The Whale's Tale: Call Me Moby Dick

By Jim Farrell

Herman Melville’s version of Captain Ahab’s great chase after Moby Dick is considered the “great American novel.” However very few living Americans have read it. It is considered too difficult or too tedious to get through.

Herein is Moby Dick’s version of that chase. Besides giving readers a look at the adventure from a different perspective, Moby Dick has attempted to tell the story in a manner that is more enjoyable for the modern reader.

Besides meeting all of Herman Melville’s wonderful characters, the driven Captain Ahab, the too-loyal First Mate Starbuck, the conniving Second Mate Stubb, the nasty Third Mate Flask, the colorful harpooneers, Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo, and, of course, Ishmael, the narrator and sole human survivor of the story as told by Melville, you will meet Moby Dick’s parents, his BirthPodMates, and his love, the beautiful MeiWaang. You will discover that sperm whales have an involved and fascinating culture and history.

Moby Dick’s life began in the South Pacific Ocean in the year 1800. He meets Captain Ahab for the first time in 1847 on The Line (the Equator), where he severs one of the captain’s legs. The delirious Ahab returns to Nantucket where he bides his time until he can obtain another command. He gets that command, of the Pequod, and with one ivory leg, sets out to seek revenge for the loss of his leg.

This is the story of Moby Dick’s birth, calf-hood, young adulthood, and maturity, culminating in the Final Conflict with Captain Ahab in 1850.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532084805

Jim Farrell

Jim Farrell earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Rhode Island and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. He spent eleven years in a Roman Catholic seminary, served as a captain in the U.S. Army, and worked with Air America in Vietnam. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Marianne Collinson, in Palm Coast, Florida. He has published four novels and two collections of short stories.

Book preview

The Whale’s Tale

Call Me Moby Dick

JIM FARRELL

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THE WHALE’S TALE

CALL ME MOBY DICK

Copyright © 2019 Jim Farrell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8479-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8481-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8480-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/23/2019

Other books by Jim Farrell

Brooklyn Boy (2013)

Kiss Me, Kate, and Other Stories (2014)

The Extraordinary Banana Tree (2015)

Mikey’s Quest for Father God (2016)

The Barge of Curiosity (2016)

The Committee and Other Stories (2017)

Realities (2018)

This book is dedicated to Maxwell James Farrell and Coda James Farrell, my two beloved grandsons. May they enjoy this book and the Melville classic that inspired it.

Preface

I n Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick , he used the sailor, Ishmael, as the narrator to tell the story of the conflict between Captain Ahab and the whale, Moby Dick. As can be expected, Ishmael told this story from the human perspective.

In this novel, Moby Dick tells his side of the story, from the whale’s perspective.

I hope you enjoy Moby Dick’s version of this great story.

Any quotes from Herman Melville’s great novel will be in bold and italicized type, and revered.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my wife, Marianne Collinson, for suggesting the topic for this book. After finishing Realities, I wondered aloud what I should write about next. Knowing Moby Dick is my favorite book, she said, "Why not Moby Dick from the whale’s perspective." Thus this paean to the great Moby Dick.

I would like to thank my editor, cousin, and friend, Patty Gallagher, for the hours spent reviewing this manuscript. Her corrections and suggestions are invaluable.

I would like to thank my good friend, and fellow bibliophile, Frank McGoff, who accompanied me to my first Moby Dick Marathon, an annual event at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. We drove on I-195 from Providence to New Bedford after work. Upon arrival at New Bedford, we spotted a billboard near the highway: Moby Dick Marathon, New Bedford Whaling Museum. And below that proclamation in flashing lights: In Progress. Frank turned to me and said, This is big. I read at the Marathon for ten years until I moved to Florida.

I would like to thank Frank again, and Peter Sullivan, for the great Christmas present they gave me in 2001, a much-treasured, leather-bound copy of Moby Dick, which my wife plans to put in my coffin with me when I die.

Jim, May you re-read with the joy of the first time you read it.

Peter Sullivan

Jim, Reading great books is a lifelong joy…Reading well-made great books is even better. Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

Frank McGoff

I would especially like to praise Herman Melville who accomplished what so many have attempted, writing the Great American Novel.

