The Beast of Cretacea (22 page)

“They don’t eat.” Petra locked the door behind them.

“Don’t they get hungry?”

“I’m sure they do. So they’re probably the first in line the next day.”

In the inky predawn blackness, they found the rope that led out to the street.

“What’s a hundred and fifty-seven divided by twelve?” Petra asked.

“Thirteen, remainder one,” Archie answered almost instantly.

“Good. Two hundred thirty-three divided by four?”

“Fifty-eight remainder one,” said Archie.

“Right again. Let’s let Ishmael answer. One hundred ninety-one divided by six.”

“Uh . . .”

“I know,” said Archie.

“We know you know, sweetheart.”

“Thirty-one, remainder five,” said Ishmael.

“Very good. Another word for
scared.
”

“Frightened,”
said Archie.

“And?”

“Terrified.”

“Give Ishmael a chance.”

“But he used all the good ones,” Ishmael complained.

“Afraid, fearful, horrified.”
Archie rattled off three more.

Ishmael didn’t really mind that Archie was smarter, or at least a quicker thinker than he was. Joachim always said that Archie would need to be extra quick-witted to get along with his disabled legs: “The world is full of people who’ll try to take advantage of you. Your best defense is to be shrewder than the lot of them.”

They found the street rope and started to follow it, Ishmael’s ears attuned to any sound that might mean danger.

“Is Old Ben related to us?” he asked.

“No,” Petra answered. “He’s just a good family friend.”

“Then why are we getting him Natrient?”

“That’s what friends do, they help each other. For instance, Ben helped us find you. He’s the one who spotted you in the window of the foundling home.”

“How come you needed help finding us?” Archie asked.

“We didn’t
need
it, but when he saw the two of you, he knew you were the right children for us. And he helped persuade Ms. Hussey to bend the rules so that we could take you both. We have a great deal to thank him for.”

Even though it would be another three hours before the Natrient dispensary opened, a line of people already stretched down the block in the first faint light of day.

“Can Ish and I go look around?” asked Archie.

Petra shook her head. “It’s still a little too dark.”

“Come on, we’re not kids anymore.” Archie was eleven and Ishmael was nine.

“All right. But don’t go far — and stay together.”

Archie began hobbling away down the sidewalk, Ishmael a step behind. When they were out of earshot, he dropped his voice: “Where are we going?”

Archie grinned. “You’ll see.”

As the days pass while they wait for Billy’s wound to heal, the crew of Chase Boat Four find different ways to occupy their time. Queequeg joins those who go in outriggers to net scurry. Gwen has befriended some of the hunters and often joins them in search of game. Ishmael finds himself interested in how the villagers cultivate plants.

Fayaway is among the islanders who tend the fields where vegetation is grown. Ishmael often sees her in the mornings, before the midday sun becomes so scaldingly hot that everyone heads down to the sparkling blue water of the lagoon to cool off. Ishmael sometimes joins them, though he never wades in deeper than midthigh.

One day, as he reaches down with cupped hands to splash water on his sunburned shoulders, Fayaway suddenly rises out of the lagoon before him. Her drenched black hair is stuck close to her skull, and water runs down her face. “Do ye never go deeper?”

“I don’t know how to swim.”

From the vexation on her face, Ishmael knows she finds that difficult to imagine. The island children learn to walk and swim at practically the same time. He’s seen three- and four-year-olds glide through the water like scurry.

“’Twill teach ye.” She reaches for his hand. At her touch, Ishmael feels a strange fluttering in his chest. She tugs, trying to lead him deeper, but he resists, recalling the sensation of nearly drowning when he tried to save Queequeg the day they harpooned the big hump. She gives him a puzzled look, then lets go.

“Watch.” She lies back and floats with her arms spread, only her chest and face above the surface. When Ishmael peers into the water beneath her to see what’s holding her up, she laughs and stands. “’Tis not trickery. Come on, try.”

With Fayaway standing beside him, Ishmael lies back stiffly. Even with her hands under him, he can’t relax.

“Let yeself float,” she coaxes softly. “Ye won’t sink.”

Ishmael’s heart is beating with such agitation that he expects to see small waves rippling away from his chest. But at least the water here is shallow and he can get to his feet if he has to.

“Fear not,” Fayaway gently assures.

He closes his eyes and feels the midday sun’s heat on his face. His heart is still thrumming and his breath is quick.

“’Tis good.” Fayaway removes one hand from under his back.

Ishmael tenses, certain he will go under as soon as her other hand is no longer supporting him.

“Easy now.” Fayaway is holding him up with only fingers. He takes a deep breath, preparing to plant his feet on the bottom when he feels himself start to sink. But miraculously, when Fayaway withdraws her fingers, he bobs with just enough of his face above the surface to breathe. He opens his eyes and sees her smiling down at him. Can he actually be floating? It’s a confounding sensation, but he still doesn’t trust it. After a moment, he tucks forward and stands, breathing hard, water streaming off him.

