The Beast of Cretacea (8 page)

Ishmael’s eyes have gone to a shelf and a small static holograph of an attractive blond woman and three small blond children.

The first mate knits his brow. “I said, ‘Do you understand?’”

Ishmael nods slowly. He understands; he just doesn’t agree.

Starbuck leans back and presses the tips of several misshapen fingers against his forehead, rubbing in a circular motion. “Listen, I’ve got enough headaches with this crew already; I don’t need some green nipper like you looking for trouble. Daggoo and Bunta may be loose cannons, but they are also part of the top-producing crew on this ship.
They’re
the ones making coin for us, not you. So know this, boy: Next time you get into a scrape with either of them, I don’t care what it’s about or who started it —
you’re
the one who’s going to stew in the brig until you’re so pale you’re practically see-through. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Ishmael answers. But he’s distracted by something he’s noticed about the first mate’s appearance. Starbuck’s crooked fingers and worn-down nubs of teeth don’t fit with his youthful skin. And there’s something artificial about the blackness of his spiked hair. The first mate places his hands flat on the desk, and Ishmael looks at them closely. He’s never seen so many scars.

“Pay attention!” shouts Flask, the wiry third mate with the tattoos of vipers on his cheeks. He’s sitting on a wave racer, bobbing in the ocean. A dozen yards away, clad in personal flotation devices, or PFDs, and wearing caps with visors, Gwen, Billy, Queequeg, and Ishmael stand in a chase boat, also called a stick boat, just as a harpoon is sometimes called a stick. Flask has just finished assigning them positions. Since Billy admits to some experience with hovercraft back on Earth, he’ll be the skipper. Queequeg, undoubtedly the strongest among them, will be the harpooner, and Gwen and Ishmael will be linemen who handle the ropes. The chase boat’s hull is lined with inflatable pontoons for stability. Mounted in the stern is a light machine gun, while in the bow is the harpoon gun, which looks like a small cannon armed with a pointed steel arrow with slanting fins and a shaft as thick as a man’s thumb.

It’s the nippers’ day off, but not a day of leisure. Starbuck has ordered them to begin training as a chase-boat crew. A quarter mile behind them, the
Pequod
floats amid the gentle ocean swells. By now, the nippers have been aboard the ship for a month, long enough to figure out that the chase-boat crews make the most money because they take the biggest risks. So the fact that Starbuck has decided to have them train as a crew so early into their mission gives them the best start imaginable.

Apparently Flask disagrees: “I’ve heard a’ desperate times calling fer desperate measures, but this is a new low, training nippers fer a stick boat. The four a’ ya combined ain’t got the strength a’ one Daggoo.”

“Maybe not, but each of us has at least twice his brains,” Gwen cracks.

Flask raises an eyebrow. “What have we here? A jester, huh? Well, good fer you, Red, but a quick wit won’t go far when yer face-to-face with a beast what weighs a hundred tons. Still, Starbuck wants ya trained in the art a’ the stick, so trained you’ll be.”

The third mate points at the harpoon gun. “Obviously, Queequeg’s not gonna fire no stick at me. What I’m gonna do is hook the towline to the tail a’ this racer and then take off like a large sea creature would. Yer job is to try to apprehend me. Any questions?”

The nippers don’t answer; they’re watching an approaching chase boat, its RTG whining, bow lifting and crashing over the swells, arcs of white spraying out from both sides. It’s Fedallah’s boat — Daggoo at the wheel and Bunta beside him — and it’s bearing directly down on them.

“Don’t mind that other —” The rest of Flask’s sentence is lost. At high speed, Daggoo is just seconds from ramming the nippers’ chase boat. With panicked shouts, Queequeg, Gwen, and Billy leap overboard. Only Ishmael stands his ground.

At the last conceivable instant, Daggoo veers sharply away, missing the nippers’ craft by inches, creating a wake so violent that Ishmael is almost thrown into the water with the rest of his crew. Daggoo slows his boat and circles around. Beside him, Bunta displays a sadist’s grin. “Sorry, we didn’t see you.”

“Yeah, right,” Ishmael replies while the others, buoyed by their PFDs, splash back toward the chase boat.

