The Beast of Cretacea (19 page)

It was only after the boys had begun to communicate with their foster parents that Ben started taking them for walks and on adventures.

“That’s the Zirconia Electrolysis plant, where your parents and I work,” he said one afternoon, pointing at the huge, soot-covered, nearly windowless complex over which loomed four tall smokestacks spewing black exhaust into the Shroud-blanketed sky.

“What happens there?” asked Archie, propped on his crutches.

“The conversion of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide. We need the oxygen to breathe.”

“What’s that?” Ishmael pointed at several black hills behind the building.

“Coal. They burn it to produce the energy for Zirconia Electrolysis.”

“Will we work there someday?” Archie asked.

Ben looked out over the blackened rooftops of the hovels and shanties that made up most of Black Range. He coughed and then spit on the ground. “Not if I can help it.”

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

Machine-gun fire whistles overhead. In Chase Boat Four, Ishmael and his crew duck. A quarter mile astern, raised up on hydrofoils, a black ship races toward them. They see a bright muzzle flash, and an instant later another volley of rounds whizzes past.

“Pirates!” Queequeg shouts.

“Hold on!” Ishmael jams the accelerator forward, praying the RTG won’t stall. It doesn’t, and the chase boat lurches ahead.

Only moments before, they’d paused from hunting to behold a wondrous sight in the distance: a turquoise lagoon edged by a thin ribbon of white sand, with lush, jade-colored hills rising up behind. Flyers soared over the summits, and a thin white waterfall cascaded from a distant peak. The sight was so stunning that they’d almost forgotten they were following a pack of long-necks.

Now they’re running for their lives. “C-call the ship?” Billy yells, bracing himself while the chase boat bangs over the waves.

“We’re out of range!” Ishmael yells back. The two-way is usually good up to fifteen miles, and he estimates that they’re at least thirty from the
Pequod.

“Can we outrun them?” Gwen shouts.

Ishmael has pushed the chase boat to top speed, but up on those hydrofoils, the pirate ship has no problem closing in.

Clinging to his seat, Queequeg catches Ishmael’s eye and nods at the machine gun in the stern. Ishmael shakes his head. So far he suspects that the pirates have been firing warning shots over their heads. Should Chase Boat Four begin shooting back, it could become a real firefight.

The pirates are being smart, angling their vessel to force the chase boat nearer to shore. As Chase Boat Four’s lead over the pirate ship shortens, Ishmael is aware that they’re getting dangerously close to the rock outcroppings and shallow reefs that separate the placid lagoon from the rest of the ocean. The crew glances worriedly at him, clearly wondering about his plan for escape.

Except Ishmael doesn’t have one.

The green coast is close now — too close. Ishmael can make out the brown shafts of the tall plants lining the shore. Ahead off the starboard side, waves rise up and crash into white foam on the long, barely submerged reef.

Rather than avoid the reef, Ishmael steers toward it. Billy grips the gunwale, his knuckles turning white when he realizes what Ishmael wants to do. “Y-you’re going to try to g-go over that?” he yells.

“If we catch a wave, maybe we can surf over!” Ishmael yells back.

“Or capsize and sink!” Gwen shouts.

Rat-a-tat-tat!
Above the whine of the RTG and the howl of the wind comes the smack of machine-gun fire much closer than before. A bullet whizzes past Ishmael’s ear. Others splash into the water around them, kicking up bursts of spray. The pirates are no longer aiming high with warning shots. Now they’re trying to draw blood.

“Everyone down!” Ishmael jerks his head at the machine gun in the stern. “Queek!”

Queequeg scrambles behind the machine gun and returns fire. Bullets whiz back and forth, pinging off the pirate ship’s metal hull and peppering the water on either side of the chase boat’s pontoons. By now the heavy surf crashing on the reef is only a dozen yards away.

Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat!

The pirate ship is angling in at high speed, its machine gun blazing. Crouching low, Ishmael steers Chase Boat Four up along the backs of swells, searching for a gap in the reef or a large enough wave to carry them —

Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat!

“Ah!” Billy clutches his thigh. Blood begins to spread around his fingers.

“Hold on!” Ishmael cuts the chase boat’s wheel sharply. They speed up the back of a large swell . . . and take flight.

In the swamped chase boat, Queequeg kneels beside Billy, who’s still clutching his thigh and grimacing while his blood turns the seawater pink. A moment ago, a torrent of hot water crashed over them when the nose of the boat plunged into the lagoon. Only the pontoons kept them afloat. The RTG quit, and now they wallow in the calm, sunlit waters, the thunder of crashing waves — and machine-gun fire — behind them.

Rope and loose rain gear float around Ishmael’s knees while he watches the very top of the pirate boat’s cabin cruise past outside the reef, the breaking waves blocking its approach. Gwen starts bailing, and he tries to restart the RTG.

Nothing happens.

“Bet the water’s shorting out the battery,” Queequeg says while tightening a tourniquet around Billy’s leg to slow the bleeding. Billy groans in pain as Queequeg helps him to a seat.

Suddenly Gwen looks up and points.

