The Beast of Cretacea (30 page)

Without the aid of the breeze they drift more slowly. There is still no sign of the Great Terrafin. Ishmael wonders if it encountered the spit of land and doubled back. Or did he miscalculate where they would meet it?

Then he hears a gasp. Gwen points off the port side. Coming toward them beneath the water’s surface is not one but
two
creatures — the first is black and far smaller than the second.

Could the first one be a male? Ishmael wonders, since it doesn’t appear to be fleeing. Is . . . is the Great Terrafin courting? If so, there’s a chance the beast will be distracted enough that it won’t notice the chase boat until Queequeg gets to fire. Ishmael’s blood vibrates with excitement.

But Pip extends a trembling hand. “Give me the headset. I want to speak to Starbuck.”

“Shut up,” Gwen snarls under her breath.

“You don’t understand,” Pip protests. “I don’t have to be here. I . . .”

In the bow, Queequeg quietly swings the harpoon gun around and aims. Ishmael’s heart is thumping so hard it feels like it wants to climb into his throat.

For a few seconds, the bay is eerily calm.

Then, suddenly, the enormous creature speeds toward the surface, and the Great Terrafin breaches! It blocks out the sun when it leaps, torrents of seawater streaming off its white wings and three — yes,
three
— long tails!

Queequeg swings the harpoon gun upward.

Bang!

The gigantic beast crashes back into the water with a deafening
flop!
and barrels away. Huge waves rush out in every direction, and the chase boat is rocked so violently that it nearly capsizes. Line whistles off the starboard side, and Ishmael quickly starts the chase boat’s engine and throws it into gear.

Pfufft . . .

The RTG cuts out and stalls. Silently cursing Perth, Ishmael tries again. Line continues to whip out in a blur. Gwen pushes the orange float over the side and shouts at Pip, “Make sure the line’s clear!”

But Pip is transfixed.

Gwen points at the tub and screams, “Look out!”

The knot in the line appears so quickly that no one has time to react.

Whomp!
The boat is yanked sideways with such force that Gwen is tossed out. Somehow Pip, Queequeg, and Ishmael hang on while the chase boat is dragged, skipping and skittering like a skimmed stone. The knotted line has caught on something in the bow, but Ishmael is being buffeted so hard he can’t focus. There’s no point in shouting at Pip or Queequeg to try to clear the line, because the instant either of them lets go he’ll be thrown overboard, too. All they can do is hold tight.

It may be only Ishmael’s imagination, but he senses that the Great Terrafin is headed for the mouth of the bay. He cranes his neck high enough to catch a glimpse of three speeding chase boats eager to put more sticks in the beast. Strangely, he counts a fourth, this one coming from behind, and catches a hint of black hull before Chase Boat Four slams into a wake broadside and goes airborne. Time momentarily slows while the boat flips over in midair and spills out the remaining crew. Ishmael feels himself flying and flailing as the bay’s surface rushes toward him.

Smack!
He plunges in face-first.

Seconds later, he is bobbing woozily, coughing and spitting up hot seawater. The upside-down chase boat floats nearby. Did the line snap when the boat flipped? A cacophony of confusing sounds reaches his ears — gunfire, boat engines, drones whining, distant shouts — and he spots Queequeg floating and coughing up seawater a dozen feet away.

There’s no sign of their new lineman.

“Pip!” Ishmael shouts, fearing the worst. He twists around to see if Pip is behind him and instead finds the black hull of a pirate ship gliding close. Something heavy plummets down on him. A net! The pirates are gathering him and Queequeg in like scurry.

They both struggle futilely while the net rises out of the water and dumps them, drenched and dazed, on the deck. Hands reach through the netting and yank their knives out of their sheaths.

Bang! Bang! Zing! Ping!
Bullets ricochet and whiz past. Ishmael and Queequeg stay curled in their PFDs on the deck under the soaking-wet netting, in no hurry to crawl out. Near them two pirates kneel against the ship’s bulwark, shouting and pointing. “He’s gettin’ away!”

A third pirate climbs up on a capstan with a net and flings it. A minute later, a soaked, panting Pip is hauled on board and dumped next to his soggy crewmates.

“That was some righteous swimmin’, boy.” A pirate sneers down at Pip, displaying blackened nubs of teeth. “Too bad it didn’t do ya no good.”

The gunfire ceases. From the distance comes the receding hum of chase-boat engines, the slap of boat hulls, and the whine of drones. Ishmael imagines that the rest of the
Pequod
’s small armada is following the Great Terrafin out through the mouth of the bay and into the ocean. When he tries to lift his head to see, though, a heavy boot comes down painfully on his neck.

Meanwhile, pirates throw grappling hooks over the ship’s rail, and soon Ishmael can see the stern of Chase Boat Four lifted out of the water so that the engine compartment can be kept from being swamped. He’s surprised that the bright-red harpoon line is still attached to the bow. When a pirate pulls the line in until the harpoon appears, Ishmael realizes what happened: Queequeg didn’t stick the terrafin after all. The line had simply gotten tangled in the creature’s multiple tails.

The pirates gather around the captives, pointing and gloating. Apart from variations in height and bulk, they look eerily alike: eyes bloodred, hair uniformly black, faces crudely tattooed. When they blink, tattooed crossbones can be seen on their eyelids.

In a tremulous voice, Pip addresses a pirate with spiky hair and a face covered with scars. “Are you the captain? I want to speak to the captain.”

“Do ya now?” the pirate replies, amused.

“Yes,” says Pip through the netting. “And he’ll want to speak to me once he finds out who I am.”

