Process That Never Ends
By Debaser (u_hrair@hotmail.com)
The grey whale lived in a little blue-green cubicle the width of his body, and he did not stir, and he did not speak, and he did not, for the most part, think. He floated in his shackles, and he stared dead ahead, and on occasion he might blink, but even that was a rarity. On other occasions he had to drift forward to punch a large button with his nose, and this caused a reaction that gave him more pain than you would have thought possible, but he did not show it outwardly. Other than the blinking and the ocasional burst of bubbles from his blowhole and the lever-pressing, he very well could've been dead. Not that there was much of a difference at this point...
He knew, in a misty sort of way, that there was another in the tank across the way, but he didn't bother trying to make friends with it. He knew as well as his captors did what would happen when the poor beast's energy ran out; it had happened to many of his race before, and, someday, it would be his own turn. But not yet. He had managed to outlast all the others, and would continue to do so until the day his energy finally ran out and there was no more use for him in this place. He longed for that day with an intensity that was more painful than any contraption the Clan had yet come up with.
The grey had a name once, that he was sure of, but it had long since been lost to the all-obscuring sands of time, hastened by the process that kept him a captive there. It wasn't just the physical energy that the tubes and suction plates sucked out of them - it was everything. Every spark of energy, mental, physical, and spiritual, was drawn out to power the great machine of the dolphin Clan. They were living batteries, used, drained, and finally discarded when there was no more use for them. No-one ever questioned it; it was just the way things had always been. The whales lived with the deprivations the Clan visited on them and never spoke a word or rebelled, for what else could they do?
The whales had long-ago made a pact with the Clan - a harsh deal, but a deal none the less. At that time Clan attacks had been sudden, unexpected, and very, very brutal; half a herd might be slaughtered, the calves taken into captivity, and there was nothing the slow, ponderous whales could really do about it, because other than their great size and numbers, they had no defense against the lightning-quick dolphins and the razor-plated armor they wore on their bodies. Sharks were easily disposed of, being vicious but not-altogether bright, but these dolphins had viciousness and cunning on their side, not to mention a pack mentality that was downright terrifying to watch, let alone be the victim of.
So the whales had come to a tough decision. To save their species from extinction at the hands of the dolphins, they parleyed with the Clan, as much as it went against their nature to do so. Each year, a tributary of calves would be paid to the Clan for whatever they wished to use them for, and in return the blitzkrieg attacks would cease and the remaining population would be left in peace. The dolphins got what they wanted, the whales would continue to survive, and each side was (relatively) satisfied.
Some of the whales had at first protested, claiming it would be better to die out free than be a slave race to the brutish spear-nosed singers, but as the years passed and the act was witnessed time and time again, they became used to it, innoculated against any emotions that might've made them rebel. They became complacent, and finally ceased caring altogether. When the younger generations reached adulthood they had seen it played out so many times they thought it was absolutely normal, and never thought twice about it.
What happened to these unfortunate calves herded away from the pod every year by the Clan members? No free whale knew, nor did they care to. Of course there were rumours, as there always are, but they were few and far-between. Cows were taught early on to harden themselves against undue attachment and emotion over their calves, because it was never known which ones would be picked as part of the tribute that year.
And all this was the price of survival.
Whether or not it was too high perhaps only those who paid it could say, and they were too busy having every atom of energy forcibly sucked out of their bodies to have a say in much of anything. From the time you arrived until the day your body couldn't take anymore abuse you were attached to Delphinus-knows how many tubes, syringes, monitors, and suction-cups, each one performing a specific task or duty. One fed nutrients directly into the body, another one kept tabs on the whale's physical condition, and, of course, there were the big tubes, the ones that sucked and pulled and milked until there was nothing left of you but a dried-out husk that just happened to be whale-shaped. They were strange and organic (as was most-everything in the nightmarish Clan hive; their intelligence had served them well in the area of genetics) and absolutely would not come off; no matter how you might twist and pull and fight at first, they stuck fast, absolutely leechlike, both in form and function.
Even in death you were made useful; the Clan were nothing if not resourceful. When a whale died, the holding tank was pumped full of a strange substance that basically liquified the corpse, the mountain of flesh and muscle and sinew dissolved into a mush that was then sucked up by one of the ever-present tubes and flushed off to power yet another machine of the Clan's invention. All that was left after the process were the gigantic bones, and even those did not go to waste; a technician would come and whisk them away with a work-harness and that was the end of you. Thus the dolphins solved the problem of removing the gigantic corpses from their tiny cubicles; you came in as a calf and went out through a tube.
