The Blue Narwhal

It was illegal and he knew it. He did not care. He lived for the Hunt. Carefully he guided his tight little ship, “Requiem,” into the roaring, stormy, midnight Antarctic Straights, oblivious to the fiercely pounding waves. Tonight, he was meeting Destiny. For here, in this empty sea, he was going to find his most prized victim of all, the Blue Narwhal whale!

The most advanced detection gear, coupled with the automatic firing system for his steel harpoon had been built into, and then carefully hidden in this old, stealthy, Navy pocket ship, along with the latest digital video gear for recording his deeds. She was a hundred-ten long, of solid iron, and could be battened like a submarine. She cost him all he had and then some, but he cared not. This ship was his ultimate tool for the Hunt.

He listened carefully for the sounds of life through his costly sonar gear, coupled like it was to a sophisticated computer with complex interpreting circuits, and routed to his simple headset. The digital view screen and direction finder, glowing in front of him, was also interconnected, so that he could literally see what he was hearing.

He sat in total concentration ‘out there’, belted into his heavily padded command chair, unaware of his fingers as they deftly played the engine and rudder controls with a mind of their own. It was bitter cold and dark on the command deck, but he never noticed. Nothing hindered his attention to the Hunt.

He heard a voice in his head! Shaken, he listened all the more intently. It could only mean that there was another Hunter out here with him right now!

“Who are you?” He asked tentatively.

“I am She Who Hunts,” came the reply.

He again was disturbed. He had been about to give his name to her, but she was obviously into using a code name. Why give away identities out here?

“I am Hunter,” he said into the microphone on his headset.

There was a long pause. What was she doing?

“You live for the Hunt?” Her voice sounded closer.

“Yes! Always!” He replied.

“Then we are mates,” she said.

He grinned at this. She was not just bold, she was brazen!

He spoke again. “Where are you from?”

Another pause. “I am from the icy North.”

She sure was into this code thing! She didn’t ask him where he was from.

“Have you found what you are hunting for?” He asked her.

Maybe she knew where to hunt. What did she look like? He could read nothing in her voice. He had to keep this conversation going!

“I hunt for food, but I have hunted for you for a long time.” She said.

More code!

“Why do you hunt me?” He asked.

“Because we are the last of our kind, you and I.” She replied.

He was ignoring her now. He had just picked up some kind of image, fifteen thousand yards out to Port. He couldn’t see her ship anywhere. Obviously hers was as stealthy as his. He wondered briefly if she was a government ship, searching him out. But no! Nobody in their right minds would be in these tempest Straights this time of year!

He eagerly turned his ship toward the faint echo.

“Are you finding what you are hunting for?” She asked.

“Yes. I see it ahead.” He regretted saying that immediately. She was so disarming. What did she look like? Savagely, he concentrated the more on his screen. Only the Hunt was really important here. She was just an interference.

“I find nothing yet.” She said simply.

So! She had not yet seen his Prey! She must be far away from this area. He would not ask her position, for then he would have to give away his own. Basically he was completely selfish at heart. All Hunters are.

Dimly, he was aware that huge waves were crashing against his hull, as he ran his ship contrary to the winds. His engines whined in protest, as the sea regularly dropped below the stern of the ship, exposing his shielded props. He simply gave no thought to the possibility that this sea could hurt his ship or damage its engines beyond repair. The Hunt was all that existed for him here and now.

The image in his screen was evolving into a single solid form. he recognized its signature! His heart raced. He had found his prize! It was a small Blue Narwhal! “They only exist in the Arctic.” He thought to himself. But he had tracked this one all the way down here. This one would bring much gain from those who wanted its parts for delicacies and aphrodesia.

Narwhal were nearly extinct. All the larger whales already were. He hunted them, not for just the bounty, but because these were the best Prey of all. They were oh, so elusive, and uncannily smart! They could almost sense when they were being hunted. If provoked, they would turn on a small boat to protect their mates and young. But he knew, watching the image on his screen, that this one would be no match for this vessel, or him!

Steadily now, delicately, he played the RPM of his engines against the sea. He would not just rush in, but he would creep in, like a wolf, toward his Prey.

“Are you closer now?” Her again!

“Yes. I see my Prey up ahead. I am advancing very slowly, so as not to lose it.” He said.

“Yes. That is best. To prolong the Hunt. I find so few any more to hunt at all. How very lucky you are!” She said through his headset.

She understood! He warmed to her. Should he share this with her? Two of them would be more certain of success. “No! The Hunt is mine! I wish to share it with no one!” He made no reply to her.

“Won’t you tell me where to find food?” She asked.

He was growing tired of her speaking in this code! He waited a long time to say anything. He concentrated completely on his Prey. The Blue Narwhal was going to the West now.

“I cannot see you to tell you where to come.” He finally said.

The silence was somehow sad. It was almost as if she was in mourning over the lack of Prey. How well he knew that feeling!

“Go right and then left. Perhaps we can see each other.” He said at last.

“I have been doing so! I have also been sending signals for my position. Why have you not responded?” She replied.

He was utterly shocked by this! Was she broadcasting on radio? That was almost a criminal act to someone locked into illegal activity! Did she want the authorities to find her?

“I was not listening for you.” He replied tersely. Then he added, “You should be more careful. You wouldn’t want your prey to hear you, or those who would prey on you!”

“Yes. I have been hunted before! Those horrible monsters, who would hunt me down and destroy me! Why don’t they leave us alone?” She almost wept that last part. He could hear it in her voice, –or maybe in his conscience.

