Above the dark Great Lake. The word Pequod written on the stern. And the many faces on deck.
All of it was a familiar sight by now.
My gaze naturally drifted to Ms. Ishmael. Since she was, of course, the owner of this memory.
She was pointing at a whale carcass with a slightly troubled expression.
"You want me to go in there... and bring the oil back out?"
"Yes. It's not as hard as you'd think."
[The whale carcass, reeking of something vile, swayed while hanging from a hook.]
"The smaller and more agile you are, the better."
"I'm not that small..."
At Starbuck's order, Ms. Ishmael whined.
Going into a whale carcass to scoop out oil... Ugh, disgusting. I really wouldn't want to do that if I could avoid it.
My expression subtly changed as I imagined that revolting scene. I'd do it if I were told to, but... huh? There's a face I don't recognize.
"This is the kind of job rookies do! Quit talking and get in there."
[Killing the whale wasn't the end of it. Hauling out the enormous amount of oil that came from it was also part of whaling.]
"No... how am I supposed to know what's in there...?"
"You're being impossible! Of course there'll be whale oil in there. Enough to keep us warm and well-fed!!"
[The sailor named Stub was the second mate, and he was usually full of irritation.]
A rough-looking man snapped at Ms. Ishmael. So that man's name was Stub.
As his anger kept rising, Ms. Ishmael's face, cowed by the threat, turned pale.
"I..."
[I can't go in there, into that abyss, trusting only a single rope that could be severed by the slightest blade's touch... The words were just about to come out when...]
Mr. Queequeg stepped forward. She took the rope that had been meant to bind her and Ms. Ishmael to the same post, and wrapped it around her own waist.
"..."
"What are you... doing?"
"Tie it. Your rope to my waist."
"Why... why?"
"If we're tied like this! If you fall. I fall too. One body! Together."
Crude, and in a way it sounded foolish, but Ms. Ishmael seemed deeply reassured by the comfort of it, because her expression was much better than before.
[I felt a strange sense of relief at that imprecise sentence, one that left so much unsaid. It meant there was someone who would catch me if I fell, and at the same time, someone who would watch me fall. And so one end of the rope was tied to Queequeg's waist, and the other end to me.]
"Uh... uh...?"
[But how long had it been since I thought that, when the rope was absurdly too short and snapped as if to mock me... I plunged into the belly of that oil pit.]
"Khaagh, huff..."
The result was far from good.
[What was harder to endure than all the entrails and organs and oil and sludge was the darkness that let nothing be seen.]
Pitch-black darkness swallowed the view. Ms. Ishmael's body was submerged in yellow whale oil.
[Whale oil vibrates and resonates, making sound. They say vibrating oil tries to make everything into one. Super-vibrational coupling, frequency, and the resonant tuning forks and wavelengths and fuel made from it... Some people speak in the City's incomprehensible jargon. In the end, the oil filling the whale turns others into its own and covers them over. Covered by the oil of a living whale, one becomes a mermaid of the whale. And if one enters the oil of a dead whale larger than oneself, one's existence grows faint and slowly melts away.]
"...Ha, ha... haa..."
Bit by bit, the whale oil thickening around her began to consume Ms. Ishmael.
[I came to understand just how small, fragile, and insignificant I was. Maybe whales were lonely after all. Maybe that was why they carried oil that turned others into the same kind as themselves. Maybe because they were lonely, they tried to paint and fill something, someone, with themselves in any way they could... And I, who didn't even know what I was filled with, how could I paint or fill anyone else...? Maybe I'm a person even paler than a whale. I boarded the ship simply because I wanted to live a life different from everyone else's, because I was tired of living an ordinary one... What, then, do I even want? In the darkness where everything grows faint...]
A thread of hope descended.
[Then I saw the light. Through the gap where that light leaked in, I saw a rope that seemed to have come down from the sky. This rope, at least. This rope right in front of me, I wanted to seize with my own hands and survive. What was before my eyes was clear.]
"Ishmael!!! Grab the rope tight!!"
"Ah..."
At Queequeg's voice, Ms. Ishmael's body, gripping the rope, was yanked sharply upward.
"Wow... if you'd died all covered in oil... that would've been a truly forgettable death."
"One of the most meaningless deaths in the City, probably..."
Ms. Ishmael, slick with oil, answered Starbuck weakly.