Contents

Chapter 1     Introduction

Chapter 2     The Birthpod

Chapter 3     Spermtongue

Chapter 4     Moby Dick’s Early Years

Chapter 5     The Teen-Age Years

Chapter 6     Moby Dick’s First Draank And First Mating

Chapter 7     Cetacean Mythology, Theology, And Philosophy

Chapter 8     The Sinking Of The Essex

Chapter 9     Moby Dick’s First Meeting With Captain Ahab

Chapter 10   How Captain Ahab Got His Name

Chapter 11   How Ishmael Ended Up On The Pequod

Chapter 12   The Pequod’s Officers

Chapter 13   Bad News Concerning Speedy

Chapter 14   Humiliation Of The Mates

Chapter 15   Moby Dick Learns Of Ahab’s Return

Chapter 16   The Whiteness Of The Whale

Chapter 17   How Ahab Plans To Find Moby Dick

Chapter 18   The Pequod’s First Lowering

Chapter 19   The Pequod Spots Moby Dick, Or Does It?

Chapter 20   Moby Dick Kills His First Squee

Chapter 21   The Pequod Meets The Albatross And The Town-Ho

Chapter 22   The Pequod And The Draank

Chapter 23   The Pequod’s First Sperm Whale

Chapter 24   Moby Dick Kills His Second Squee

Chapter 25   The Pequod And The Jeroboam

Chapter 26   Is Fedallah The Devil? Stubb Thinks So

Chapter 27   The Anatomy Of The Sperm Whale

Chapter 28   The Head And The Tail: What Else Is There?

Chapter 29   The Pequod Meets The Virgin

Chapter 30   Jonah And The Whale

Chapter 31   The Pequod Chasing And Being Chased

Chapter 32   Fast Fish And Loose Fish

Chapter 33   The Try-Works

Chapter 34   The Samuel Enderby

Chapter 35   Starbuck Confronts Ahab

Chapter 36   Queequeg’s Coffin

Chapter 37   The Harpoon From Hell

Chapter 38   The Bachelor And The Pequod

Chapter 39   Fedallah’s Prophecy

Chapter 40   Captain Ahab’s Madness

Chapter 41   Starbuck Confronts His Conscience

Chapter 42   The Misdirecting Compass

Chapter 43   Moby Dick Meets The Rachel

Chapter 44   The Rachel And The Pequod

Chapter 45   The Red-Billed Savage Sea-Hawk

Chapter 46   Moby Dick Meets The Delight

Chapter 47   Starbuck’s Final Attempt To Save The Pequod

Chapter 48   Final Confrontation – Day One

Chapter 49   Final Confrontation – Day Two

Chapter 50   Final Confrontation – Day Three

Chapter 51   Obituary For The Pequod

Chapter 52   Moby Dick’s Senior Years

1

INTRODUCTION

In which Moby Dick introduces himself to the readers

C all me Moby Dick. Or call me The White Whale. Oh, I know there are other cetaceans in the oceans of the same hue, one of whom is my son, but when sailors speak of the white whale, they are speaking of me. That is not conceit; it is but a fact. Not a man who sails the seven seas will deny me sole possession of that appellation. I have earned it.

Contrary to what has been reported by Ishmael, he was not the sole survivor of the Great Confrontation. To be sure, I was badly wounded, close to death in fact, but I lived through the battle and escaped to the warm waters of the South Pacific Ocean, and to the care of my BirthPod, to heal my body from the damage the harpoons had caused and to refresh my soul after the stress of battle. How I did relish the fact that my nemesis, my sworn enemy, Captain Ahab, was last seen by me sinking down to join King Neptune at the bottom of the sea, with one wooden leg and one of flesh, his other God-given leg having been removed from his torso three years before by my teeth. Yes, we sperm whales have teeth, not the baleen that our giant cousins carry in their mouths. I will tell you more of Captain Ahab later, much more, since he and I were the two main players in the Great Confrontation.

(Note that, in the last view Ishmael had of Ahab, the captain was being dragged out of a whaleboat with a rope of hemp around his neck, as prophesied, with the other end of that rope attached to the harpoon that he had hurled into my back. Poetic justice, eh? That, however, was not my last view of Ahab. The pole had snapped, and Ahab and the rope were heading downward when last seen by me. And yes, when Ahab departed Nantucket on the Pequod, his artificial leg was fashioned from whale bone, not wood. That leg splintered, painfully for Ahab, on Day Two of the Great Confrontation, and the Pequod’s carpenter fashioned him a new leg from wood taken from his whaleboat that I had smashed.)

