The Beast of Cretacea

by Todd Strasser

  “See any weapons?” Ishmael asks.

  “Not yet,” Gwen replies, as the outrigger draws closer. When it’s about fifty feet away, the strangers stop paddling. They are muscular, simply dressed men and women, their skin the same rich bronze as the sailors who’ve been aboard the Pequod the longest. The rowers place their paddles in the bottom of their outrigger. All at once they raise long, thin tubes to their lips.

  Gwen slaps her upper arm like someone who’s been stung by an insect. A second later she collapses with a splash into the water that remains in the bottom of the chase boat. Before Ishmael can react, he feels a sting in his thigh. Instantly he is light-headed and dizzy. The bottom of the boat comes flying up toward him.

  He feels like he is floating on air, looking up through a kaleidoscope of bright greens and yellows. He would try to move, but can’t feel his arms or legs. It’s like they aren’t there. If he is sure of anything — though he isn’t — it might be that his chest is rising and falling with each delicious breath of air.

  And it feels wonderful.

  A dark shadow moves over him, blocking the colors and light. It’s a blurred face. In fact, it resembles Petra’s face, only with darker skin. His foster mother’s here! He is thrilled to see her and would like to reach out and hug her.

  A faraway voice says softly, “Be . . . pay . . . chant.”

  Petra’s face shrinks back, and the bright greens and yellows return. Ishmael doesn’t mind. Now that Petra is here, he will be, he will pay, he will chant.

  The patchwork of greens and yellows is made of thousands and thousands of flat, thin things that remind him of scurry scales. Some are nearly oval. Some come to a point. Some spread out like a hand with stubby fingers. They are attached to ever-thinning limbs that spread from a single thick brown shaft rising out of the ground. Up close, he sees the shafts are covered by a coarse, wrinkled skin. A soft breeze makes the green and yellow scales flutter, revealing bits of blue here and there. By now Ishmael knows that he is lying in some sort of hammock. He can feel his arms and legs but still can’t move them. A woman’s face appears over him, her long black hair tickling his cheeks and forehead. She is not Petra, but she has a kind, soft smile.

  “How art ye?” she asks.

  Ishmael tries to speak, but only jumbled sounds come out. The woman softly smooths his hair. “’Tis all right. Be pay chant.”

  The sun glimmers through the green and yellow scales, heating Ishmael’s skin, leaving him damp with sweat. He hears voices and rustling, tweeting and chirping, and, strangely, a distant melody. Lifting his head, he sees a hut with a thatched roof. A girl comes out of it. She is about his own age, with dark eyes, long black hair, and bronze skin. A reddish birthmark surrounds her left eye like a pink patch. She is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. When he stares too long at her, her face clouds and she departs.

  Ishmael turns his head in the other direction and is startled to find Gwen lying in a hammock beside him. She tilts her sweat-freckled face toward his and smiles broadly, aglow with happiness.

  It is dark, and through the patchwork overhead Ishmael glimpses glittering stars. Unseen creatures hoot and call, and from the distance comes a soft, rhythmic crash that sounds vaguely familiar. The breeze raises goose bumps on his arms.

  The dark air bears unfamiliar, fragrant scents. Ishmael can move his arms and legs a little, though not enough to climb out of the hammock. A distant part of his brain warns that he should feel apprehensive about being so openly vulnerable in this strange place. And yet he has never felt so completely serene and at ease.

  Daylight.

  The warm, moist air makes Ishmael suspect it is morning. He looks at Gwen. Her eyes are closed and she sleeps with an angelic expression. Ishmael slowly lifts his arms, but still can’t feel or move his fingers. The dark-haired woman’s face appears over him again. “Do not worry. It works from the core out. ’Twill be able t’ feel ye fingers and toes soon.”

  Once again Ishmael tries to speak, but the sounds that come out bear no resemblance to words. The dark-haired woman places her fingers gently on his forehead. “Be patient.”

  Ishmael sits up in the hammock. He can curl his toes and cup his hands into loose fists. He can make his fingers open and close like scissors. The strange, euphoric feeling has subsided, and he wonders where he is. The air has turned hot and is filled with chirps and other new sounds that he assumes are animal calls. He swivels and finds that Gwen is also sitting up, and now he can see Queequeg beside her in a third hammock. All three hammocks are tied by rough rope to the brown shafts of plants. There is something naggingly familiar about these particular plants, but Ishmael doesn’t know why.