He had no answer for that. Monsters? He knew that those men who searched for Hunters like him were bureaucrats and nothing more. All those men cared about was upholding the Law. They could never understand him or his kind. She obviously had a much closer experience with them than he had.

“Are you closer now?” She asked again.

“Yes! They are unaware of me!” He exulted.

“Tell me as you Hunt. I want to experience it with you!” She begged.

He carefully guided his ship within firing range, but he wanted a cleaner kill, so he knew he would have to move much closer. His prey moved to Starboard. Silently he followed. The Narwhal was still unaware of him. How he loved the stealth technology of this old ship! The name he gave his ship was going to have meaning tonight!

Again, all that existed in his universe was the image on the screen in front of him, and the sounds of the sea that came from far below as he listened intently through his headset.

“Talk to me! I am so famished for the lack of finding food!” She begged again.

“I am in range. I am still undetected. It will be very soon now!” He was now whispering, barely breathing, not wanting to break the Hunt with a careless noise.

“Soon you will eat! Then you will come and find me?” She whispered.

“What?” He was again completely startled at her speech!

“We must be together! We must mate, after you have spent your lust on the Hunt, you will find more for me!” She whispered again.

He imagined her voice to be throaty, sultry! Yet through his headset, her words were somehow strangely disembodied. They showed almost no emotion. Her words were simply facts, flatly stated. Somehow, something was being lost in her transmission, or in his reception of it.

Briefly, at her words, he lost his concentration. Was she telling him the truth? Was she trying to throw him off with a ploy?

He filed away the single fact that he must find her after the Hunt was done.

Again, savagely, he tore his thoughts away from her once more, and got into the position to fire!

He was totally silent these last remaining seconds. Again nothing else existed but the Hunter and his Prey!

He was waiting now, poised in position. He was undetected by the Blue Narwhal! His ship was well to the left of it. When the whale turned again to Port, he would fire a single harpoon into its heart, just above and behind its fluke. The whale’s image was indelible on the sulfurous screen, and on his heightened conscious awareness.

Time slowed to a crawl. He lived completely each one of these few seconds to its full! He reluctantly gave each one up, and was eagerly looking for the next, as they silently ticked away.

“Are you in striking range?” She asked quickly.

“Yes! It feels so good!” He cried out through clenched teeth.

“Soon you will eat, my Love! I wish I were with you, to share in your bounty!” She exalted.

His Prey turned! This was the Moment! The one every Hunter knows instinctively. The one they ever and always dream of!

Swiftly his fingers touched the single toggle switch, off to the side by itself on the console.

On the computer enhanced sonar screen, he saw the harpoon go down to its target on a perfect trajectory!

He had, ….at last, ….tracked and killed the Blue Narwhal! The ship’s cameras whirred.

He heard a horrible scream through his headset!

“Oh, my Love, flee! I have been found by those who hunt me! I am mortally wounded! Flee! Find another of our kind for mate! I am no more!”

Utter silence followed.

Numbly he sat there! He was completely stunned! Minutes went quickly by. By now he should have fired the inflating harpoons, and tagged the beast. The processing of its parts would make him rich!

Instead, he simply stared at the screen. Out loud he wondered, “How could you–? I couldn’t have know–!”

He quickly cut off his response to “Her” knowing that she was no longer able to respond to him: She had been the Blue Narwhal! She, the wondrous, beautiful, intelligent, and savagely dead, Huntress!

He closed his eyes against the immense reality of it all.

He had killed her, the last Blue Narwhal! Somehow he knew there would be no more of her kind. There had been too many of his kind.

His equipment was too good, he thought idly. It was picking up her sonar voice and sending it translated somehow to his ears. During the Hunt, he had not questioned that she was one of his kind! They were so alike, so very much so! But he hadn’t known!

How could he have known? Why hadn’t he known?

How utterly stupid he was for not understanding that it was her all along? How stupid, for not understanding from the beginning that all of his victims, his Prey, were just like her!

He felt numb! Deadness! He was dead inside, — forever! The Hunt was dead to him now. Ashes. He knew that he could never Hunt again! The chronometer on his console ticked off the minutes. They had no meaning to him any longer.

Utterly, finally, he knew that he was dead too. The Hunter had died in that final moment of the Blue Narwhal’s death. He had, at last, realized the enormity of his deed!

She had lived to Hunt. She had a right to Hunt, and he did not!

“The Hunter. The Prey! We are all the same!” he whispered to no one.

His ship, with the engines set at idle, was slowly being turned broadside to the advancing waves. He knew he must turn her again or be swamped. His ship, “Requiem.” His requiem!

He did nothing.

He sat frozen in place, belted into his heavily padded chair, on his cold, dark and empty command deck, as the single screen continued to glow, faint and empty.

What was Life for him now? He tasted utter defeat for the first, and the final time.

“We hunt only ourselves!” He cried silently at the futility of it.

“Let it come! Let this boiling sea end it for me, as I have ended it for her! I will be joined with her at last, my Blue Narwhal!” He sobbed, as he buried his head in his hands, trying to hide from an empty, wasted life of hunting game; –of hunting Life!

Many miles overhead, a roving satellite picked up an automated distress signal and automatically sent it to the proper governmental authorities to dispatch a rescue effort.

Whatever that ship was, which had sent the signal, as all ships are capable of doing on their own, –it was gone.