Much of the story you already know from the report given by Ishmael—oh, how tedious Ishmael could be at times, and at times erroneous, calling a whale a spouting fish with a horizontal tail, me a fish! I eat and shit fish!—but he did create excitement in the action parts of his book. I will concede him that. I am familiar with the entirety of his narration; I have read his work three times. Yes, reader, we sperm whales can read! How we accomplish that, I will leave to your imagination. In our opinion, we are the primary intelligent species on this planet. I am sure you too have read Ishmael’s memoir—well, perhaps not; I have been told it is rarely read anymore, even in your schools— but, in any case, you have not heard my side of the story.

Obviously I was never on board the Pequod—can you picture that? I was never privy to the conversations aboard that vessel from Hell. Never witnessed Captain Ahab’s cursed actions or the reactions of his crew. Anytime I speak of these things, I am recreating scenes disclosed to us by Ishmael in his memoir. To make my story flow.

Where to begin? Let me begin at the beginning.

2

THE BIRTHPOD

In which Moby Dick discusses his birth and the female sperm whale pod that raised him

W e sperm whales spend more time in our mothers’ wombs than you humans do. I was inside the beautiful MoonCow for 16 months before being expelled into the ocean on May 1, 1800. That was a rude awakening; the water temperature of the South Pacific Ocean, which I would grow to love, was quite a bit cooler than the motherly fluids of MoonCow’s womb. The year 1800 is in human reckoning; on the sperm whale calendar, I was born in the year 3000. The sperm whale calendar was developed by Science Officer Wang Shu, cetologist and marine historian, who sailed with Admiral Zheng He on the Ming Dynasty Chinese Treasure Ships in the fifteenth century. Wang Shu also developed the written version of SpermTongue, which I will discuss briefly in chapter three. He studied all marine life, but the sperm whale was his primary species of interest. Can you blame him? He wrote four books back home in China after returning from his seven voyages with Admiral Zheng He, two of which are of particular interest to me: The Sperm Whale, Nature’s Gentle and Intelligent Giant, and Converting the Clicks and Squeaks of the Sperm Whale into Characters. Neither book has been translated into English, but both are available in Mandarin.

The Chinese Treasure Ships dwarfed The Pequod, the whale ship that Ahab captained on his voyage of revenge. But, luckily for my ancestors, the Chinese did not hunt whales with their great ships. When the Ming Dynasty fell, the great Treasure Ships were recalled to China, and never sailed the seas again.

I shot out of MoonCow at eight in the morning on that first day of May, 1800. I was welcomed into a pod of twelve adult sperm whales, all female. There were many young whales in the pod, aged from newborn, like I, to about ten years. The young whales were both male and female. I was MoonCow’s first calf; she was the youngest of the adult females. How small was I at birth? Maybe small is the wrong word when writing for humans; I was fourteen feet long and weighed a little under thirteen hundred pounds. And I was white, an albino. MoonCow was so proud. White sperm whales are rare, but treasured.

(I report the next as happening during my first days outside the womb. Yes, it is true, newborn sperm whales, unlike human babies, are far from helpless at birth, but perhaps the occurrences described were more spread out. The passing of time does mix and confuse events.)

MoonCow projected a stream of white, creamy liquid toward me from her breast. I didn’t know what it was at first, but she was smiling while she opened and closed her mouth, indicating that I should capture and swallow the stream of nourishment she had produced for me. So I did. Milk. Extremely rich sperm whale milk. How I would love that maternally-provided pleasure in the early months! Thirty-six percent fat compared to the watery, four percent fat content of the milk female cows produce. I suppose it would have to be thicker than cow milk to hold together in the ocean water. MoonCow smiled again at my delight. One of the other females told me that the whale feeding me was my mother—I already knew that, instinctively—and that her name was MoonCow, but that I should call her Maa. She added that Maa would take special care of me, especially since I was her firstborn, but that all the adult females shared the responsibility and the joy of raising the calves. I was to call her AuntieOne.

