The Beast of Cretacea

by Todd Strasser

  The door opens again, and Starbuck sticks his head in. “Everyone okay?”

  “Aye-aye, sir.” Fleece points at Ishmael and the others. “These’re the brave young souls who slowed those slimy savages down.”

  Starbuck gives them a surprised look, then hurries off.

  “Wh-who were they?” Billy asks the cook.

  “Pirates.” Fleece positions himself on his stool. “Good-for-nothing scum of the oceans.”

  “Where’d they come from?” Queequeg croaks painfully.

  “Mostly ship deserters who’d rather maim and plunder than toil for an honest wage,” the cook says. “I must say, I’m glad this is my final voyage. I’m too far along in years and belt loops for this nonsense.”

  “What about Charity?” asks Ishmael.

  “I imagine that’s what Starbuck’s attending to right about now,” Fleece replies grimly, then aims a plump finger toward the mess. “Better start straightening up. They’re always extra ravenous after a good melee.”

  Out in the mess, the nippers straighten tables and chairs and sweep up the broken plates.

  “Anyone notice that those pirates didn’t seem to feel pain?” Ishmael asks. “I’m sure I broke that one guy’s finger, and he still kept choking Queequeg. I stabbed him in the arm, and he just kept climbing.”

  Billy points at Gwen. “Sh-she practically broke a chair on the f-face of the one chasing Pip. And it barely stunned him.”

  “Back on Earth, I used to hear stories about planets that were so overrun with deserters and renegades that we stopped sending missions to them,” Queequeg adds, a fraction above a whisper.

  “Y-you think this planet’s overrun with them?” Billy asks nervously.

  Before anyone can respond, the galley doors swing open and Fleece pushes a cart with two trays toward Ishmael. “One tray goes up to the first mate’s quarters. Take the officers’ lift. Knock first. If he’s not there, go in and leave his meal on his desk. The other tray goes to the A level. You’ll find a black door up there. Knock and say, ‘Your meal is here, sir.’ Then leave the cart. No dawdling. Proceed back here pronto.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fleece focuses on the other nippers. “Who said you could loll around yakking, you malingering mollusks? Back to your drudgery!”

  Ishmael takes the cart and heads abovedecks. The ship’s superstructure has four levels — C, B, A, and topmost, the bridge. On the B level he knocks on Starbuck’s door. When there is no answer, he lets himself in and places the tray on the desk.

  A low humming from beneath the desk draws his attention. Ishmael ducks down and finds a square lockbox about the size of a low stool. The light on the optical thumbprint scanner is glowing red. He wonders what’s in it; what sorts of things a man like Starbuck holds dear.

  Before leaving, he pauses by the shelf to look more closely at the woman and children in the static holograph. They are smiling, and the woman wears a wedding ring. If ever there was a portrait of a happy wife and children, this is it. But didn’t he hear Starbuck say this was his sixth voyage with Stubb? Why would the first mate stay away from his family for so long?

  When Ishmael pushes the cart back out into the passageway, old Tarnmoor is there with his mop and bucket. The bent blind man presses himself against the wall. “The meal cart, aye, but who’s pushin’ it? Who? Not Charity, not hers. Poor lass’s at them pirates’ mercy. Who, then? Who?”

  “Guess.”

  The old man’s face lights up. “Ah, a fine, brave lad, I heared. Fought off them pirates, he did.” The light fades from Tarnmoor’s face. “And here’s how they rewards him? Pushin’ the dinner cart about? I’ll tells ya, lad, there’s queer times in this strange mixed affair we calls life. Times when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, is there nots?”

  “What’ll they do about Charity?”

  “Aye, that’s a hard one. Hard, indeed. Sometimes alls you can do is appeals to a higher authority.”

  “Like who?” Ishmael asks.

  “There be layers, lad. Stratums. Mysterious forces and behinds-the-scenes doings. One never knows around heres. Never.”

  There are more questions Ishmael would like to ask, but he has another tray to deliver, up on the A level. “I guess I’d better get going.”

  But before he can go, the old blind man reaches out and grabs his hand. “One lasts thing, lad. Ask yerself where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoors no more? Where’s the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls is like those a’ orphans. The secrets a’ our paternity lies in their grave.”

