The Beast of Cretacea (21 page)

“They’re maggots, for Earth’s sake!” Gwen gasps, disgusted. “How’s
that
supposed to make him better?”

“’Twill,” a deep voice says behind them. It’s Gabriel. “His wound is infected. ’Tis what makes the odor. ’Twill help him heal.”

Gwen crosses her arms over her stomach. “Try telling Billy that when he wakes up and finds them crawling around under his skin.”

“He shan’t wake up till we want him to,” Gabriel says. “By then the maggots ’twill be gone.”

Ishmael looks around the hut. In one corner is a low table with mortars and pestles, clumps of dried vegetation, and several vials that contain various shades of green liquid — from a watery light green to a chartreuse so dense it glows. The color reminds him of the glowing green sac Starbuck removed from the terrafin’s tail.

“You’re keeping them asleep?” Ishmael says of the other patients lying peacefully on mats.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Be patient,” he says.

“Who’s taking care of them?” Gwen asks.

“We all do. ’Tis not hard.” Gabriel beckons for Ishmael and the others to rise and join him. “’Tis time to eat. Ye must be hungry.”

As they follow him out of the hut, Gwen mutters under her breath, “I’m starting to get really
impatient
with all this ‘be patient’ crap.”

Gabriel leads them along a walkway through the tall plants with brown shafts. Long, ropy green plant life drapes and loops through some of the limbs, and here and there small, colorful winged creatures hop and sing. Other, more delicate creatures with nearly translucent wings flutter by.

They continue to a widened area of the walkway where long tables are lit by flames flickering in bowls filled with an oily amber liquid. The creature that the tall huntress killed earlier is being turned on a spit over a fire.

Gabriel gestures for them to join the two girls they encountered earlier — the young one who led them to the hut where Billy lay, and the beautiful one with the pink patch of skin around her eye. “They art my daughters, Fayaway and Thistle,” he says. “’Twill answer ye questions.” He leaves to join a group of older men and women at another table. One of them is the tall huntress.

The crew sit with Gabriel’s daughters. Thistle, the younger one, is still trying, but mostly failing, to mask her fascination with Gwen’s red hair, while Fayaway tries — and mostly succeeds — not to meet their eyes.

Finally, Gwen collects a lock of hair in her hand and offers it across the table. “Would you like to touch it?”

When her sister eagerly accepts the offer, Fayaway rolls her eyes disdainfully. And when Thistle seems to fondle Gwen’s hair for a moment too long, her older sister fires a look of disapproval. “’Tis enough already.”

“But ’tis so beautiful,” Thistle gushes.

“It’s all right,” Gwen says. “I don’t mind.”

“See?” Thistle sticks her tongue out at her older sister.

Fayaway looks away, right into Ishmael’s eyes. Until that moment, he wasn’t aware that he’d been staring at her. Fayaway gives him a baffled look, then gazes off. Ishmael feels his face grow hot.

Dishes of yellow and green plant foods are passed to them, along with a bowl of fibrous brown meat, which Ishmael suspects is the cooked flesh of the fur-covered creature the huntress slew. At first he and the others have difficulty picking up their food with the long, pointed spines the islanders use as utensils.

“Takes practice,” Thistle says sympathetically. “Be —”

Gwen holds up a hand. “Don’t say it. Believe me, we know.”

Near them, at the table where Gabriel and some of the others sit, a discussion grows heated. The huntress appears to be doing most of the talking, while others cast furtive glances at Ishmael and his crew.

“Is that tall woman your mother?” Gwen asks the girls.

“’Tis Diana,” Fayaway replies. “Our mother’s ceased.”

The corners of Gwen’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry.”

“’Tis no need t’be sorry.” Thistle waves her arm. “She is still here, in the animals and plants and trees of the jungle.”

“Trees!” Queequeg motions toward the tall, sturdy plants with the brown shafts that help keep the village elevated. “That’s what they’re called!” He picks up a few of the yellow and green scales that have fallen. “And these are leaves, right?”

Thistle nods, bemused.

“What’s jungle?” Gwen asks.

Thistle sweeps her arm toward all the dense greenery surrounding them. “All of this.”

After several minutes of silence during which the crew concentrates on the strange new foods they’ve been served, Ishmael has a question for Fayaway: “Why did your people shoot us with darts?”

“Didn’t know were ye friend or foe,” Fayaway answers simply.

“How do you know now?” Gwen asks.

Fayaway glances at the table where her father and the others sit. Could that be what the argument is about? Ishmael wonders. Is that why the huntress Diana keeps casting wary looks in their direction? Fayaway turns back. “Ye have no weapons. Shan’t matter.”

“There was something in the darts that temporarily paralyzed us,” Gwen says.

“Nectar,” Thistle answers.

“Hush!” Fayaway snaps at her.

“Why?” Thistle asks.

Fayaway’s eyes peek at Ishmael and the others. “’Tis not a thing t’discuss with outsiders,” she says harshly.

Sensing that it would be impolite to press the issue, Ishmael continues eating. In the dark, beyond the reach of the flickering lights, creatures make strange, eerie sounds. Ishmael feels edgy, but their hosts don’t appear bothered.

Gabriel leaves the other table and joins them. “We art curious,” he says. “Have ye news of Earth?”

They tell him what they’ve been able to piece together from the few Z-packs they received while aboard the
Pequod:
Conditions back home are deteriorating.

Gabriel accepts the news with a wistful sigh.

“How long have you been here?” Ishmael asks.

“’Twas born here,” Gabriel answers.

