creature for food, and on impulse he pushed his face into the flesh and tore away a mouthful. The stuff seemed to melt in his mouth, compacting from a fluffy bulk to a small, tough lozenge. The taste was strong and slightly bitter; he chewed and swallowed easily. The stuff even seemed to soothe the dryness of his throat.
Suddenly he was starving, and he buried his face in the whale flesh, tearing chunks away with his teeth.
After some minutes he had cleared perhaps a square foot of the soft flesh, exposing cartilage, and his stomach felt filled. So, then, he could expect the whale to provide for him for some considerable time.
He looked around. Clouds and stars stretched all around him, a vast, sterile array without walls or floor. He was, of course, utterly adrift in the red sky, and surely now beyond hope of seeing another human face again. The thought did not frighten him; rather, he became gently wistful. At least he had escaped the degradation of the Boneys. If he had to die, then let it be like this, with his eyes open to new wonders.
He shifted his position comfortably against the bulk of the whale. It took very little effort to stay in place, and the steady motion, the pumping of the flukes were surprisingly soothing. It might be possible to survive quite some time here, before he weakened and fell away…
His arms were beginning to ache. Carefully, one hand at a time, he shifted the position of his fingers; but soon the pain was spreading to his back and shoulders.
Could he be tiring so quickly? The effort to cling on here, in these weightless conditions, was minimal. Wasn't it?
He looked back over his shoulder.
The world was wheeling around him. The stars and clouds executed vast rotations around the whale; once again he was clinging to a ceiling from which he might fall at any moment…
He almost lost his grip. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers tighter into the sheet of cartilage. He should have anticipated this, of course. The whale had rotational symmetry; of course it would spin. It would have to compensate for the turning of its flukes, and spinnng would give it stability as it forged through the air. It all made perfect sense…
Wind whipped over Rees's face, pushing back his hair. The rate of spin was increasing; he felt the strain on his fingers mount. If he didn't stop analyzing the damn situation and do something, before many more minutes passed he would be thrown off.
Now his feet lost their tenuous hold. His body swung away from the whale's, so that he was dangling from his hands. The cartilage in his clamped fingers twisted like elastic, and with each swing of his torso pain coursed through his biceps and elbows. The centrifugal force continued to rise, through one, one and a half, two gee…
Perhaps he could head for one of the stationary 'poles,' maybe at the joint between the flukes and the main body. He looked sideways toward the rear of the body; he could see the linking tube of cartilage as a misty blur through the walls of flesh.
It might have been a world away. It was all he could do to cling on here.
The spin increased further. Stars streaked below him and he began to grow groggy; he imagined blood pooling somewhere near his feet, starving his brain. He could hardly feel his arms now, but when he stared up through black-speckled vision he could see that the fingers of his left hand, the weaker, were loosening.
With a cry of panic he forced fresh strength into his hands. His fingers tightened as if in a spasm.
And the cartilage ripped.
It was like a curtain parting along a seam. From the interior of the whale a hot, foul gas billowed out over him, causing him to gasp, his eyes to stream. The ruptured cartilage began to sag. Soon a great fold of it was suspended beneath the belly of the whale; Rees clung on, still swinging painfully.
Now a ripple a foot high came rolling down the whale's belly wall. The whale's nervous system must be slow to react, but surely it could feel the agony of this massive hernia. The wave reached the site of the rupture. The dangling fold of cartilage jerked up and down, once, twice, again; Rees's shoulders felt as if they were being dragged from their sockets and needles thrust into the joints.
Again his fingers loosened.
The rip in the sheet was like a narrow door above him.
Shoulders shaking, Rees hauled himself up until his chin was level with his fists. He released his left hand —
— and almost fell altogether; but his right hand still clutched at the cartilage, and now his left hand was locked over the lip of the wound. He released his right hand; the weaker, numb left slipped over greasy cartilage but — now — he had both hands clamped at the edge of the aperture.
He rested there for a few seconds, the muscles of his arms screaming, his fingers slipping.
Now he worked the muscles of his back and dragged his feet up before his face, shoved them over his head and through the aperture. Then his legs and back slid easily over the inner surface of the cartilage and into the body of the whale, and finally he was able to uncurl his fingers. With the last of his strength he rolled away from the aperture.
Breathing hard he lay on his back, spread-eagled against the whale's inner stomach wall. Below him, obscured by the translucent flesh, were the wheeling stars, and far above, like huge machines in some vast, dimly lit hall, were the organs of the whale.
His lungs rattled; his arms and hands were on fire. Blackness fell over him and the pain dropped away.
He awoke to a raging thirst.
He stared up into the cavernous interior of the whale. The light seemed dimmer: perhaps the whale, for reasons of its own, was flying deeper into the Nebula.
The air was hot, damp, and foul with a stench like sweat; but, though his chest ached slightly, he seemed to be breathing normally. Cautiously he propped himself up on his elbows. The muscles of his arms felt ripped and the fingernails on both hands were torn; but the bones of his fingers seemed intact and in place.
He climbed cautiously to his feet.
Stars still wheeled around the whale, but if he averted his eyes he felt no dizziness. It was as if he were standing in a steady gravity well of about two gees. Looking down he saw that his bare feet had sunk a couple of inches into the resilient cartilage. With some experimentation he found he could walk with little difficulty, provided he avoided slipping on the slick surface.
Again thirst tore at his throat; it felt as if the back of his mouth were closing up with the dryness.
He made his way to the aperture he had torn in the cartilage sheet. The wound had already closed to a narrow slit barely as wide as his waist. He had no way of telling how long he had been unconscious, but surely it must have taken a shift at least for the healing to progress this far. He knelt down, the cartilage beneath his knees a warm, wet carpet, and pushed his face close to the wound. A breeze bore him welcome fresh air. He could see the dangling flap of cartilage up which he had scrambled to safety: the ripped skin had grown opaque and was covered in a mass of fine creases. Perhaps eventually the dangling fold would be isolated outside the body, atrophy and fall away.
Thanks to Rees's scrambling the area of cartilage around the wound was scraped clear of flesh; only a few clumps clung here and there, like isolated patches of foliage on an old tree. Rees lay on the warm floor, took a fold of cartilage in his left hand, and thrust his head and right arm out through the wound. He swept his arm around the outer wall of the whale's belly, hauling in as much flesh matter as he could reach. As he worked the breeze of the whale's rotation washed steadily over his face and bare arms.
When he was done he withdrew from the wound and hauled away his meager supply. He shoved a fistful into his mouth immediately. Sticky whale juice trickled, soothing, down his parched throat and fluffy flesh clung to his straggling beard; he squatted on the warm floor and, for a few minutes, ate steadily, postponing thoughts of an impossible future.
When he was done, his thirst and hunger at least partially sated, his pile of flesh was reduced by at least half. The damn stuff would last hardly any time at all… He crammed the rest into the pockets of his filthy coverall.
Now he became aware of another problem, as the pressure in his bladder and lower bowels began to grow painful. He felt oddly reluctant to relieve himself inside the body of another creature; it seemed an obscene violation. But, the muscles of his lower stomach told him, he didn't really have a lot of choice.
At last he loosened his trousers and squatted over the narrowest section of the rent in the stomach
