The Beast of Cretacea (18 page)

They’ve just gotten Daggoo into the boat when Queequeg suddenly trips and falls against the gunwale with a thud.

Instantly, the ocean below them erupts in a frenzy of spume and froth, and the terrafin forces its head up out of the water. For one instant in the seething surge, Ishmael and Queequeg find themselves staring into the black eye of the beast. A moment later, the terrafin arches its back and its long, black tail slashes up from below.

Ishmael and Queequeg dive out of the way an instant before the tail whips out of the water, its deadly skiver burying itself in the side of the tub that holds the harpoon line.
Crack!
The terrafin’s tail snaps back, taking the tub with it.

The beast begins to writhe furiously, trying to dislodge the tub from its tail. Waves and water explode around them, and the chase boat pitches crazily.

Girding himself in the bow, Ishmael watches Queequeg reach for the long, slender harpoon. “Aim for the back of the head!” he reminds him.

But before Queequeg can do anything, they hear a distant voice yell, “Fire!”

Ishmael and Queequeg look up at the
Pequod
’s bow, where Starbuck is now beside Tashtego at the harpoon cannon.

Instead of pulling the trigger, the mustached harpooner says something that’s lost in the storm. Ishmael imagines he’s arguing that by all rights it should be Chase Boat Four’s terrafin.

“I said, fire!” the first mate screams.

BOOM!
The percussive smack of the blast nearly knocks Ishmael and Queequeg over. It’s a direct hit, and the huge steel harpoon is buried deep in the terrafin’s back.

Ishmael spins and shouts to Gwen at the controls, “Get us out of here!”

The storm has strengthened, and the
Pequod
tosses and yaws. Down in the mess, Gwen and Ishmael huddle under blankets, adding white powder and brownish granules to mugs of steaming-hot red berry. The aroma rises tantalizingly to their noses and the resulting brew tastes piquant and exotic. The tablecloths have been wetted down to keep their mugs from sliding off when the ship rocks.

Queequeg is hunched over, hands clasped, a woeful look on his face. Ishmael puts his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe Starbuck’ll forget.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type who forgets anything,” Queequeg replies forlornly.

The mess door swings open, and Billy and Pip come in.

“I j-just saw Dr. B-Bunger,” Billy says. “Daggoo’s going to b-be in the sick bay for a few d-days, but after that he should be okay.”

Pip gives Ishmael and Queequeg a curious look. “Whatever compelled you to save him?”

“Of c-course he had to save him,” Billy says proudly. “Besides, n-now his biggest enemy on this ship owes him his life.” He pats Ishmael’s wet forearm. “What you d-did wasn’t only brave. It was nothing sh-short of genius.” He turns to Gwen. “Even
you’d
have to agree, right?”

Gwen shrugs.

Ishmael forces a weak smile, knowing that he’s not even close to being a genius. But Billy is right about one thing: No matter how low a sea slug Daggoo might be, there is no way he could have left him to perish beneath the waves.

The mess door opens again and Tashtego enters, rainwater dripping off his foul-weather hat, and a bandage under his left eye. “They just dragged it up the slipway! First terrafin of the voyage.” He rubs Ishmael’s damp head. “This crew owes you big time, squirt.”

“Not just me.” Ishmael nods at Queequeg and Gwen. “It took all three of us.”

“True, true.” The barrel-chested harpooner leans close and continues in a hushed voice: “If I was you, I’d find Starbuck quick. There’s mutterin’ that you don’t deserve the bait because you didn’t actually stick the beast.”

Billy rocks back. “That’s c-crazy! If they hadn’t risked their lives to s-save Daggoo, you never could have fired that harpoon!”

“Hey, if it was up to me, you’d have that bait and more,” Tashtego tells the chase-boat crew, and then focuses on Ishmael. “I’m just sayin’, you better speak to the first mate before the naysayers get too much of his ear.”

Ishmael starts to rise. Gwen does, too. “I’m going with you. No one’s cheating me out of that money.”

