at him and worked its way into every tissue and organ. What this secret might be, I could not guess and he did not say.
‘I do not want to become cruel,’ I told him. ‘I do not want the humans to touch my heart with their heartless hands.’
‘But they already have touched you, have they not?’
‘As they have touched you?’
‘Yes, Arjuna – in exactly the same way.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
‘Save your compassion for yourself – you will need it.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. I floated at the surface of the little pool where we were being kept that night and opened my blowhole to take in a breath. ‘Perhaps I will suffer here like a blue whale being torn apart by sharks, over years instead of days. I will not, however, allow myself to become like the humans.’
‘You will not be able to help yourself.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘You cannot escape them, any more than you can dislodge the harpoon they put in you when they speared your friend Pherkad.’
‘There is no harpoon in me!’ My voice exploded out of me in an unexpected and embarrassing shout, which thundered back and forth across the tiny pool. ‘Only my grandmother is there, and Alnitak, and my mother, and—’
‘The rest of your family, whom you will never see again. If you wish your life were otherwise, you will make yourself even more unhappy.’
‘I will see them again!’
‘No, you never will. The humans will make you do feats along with Alkurah, Salm, Electra, and me. You will see us, all the days of your life, until either we or you are dead.’
‘No, no, no!’ I beat the water with my flukes, trying to drive into this fundamental substance a little of my filthy rage. ‘I will never do the humans’ feats. I want nothing more to do with humans. I will escape them – and their pools of horror.’
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