Two hundred yards down the reef is something Ishmael hadn’t seen earlier — a gap where the waves aren’t breaking. That means the water there must be deep enough for a boat to broach.

Maybe even a pirate boat.

Ishmael’s stomach knots. Without a functioning RTG, Chase Boat Four is easy prey. They watch helplessly while the pirate boat starts to nudge its way into the gap. In the bow a pirate with a long pole is testing the depth to be certain their vessel can make it.

Once the pirate ship clears the gap in the reef, there’ll be nothing to stop them from seizing the chase boat and its crew.

Sploosh!

A thick white column of water bursts up into the air near the pirate boat. The man in the bow drops the long pole and staggers backward. Ishmael searches for the large humplike beast whose spout he assumes caused it.

But almost immediately there’s another huge splash, and then another. They’re not beasts spouting, but massive stones falling out of the sky! The crew of Chase Boat Four watch, stupefied.

Crash!
An enormous stone smashes onto the deck of the pirate boat, causing the entire vessel to shudder. Pirates scream and dash this way and that. As more stones fall, the engine roars and the boat begins to reverse back through the gap in the reef.

The chase-boat crew cast their eyes upward, searching for the source of the barrage, but there is only the empty blue of sky. Ishmael glances curiously at Queequeg, who seems to know so much about so many things.

“Don’t look at me,” Queequeg says. “I know it rains water, but I’ve never heard of it raining rocks.”

Another groan from Billy brings them back. Queequeg tightens the tourniquet and presses a rag against the wound to stanch the bleeding.

“How bad is it?” Ishmael asks.

“I don’t think it hit an artery, or there’ d be a lot more blood, but I’m worried the bone may be broken,” Queequeg answers.

“It h-hurts.” Billy moans through clenched teeth.

By now the pirate boat has fled and the big stones have ceased falling, but Chase Boat Four is still adrift in the lagoon, and there’s only so much Queequeg can do for Billy. Getting him the care he needs means bailing out the chase boat, coaxing the RTG to start, and hustling back to the
Pequod.
But it also means leaving the protection of the lagoon and going back into the ocean, where the pirate boat may be lying in wait.

The blistering sunlight has started to dry the shoulders of their soaked uniforms. Gwen, who’s been bailing water nonstop, suddenly pauses and stares. Ishmael follows her eyes. A narrow craft with a white sail and outrigger is coming toward them from the green shore.

“Keep bailing.” Ishmael steps behind the machine gun, swinging the barrel toward the approaching outrigger. There are six figures in it: four rowing, one steering in the stern, and one crouched in the bow.

“See any weapons?” Ishmael asks.

“Not yet,” Gwen replies, as the outrigger draws closer. When it’s about fifty feet away, the strangers stop paddling. They are muscular, simply dressed men and women, their skin the same rich bronze as the sailors who’ve been aboard the
Pequod
the longest. The rowers place their paddles in the bottom of their outrigger. All at once they raise long, thin tubes to their lips.

Gwen slaps her upper arm like someone who’s been stung by an insect. A second later she collapses with a splash into the water that remains in the bottom of the chase boat. Before Ishmael can react, he feels a sting in his thigh. Instantly he is light-headed and dizzy. The bottom of the boat comes flying up toward him.

He feels like he is floating on air, looking up through a kaleidoscope of bright greens and yellows. He would try to move, but can’t feel his arms or legs. It’s like they aren’t there. If he is sure of anything — though he isn’t — it might be that his chest is rising and falling with each delicious breath of air.

And it feels wonderful.

A dark shadow moves over him, blocking the colors and light. It’s a blurred face. In fact, it resembles Petra’s face, only with darker skin. His foster mother’s here! He is thrilled to see her and would like to reach out and hug her.

A faraway voice says softly, “Be . . . pay . . . chant.”

Petra’s face shrinks back, and the bright greens and yellows return. Ishmael doesn’t mind. Now that Petra is here, he will be, he will pay, he will chant.

The patchwork of greens and yellows is made of thousands and thousands of flat, thin things that remind him of scurry scales. Some are nearly oval. Some come to a point. Some spread out like a hand with stubby fingers. They are attached to ever-thinning limbs that spread from a single thick brown shaft rising out of the ground. Up close, he sees the shafts are covered by a coarse, wrinkled skin. A soft breeze makes the green and yellow scales flutter, revealing bits of blue here and there. By now Ishmael knows that he is lying in some sort of hammock. He can feel his arms and legs but still can’t move them. A woman’s face appears over him, her long black hair tickling his cheeks and forehead. She is not Petra, but she has a kind, soft smile.

“How art ye?” she asks.

Ishmael tries to speak, but only jumbled sounds come out. The woman softly smooths his hair. “’Tis all right. Be pay chant.”

The sun glimmers through the green and yellow scales, heating Ishmael’s skin, leaving him damp with sweat. He hears voices and rustling, tweeting and chirping, and, strangely, a distant melody. Lifting his head, he sees a hut with a thatched roof. A girl comes out of it. She is about his own age, with dark eyes, long black hair, and bronze skin. A reddish birthmark surrounds her left eye like a pink patch. She is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. When he stares too long at her, her face clouds and she departs.