But Ishmael slides his hand over hers. “Let me go first and see what I can do. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try it your way.”

The first mate isn’t in his cabin. Ishmael hesitates at the bottom of the ladderway that leads up to the captain’s chambers on the A level. If Starbuck is up there with Ahab, should he interrupt them? Doing so might work against him. Then again, Tashtego made it sound like time was of the essence. Ishmael starts up the steps.

“Ain’t up there, lad,” a voice croaks behind him. It’s Tarnmoor, one knurly hand clinging to the rail, the other to his bucket. “Outs on the flensing deck, he is.”

“How’d you —?” Ishmael doesn’t bother finishing the sentence. He should be used to old Tarnmoor’s mysterious abilities by now. “On deck? In this storm?”

“Just a spot a’ heavy weather, lad. Nothin’ he ain’t seened a hundred times before.”

Ishmael throws on rain gear and pushes through a hatch out into the storm. The wind is blowing even harder than before, the warm rain stinging his eyes, but he can make out the terrafin spread flat on the flensing deck, the yellow tub still impaled by its tail. The beast is crisscrossed by heavy ropes lashed tight to keep it from sliding loose while the ship tosses and rolls.

In the middle of the terrafin’s back is a great gaping red wound left by the cannon’s harpoon. The wound is big enough that a man could practically crawl through it. Surely the harpoon cannon is overkill for a creature even this size. It’s like using an ax to chop scurry. Ishmael is wondering how massive a creature such a large harpoon could be for when the ship pitches sharply and he has to grab onto a hoist cable to keep from sliding clear across the deck. Tarnmoor must have been wrong; it’s crazy to think that anyone would be up here in a storm like this.

But out of the corner of his eye he spots a figure in dark rain gear near the tail of the terrafin. It’s Starbuck. Ishmael begins to move closer, but stops when the first mate surreptitiously glances around. Ducking behind a crane tower, Ishmael watches Starbuck carefully cut into the base of the terrafin’s tail. From the dark folds of skin and red flesh he extracts a small sac that glows bright chartreuse, and places it in a container. Then, walking with a wide gait to steady himself on the rocking deck, the first mate starts making his way toward a hatch.

Ishmael waits before following. What did the first mate remove from the tail of the terrafin? What could glow so brightly and yet come from inside a living creature? Whatever it is, Ishmael knows enough not to let on that he’s seen the first mate take it.

A minute later, he pretends to run into Starbuck in the passageway. The first mate frowns when he sees Ishmael in rain-soaked gear. “You up top just now?”

“Making sure Chase Boat Four was secure, sir. It’s pretty rough out there.”

“Good thinking.” Starbuck starts around him.

“But sir? I’m glad I bumped into you. Wonder if we could talk about the terrafin?”

Starbuck stiffens.

“About the bait,” Ishmael adds.

“Oh, that.” The first mate relaxes. “Not now, boy. I’ve got something I need to do.”

“Maybe in half an hour?” Ishmael asks.

“All right. Half an hour.” Starbuck brushes past and hurries off.

Thirty minutes later, Ishmael knocks on the first mate’s door. Starbuck answers, wearing a red silk robe, his black hair disheveled. Ishmael notices a tuft of white chest hair poking out at the point where the robe closes.

“What is it, boy?”

“About the terrafin, sir.”

“What about it?”

“With all the excitement, I wanted to make sure you remembered the bait, sir. We agreed on ten thousand.”

The first mate mulls this over. “Well, I don’t know about that anymore. You didn’t stick the beast.”

“Sir, with all due respect,” Ishmael begins to argue, “if we hadn’t risked our lives to save Daggoo, Tashtego could never have —”

Starbuck glances back into his quarters, then cuts him short. “Now’s not the time, boy.”

“But, sir —” Ishmael can’t allow this to be swept aside. Not after he risked his life and the lives of his crew. And not when the lives of his foster parents are in the balance.