Try some of my milk, too, little one, she said, squirting a delicious stream at me.

Then turning to MoonCow, she asked, What will we call the new one?

Moby Dick, said my mother. That’s what DraankRaak wants. All the females nodded their agreement. I was to find out that the first Moby Dick, deceased before I was born, was my paternal grandfather.

Who is DraankRaak? I asked.

He is your father, Moby. A fabled killer of the giant squid. That’s what his name means: Killer of Giant Squid.

Where is he? I asked.

Look around, Moby, she answered. There are no adult males in the pod. Males leave the pod at the age of ten. Some may stay a little longer, but not beyond age twelve. I’m sure you will be ready to leave at ten. We, me and your aunties, will raise you and teach you all you need to know to survive outside the pod.

What do the males do outside the pod? I asked.

Some are poets, some are philosophers, all are solitary travelers and hunters, she answered.

What do they hunt? I asked.

Many things, but mostly the giant squid that live deep down in the ocean. There is nothing in this world as fearsome and terrifying as the bull sperm whale when he is hunting. Your father is the best of the giant squid hunters. There are many tales of his skill and bravery that we females share in the pods.

Will I be a good hunter like my father? I asked.

You will not only be a great hunter, Moby, but you will also be a great poet. A slayer of giant squid and a teller of giant tales. MoonCow smiled again.

Do the males ever visit the pods? I asked, hoping she would say, Yes. I so wanted to meet DraankRaak.

Not often, Moby, but they come when it is time to make babies, like DraankRaak came to see me so we could make you. That was the most frightening, but wonderful, day of my life…

Why were you frightened? I asked.

Because your father is so big, Moby, and I had never made a baby before. You will learn about this as you get older.

Did he hurt you? I asked.

No, the males will never hurt us females. But he was so big, so big….Sometimes when the pod is being attacked, a big bull sperm whale will appear from out of nowhere, like an avenging angel, and drive off the attackers. There is nothing more awesome that an enraged bull sperm whale.

I was going to ask who or what attacked the pods, but an immense female sperm whale was approaching us. She was at least fifty feet long and must have weighed fifty thousand pounds. I was later to find out that even I, being a male, was destined to make her appear small. We sperm whales are the most sexually dimorphic of all cetaceans. Adult males are fifty percent longer than adult females, and weigh twice as much. But at the time the approaching female appeared gigantic to little me.

So this is the new one? What is his name?

Moby Dick, ElderMother, answered MoonCow. Then turning to me, MoonCow said, Moby, this is ElderMother, the leader of our pod. Obey her and respect her in all things.

Yes, Maa, I said.

You’re going to be a big one, Moby, and an albino. How special. MoonCow, you have presented the pod with a priceless gift. You can tell he is DraankRaak’s son. We will stay here until the other three calves are born, and then we will swim toward the southwest, said ElderMother.

Yes, answered MoonCow.

After she swam away, MoonCow said to me, There will be four calves in your BirthPod, you and your three BirthPodMates. Three of the other mothers are about to deliver. You came out first. That will make you the leader of your BirthPod. The other three and you will be special friends for the next ten years.

What happens after ten years? I asked.

The males will leave the pod, Moby, and the females will stay here to become mothers.

Will I ever see my father, DraankRaak?

I don’t know, Moby. Adult sperm whales are solitary. They leave the child rearing to the mothers. But you never know…

I think I will see him someday, I said. And I did believe that!

My three BirthPodMates were born during the next two days—two males, SpottedOne (because of his white dot-like markings) and Speedy (because of his quickness), and one female, a sleek beauty called MeiWaang, which in SpermTongue means Beautiful Whale. You can see the influence of Wang Shu in the naming. Remember there would be no written SpermTongue without Wang Shu’s work.

After the four calves were born, the pod headed off to the southwest as ElderMother had directed. Both when the pod traveled and when we rested, the adults formed a circle surrounding the calves. A few of the ten-year-old males, who were almost as big as the adult females, joined the females in the protective outer circle.

