Skywhale
The Skywhale is a species of animal native to the upper atmosphere of Blease's World. Its body metabolizes hydrogen, allowing it to float through the air, where it feeds by drawing in plant spores thrown up by the thick vegetation on the equatorial mountain ranges. Large and placid, it has long been domesticated by the planet's natives, who harness gondolas to their bellies and use them as living air transport[1].
During the Battle of the Halo above Perlia in the 920's.M41, Commissar Ciaphas Cain and his aide, Ferik Jurgen were forced to jettison from their ship in a Saviour pod. Jurgen, who was never comfortable during air or void travel, made his way through the pod in a manner that Cain mentally compared to "an ungainly skywhale."[1]
Sources
- 1: Death or Glory (Novel) - Ciaphas Cain: Defender of the Imperium (Omnibus) by Sandy Mitchell: Chapter Four, pg. 60, fn. 1