The first mate’s jaw sets, and his face begins to harden. He’s about to say something when Charity comes into view. She’s tottering unsteadily, tugging her fingers through her brown hair. Still, she looks much recovered from her ordeal with the pirates. The bruises on her face are gone, and her skin is practically glowing again. Ishmael is so distracted by the changes to her features that it takes a moment to realize that her eyes have a strange pinkness. To Starbuck she says, “There’s only one reason you got that terrafin, and it’s because of Ishmael’s crew.”

Starbuck gives her a frosty look. “Did I ask for your opinion, woman?”

“If it weren’t for the three of them, you’d almost surely have lost the terrafin
and
Daggoo,” Charity goes on. “Looking at it that way, I’d say you got quite a bargain for a mere ten thousand.”

Starbuck’s countenance goes flat for a moment while he gazes off. “The
three
of them? I ordered Queequeg not to go, did I not?”

“For Earth’s sake, Starbuck, leave it alone.” Charity takes his arm and turns him toward her. “You got what you needed, didn’t you? Let it be.” Something deep and wordless passes between the two, then Charity nods to Ishmael. “Don’t worry, honey. You’ll get the bait.”

“I’ll think about it,” Starbuck snorts.

“Yes,” Charity says firmly, “you certainly will.”

She closes the door.

The storm continues into the night, the ship lurching and tossing so severely that once again the crew’s magnetically levitated sleepers can’t compensate. Even when sailors can keep from falling out, their possessions topple to the floor and go sliding this way and that.

Ishmael and Pip are exiting the washroom, hands tight on grab rails, when the ship lists violently, slamming them both into the wall. A palm-size tablet tumbles out of Queequeg’s curtained sleeper, clatters to the floor, and skids toward Ishmael’s feet.

The small tablet lies faceup, the screen white and covered with lines of black symbols grouped in twos, threes, fours, and sometimes more. They are the same undecipherable sequences of characters that Ishmael saw on the tablet he and Archie found years ago in the abandoned shack in Black Range.

Now several things happen at once:

Queequeg jerks his sleeper curtain open, a look of alarm on his face.

Ishmael and Pip both reach down for the tablet.

Their wrists graze.

Ishmael is jarred by the electrical shock he feels.

Pip straightens up and stares at him with astonishment.

Queequeg hops out of his sleeper and snatches up his tablet just as the ship again rocks violently, causing them all to grab for handholds to keep from falling.

His face only inches from Ishmael’s, Pip asks, “Who are you?”

But without waiting for an answer, Pip turns to Queequeg. “And
you
!” He points to the tablet. “You’re . . . a Lector?”

Queequeg averts his eyes.

“Of course! I should have known,” Pip goes on. “All that business about oceans and coral reefs and rain on Earth.” He gestures at the tablet. “This is where you got that nonsense.”

The tablet once again in his possession, Queequeg scuttles back to his sleeper, closing the curtain behind him.

The ship pitches again, and Pip and Ishmael struggle to secure their footing.

“Were you sent here?” Pip whispers.

“To Cretacea?” Ishmael shakes his head. “I volunteered.”

Pip gives him a deeply perplexed look. Then the lights go out, and in the crazed reeling of the ship, he and Pip climb back into their sleepers in the dark.

“Here’s where you’ll sleep,” Petra said. The room wasn’t much larger than the playhouse at the foundling home — the bunk bed Joachim had built for them hardly wider than their shoulders — but for the first time in memory, Archie and Ishmael had their own places to sleep.

Despite almost immediately feeling comfortable with these new adults, at first the boys were reluctant to speak to them. After being so insular for so long, they found that words were slow to come. But Petra and Joachim were patient. Every day and night, one or the other would go away to a place called “work.” When one was gone, the other would sleep for a few hours and then spend time with the boys — taking them outside to play, telling them the names of unfamiliar things, or teaching them how to add and subtract in their heads, but never allowing them to run free with the packs of children who roamed the grimy streets and abandoned lots.