The Blue World by Jack Vance

are merely the termini of
muscles.”
    Elmar Pronave took
the mallet and with the handle prodded at a node. The kragen gave a
furious jerk.
    “Well, well,”
said Pronave. “Interesting indeed.” He prodded further,
here, there. Every time he touched the exposed ganglions, the kragen
jerked. Sklar Hast suddenly put out his hand to halt him. “Notice.
On the right, those two long loops; likewise on the left. When you
touched this one here, the fore-vane jerked.” He took the
mallet, prodded each of the loops in turn, and in turn each of the
vanes jerked.
    “Aha!”
declared Elmar Pronave. “Should we persist, we could teach the
kragen to jig.”
    “‘Best
we should kill the beast,” said Sklar Hast. “Dawn is
approaching, and who knows but what … ” From the float
sounded a sudden low wail, quickly cut off as by the constriction of
breath. The group around the kragen stirred; someone vented a deep
sound of dismay. Sklar Hast jumped up on the kragen, looked around.
The population on the float were staring out to sea; he looked
likewise, to see King Kragen.
    King Kragen floated
under the surface, only his turret above water. The eyes stared
forward, each a foot across: lenses of tough crystal behind which
flickered milky films and a pale blue sheen. King Kragen had either
drifted close down the trail of Phocan’s Cauldron on the water or had
approached subsurface. Fifty feet from the lagoon nets he let his
bulk come to the surface: first the whole of his turret, then the
black cylinder housing the maw and the digestive process, finally the
great flat sub-body: this, five feet thick, thirty feet wide, sixty
feet long. To the sides protruded propulsive vanes, thick as the
girth of three men. Viewed from dead ahead, King Kragen appeared a
deformed ogre swimming the breast-stroke. His forward eyes, in their
horn tubes, were turned toward the float of Sklar Hast and seemed
fixed upon the hulk of the mutilated kragen. The men stared back,
muscles stiff as sea-plant stalk. The kragen which they had.
captured, once so huge and formidable, now seemed a miniature, a
doll, a toy. Through its after-eyes it saw King Kragen and gave a
fluting whistle, a sound completely lost and desolate.
    Sklar Hast suddenly
found his tongue. He spoke in a husky, urgent tone. “Back. To
the back of the float.”
    Now rose the voice
of Semm Voiderveg the Intercessor. In quavering tones he called out
across the water. “Behold; King Kragen, the men of Tranque
Float! Now we denounce the presumptuous bravado of these few
heretics! Behold, this pleasant lagoon, with its succulent sponges,
devoted to the well-being of the magnanimous King Kragen—” The
reedy voice faltered as King Kragen twitched his great vanes and
eased forward. The great eyes stared without discernible, expression,
but behind there seemed to be a leaping and shifting of pale pink and
blue lights. The folk on the float drew back as King Kragen breasted
close to the net. With a twitch of his vanes, he ripped the net; two
more twitches shredded it. From the folk on the float came a moan of
dread; King Kragen had not been mollified.
    King Kragen eased
into the lagoon, approached the helpless kragen. The bound beast
thrashed feebly, sounded its fluting whistle. King Kragen reached
forth a palp, seized it, lifted it into the air, where it dangled
helplessly. King Kragen drew it contemptuously close to his great
mandibles, chopped it quickly into slices of gray and black gristle.
These he tossed away, out into the ocean. He paused to drift a
moment, to consider. Then he surged on Sklar Hast’s pad. One blow of
his fore-vane demolished the hut, another cut a great gouge in the
pad. The after-vanes thrashed among the arbors; water, debris, broken
sponges boiled up from below. King Kragen thrust again, wallowed
completely up on the pad., which slowly crumpled and sank beneath his
weight.
    King Kragen pulled
himself back into the lagoon, cruised back and forth destroying
arbors,