  Around them are huts of varying sizes, all with thatched roofs, built on stilts but also suspended from limbs overhead. Walkways connect them — also on stilts, with ropes stretching down from branches for extra support. The result is an elevated village more than a dozen feet above the ground.

  A woman with two children goes by. Two long-haired men pass in the other direction, carrying bundles of sticks on their shoulders. With friendly nods, they acknowledge the chase-boat crew.

  Another man approaches. His long, straight black hair is pulled back, and his ears are pierced with very small white spines. Scurry bones, perhaps? Ishmael wonders if he’s the one who was in the bow of the outrigger that came out to greet them. . . . And then shot them with darts.

  The man helps them out of their hammocks one by one. Once on his feet, Ishmael feels as unsteady as he did that first day on the Pequod months ago, but the man leads him to a woven mat and motions him to sit. He does the same for Queequeg and Gwen, then squats before them. “What ship art ye from?”

  “The Pequod,” Ishmael answers.

  “Where are we?” Gwen asks, wiping her forehead with her arm.

  “Here,” the man says.

  Gwen makes a face. “Where’s here?”

  “’Tis just here,” he says. “We don’t have a name for it.”

  A dozen questions could follow, but one rises above the rest. Ishmael asks, “Where’s our friend Billy?”

  “We’re caring for him,” the man says. “He needs rest.”

  “What about our boat?” Queequeg asks.

  “’Tis here.”

  “Can we have it back?” Gwen asks.

  “Be patient.”

  Gwen’s eyebrows dip. “Who are you? Do you have a name, or art you just ‘here,’ too?”

  Her sarcasm doesn’t seem to bother the man. “Ah, sorry. We don’t often have visitors. Gabriel is my name. And ye?”

  Ishmael, Gwen, and Queequeg introduce themselves, but before they can ask Gabriel anything more, a tall woman wearing knee-high boots made of hide approaches with a bow strung across her shoulder. She eyes the new arrivals suspiciously, then kneels and whispers something into Gabriel’s ear. He rises, telling the chase-boat crew that he’ll return soon.

  They sit on the shaded mats and wait. Smoke has begun to drift from cooking fires. Simple music floats down from a platform where a boy plays a long, slender instrument. People of all ages continue to pass.

  “There was something in those darts,” Gwen says.

  “You’re telling me,” Queequeg says. “I thought I had wings. Kept dreaming that I was flying, and every time I woke, I thought I was in some kind of nest. But it felt great. I mean, I almost wish I were still dreaming.”

  “How do you know you’re not?” Gwen asks.

  Queequeg takes a deep breath of the fragrant air. Near them, a small winged creature — bright-green, red, and blue — alights on a limb and begins to sing. Queequeg grins. “If this is a dream, it’s okay with me. I just wish it weren’t so hot.”

  It does feel steamier here than on the ship. Ishmael suspects it’s the humidity, trapped by all the greenery around them. And speaking of greenery. “I thought land was supposed to be dangerous,” he says.

  “Maybe it is,” replies Queequeg. “Could be why this village is eleva
ted.”

  Gwen looks around. Whatever euphoria she appeared to feel earlier has by now ebbed. “I don’t like this. They shot us with darts. They have our boat and won’t tell us where Billy is. All we know is we’re on land, and they keep saying be patient.”

  “I understand why you’re concerned,” Ishmael says. “But let’s give it some more time.”

  Gwen frowns. “Until what?”

  The sun has begun to drop, casting long shadows. Gabriel hasn’t returned. The tall huntress passes again, this time dragging a lifeless, fur-covered creature with an arrow protruding from its side. Ishmael and the others are riveted by the sight. It is the first land creature any of them has ever seen.

  “Dinner?” Gwen guesses.

  Still sitting on the mat, Queequeg runs his finger along the railing that lines the walkway. “See this?” He touches a joint where two lengths of rail meet. The ends of both are intricately interlocked, and the joint is smooth and firm. Queequeg raps his knuckles against it. “This material? I think it’s wood. The huts and walkways look like they’re made of it, too.” He points at the shaft of one of the tall plants with branches. “I think it comes from these. There’s a name for them, but I can’t remember what it is.”

