The Whale's Song (Book 1)

Chapter Sixteen. An aptly named ship.

Because the Whale's Song was so large, it was easy to get lost. Despite Oscar having toured the ship a month earlier, he remembered little of where most thing were outside of his own little sphere that radiated from his cabin.

And so it was no surprise for him to find himself in a strange room staring at the ceiling. The skywalks in the Inner Chapel of Lots of Space* were mesmerising. They spanned high above him, crisscrossing, intersecting, rotating and twisting. The chapel was a hexagon with a curved ceiling. Paintings of space ships from across the eras covered every inch of its belly. The golds, reds, black, the power colours popped out and made the ships look 3D, as if they stuck out from the ceiling and really were roaring through space.

On the floor of the chapel, rows of pews were lined up, facing a carved, metal alter. Four candles sat alight on it, two on either corner. They dripped wax to the floor. A silver carpet ran between the pews, from the entrance door up to the alter.

Oscar sat down on one of the cushioned pews and stared at the dripping wax. Someone had been by to light the candles, he wondered briefly who that might have been, but it was unimportant. It was amazing how news such as your imminent death made everything seem so unimportant.

It still did not excuse his behaviour, no matter how drunk or angry at the world he was, for the way he acted to Ima. Why could he not tell her? It was ridiculous that the chief engineer was not even allowed to know that the ship had one week before annihilation. Surely she would be able to do something? Spin the ship in reverse or something that like.

Mechanics, he really knew nothing about it. Things moved with power, or something. It was not his field, but, maybe, he could hint to Ima something. Maybe, query her the possibility of what would happen if they began to fall towards a black hole, and what she would have to do to get out. Yes, thought Oscar. This would be a good idea. Unless Captain Rood had already thought of it. In which case, what was the point?

He sighed, leaning back in the pew and closing his eyes. He listened to the distant rumbling of the ship. The ship was very aptly named. He remembered listening once to a recording of actual whales singing. Low, mournful, and absolutely beautiful. He had sat in rapt wonder at the noise.

After hearing the tape, he had rushed straight to the teacher of marine biology and demanded everything she had on whales.

With a grunt, Oscar pulled himself up and strode over to the chapel alter. How often was it that a person's fascination with a thing got them killed? He did not know. Except that it was his fascination with whales that had inspired him to book a ticket on the ship he was now doomed to die on.

~

*The Inner Chapel of Lots of Space: Everybody needs a place to worship. So it was decreed in the year of 2017. Religion at the turn of the century began to follow the path of the many. Not that many people followed one religion, but that religion began to follow many people. Religion could not simply be a singular, for mankind refused to bow to one master.

As the world grew and civilisations crumbled and rebuilt and spread to the stars, religions became too numerous to count. Each man had his own to contend with. Religion became not so much as a belief in a higher being who you owed your soul to, and who you desired to be like, but more of a trend adopted by hipsters.

People began to turn to themselves, this in turn allowed religion to fall from being sought after, to having to chase after mankind if it wanted to continue.

So, in turn, organisations built themselves up to offer, for a small fee, of course, the right to advertise their religion to others. The Inner Chapel of Lots of Space takes its name from everybody needs, sometimes, lots of space. If a man is angry at something, give him lots of space. If a person's partner has left, or cheated on them, give them lots of space. If they carry a bloody axe and have an evil glint in their eye, give them lots of space.

The one downfall to the creation of the Chapel of Lots of Space, is that once everyone became aware that that was where they should go when they needed space, is that too many people ended up showing up. Everyone needing space ended up filling the pews and ended up getting no space whatsoever. So, the chapel was closed down, the advertising agent who sought after the Whale's Song and pleaded with them to use his religion was kicked out, and the room became merely a tourist destination.