“We’re looking for Fedallah,” Daggoo announces. “Heard he was out here, swimming.” Shading his face with his hand, he scans the waters around them, then points. “There he is.”

Surprisingly, not far from them, someone is undulating through the water like a sea creature. It’s the first time that Ishmael has ever seen a human swim.

While Daggoo steers toward Fedallah, Ishmael reaches over the side to help his crew climb back into their chase boat. They’re drenched and quaking.

Flask motors the wave racer close to them. “Don’t get yerselves in a snit over those two. Ya want revenge? Hang around fer a second year. Become a good stick-boat team and stick more beasts than that yellow-haired scurry-sucker and his pea-brained mate. That’ll show ’em good.”

It takes hardly any time for their uniforms to dry under the broiling sun. When the nippers have collected themselves, Flask speeds away with the bright-red towline tied behind his wave racer. In the chase boat, Gwen and Ishmael let the line stream through their gloved hands from a large yellow tub on the floor. As skipper, Billy is supposed to keep a steady pace behind the pretend beast, but he bumbles at the chase boat’s controls. Gwen has trouble keeping the line from catching on oarlocks and cleats. And more then once Ishmael gets tangled up trying to deploy the big orange float.

After several hours of bungled maneuvers, the chase-boat crew is tired and dejected. Flask sits on the wave racer nearby with a sour look on his face. “Yer gonna have to do an awful lot better than that.”

“We just need more practice,” Ishmael suggests.

“Or maybe yer just a bunch a’ green nippers wastin’ everyone’s time.” Flask gazes back at the
Pequod,
seemingly trying to decide what to do next. It’s nearly lunchtime, and while they have meals stowed in the chase boat, they could just as easily return to the ship and eat in the mess.

Ishmael feels disappointment spread over him like the Shroud over Earth. To make the kind of money Old Ben said he’d need to save Joachim and Petra, it’s crucial that he be part of a successful chase-boat crew. “Why don’t we take a break, eat lunch, then practice some more this afternoon?”

Flask gives him a skeptical look. “I can only bang my head against a wall fer so long, mate.”

“Just a few more hours,” Ishmael implores.

“Yeah, come on, friend,” Queequeg joins in. Even Gwen and Billy start pleading for more practice.

Flask presses his lips tightly together, then speaks: “Waste a’ time, but . . . oh, all right.”

They’re in the middle of lunch, floating under the sweltering midday sun, when there’s a splash behind them. Twenty yards away, a huge shadow moves slowly below the surface. It must be eighty or a hundred feet long, by far the largest living creature the nippers have seen yet.

“Well, I’ll be.” Flask chuckles. “It’s a big ol’ hump. ’Scuse me while I see if any stick boat’s close enough to put a stick in it.” He starts to lift a two-way to his ear.

“What about us?” Gwen asks.

Flask snorts. “Get real, Red. That’s serious weight down there. And a good chunk a’ coin fer a pot what dearly needs it.”

“But wouldn’t it be the perfect way for us to practice?” Gwen persists.

The third mate ignores her. Meanwhile, the huge creature drifts lazily past as though the chase boat weren’t even there. The nippers can hear only the third mate’s side of the conversation over the two-way: “Well, how long till he can get here? . . . Naw, it’ll be gone by then. Humps don’t stay this close to the surface fer long. Come on, there’s gotta be someone. Where’s Fedallah? . . . A hundred clicks? Blast it. . . . Oh, sure, great, thanks.”

Flask lowers the two-way, his sun-chapped lips pressed together in frustration.

“Come on, let us take a shot,” Gwen cajoles. “Otherwise, all that money’s just going to get away.”

“Grow some brains, Red,” Flask snaps. “If yer crew can’t manage with me on a wave racer, what makes ya think ya could ever handle a great big wild creature like that?”

By now the hump is forty yards away.

“Oh, come on!” Gwen begs. “There’s nothing to lose from letting us try!”

Flask casts his eyes up at the clouds dotting the blue sky. A moment passes, and then he shakes his head and spits into the ocean. “Aw, what’s it matter? You’ll never come close. Go on, knock yerselves out.”

Gwen wheels around. “Start her up, Billy!”

