Captain Norch was a serious and sturdy fellow, a bit sour and a lot no-nonsense. In fact, he was so no-nonsense, his crew often referred to him as No-Nonsense Norch. At least, they did when they thought he wasn't listening. He was listening, of course. Norch was forever listening (listening was a very important skill in a Coe hunter). If he had been the type of man to enjoy something as simple as a name, he might have been proud of it. Sadly, he wasn't. In truth, he was rather unimpressed. Norch was, in general, unimpressed by most things, but this story isn't about that. This story is about the one time he was thoroughly and uncomfortably impressed. This is the story of Captain Norch and the Crai, and the time he met the Jemily.

***

Every Coe hunter passed his first salting knew the words.

"Think the unthinkable and the unthinkable is unthunk."

As if thinking the worst could keep it from happening. Norch had no time for such frivolous thinking, but many of his crew were staunch believers.

Every season, before their feet touched the deck, they would say the words, and every unthinkable thought and situation that came to mind. Every single one. More imaginative crewmen had to be urged for speed, lest they spend the night at the foot of the plank and miss the push off.

One crewman, Bobby Bottom, being both creative and exceptionally superstitious, had had to spend the night in one of the harpoon boats until he had unthunk all his thoughts. Of course, even Bobby Bottom couldn't think of everything, and there is always that one thought that is so unthinkable it remains unthought.

On this particular day it was sunny, which may have been part of the problem. No one thinks unthinkable things happen on sunny days.

It was a glorious sunrise, one that makes the months at sea seem like the choice of rational men. The migration run this year had pulled them further east than usual and the waters beneath the sun were strange to Norch. Strange waters always left him with an itch between his shoulder blades that no amount of scratching could ease.

The ship, no wind in her sails, waited quietly on a calm sea. Norch stood at the stern, arms folded across his chest. He frowned at the sea, then the sails, then the sea again. If a poor crewman wandered into his gaze, he found himself wandering back out again, suddenly reminded of work he had left undone somewhere on the other side of the ship.

As Norch's eyes roved over the water, he thought he caught a glimmer of light which flashed through the air. Raising his Far Eye he looked to where he thought it had been, and sure enough, after a moment, it came again. A quick shimmer through the air: there, then gone again. He lowered his Far Eye, but continued to stare for a moment before giving his head a shake. A trick of the water, he thought. In his years at sea, he had seen many odd things, but most were easily explained if you could understand the "how" of it. Anything left unexplained, he chalked up to his own ignorance and nothing else. The world was a perfectly ordered thing, and he would leave the fanciful story-weaving to the more credulous of his crew.

He was on the verge of ordering men to the oars when he felt a deep thump reverberate up through the ship. The strange light already forgotten, he knelt down and placed his hand on the deck. Around him, his crew unfastened ropes. Silent shapes slid into the harpoon boats while others deftly climbed up and down the rigging. Beneath him, Norch could feel the steady beat of the Coe's fins hitting the sea floor as it passed by. His crew stood in a halted tableau. Ready, waiting. When Norch felt the beast pass beyond the ship he stood and gave the signal. The three little boats (dubbed Turtle, Tortoise and Terrapin by the men), were lowered and set off in pursuit.

***

When Terrapin saw the ripple just north of its position, it hurriedly unleashed its harpoon. Too soon. One oarsman, a veteran well past his 30th season, said words that made the young harpooner turn darker than the sun and salty air had already done for him.

Pulling the harpoon in, it slowed Terrapin just enough to miss the sudden wall of water that almost upended Tortoise. A thick tail whipped out of the water and snaked out over Turtle.

The little boat protested only briefly before it was halved, men hurling themselves over the side. One man was lost right away under the tail and two more were still in the water by the time the Coe turned itself around, leaving only three to climb safely into Tortoise.

The men in the water had time to see Tortoise level its harpoon before the unthinkable happened.

The Coe rose.

A tremendous tail or the occasional dorsal fin were uncommon enough, but for a Coe hunter to see the living eye and spiracle of a Coe raised above the water was unheard of. The Coe never rose. Yet... there it was.

For a moment the Coe and the men in the water observed one another. Then the harpoon thrummed by overhead, missing them all by an eyelash. By all rights, had the harpoon's trajectory continued, it would have arced down and lodged firmly into the Coe's pectoral fin. Instead, it seemed to hit and stick somewhere above it, in empty air.

With an awful noise, the Coe thrashed. The harpoon, still stuck in midair, twisted and danced above it. The nine men packed into Tortoise had to hold tight as it tossed them along until one man could finally cut the harpoon's line loose.

Jumping to oars, the men pulled hard to get free. Light bounced off the sky and into their eyes as the men in the water tried to swim towards them, but they hadn't made it five strokes before the Coe sucked them under with its heaving.

Back above the water, Terrapin was trying to reload its harpoon, but the Coe, giving two final mighty tugs, wrested its tail free and dove back under water. For a moment, nothing but silence hung in the air. Then the sea erupted.

***

Norch was outwardly calm, but the loss of his men left a sour taste in the back of his mouth. No, it wasn't just the loss of his men. Some of what he tasted, though he would never admit it, was fear.

A tense silence fell, the sort that crawled in through the back of his throat and sat heavy on his chest. The sort that ends badly. He just didn't know how badly until he heard that fast, steady beat directly below him.

He barely had time to shout "Grab hold!" before the Coe shoved upwards, rolling ship and sea alike, its great leathery tail swinging up and over the rails.

Norch lurched sideways as the ship tilted violently, but his fingers managed to grab slick wood before he could slide too far. It was only a moment's respite, then a sudden shadow overhead was all the warning he had before the world ripped apart around him. Wood splintered, the ship groaned and the piece of railing he held in his hand broke free. The deck dropped away beneath his feet and he tumbled into the sea.

He scarcely had time to take a deep breath before cold, salty water enveloped him. He was a solid swimmer, but the suction of the two great fins was impossible for any man to get out from under, and they relentlessly pulled him closer until he felt certain they would crush him. Then, through some miracle or luck, instead of being hit on the downswing, the fins hit him on the upwards. It didn't feel particularly lucky at the time, or for a long time after.

Lungs full to bursting, Norch felt a sharp pain in his shoulder that made him gasp and swallow a whole lot of sea. Norch barely noticed when his motion was arrested by a filmy, sticky something. With spots of black behind his eyes, he only knew he was trapped and like a panicked animal he kicked out and thrashed as hard, if not as mightily, as the Coe had earlier. And because the Coe had already ripped it, or maybe because the harpoon had, or maybe because Norch really was stronger than he might have thought, the surrounding tension gave in, then snapped, and something sucked him through.