The Beast of Cretacea (5 page)

His bearing impassive, Fedallah points at Daggoo. “Return what he took.”

The yellow-haired sailor tosses the sleep aid to Pip.

Bunta narrows his eyes at Ishmael. “You’re dead meat, pinkie.”

Ishmael raises his chin. “For the last time, my name is Ishmael. See if you can manage to remember it.”

Bunta’s beady eyes bug out at the insult. For an instant it looks like he’s going to do grievous damage, but then he glances at Fedallah and stomps away. Daggoo lingers. “You don’t know what a pinkie is, do you?”

Ishmael raises his little finger.

Daggoo shakes his head. “You’re in for a treat one of these days.” Then the sailor’s manner grows menacing. “But mark my word,
Ishmael:
the next time you get in Bunta’s way, no one, not even Fedallah, will be able to stop him.”

“Anyone kn-know which p-planet we’re on?” Billy asks in the passageway while he and the other nippers follow Charity to dinner.

“Cretacea,” replies Charity.

Ishmael stops. “You sure?”

Charity gives him a funny look. “Of course I’m sure. Why?”

Ishmael feels goose bumps as he recalls his last night on Earth. Is it really possible that Old Ben knew where he was going? Or was it just a lucky guess?

“Hey, friend, you just gonna stand there?” Queequeg asks. “Some of us are hungry.”

Ishmael makes his feet move. As they near the mess, the passageway fills with unfamiliar smells, some oily and mechanical, others tart or smoky.

“Listen up,” Charity says before they go in. “I assume most of you have never eaten solid food before. If you don’t want to spend the better part of tonight puking your guts out, don’t eat more than half a plate. Don’t eat anything raw. Nothing that’s green, red, yellow, or orange. Stick to foods that are brown or close to white. You can eat things with skin, but don’t eat the skin itself. Your bodies don’t have the microbiota for that stuff yet.”

“Wh-what’s microbiota?” Billy asks nervously.

“Bacteria,” Charity answers. “In the old days, our digestive systems were full of them, but it’s been so long since people on Earth ate anything except liquid nutrients that they no longer have much gut bacteria. Here on Cretacea the food’s a lot more complex, and it’ll take your gastrointestinal tracts a few weeks to adjust. You can’t rush it without getting sick, so just bide your time.”

Ishmael is still trying to wrap his brain around the idea of eating
anything
that has skin when Charity leads them into the large, noisy mess filled with sailors, their plates piled with awful-looking matter. Some of the sailors are trim, while others have clearly been so well fed since their arrival on Cretacea that their uniforms are stretched tight over their bellies.

Charity directs the nippers to the far end of the mess, where they get trays and eating utensils, which she calls silverware. Next stop is the galley, a hot, cramped room filled with pungent aromas that make Ishmael’s stomach rumble hungrily. Behind steamy glass cases, sailors wearing stained white aprons serve portions of grossly unappealing fare. Despite his growling stomach, Ishmael is repulsed by the dark-brown lumps, the crusty, light-brown sticks, and things with tails, glassy eyes, and mouths filled with tiny teeth, lying in shallow pools of oily yellowish liquid. They’re supposed to
eat
this stuff ?

“Believe me, it tastes a lot better than it looks,” Charity assures them. “It just takes getting used to. Sample a few things and see what you like. Then you can come back for a few bites more.”

Moments later, carrying trays, the nippers follow her back into the mess, where she instructs them on the use of the silverware. They watch in fascination as she spears a morsel with a fork, then chews and swallows. “Delicious!” she pronounces.

Queequeg is the first to follow her example, stabbing a small brown lump and placing it in his mouth. His eyes go wide and he quickly begins to tear at another piece with his spoon and fork.

“Use the knife to cut, and don’t forget to chew,” Charity advises. “Otherwise you can choke.”

Ishmael’s head is spinning. Food with eyes and tails? Food that was once alive? Food that can
kill
you? Back home, all they had was Natrient, a sweet, gooey “natural nutrient” squeezed out of hermetically sealed pouches. Why would anyone choose to eat these weird-smelling, awful-looking lumpy things instead?

But Queequeg’s blissful expression and eagerness to eat more motivate Ishmael to pick up his fork and sample something. The food feels strange in his mouth, and he has to remind himself to chew, but it does indeed taste far better than it looks, and like nothing he’s ever had before.

“Slow down,” Charity cautions. “Chew for as long as you can before you swallow. It helps with digestion.”

They try, but it’s difficult to pace themselves. Ishmael and Queequeg hunch over their plates with knife and fork tightly in hand, their mouths working busily. Billy uses the spoon to try small bits of the blandest-looking lumps. Once Gwen discovers how delicious the food is, she sets her arms on either side of her plate protectively. Pip, however, eats slowly and delicately, resting his knife and fork on his plate while he chews. But then, given that he’s the only plump one among them, perhaps he isn’t as hungry.

“What is this stuff ?” Gwen asks with bulging cheeks.

“Mostly what we catch,” Charity answers. “Hump, long-neck, basher.”

“Wh-what about that?” With his knife Billy pokes one of the things that have eyes, a mouth, and a tail.

“Scurry. Someone must’ve caught it, or maybe we traded for it. The
Pequod
doesn’t trawl for game like that.”

Ishmael stops chewing. “The
Pequod
?”

“It’s the name of this ship.”

Ishmael puts down his silverware as Old Ben’s words come back to him:
“On Cretacea, where you served aboard a ship called the
Pequod.
”
There’s no longer any doubt in his mind that the old man knew where he was going.
But how?

“Lost your appetite, honey?” Charity asks.

Ishmael blinks. “Sorry?”

She gestures at the uneaten food on his plate. He forces himself out of his daze and continues to eat, but his thoughts are far off.
How could Old Ben have possibly known?