Queequeg raises his eyebrows. “We were told it’s really dangerous on land.”

“On the mainland, perhaps, but on this island ’tis not too bad. No more than at sea. Maybe less so.”

“If you were born here, how did your parents come to be here?” Ishmael asks.

“’Twere born here, too. And their parents. Goes way, way back to the ship that ran aground on the reef.”

“And you’ve never tried to leave?” Gwen asks.

Gabriel smiles softly. “’Tis no reason to.”

Later that night the chase-boat crew lie in hammocks, listening to the distant crash of waves and the calls of animals.

“Think they’re looking for us?” Queequeg asks hopefully.

“Not likely,” Gwen says. “The
Pequod
’s on the move, trying to make up weight. And the longer we stay here, the farther away she’ll go.”

“What do you think we should do?” Queequeg asks.

“Leave,” Gwen says. “As soon as Billy’s well enough.”

In the morning, Ishmael and the others watch a scrawny man inch his way up a tall, limbless tree. At the top is a burst of long, skinny green leaves and several clusters of what look like large round green and yellow plant foods. When he’s climbed high enough, he pulls a stick from his waist and swats at the clusters until they break loose and thump to the ground below.

“Hungry?” Thistle asks the chase-boat crew. The scrawny man climbs back down and hacks at one of the round things with a hatchet. Close up, he’s older than he looked. His short, curly hair is gray, his wrinkled skin sags from his bony frame, and he doesn’t have many teeth left.

“Mikal, these art my friends,” Thistle says. “’Twill try a treestone.”

The old man cuts a hole into one end, then offers it to Gwen, who hesitates. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Drink,” Thistle says.

When Gwen declines, Mikal offers the treestone to Ishmael, who presses the hole to his lips. The liquid inside is fresh and sweet, but the taste is foreign, and he’s not sure he likes it. He hands the treestone to Queequeg, who sips, makes a face, and hands it back. The old man shrugs, presses the treestone to his lips, and drinks what remains.

But he’s not finished. With the hatchet he splits the treestone in two. Inside is a hard brown nut the size of a large man’s fist, and inside that is an almost pure-white substance. Mikal scoops some out and offers it around. Ishmael tries a small bite and is surprised to find it delicious and chewy. When he quickly takes a larger bite, Gwen and Queequeg decide to sample theirs. Cheeks bulging, both nod approvingly.

With a toothless smile, Mikal starts to hack open more.

From that day forward, the crew begin with a breakfast of treestone meat, then visit Billy. He’s still asleep, the maggots still infesting the wound, but the foul odor is less and less evident. Afterward the chase-boat crew are free to do whatever they choose — which usually means exploring the island. With Thistle as their guide, they trade their shoes for animal-hide boots and climb the hill behind the village, where she shows them the row of enormous catapults that launched the stones that drove the pirate boat away. Another time, she leads them to a place where clear, cool water actually burbles out of the ground and is collected for drinking and cooking. From there she points out the cave where the first inhabitants of the island — the survivors of the shipwreck — took shelter centuries before.

One afternoon she takes them to a beach where, for the first time in their lives, they feel sand between their toes. A pack of children passes, several of them guiding a sightless boy, his eyelids closed over sunken sockets. While he sits at the water’s edge, the others bring him shells and pieces of oddly shaped white stone to feel.

Queequeg picks up several pieces of the white stone. One is shaped like a leafless plant with many offshoots. Another is round and furrowed, and a third is covered with a dozen thick, stubby appendages.

“Coral.” He offers them around.

The coral is rough and porous. “Like what you and your father stood on?” Ishmael asks.

“Uh-huh.”

So his story was true,
Ishmael thinks.
Coral exists. And if Queek has seen it on Earth, doesn’t that mean there really were oceans
at one time?
Why did this become a secret? Why was such information banned, along with the knowledge of how to decipher those long lines of symbols from which Queequeg has learned so much?

Suddenly, a large shadow passes over the beach. Ishmael looks skyward. A huge gray flyer with broad wings and a long, pointed beak circles overhead. Thistle jerks her head up and shouts, “To the trees!”

The children splash out of the water and scamper up the beach. The biggest among them scoops up the blind boy and carries him. The flyer glides lower, tilting its head as it searches for prey. Cowering under a shady canopy of leaves, a few of the younger children whimper while the older ones press them protectively close to the thick, hard trunks.

The flyer flaps its wings and rises higher in the air, then banks and disappears from view. “Wait,” Thistle whispers, then steps cautiously out into the sunlight and scans the sky. Finally she turns and waves to those still huddled under the trees. “’Tis gone.”

The children creep from their hiding places, but there’s a palpable sense that playtime is over. Glancing warily at the sky, they lead the sightless boy back toward the village.

Watching them, Ishmael feels an ache. The way the islanders care for one another reminds him of how he and Archie always looked after each other.

Petra woke them in the dark. “Get dressed, boys.”

“Why?” Archie yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“Ben’s run out of Natrient, and he’s not feeling well. We have to get him some.”

Ishmael and Archie dressed, hunting around in the murk for their clothes and shoes, then joined their foster mother.

“Stay together.” Petra unlocked the front door. “No going ahead, Ishmael.”

At that moment, going anywhere was the last thing on his groggy mind. He mostly wanted to crawl back into bed. “Why do we have to go so early?” He yawned.

“The dispensary’s been running out. If we wait until later, there may not be any Natrient left.”

“What happens to people who don’t get any?” Archie asked as he hobbled out into the dark on his crutches.