  Ishmael stares at him for a long moment, then bids him good night and takes the cart up to the next floor. When he comes to the black door, he catches the sounds of a conversation within.

  An unfamiliar voice rasps: “There’s a fair price for everything.”

  The angry reply sounds like Starbuck: “Not for her, there isn’t.”

  The rasping voice: “Ya gettin’ soft on me, mate?”

  “You know what they’ll do to her if you don’t give them what they want!”

  “In case ya haven’t noticed, mate, we’re dangerously low on toxin at the moment. Can’t go givin’ away the last of our supply.”

  Starbuck: “We can put Fedallah on it. He always comes through. In the meantime, I want Charity back. You know who to talk to.”

  There’s silence, then the rasping voice: “I’ll see what I can do, but I warn ya, it’s gettin’ harder and harder. You’ve seen the reports. Things back in the Anthropocene are comin’ unglued fast.”

  Starbuck growls: “Just. Get. Her. Back.”

  From inside the room, footsteps approach the door. Ishmael quietly backs the cart down the passageway, then pushes it forward again, pretending that he’s just arrived when the black door opens and Starbuck storms out. The first mate stops. “Leave it,” he snarls, then calls over his shoulder, “The cart’s here.”

  Through the doorway, Ishmael catches a glimpse of a dark room. A long white tapered object leans in one corner, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. It looks like one of the terrafin skivers on Fedallah’s sleeper, only a hundred times larger.

  “Let’s go.” Starbuck motions for Ishmael to join him heading back down the passageway. They walk in silence, and Ishmael suspects that Starbuck is ruminating over what just happened in the room with the black door. But then the first mate says, “You and your crew put up a good fight this afternoon. Saved your friend Pip’s hide.”

  “Just doing what anyone would’ve done, sir.”

  Starbuck gives him a dubious look. “In my experience, most nippers would’ve run and hid. Truth is, a lot of seasoned sailors still run and hide.”

  At the end of the passageway, they start down the ladderway to the B level.

  “Can I ask a question, sir?” Ishmael asks. “Those pirates . . . it seemed like they couldn’t feel pain. How’s that possible?”

  “I wouldn’t know, boy,” Starbuck replies. “Certainly does sound peculiar.”

  “So I take this pirate over me head like this —”

  In the mess, Bunta is entertaining the dinner crowd with the story of how he threw a pirate overboard. The mood is jovial as the sailors celebrate their victory and swap tales about their individual exploits against the attackers. But when Ishmael passes Tashtego on his way back to the galley, the barrel-chested harpooner from Chase Boat Two interrupts Bunta’s story and grabs Ishmael’s wrist. “How about this squirt, eh? Only a nipper and already fightin’ pirates with his bare hands!”

  The sailors cheer, though not Bunta or Daggoo.

  “So what do ya have to say for yourself, squirt?” Tashtego asks.

  “Uh, thanks,” Ishmael says, “but if I don’t get back to work in the galley, Fleece’ll have a fit.”

  The crowd roars with laughter. Ishmael tries to pull his wrist out of Tashtego’s grasp, but the harpooner holds it tight. “How about that, huh? Ain’t afraid to fight pirates but scared of that big tub of blubber!�
�

  The crowd guffaws merrily.

  “Okay, squirt.” Tashtego lets go of Ishmael’s wrist and pats him on the head. “Get along now. Wouldn’t want to make that big bad cook angry, would we?”

  Ishmael is half tempted to throw a punch into Tashtego’s broad gut, to let him know that he’s no “squirt.” But he resists and heads for the galley, the laughter of the sailors ringing in his ears.

  Fleece has gone off after dinner, leaving the nippers to clean up. Still, Ishmael lowers his voice when he tells his friends what he heard up on the A level. “Sounded like Starbuck was practically threatening someone to get Charity back.”

  “Any idea who?” Queequeg asks while placing clean dishes on a shelf. His voice sounds better.

  “Couldn’t tell. The captain, maybe?” There’s been no sight of the ship’s captain so far on this voyage, and more than once Ishmael has wondered if this is unusual.

