eventually they made it to solid ground ; but even here they were denied respite , for the island whose shore they 'd fortuitously encountered , dragging their candle-wax body ashore among the charred stumps of once spindly trees , rose like the nose of a massive submarine , one of a pair of domed buttocks whose muscle contractions flung them through layer upon layer of tissue-paper air , through a streaked succession of floors that dropped under them like the stratified remains of playing cards , aces and diamonds separating , clubs and hearts peeling beneath , allowing the jokers to drop , the below-decks sky fleeced with clouds of pure machine odour , thick clumps of oily red faeces tumbling as they , at increasing speed toward the round disc of the planet whose own velocity through the disputed black medium would soon to matched .