I was so surprised the first time the pod stopped to sleep: all of the young whales and most of the females positioned themselves vertically. Since our blowholes, our noses if you will, are on the tops of our heads, we were hanging straight down with only our blowholes in the open air—we can’t breathe under water, after all, and still have to breathe while we sleep. Before dozing off, I looked down and saw a marvelous sight: the sleeping pod with heads at the surface and tails deep in the ocean resembled a grove of inverted trees, our swaying giant flukes, the most powerful muscles in creation, bringing to mind the crowns of tall trees blowing gently in the wind.

The adults still occupied the outer ring position with the youngsters in the protected interior. Two of the females remained awake on watch circling the sleeping pod. Every few hours the guardians woke different adults who then assumed the watching duty. I still did not know what they were watching for or from what they were protecting the sleeping pod. We were so big, even the females. What could possibly threaten us? I will have to ask Maa tomorrow.

When the pod was rested, ElderMother gave the signal, two sharp clicks, and we resumed our journey. SpottedOne, Speedy, MeiWaang and I were not weaned yet, so we immediately split up and sought out our mothers. Maa was happy to see me and squirted a stream of thick milk right at my mouth. I captured it voraciously, not letting a drop escape, and opened my mouth for more, which she gladly sent my way. When I was satisfied, after seven squirts, Maa smiled at me and then turned to swim back to the outside edge of the pod. I called after her; she came back to my side.

What is it, Moby?

Maa, can I ask you something?

Anything, Moby. Anytime, she answered.

What do the adults protect us from? What, other than a male sperm whale, can harm us? And you said they would never do that.

You are right, Moby, the males will never harm us. In fact, if they are around, they will always protect the pods.

Then what do we fear? The other great whales I have heard you and the aunties speak about?

Maa laughed. No, Moby. In all of nature, there is no creature bigger, on land or in the sea, than the great WaangDaLan, the blue whale, but he is truly a gentle giant. They are so big that they make the male sperm whales look average in size. The WaangDaLan, the WaangDaChang—the singing whale (called the humpback whale by you humans), and the WaangDaKuai—the fast whale (which you call the fin-back whale), the fastest of the whales, are all sieve whales…

What are sieve whales, Maa? I asked.

Their mouths are full of a substance called baleen, which makes them filter feeders. They move through the water filtering out small fish, small shrimp, and krill. They sweep the small creatures out of the water with their baleen sieves. They are no threat to us, and are, in their remote way, friends of the sperm whale. When they pass near a pod, they always call out a greeting.

Then what do we fear, Maa?

Moby, there are only two enemies of the sperm whale, schools of Orca, or killer whales, and Squee.

Why are they called killer whales?

For two reasons, Moby, because of what they are and of what they do. They are whales who are killers, vicious killers, and they kill other whales. They would rather kill seals, walruses, sea otters, or sea cows, because they are smaller and can’t fight back, but they will attack a big whale if they are hungry enough. But only a sick or very young one, and we protect our sick and young, so don’t worry about them.

And what are Squee? A type of sea mammal?

A mammal, yes, Moby, but not a sea mammal, answered Maa.

Then why do we have to worry about them?

Because they build houses that move on top of the sea and they hunt sperm whales for the spermaceti in our heads, the oil in our blubber, and the ambergris in the stomachs of the big males.

Why? I asked aghast.

They use it to light and heat their homes on land, and they use the ambergris to make perfume.

Perfume?

Their females use perfume to smell nice…

They kill the males so that their females can smell nice? I don’t think I am going to like the Squee.

Nobody likes the Squee, Moby. But don’t worry. We are always on the lookout for their floating houses, called SqueeChuan, and we get away as fast as we can when we spot them. They go after the big males more, anyway, because they have more oil, more spermaceti, and they are the only ones with ambergris.

Will I have ambergris when I get bigger, Maa? I asked.

Yes, but only after you fight and eat your first giant squid.

Why? I asked, puzzled. I could not see the relationship between eating a giant squid and having ambergris inside me.

The males can digest all of the giant squid except its beak…

Giant squid have beaks? I asked. Like birds?

Yes, they are strange creatures, Moby, with beaks, long tentacles like octopuses, and they spit clouds of black ink into the ocean…

Black ink! I exclaimed. What good is that down deep where there is no light.

They are not as smart as we are, Moby. They think that the males hunt them by sight….

Don’t they? I asked.