The tanks were small, with just enough room for the whale and all the various wires and tubes attached to his or her body. Walls of the same strange greenish-coloured organic material hemmed them in on three sides, while the fourth was a glass partition, the better to monitor and observe and study the unfortunate 'batteries' through. Sometimes students were brought in to observe, or a visiting general on-tour of the premises, but for the most part the only Clan members who entered were high-ranking officials and technicians checking on the condition of their precious energy sources. Weeks or even months might pass at a stretch without seeing another living creature other than the whale across the way.
Not that the grey ever noticed when they did anyway. Days, months, years - none of them made much difference to him anymore. Nothing ever changed, and the sheer monotony of day-to-day life combined with the energy harvest made him dull-eyed and stupid and completely complacent. He had been here since calfhood, why begin fighting or caring now? Nothing made any difference, really. And if you fought or were in any way obstinate and the technicians had to come check-in on you, woe to your battered soul. The Clan had ways of making their servants buckle, you could make no mistake about that.
So the day a young Clan official came in and actually spoke to him, it took his fevered brain several minutes to comprehend what was happening, to wake up from the nearly life-long stupor it had been put into since the day he was brought in as a calf. Staring at a wall for years on end didn't prepare you for such unusual occurances, and it took him several minutes to realize that he was being addressed.
"...Hello? Can you hear me at all?? Are you alright? Hello? Can you sing?"
The reedy song finally worked it's way through the grey's conciousness, and he rolled one dinner-plate sized eye incredulously at the young dolphin that was - incredibly - addressing him. Not just addressing him, but asking if he was alright.
(Had he gone mad or had this young lieutenant?)
"...Wha-what did you say??"
It cost the grey one dearly to get this much out; years and years of disuse had made his song weak and raspy and incedibly painful to use. Not only that, but he was for-very-good-reason sapped of the strength needed to make his bellowing, booming reply, the only kind of reply a grey whale is capable of making. The Clan member didn't seem to notice any of this; he just edged closer to the plate-glass and repeated his question.
"I said, why are you in here? Is this some sort of sick-bay? I'm afraid I'm a bit lost, you see, I'm ...erm, I'm new here, and..."
The dolphin trailed off, looking guilty and nervous even to the whale's long-dormant intelligence. Whomever this Clan officer was, he most definitely did not belong here, that was obvious to anyone. Not even the lowest-ranking Clan official addressed the whales, and this dolphin wasn't nearly large enough for the rank of lieutenant. What the grey did next surprised even himself : instead of replying, he shot a question back at the bottle-nose.
"And whom are you that knows not the purpose of the whales, young singer? Somehow I doubt ye be of the Clan, else ye would not dare to speak to a mere generator. Heed my words, young will o' the wisp, and be gone before you're noticed, 'less you'd like to end up like we."
Tired-out by this speech and the unaccustomed emotion of surprise, the grey rolled his eyes back to the wall and prepared to sink back into his blissfully-unaware stupor. The clan-imposter who had awoke him had other ideas, however. Wherever he had sprung from, he was nothing if not persistant.
"What do you mean by generator?? I admit, it's true, I'm not of the Clan..." and here the young dolphin lowered his song "...But maybe I can help you, if you're in a bind. You're not in there of your own will, I take it?"
"...Ye cannot help me," the old one rumbled, after a long silence and more thinking than he was accustomed to. "No-one can. This is the curse of all whales now, lest we die out completely. We are here to power the great Machines of the Clan, and here were stay until we perish. There is no helping it; it was long-ago decided, our fates written and branded onto our sides as surely as the red mark ye carry on yours. Now, leave me and get thy tail away from me, lest you bring the anger of the true Clan down on my head."
This was a very real danger; the Clan had spies and watchmen nearly everywhere, and the grey daring to speak to a dolphin - not to mention a dolphin that didn't belong in the compound - might have very dire consequences indeed. He once again turned his eyes straight-ahead and looked no more at the stranger, sinking back into the haze of pain and unawareness that had been his since the day he was brought to the compound, all those many years ago.
After staring at him thoughtfully for some time, the young 'Clan' official slipped back out the way he had come without another word, leaving the grey to himself. And, though the pain and the blankness were rapidly wrapping themselves around him again like tendrils of seaweed, the whale found himself doing something he had never thought possible ever again.