  “Or m-maybe it was Stubb,” Billy says. “Seems like he’s got c-connections. Always g-going on about th-this Mr. Bildad.”

  “Didn’t sound like Stubb,” Ishmael says.

  “Anyway, aren’t his connections back on Earth?” Gwen asks while she loads dirty plates into the dishwashing machine. “What good could they do here on Cretacea?”

  Billy starts to say something, when the galley door opens and Pip comes in. Glancing at the piles of dirty dishes and the steaming dishwashing machine, he looks surprised. Clearly he had no idea what kitchen work entailed.

  Ishmael and the others pause, their hot red faces slick with sweat.

  “I . . . I just want to express my appreciation,” Pip announces awkwardly. “For saving my life today.”

  “No problem.” Ishmael wipes the perspiration from his forehead with his stained apron.

  Pip scuffs his foot against the floor. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say.” He turns and departs.

  For a moment, the only sounds in the galley are the clanks and hisses of the dishwashing machine. Then as Gwen starts to scrape a dirty plate, she says, “Is it my imagination, or did that sound like the first time in his life he ever thanked anyone for anything?”

  Back in the men’s quarters, the lights are out and sailors wheeze and snore in their sleepers. Ishmael and the others tiptoe into the washroom. Queequeg is quick about it, and before long only Billy and Ishmael are left at the washbasins. Ever since the pirate attack earlier that day, Billy has been more morose and contemplative than usual.

  “You okay?” Ishmael whispers when his eyes catch Billy’s in the mirror.

  Billy averts his gaze. “I was a c-coward today.”

  “Not everyone’s born to fight.”

  “You’re just s-saying that.”

  “My foster brother, Archie, isn’t a fighter, but he’s the strongest person I know. It’s something inside him. Strength of spirit, I guess.”

  Billy dries his face with a handheld evaporator. “I d-don’t seem to have much of th-that, either.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t found it yet.”

  Billy smiles wanly and turns to go.

  “Wait,” Ishmael says. “The other day, when you said Pip was of the Gilded, what did you mean?”

  Billy shifts his eyes. “I sh-shouldn’t have s-said it.”

  “But you did. What is it? How come the rest of us have never heard of it?”

  What Billy tells him next comes as a shock. Although the more Ishmael learns, the less surprised he realizes he should be.

  BOOM!

  Ishmael bolts upright in the dark, certain the Pequod’s reactor has exploded.

  An instant later the ship tips so far to the starboard side that even his magnetically levitating sleeper can’t adjust, and he has to hang on to keep from tumbling out. Things bang and crash, and there’s a loud thud followed by a groan when a sailor falls to the floor.

  BOOM!

  “Mother of Earth!” Billy cries.

  Now the ship lists heavily to the port side. Boots and shoes slide across the floor and bang into the wall. A holoset lies on its side, still projecting the stereoscopic image of a woman dancing, only now she’s horizontal.

  CRACK! A huge burst makes their ears ring painfully.

  Billy wails. “P-please make it st-stop!”

  “Quit your bellyaching!” Daggoo grouses from his sleeper. “It’s only a bloody storm.”

  The ship rocks again, followed by another loud thump. A second sailor has fallen from his sleeper. Now when the ship rolls, bodies slide across the floor along with the shoes and other loose things. Men curse as they try to find handholds. Billy whimpers.

  “It’s okay,” Ishmael tries to comfort him. “Just hold on. The ship’s built to take this. It won’t last long.”

  But it goes on for hours. And though he continues to reassure Billy that they’re going to be okay, even Ishmael starts to wonder how much punishment the Pequod can take.

  An endless procession of unfamiliar faces, beds, and smells. Groups of children crying and fighting. Pressed together at long tables that stink of old food and disinfectant. Adults shouting threats. Meager helpings of bland-tasting paste — and sometimes, no helpings at all. Children curled up on filthy floors, whimpering. Others backed into corners, eyes vacant, retreating deep into themselves.

  The terrible fear that he will soon become like that himself.

  Until he meets the strange boy with the useless legs.

