closer, they saw that its mouth was open, showing off its dagger-like teeth, each the length of a kitchen knife. One eye was facing them, but it was empty and unseeing. Then, as it continued to roll, they saw a harpoon protruding from its rubbery hide, the glass bulb that had contained the cyanide almost hidden under a flap of skin.

"Dear God, I think it's dead," breathed Kent softly, as if afraid that the sound of his voice would wake it up. "I think we got it."

Then everyone was cheering, waving their arms and clapping each other on the shoulder. The tender reached the two men in the water, and Lowe throttled back the engines while the others lowered a rope for them. Soon they were safely back aboard, joining the others as they continued to stare at the gigantic beast, still floating dead. Lowe throttled up the engines and turned the boat to go back to the Majesty, but before the whale passed out of sight behind them he saw sea birds already landing on the gigantic corpse to tear at it with their beaks.