No, Moby. You just said there is no light down deep. The males can’t see down there. We mothers dive deep too, not as deep as the males, and even at the lesser depths we descend to, we cannot see anything. It is black down there. We, both the mothers and the males, hunt by echolocation, Maa said.

What’s echolocation? I asked.

You will learn all about that, Moby. That’s why the calves spend ten years in the pods. There is so much to learn. Little by little. Be patient.

The giant squid sound scary and ugly, Maa, I said.

They are, Moby, they are, Maa said.

Then why do the males go down deep to fight with them? I asked.

They taste good, Moby, very good. And the males need to eat a great amount of food each day, a lot more than we do, and they can get much meat from just one giant squid. Sometimes a generous male will bring some giant squid meat to the pods. Their meat is much richer than the meat of the smaller squid we eat. As I started to say before, Moby, the males cannot digest the beak, and to prevent the beak from cutting the walls of their stomachs, they secrete a substance to coat it. That’s ambergris.

She smiled again, shot one more squirt of delicious milk in my direction, and started swimming toward the perimeter. Glancing back she said, Don’t worry, Moby. Go play with SpottedOne, Speedy, and MeiWaang. The aunties and I will keep you safe.

MeiWaang is very pretty, Maa.

Yes, she is, Moby. Take care of her.

Take care of her? Yes, I will do that, I thought. No killer whale, no giant squid, will bother her, not while I’m around.

I spent long hours with MeiWaang, SpottedOne, and Speedy during the early days in the pod. We were BirthPodMates, after all, and that is significant for sperm whales. Even in the initial phase of our growth, we three males grew much faster than MeiWaang. But there was something about her, something that made me feel the need to protect her. I would look at her and remember my conversation with Maa: MeiWaang is very pretty…Take care of her. I played with SpottedOne and Speedy, but it was different with MeiWaang. We loved to rub against each other and roll together in the water until we had to burst to the surface to fill our lungs with air. At times we were so entangled that an onlooker would have suspected that we were one whale with two spouts.

MeiWaang played with SpottedOne and Speedy, but she indicated to me one day that I was special. I like you more than the others, Moby.

I like you too, MeiWaang, I answered. What is happening? I thought. I didn’t know, but I liked it. Oh, it was nothing sexual. We were still babies, and males don’t experience the drive until they are about twenty years old. But it was special, and it was nice.

It would make a nice romantic tale if we, MeiWaang and Moby Dick, became a couple as adults and roamed the oceans together producing baby sperm whales. But that does not happen with sperm whales. We are not monogamous like Squee, Swans, and Beavers. Our evolutionary drive to survive as a species does not allow that. I will tell you more about that later.

Maa interrupted our play one day with an admonition to be silent.

Shush, little ones, she said to us.

We stopped playing and paid attention. A haunting, but beautiful, sound was passing through the water. An equally haunting reply came from the other direction. Then another from our rear. We could hear it, but we could also feel it, vibrations touching our souls.

What is that, Maa? I asked spellbound.

The song of the WaangDaChang, Moby, the most beautiful sound in the ocean. They sing to each other.

What are they singing about?

We don’t know, Moby. They communicate using their own language. But it is spirit-pleasing, uplifting, to hear and feel their song, isn’t it?

Yes, we all said.

Whenever we sense it, the whole pod stops to listen.

Do we sperm whales sing?

No, Moby, that is not one of our skills. God makes all His creatures different. To each he gives special talents.

What is God, Maa?

Another subject you will learn about in the pod, Moby. Just know that everything that swims in the ocean, flies in the sky, or walks on the land is but a creature. Someone put everything here.

I thought about that as I listened to the song of the humpbacks. MeiWaang sidled up to me, and we listened while touching. There is so much to learn, I thought. No wonder we spend ten years in the pod school.

I knew our babyhood was coming to an end when we, the four of us in my BirthPod, began craving something more substantial than milk. Oh, we still craved milk, but it was no longer sufficient to satisfy our appetites.

Maa approached me one day after a sleep period and squirted the always appreciated white, creamy stream in my direction. I devoured it, of course, but Maa sensed something was amiss.

What’s wrong, Moby? she asked.

Nothing’s wrong, Maa, but I was wondering something….

"What were