Fayaway claps proudly. “’Tis enough for today.”

Back onshore, she bends over and wrings out her hair. Ishmael is about to look away — he doesn’t want to be caught staring again — when he spots a circular design tattooed on the nape of her neck.

Fayaway straightens up, whipping her hair behind her shoulders. When she sees Ishmael’s face, her brow creases. “What?”

“That tattoo on the back of your neck . . . Where’d it come from?”

“’Tis something we art given at birth. Everyone has one. Why?”

“I’ve . . . I’ve seen something like it before,” Ishmael says.

Fayaway glances toward the fields where the other islanders have gone back to work. She doesn’t seem particularly curious about Ishmael’s discovery. But Ishmael is certain that the tattoo on the back of her neck is the same as Archie’s favorite design from the old tablet they found in that shack in Black Range. What’s it doing here?

There was no point in reminding Archie that Petra had told them not to go far; he wouldn’t listen anyway. Besides, she was back in the Natrient line and would never know. And Archie wasn’t foolish — he stayed away from alleys and crossed the street whenever someone questionable approached.

“Where’re we going?” Ishmael asked again.

“There.” His foster brother gestured toward a building barely visible in the deep grayness. Beside it rose a smokestack like the ones at the Zirconia Electrolysis plant. But while those stacks spewed black smoke twenty-four hours a day, this one appeared dormant.

When they got closer, Ishmael saw that the building was abandoned and crumbling, the windows shattered, and rubble was strewn about.

“Careful.” Archie gestured at the jagged rusted ends of pipes jutting out of the ground here and there. Ishmael knew better than to ask what they were looking for; Archie would always say they were looking for whatever they found.

Archie stopped at the base of the old smokestack and gazed up. It was still dark enough that the top of the stack was indistinguishable from the void above it. A row of metal rungs ran up the side, the lower ones sawed off by scrap poachers.

Ishmael immediately understood what Archie wanted to do. “But there’s nothing up there.”

Archie smiled. “Let’s see.” He propped his crutches against the stack’s base, then held his hands out. Ishmael gave him a boost, and Archie was able to grab the lowest intact rung, then started to hoist himself up. While his legs weren’t much good, Archie’s upper body was strong, and when he needed to rest, the stiffness of the leg braces provided support. Ishmael jumped up and grabbed the first rung, then began to follow.

It wasn’t long before he understood why his foster brother wanted to climb the smokestack. It was an opportunity to see Black Range from a new perspective. While it was still too dark to pick out much detail, they could see that the town was clustered around the huge Zirconia Electrolysis station. Beyond that were the chopped and gouged undulations left from hundreds of years of strip mining. Black Range had once been renowned for its anthracite — pure and with a high carbon content — but the supply had been exhausted centuries ago. Now the station depended on imported, low-quality lignite, which burned so dirty that some mornings you could sweep the previous night’s soot with a broom.

About two-thirds of the way up the stack, Archie stopped. Ishmael glanced back down and felt queasy. He was no great fan of heights, and this was undoubtedly the highest he’d ever climbed. He looked up at his foster brother, who had let go with one hand and was pointing into the distance.

Far, far away in the blackness was a small, faint bluish-green dot. It might have been convex in shape, but it was too distant to know for sure.

“What is it?” Ishmael asked.

Above him, Archie shook his head and scanned the horizon, perhaps to see if there were any other places like it. Ishmael also peered out, but he couldn’t see any.

“Maybe we should go higher,” he suggested, his curiosity overcoming his discomfort about heights.

“Can’t.” Archie reached up to the next rung and shook it. It wasn’t securely anchored.

Suddenly voices rose up from below. Ishmael looked down and saw three figures searching among the rubble. One of them had Archie’s crutches. The other two had taken hold of one of the rusty pipes and were working it back and forth, trying to free it from the ground.

“Scrap poachers,” Archie whispered.

Joachim and Petra had often warned their foster sons that scrap poachers, like other wrongdoers, were also capable of kidnapping children and holding them for ransom — or worse.

There was nothing the boys could do but wait, clinging to the metal rungs and hoping they wouldn’t be seen.

“Do ye know many girls on Earth?” Fayaway asks.

She and Ishmael sit together on the sand, catching their breath after a long swim.

Fayaway no longer frowns when she sees him; in fact, she smiles. In the broiling afternoons they swim and tease each other and laugh. Ishmael is distressingly aware that he is finding himself growing more comfortable, not only in the water and with Fayaway, but with the islanders’ way of life as well.

“A few,” Ishmael answers.

“Art they pretty?”

“Not as pretty as you.”

Fayaway looks hurt. “Don’t make fun.”

Ishmael’s surprised. “I wasn’t.”

The small waves turn the sand near the water’s edge dark. Fayaway touches the patch of pink skin around her left eye. “Can’t be pretty with this.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“No one else has it.”

“Then it makes you unique. I think it looks nice,” he blurts out before he has time to think. His face quickly feels hot, and it’s not due to the sun.