  Ishmael opens his eyes, surprised that he’s gotten any sleep at all. An inner clock tells him it’s morning even though the wake-up call hasn’t sounded. Perhaps Starbuck canceled it, knowing that no one got much rest during the storm last night. Ishmael eases out of his sleeper and checks on Billy, who’s suitably sacked out. Then his eyes meet Queequeg’s, who looks like he’s been up for a while. They dress and quietly pad out.

  It feels like the Pequod is running at close to flank speed — unusual for early in the morning unless they’re chasing beasts. In the passageway the only sound is the hum of the ship’s reactor. The air smells of chemicals, and when they reach the bottom of the stairwell, they see why: Tarnmoor’s bucket has tipped over, his mop and brushes scattered on the wet floor.

  “Where is he?” Queequeg whispers.

  They find the old blind man asleep at the top of the stairs, head dangling, one arm wrapped around the newel to anchor himself. Without a word, Ishmael and Queequeg gently lift him. Tarnmoor moans groggily and, still half asleep, allows himself to be helped down the stairs and into the men’s berth, where they put him in Queequeg’s sleeper.

  “Thank ya, lads.” He rolls over, presses his face into Queequeg’s pillow, and goes to sleep.

  Back out in the passageway, the boys collect the swabbie’s pail and brushes and leave them by the door to the men’s berth. Then they head abovedecks.

  The sun is out, the sky is blue, and there’s a rare cool breeze as the ship cuts across the sea. The deck is nearly empty, and there’s little sign of damage despite the ferocity of last night’s gale. The few crewmen who are up have gathered on the port side. Ishmael and Queequeg join Fleece, whose great belly is pressed against the bulwark.

  “Feast your eyes, urchins,” the cook says. “I’d say we were swept a considerable ways off course last night.”

  “Is that . . . land?” Ishmael asks, staring at the strip of green in the distance.

  “Indeed so,” Fleece says.

  “Why’s it green?”

  “Not a clue. In all my years on the briny deep, this is about the closest I’ve ever been to terra firma.”

  Ishmael continues to stare in wonder, wishing the strip of green weren’t so far away. Were they back on Earth, he doubts he’d even be able to see through the polluted haze. But that’s another thing that’s different about this planet. The air is so clear.

  Fleece wanders off. In a low voice, Queequeg says, “It’s green because that’s plant life, Ish. Like there used to be on Earth, before the Shroud. An entire kingdom of organisms that ceased to exist after t
he Shroud formed. It’s why they don’t need Zirconia Electrolysis stations here. Those plants use photosynthesis to produce oxygen.”

  It’s hard for Ishmael to imagine how a simple living thing could produce the same life-supporting gas that takes so much coal, heat, and industry to produce back home. And yet, he senses that — despite Pip’s insinuations — Queequeg isn’t making it up. “How do you know about things like that?” Ishmael whispers. Queequeg looks away, and Ishmael surmises that whatever the reason is, his friend is not yet willing to reveal it. He looks at the greenery again. Is it really possible that Earth once looked like that? Suddenly he feels a yearning to stand on solid ground without the incessant need to balance and adjust, and to see close up what looks so exotically beautiful from here. He can’t know for certain what the other sailors pressed against the bulwark are feeling, but he suspects it’s something similar.

  Starbuck joins them, the bright sunlight glinting off his dark glasses. “Looks tempting, doesn’t it? But get it out of your heads, boys. There’s more ways to die over there than you can count on both hands. Beasts that’ll run you down and tear you to pieces. Poisonous creatures that slither and crawl. All manner of disease-carrying insects. You’d be better off locked in a cage with an angry terrafin than to be left over there.”

  A white flyer with a black cap floats on the breeze alongside the ship, appearing to hang motionless in the air.

  “Feels like we’re full ahead this morning,” Ishmael observes.

  “The drones are on a couple of good-size humps,” the first mate says.

  Just then, Queequeg points toward the starboard bow. “What’s that?”

  A quarter mile ahead, debris is scattered over the ocean’s smooth surface. It looks like the remains of a vessel: broken pieces of hull, torn netting, an overturned life raft, empty PFDs. As the Pequod nears the scene, word spreads through the ship, and sailors come up to the main deck to see.

  “Think the storm did it?” asks someone standing near Ishmael.

  “Doubt it,” another sailor says. “The wreckage would be more scattered. This was somethin’ else.”