It’s not long before everyone except Pip and Billy has cleared his plate. Pip is still eating in his slow, deliberate way. Billy has tried a few morsels and left the rest untouched.

“Can we have some more?” asks Queequeg.

Charity nods. “But not too much, or, believe me, you’ll be sorry.”

Queequeg, Ishmael, and Gwen head back into the galley. Heeding Charity’s advice, Ishmael and Gwen don’t ask for much, but Queequeg tells a server to fill his plate.

“Hold up, friends.” He pulls out a spoon he’s hidden in his pocket and quickly shovels food into his mouth.

Moments later, when they leave the galley, it appears that Queequeg’s taken no more of a second helping than Ishmael and Gwen.

By the time they finish their meals, a heavy, languorous sensation has settled upon them. Charity goes into the galley and returns pushing a cart with two meals on trays. “I have to take these up to the bridge. You guys head back to your quarters. Get a good night’s sleep. First thing tomorrow, you’re going to work.”

Later that night, in the pitch-black, Ishmael wakes to the sounds of whimpering and sniffling. For a second he wonders if it’s Pip. Earlier, when they returned to the men’s berth, Pip found that his electronic sleep aid had been ripped apart, foam and fiber circuitry hanging out like the guts of a small, disemboweled creature. But it’s not Pip who’s sobbing; it’s Billy.

From around the room come rustling and grousing as Billy’s moans begin to wake the others.

“Aw, for Earth’s sake, shut it,” someone gripes in the dark.

“I w-wanna g-go h-home,” Billy whimpers.

“Wait a year and you’ll get your wish, bud,” another voice croaks.

“I want to g-go now!” Billy blubbers.

“Put a sock in it,” someone — sounding like Bunta — growls.

“Leave him alone,” Ishmael warns.

“Mind your own business, pinkie. No one wants to listen to that snivelin’ crybaby all night.”

“The more you threaten him, the more frightened he’ll feel,” Ishmael says. “If you really want to get back to sleep, just drop it.”

Some mumbling follows, but the room soon goes quiet except for Billy’s sniffling.

“Billy,” Ishmael whispers.

“Y-yes?”

“You’re not alone. We’re all kind of scared. And these jackasses aren’t making it any easier. But Queequeg and I have your back. Right, Queequeg?”

“Right, friend” comes a yawning murmur from the sleeper below his.

“Try to get some rest,” Ishmael tells Billy. “Things’ll be better in the morning.”

“N-no, they w-won’t.” Billy sniffs.

Knowing not to argue, Ishmael says, “Okay, maybe not. But after a good night’s sleep, at least you’ll feel better.”

Silence. Then Billy whispers, “Th-thanks, Ishmael.”

Ishmael lets his head sink into his pillow and soon falls asleep — but not for long. A short while later he’s awakened again, this time by a warm breath close to his ear. He can just make out the silhouette of Bunta’s large, shaved head.

“You’re a dead man, pinkie,” the brute whispers in the dark. “When you least expect it . . . when it’s the farthest thing from your mind . . . you’re going down.”

Bunta moves away without a sound. Ishmael closes his eyes and waits for his heartbeat to steady. In the quiet he hears someone retching in the washroom. He peers down at Queequeg’s sleeper. It’s empty.

In Old Ben’s place, Ishmael listened to the wind whistle. He should have started home already. It was not uncommon for people to get lost in storms, often suffering lung damage from breathing in too much soot and grit. Sometimes they even died. But despite the looming danger, he stayed. What Old Ben had just said about them meeting on another planet was impossible — nonsense, really — but Ishmael had never known him to lie. “They haven’t told me where I’m going yet. And wherever it is, we can’t have met there before. I’ve never been off Earth.”

In the shadows, the old man drummed his fingers, as though struggling to find a way to explain. “For now, just humor an old man and
pretend
you and I met on Cretacea thirty-five years ago. Would you do that for me?”

Old Ben might have used the word
pretend,
but Ishmael knew this wasn’t a game. If the old man was telling him this, it was because he believed it to be true. But Ishmael hadn’t even been
alive
thirty-five years ago. . . .

“Back then, I was just a kid myself,” Old Ben went on. “Maybe twelve years old at the most. All I knew were Grace and the ocean.”

“Grace?”

The old man’s voice turned wistful. “The captain of our pinkboat. I was her crew.”

Pinkboat?
Apprehension began to slither through Ishmael. This was starting to sound more and more like a fantasy, the imaginings of an old, lonely man. Or could it be the benzo talking? “We met when you were twelve?” Ishmael repeated, trying to show the old man how ludicrous the whole thing sounded.

But Old Ben took it differently. “You’re thinking they don’t allow kids as young as twelve on missions?” He leaned across the table, his craggy face faintly visible in the dark. “I wasn’t on a mission, son. Cretacea’s where I grew up.”

Ishmael sat back, unsure what to do. The wind rattled the house’s roof. By now, Joachim probably assumed that he’d stay the night at Old Ben’s. But Ishmael was determined to get home and spend his last night on Earth with his foster brother.

A loud
plink!
made them both start. A gust of wind must’ve picked up a small pebble and hurled it against a window. Old Ben poured himself another glass of benzo, liquid overflowing the rim. “Mark my words, son: The next time you see me, it’ll be on a scurry trawler in the middle of an ocean the size of which you can’t imagine.”

He raised the glass and drained it. But instead of relaxing, he suddenly hunched forward, his demeanor intense. “Here’s what you need to remember: Do
not
rendezvous with the
Pequod.
When Grace tells you that’s what she’s going to do, you
have
to stop her. Understand? Lives are at stake, son. Don’t let her do it. If she insists, you go down below and disable the RTG. Do whatever you have to. Just don’t let her near that ship.”