He wondered.
By Debaser (u_hrair@hotmail.com)
The grey whale lived in a little blue-green cubicle the width of his body, and he did not stir, and he did not speak, and he did not, for the most part, think. He floated in his shackles, and he stared dead ahead, and on occasion he might blink, but even that was a rarity. On other occasions he had to drift forward to punch a large button with his nose, and this caused a reaction that gave him more pain than you would have thought possible, but he did not show it outwardly. Other than the blinking and the ocasional burst of bubbles from his blowhole and the lever-pressing, he very well could've been dead. Not that there was much of a difference at this point...
He knew, in a misty sort of way, that there was another in the tank across the way, but he didn't bother trying to make friends with it. He knew as well as his captors did what would happen when the poor beast's energy ran out; it had happened to many of his race before, and, someday, it would be his own turn. But not yet. He had managed to outlast all the others, and would continue to do so until the day his energy finally ran out and there was no more use for him in this place. He longed for that day with an intensity that was more painful than any contraption the Clan had yet come up with.
The grey had a name once, that he was sure of, but it had long since been lost to the all-obscuring sands of time, hastened by the process that kept him a captive there. It wasn't just the physical energy that the tubes and suction plates sucked out of them - it was everything. Every spark of energy, mental, physical, and spiritual, was drawn out to power the great machine of the dolphin Clan. They were living batteries, used, drained, and finally discarded when there was no more use for them. No-one ever questioned it; it was just the way things had always been. The whales lived with the deprivations the Clan visited on them and never spoke a word or rebelled, for what else could they do?
The whales had long-ago made a pact with the Clan - a harsh deal, but a deal none the less. At that time Clan attacks had been sudden, unexpected, and very, very brutal; half a herd might be slaughtered, the calves taken into captivity, and there was nothing the slow, ponderous whales could really do about it, because other than their great size and numbers, they had no defense against the lightning-quick dolphins and the razor-plated armor they wore on their bodies. Sharks were easily disposed of, being vicious but not-altogether bright, but these dolphins had viciousness and cunning on their side, not to mention a pack mentality that was downright terrifying to watch, let alone be the victim of.
So the whales had come to a tough decision. To save their species from extinction at the hands of the dolphins, they parleyed with the Clan, as much as it went against their nature to do so. Each year, a tributary of calves would be paid to the Clan for whatever they wished to use them for, and in return the blitzkrieg attacks would cease and the remaining population would be left in peace. The dolphins got what they wanted, the whales would continue to survive, and each side was (relatively) satisfied.
Some of the whales had at first protested, claiming it would be better to die out free than be a slave race to the brutish spear-nosed singers, but as the years passed and the act was witnessed time and time again, they became used to it, innoculated against any emotions that might've made them rebel. They became complacent, and finally ceased caring altogether. When the younger generations reached adulthood they had seen it played out so many times they thought it was absolutely normal, and never thought twice about it.
What happened to these unfortunate calves herded away from the pod every year by the Clan members? No free whale knew, nor did they care to. Of course there were rumours, as there always are, but they were few and far-between. Cows were taught early on to harden themselves against undue attachment and emotion over their calves, because it was never known which ones would be picked as part of the tribute that year.
And all this was the price of survival.
Whether or not it was too high perhaps only those who paid it could say, and they were too busy having every atom of energy forcibly sucked out of their bodies to have a say in much of anything. From the time you arrived until the day your body couldn't take anymore abuse you were attached to Delphinus-knows how many tubes, syringes, monitors, and suction-cups, each one performing a specific task or duty. One fed nutrients directly into the body, another one kept tabs on the whale's physical condition, and, of course, there were the big tubes, the ones that sucked and pulled and milked until there was nothing left of you but a dried-out husk that just happened to be whale-shaped. They were strange and organic (as was most-everything in the nightmarish Clan hive; their intelligence had served them well in the area of genetics) and absolutely would not come off; no matter how you might twist and pull and fight at first, they stuck fast, absolutely leechlike, both in form and function.
Even in death you were made useful; the Clan were nothing if not resourceful. When a whale died, the holding tank was pumped full of a strange substance that basically liquified the corpse, the mountain of flesh and muscle and sinew dissolved into a mush that was then sucked up by one of the ever-present tubes and flushed off to power yet another machine of the Clan's invention. All that was left after the process were the gigantic bones, and even those did not go to waste; a technician would come and whisk them away with a work-harness and that was the end of you. Thus the dolphins solved the problem of removing the gigantic corpses from their tiny cubicles; you came in as a calf and went out through a tube.