While Billy gets the chase boat running, Queequeg pulls the tarp off the harpoon gun, and Ishmael checks the spools of red towline to make sure they’re clear. Gwen hooks the big orange float to the line’s end.

“Ready?” Billy asks, trying to sound brave.

By now the hump is fifty yards off and several fathoms deep. Gradually steering the chase boat nearer, Billy positions them about twenty-five yards away, at which point he starts to run parallel with the hump.

Flask motors beside them on the wave racer, coaching. “Suppose it surfaces, Queequeg. Gonna aim the harpoon gun straight at it?”

“No, sir,” Queequeg answers. “If I do that, the stick’ll fall short.”

“So what’s yer plan?”

“Got to fire on an arc, sir.”

All the while, the dark shadow of the hump continues along languidly.

“Can’t we get closer?” Gwen asks.

“We might spook it,” says Billy.

“But Queek’s never practiced from this far.”

Queequeg kneels in the bow, his hands on the harpoon gun, making minute adjustments to the angle at which he hopes to fire. The sea around them sparkles, rising and falling in gentle swells. Sometimes in the trough of a wave, they lose sight of the hump. But when they rise back up on the next swell, the creature is there, swimming slowly, oblivious to the threat so close by. Still, sooner or later Ishmael expects to come to the top of a swell and discover that it’s gone.

“The other boats ever try to stick a hump from this far away?” Queequeg asks Flask.

“Not if they can help it,” the third mate answers. “I was a harpooner fer years, and I can tell ya from experience, it’s too easy to miss at this distance. There’s ways to approach on the sly, distract and trick ’em. Only ya ain’t had time to learn that stuff yet.”

“So tell us,” Gwen says.

“Easy does it, Red. I told ya, ya ain’t ready.”

The chase boat dips down into a trough and starts to climb out. At the top of the swell, Gwen lets out a gasp.

The hump has changed course.

It’s crossing their bow a mere fifteen feet ahead!

Not only that, but it’s coming up for air!

“Well, mother of terrafins, will you look at that!” Flask mutters.

As it reaches the surface and lumbers past the chase boat’s bow, Ishmael feels like he’s watching a slow-moving coal transport. The hump is so close it will be impossible to miss with the harpoon gun. But Queequeg, as startled as the rest of them, looks back quizzically, uncertain if he should really fire. Gwen hisses urgently: “Go on! Before it gets away!”

Queequeg takes aim.

“Wait!” Flask cries. “Ya ain’t —!”

Ker-bang!
Too late. With a big puff of white smoke, the harpoon rockets from the gun and into the hump’s flank.

In a flash, the creature sounds. Length after length of red towline whips away at blurring speed. Now that they’ve scored a hit, Billy is supposed to accelerate and follow the hump, but he flounders at the controls, and when he guns the engine, the boat lurches
backward
!

The crew tumble forward. Billy reacts too quickly, shifting out of reverse and into forward so abruptly that the RTG stalls. The chase boat dies in the water.

“Clear the line!” Flask shouts while the crew stagger to their feet and Billy tries to restart. The harpoon line is still whipping out, and there’s hardly any left in the tubs. Suddenly Ishmael realizes what’s going to happen and cries out to Queequeg, who has just enough time to duck before the last of the coil disappears and the big orange float shoots toward the bow.

Whack!
The boat takes off with such dispatch that they’re all thrown back into the stern. Ishmael hears a cry and a splash and knows someone’s gone overboard, but in the tangle of bodies, arms, and legs, it’s impossible to see who. In no time the chase boat is bumping and slapping across the ocean swells, being pulled by the hump while in the bow the big orange float is jammed tightly against the harpoon gun.

Groping for a handhold, Ishmael pulls himself into a kneeling position on the stern thwart and catches a glimpse of Flask far behind them, hauling Billy out of the water and onto the back of the wave racer. By now Queequeg and Gwen have also managed to get handholds and kneel.

“Cut the line!” Ishmael shouts. Each of them carries a knife for just such emergencies and Queequeg starts to inch forward, always with a tight grip on a thwart or gunwale to keep from being thrown out of the boat. He’s almost reached the bow when the chase boat suddenly stops.