“Really?” says the pirate. “Well, I’ll be sure to mention that when I next sees him.”

The nets are yanked off and the prisoners’ hands and ankles are bound. While the pirates push and shove one another to get at the chase-boat crew’s shoes, Queequeg whispers to Ishmael, “Where’s Gwen?”

“She got thrown out of the chase boat,” he whispers back.

“Maybe she was lucky,” Queequeg whispers.

“Maybe.” But Ishmael fears the worst. The last he saw, the chase boats were all headed out of the bay, leaving no one to rescue her.

Stripped of their shoes, the prisoners are left lying barefoot on the deck while the pirate ship motors out of the bay, gaining speed and rising up on hydrofoils.

It’s difficult to judge how fast or far they travel, but it’s growing dark when the pirate ship finally slows, dropping off the hydrofoils and back into the waves. Craning his neck in the dim evening light, Ishmael sees a beach strewn with debris and the rusted hulls of boats. The skeletons of other wrecks lie partly submerged in the shallows. It looks like an underwater junkyard.

The pirate ship anchors, and the prisoners are dragged through the hot shallows, across the beach littered with boat parts and garbage, and along a footpath worn into the jungle. It’s not long before they come to a clearing barnacled with metal shipping containers, decrepit-looking tree houses, and other dwellings cobbled together out of wood and corrugated tin. These dwellings form a circle around a large, blackened fire pit.

Ishmael, Queequeg, and Pip are thrown into a shipping container. Even though it’s past dusk, the dark container is filled with the day’s residual heat and feels as hot as an oven. The door has been chained so that a gap of maybe six inches allows in some air. Sweat trickling down their faces, the chase-boat crew huddle near the gap, trying to see out.

From the distance comes the shrill squeal of an RTG being pushed to its limits while men whoop and cheer. It’s almost certainly Chase Boat Four, and Ishmael wonders how much abuse the engine can take before it burns itself out.

“Wh-what are they going to do with us?” Pip stammers, wiping perspiration from his brow.

Neither Ishmael nor Queequeg answers.

“Guys?” Pip’s voice rises in panic.

“Calm down,” Ishmael says. “They took us hostage for a reason. And whatever it is, it probably means they want to keep us alive.”

Pip considers this and relaxes.

Ishmael just hopes it’s true.

With nightfall, the pirates wander around, pausing to drink from animal-skin sacks, after which their movements become clumsier.

“Remember him?” Pip points, and Ishmael recognizes the tall, thin, toothless pirate who chased Pip around the mess during the attack on the
Pequod
several months before. The pirate dumps an armful of sticks and branches in the fire pit.

Next, a small, scrawny pirate limps past the shipping container, dragging a limb from a tree. The fingers on his right hand are bunched together and slightly hooked.

“You there!” Pip calls. “We’re thirsty. We need water.”

The pirate pauses and looks in at them with dull pink eyes that aren’t nearly as red as the others’.

Pip squeezes his face into the opening. “I’d like to know who’s in charge here. There must be someone in a position of authority. I need to talk to that person. But first, some water.”

The corners of the man’s mouth curl scornfully. “Position of authority? Like the president? Or maybe you wanna speak to the king?”

Chuckling to himself, the scrawny pirate once again starts dragging the limb toward the fire pit.

“Wait! What about our water?” Pip cries.

But the pirate doesn’t look back.

Soon a large blaze is burning in the fire pit. Startlingly, the pirates’ tattoos have begun to glow faintly green in the dark. Dinner appears to be every man for himself. Some roast scurry on sticks over the open flames, others brown chunks of meat in handheld grills. But all who cook are warily watching other pirates who, having no food of their own, linger nearby in groups, whispering.

The scrawny pirate limps toward the fire pit with a plump white flyer tucked under his arm, but before he can roast it, a big bruiser of a man sneaks up from behind. The bigger man has a sloping forehead, deep-set eyes, and a grotesque nose that looks both crushed and bent. He tries to grab the flyer, and a tug-of-war ensues until they literally pull the creature apart, leaving the smaller man with only a wing.

The bruiser lifts the raw, bleeding carcass to his mouth and takes a bite.

In the shipping container Pip shudders. “How barbaric!”

The heinous behavior continues. Three pirates rush a fourth, who’s cooking close to the flames, and two of them begin to brutally beat the man while the third grabs his food and runs off. Moments later, the two pirates give chase to the third, who’s decided not to share. Now the beaten pirate joins another group that hovers near the fire, looking for someone else to steal food from.

“Complete savages,” Pip murmurs.

Later, when dinner has ended and the fire has slowly begun to burn itself out, the horde gathers, sitting on tree stumps, crates, and whatever else is available. Now and then a pirate will pull a vial from his clothes and use a dropper to place a tear of glowing greenish liquid in each eye.

Terrafin serum,
Ishmael thinks.
Of course.
That explains the red eyes — and the immunity to pain.

The bruiser who stole the flyer from the scrawny pirate steps into a cleared area beside the fire pit. He’s bare-chested now, his skin grotesquely disfigured, covered with scars and glowing green tattoos. He folds his muscular arms across his chest and waits while the other pirates argue and gesticulate. From the shouts and laughter, Ishmael gathers that the big pirate is called Winchester and that he’s waiting for someone to challenge him.

“I think they’re making bets,” Queequeg whispers.

Finally, another pirate pulls off his shirt and joins Winchester beside the fire pit. The audience starts to cheer while the two bare-chested men, circling each other with fists up, exchange jabs. Soon the jabs become outright punches. Even in the container, Ishmael can hear the nauseating smack and crack of knuckles against jaws and cheekbones.