The tanks were small, with just enough room for the whale and all the various wires and tubes attached to his or her body. Walls of the same strange greenish-coloured organic material hemmed them in on three sides, while the fourth was a glass partition, the better to monitor and observe and study the unfortunate 'batteries' through. Sometimes students were brought in to observe, or a visiting general on-tour of the premises, but for the most part the only Clan members who entered were high-ranking officials and technicians checking on the condition of their precious energy sources. Weeks or even months might pass at a stretch without seeing another living creature other than the whale across the way.
Not that the grey ever noticed when they did anyway. Days, months, years - none of them made much difference to him anymore. Nothing ever changed, and the sheer monotony of day-to-day life combined with the energy harvest made him dull-eyed and stupid and completely complacent. He had been here since calfhood, why begin fighting or caring now? Nothing made any difference, really. And if you fought or were in any way obstinate and the technicians had to come check-in on you, woe to your battered soul. The Clan had ways of making their servants buckle, you could make no mistake about that.
So the day a young Clan official came in and actually spoke to him, it took his fevered brain several minutes to comprehend what was happening, to wake up from the nearly life-long stupor it had been put into since the day he was brought in as a calf. Staring at a wall for years on end didn't prepare you for such unusual occurances, and it took him several minutes to realize that he was being addressed.
"...Hello? Can you hear me at all?? Are you alright? Hello? Can you sing?"
The reedy song finally worked it's way through the grey's conciousness, and he rolled one dinner-plate sized eye incredulously at the young dolphin that was - incredibly - addressing him. Not just addressing him, but asking if he was alright.
(Had he gone mad or had this young lieutenant?)
"...Wha-what did you say??"
It cost the grey one dearly to get this much out; years and years of disuse had made his song weak and raspy and incedibly painful to use. Not only that, but he was for-very-good-reason sapped of the strength needed to make his bellowing, booming reply, the only kind of reply a grey whale is capable of making. The Clan member didn't seem to notice any of this; he just edged closer to the plate-glass and repeated his question.
"I said, why are you in here? Is this some sort of sick-bay? I'm afraid I'm a bit lost, you see, I'm ...erm, I'm new here, and..."
The dolphin trailed off, looking guilty and nervous even to the whale's long-dormant intelligence. Whomever this Clan officer was, he most definitely did not belong here, that was obvious to anyone. Not even the lowest-ranking Clan official addressed the whales, and this dolphin wasn't nearly large enough for the rank of lieutenant. What the grey did next surprised even himself : instead of replying, he shot a question back at the bottle-nose.
"And whom are you that knows not the purpose of the whales, young singer? Somehow I doubt ye be of the Clan, else ye would not dare to speak to a mere generator. Heed my words, young will o' the wisp, and be gone before you're noticed, 'less you'd like to end up like we."
Tired-out by this speech and the unaccustomed emotion of surprise, the grey rolled his eyes back to the wall and prepared to sink back into his blissfully-unaware stupor. The clan-imposter who had awoke him had other ideas, however. Wherever he had sprung from, he was nothing if not persistant.
"What do you mean by generator?? I admit, it's true, I'm not of the Clan..." and here the young dolphin lowered his song "...But maybe I can help you, if you're in a bind. You're not in there of your own will, I take it?"
"...Ye cannot help me," the old one rumbled, after a long silence and more thinking than he was accustomed to. "No-one can. This is the curse of all whales now, lest we die out completely. We are here to power the great Machines of the Clan, and here were stay until we perish. There is no helping it; it was long-ago decided, our fates written and branded onto our sides as surely as the red mark ye carry on yours. Now, leave me and get thy tail away from me, lest you bring the anger of the true Clan down on my head."
This was a very real danger; the Clan had spies and watchmen nearly everywhere, and the grey daring to speak to a dolphin - not to mention a dolphin that didn't belong in the compound - might have very dire consequences indeed. He once again turned his eyes straight-ahead and looked no more at the stranger, sinking back into the haze of pain and unawareness that had been his since the day he was brought to the compound, all those many years ago.
After staring at him thoughtfully for some time, the young 'Clan' official slipped back out the way he had come without another word, leaving the grey to himself. And, though the pain and the blankness were rapidly wrapping themselves around him again like tendrils of seaweed, the whale found himself doing something he had never thought possible ever again.
He wondered.