Anton's Odyssey (36 page)

I nodded off back to sleep after Mr. Fox left. Hammond woke me up a few hours later. He was accompanied by another individual whom I didn’t recognize at first. His helmet head hairdo startled me at first, but at second glance, I recognized him as Frederick Chaucey, the man whom I assaulted by mistake in the engine room. I guessed
correctly that, in the presence of the other piety-freaks, he wasn’t allowed to be bald, so they were forcing him to wear Mr. Fox’s old wig. Under the wig, he looked pathetically unhappy.

“I’m really sorry I hit you.” I said.

“It’s okay kid.” he replied. “From what I hear, I wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as you were. I’m glad somebody tried to stop these guys. I just wish you had your act together and knocked out the right man.”

Hammond raised the rails on the sides of my hospital bed, and Fred unlocked the wheels.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Doc says you don’t need to be in the step down unit anymore,” Fred explained. “We’re taking you to the regular ward.”

On the way through the door, I realized the room I had just occupied was really a make shift tent fabricated from scraps of sheeting used on the ship to wrap containers. I had seen the fabric stored in spools in the cargo hold auxiliary.

Though it appeared to be twilight, it was uncomfortably hot outside. “How long have I been in the step down unit?” I asked.

“We only just transferred you there earlier today, when Dr. Zanders told us you were waking up,” Fred explained.

“So you had to move me through an outdoor area?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Explains the heat during my dream,
I thought. I tried to sit up so I could look around, but was overcome with another spasm of sharp shooting back pain.

“Let me help you with that.” Hammond said.

He raised the head of my bed.

“Take a good look around you kid.” Fred said glumly.

The ship lay ahead of me. It rested off kilter, titled at an awkward angle. Half of the ship landed on a rocky foundation, and the other half was sinking into a giant fetid mud pit.

All around me, extending from horizon to horizon, I could see nothing but a putrid muddy bog. Small rocky islands peppered the landscape, popping out of the brown turbid water. Some sort of purple scrubby vegetation grew in places, none reaching higher than Hammond’s knee.

“Some paradise, huh kid!” Fred scoffed.

Some sort of armor-plated slug blocked our path. It croaked aggressively as we approached.

“Go on, get out of here!” Hammond shouted, kicking half-heartedly at it with his midget foot.

The armored slug leaped into the air and landed safely in a nearby mud puddle with a splash.

“They’re all over the place.” Hammond said. “You gotta watch out for ‘em. I’ve seen ‘em chew through strips of sheet metal.”

“Really?”
I said.

“Oh yeah, we’re pretty sure they could be dangerous if they caught you off guard,” Fred said.

“On the bright side,” Hammond said, “you can cook ‘em and they don’t taste half bad. They kind of taste like crab.”

I couldn’t help but remember Hammond’s mangled practice sentence the first day of English class when he expressed his fear of getting pubic lice from a public beach. “Crab with a ‘k,’ or crab with a ‘c?’” I asked.

“Crab with a ‘c,’” Hammond said smiling, “the real stuff.”

The pair wheeled me into another make shift tent. Rips in the
fabric walls let in the heat. Although warmer than the step down unit, the regular ward was still much more comfortable than being outside. I recognized my roommate by his beard, which wasn’t nearly as well trimmed as it used to be.

“Why is the Captain here?” I whispered. “What happened to him?”

“Piety-freaks took his liquor away.” Hammond said softly. “He got the shakes really bad, but he’s almost over them now.”

Fred locked out the wheels on my gurney.

“I’ll come find you later when I get a chance,” Hammond said as he left, “but I don’t know when that will be.”

I sat for a while, letting the new reality sink in. For an hour, I felt nothing but panic and dread. Eventually, I got better. Perhaps it was a direct result of the brain damage, but somehow I convinced myself that everything was going to be okay.

The captain studied me. “Were you on the crew?” he asked.

“No, but my mother was.”

“What did she do?”

“She cleaned the toilets. Now her new husband runs the place.”

“Oh!” the captain said soberly.

I put my head down and tried to sleep, but the sound of weeping kept me up.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“The ship was my command.” the captain said, tears streaming down his face. “How could I have let this happen?”

Because you were drunk the whole voyage,
I thought.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “When I get better, I’ll find a way to get us out of this mess.”