...Come to think of it, they really had lived hard lives. Though who in the City had it easy?
[Maybe I was born again that day. Yes, the rope I grabbed that day... could never be broken.]
With those words, reality and memory overlapped.
"The rope broke."
"No, if we try once more... we can tie it back together. We can weave it again. If you can only reach the heart... you can find freedom."
The conversation continued as if Queequeg were answering Ms. Ishmael's monologue. In truth, it was just the conversation from before continuing onward.
This kind of conversation is a problem. My dazed mind, thinking I was still inside a memory, had no intention of coming back.
"We were trapped here. We had to think of only one thing. To avoid becoming mermaids. If you doubt. If you hesitate. Your body starts turning white. You know? Whale oil. If I was to meet you again and set out on a new adventure. We had to get out of here. We had to kill this thing. To do that, we had to cut the rope. To avoid becoming mermaids, I had to think only of that one thing, over and over... Then, at some point... this thing's heart. To kill it... my heart... I quieted my own mind."
...I think I just heard something important.
I shook my head hard, trying to wake my fogged mind. It felt like some crucial clue had just surfaced.
Whales... things that dye everything with themselves.
Things with the instinct to become one. And things with the power to become one.
U Corp sells the resonant tuning forks that use this whale oil to bind different things together.
Ah, but that's not the important part. Whales turn people into beings like themselves, into mermaids, and then eventually melt them down into themselves.
But how can one resist that? A mere human?
"..."
There was more to think about now. Ahab... what a troublesome woman, as expected.
*
The boat drifted onward and reached the next chamber.
We were almost there now. Maybe we'd see the end before long.
"So this is the second chamber the captain mentioned..."
"
cnRUTUM0dnpKalBZL2pRR1RHeWdGSGs5eUZ1NGhJMVo2eG5QTWFGa2dEOUVqRHlBUktQMkQ0WVVMS2duRmVEWQ
Here, if we pass through this place, we said we'd reach the center of the heart...>"
While Ms. Otis and Dante were each sharing their thoughts, Mr. Queequeg came over to me.
...What is it?
"I know your name. Saramago. Ishmael's... friend."
"...Friend, huh. Yes, that's right. What is it?"
"I have something to say. Because you... are looking straight at Ishmael."
So that was the matter after all, something related to Ms. Ishmael.
...I'm not even sure I'm her friend, and I can't honestly say I'm looking at her straight on, either.
"I don't know your circumstances. But I want you to hold on to her. So she doesn't sink."
"..."
I awkwardly scratched my cheek.
It was partly because she had seen through me, and partly because I didn't really have anything to say back.
"Please."
Crude as it was, there was something about Queequeg's words that made it impossible to refuse.
I closed my eyes for a moment... then opened them slightly and said, "I'll... try. It's not like I can just do whatever I want."
"That's enough. Thank you."
"Ha ha..."
She looked at me and gave a faint smile.
What seemed like a simple smile at first glance was tangled with many emotions.
Gratitude, pity, apology, sorrow...
After looking at me for a moment, Queequeg turned her head toward Dante.
"You. Name Dante. That's what you were called."
" Yes, my name is Dante."
"Your words. I can't hear them. Like whale speech. Or mermaid speech. You bring them back to life. The sailors."
" Well, that's all I do."
"Not only bodies. You bring them back to life. Even their hearts."
" ...Hearts?"
Hearts, huh... I think I understand what she means.
When the time of the body is rewound, and you hear that ticking sound... the will to give up is wiped clean away.
In other words, it's close to being reset to its original state.
No matter how negative one felt in the heart, no matter how good the mood had been. Though what Queequeg meant didn't seem to end there.
"Don't let them lose it. Their direction. The place they truly want to go. Tell them with the sound of the clock."
" ..."
"I want that. Dante. I want Ishmael to... no longer drift."
Dante stared at Queequeg in silence.
His answer was probably yes. He was always that kind of person.
Then Queequeg's gaze deliberately brushed past me, and naturally Dante's and my eyes met.
...It'd be awkward to just stand here like this, so I should speak first.
"Let's work at it together. You'll help, right?"
" ...Yes."
I hope it turns out well.
Still... for now, let's keep moving forward. We still have a long way to go.
I readjusted my spear. Another Abnormality was visible in the distance.
For now, we'd have to clear that one out first.