  “Something you know about from your tablet?” Ishmael guesses.

  Queequeg’s mouth falls open, and he looks as though he’s about to deny it, but then catches himself.

  “What is a Lector, anyway?” Ishmael asks.

  “A what?” Gwen says.

  Queequeg bites the corner of his lip. “Those lines of symbols you saw on my tablet? They’re an ancient form of communication. Each character represents a sound. You see the symbols, sound them out in your head, and re-create the word they represent.”

  Gwen makes a face. “It seems so complicated. Why would anyone bother?”

  “It’s just a really old, pre-electronic way of storing and disseminating information,” Queequeg explains. “From a time before tablets and virtual reality. Although I think they were still using it even in the early days of electronics. . . .”

  “Pip made it sound like being a Lector was really bad,” says Ishmael.

  “Worse than bad.” Queequeg chuckles bitterly. “We’re outlaws. Back on Earth, if they caught you, you’d never be seen or heard from again.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want to tell us?” Ishmael guesses.

  Queequeg nods.

  “My foster brother and I once found an old tablet that could access those symbols,” Ishmael says. “It was the only one I ever saw that could do that.”

  “Those tablets didn’t have to access anything,” Queequeg says. “The information was in their electronic memories. Now, imagine every single person having one. From the point of view of those who want to control us, it was chaos. There was no way to monitor or govern what information people could exchange, what ideas they could share. The powers in charge wanted one central memory that only they controlled. My father once told me they called it the ‘cloud’ because they wanted to cloud people’s access to information. Make it impossible to see things clearly, the way they really were. And to make sure everyone was in this cloud, they outlawed private ownership of electronic memory, and eventually they outlawed the use of those symbols, too.”

  Gwen makes a face. “But who are those people you say want to control us?”

  “The Gilded?” Ishmael guesses.

  Queequeg raises an eyebrow. “What have you heard?”

  “That on Earth they have much better lives than the rest of us,” Ishmael says, repeating what Billy told him. “And the reason towns like Black Range are so poor is that the Gilded try to keep as much money as they can for themselves. But there’s something that doesn’t make sense to me, Queek: Even if it’s true that the Gilded outlawed ownership of electronic memory, people still had their own memories. No one could stop them from sharing what they knew.”

  “True, but people die, and with them go those memories.” Queequeg gestures at all the greenery surrounding them. “Remember how you’ d never heard of plant life? Eventually everyone who remembered Earth from before the Shroud died, and their memories turned to stories and then to rumor, and myth, and eventually faded away entirely.”

  Gwen swivels her head, taking in the vegetation encircling them. “Wait a minute. You’re saying there was a time when all this existed on Earth?”

  Queequeg nods vigorously. “Absolutely.”

  Gwen is quiet for a moment, probably trying to imagine how the arid, sooty planet she left could have ever looked like this. “I don’t know, Queek. That sounds really far-fetched. And how come during all the time I lived on Earth I never heard about these Gilded whoevers?”

  “Because they don’t want you to hear about them,” Queequeg says. “They don’t want you to know anything about them. And since they control all the information, they control what you know . . . or, more likely, what you don’t know.”

  Gwen ponders this, then sweeps some unruly red hair from her face and places her hands on the walkway floor. “Sure, Queek, whatever you say. Anyway, I’m tired of waiting for that Gabriel guy. Let’s see if we can find Billy ourselves.” She starts to get to her feet, then wobbles and has to put a hand on Ishmael’s head to steady herself. “I think there’s still some of that dart stuff in my system.”

  Queequeg tries to stand and grabs the wooden railing to keep from toppling over. “Whoa! I’ll say.”

  “Come on.” Gwen offers her hand to Ishmael. His legs feel rubbery, but he manages to get up.

  “Gabriel told us to wait . . .” he says.

  Gwen waves at the people of the village, who are going about their lives, hardly paying the three of them any attention. “Does it look like they care?”

  It’s hard to know which direction to go. The huts that line the elevated walkway have no windows or doors, just openings barely large enough for a person to slip in and out. Billy could be in any one of them, and Ishmael doesn’t feel comfortable wandering into one unannounced. But Gwen has no such qualms; she ducks into the closest hut and comes out with a girl of seven or eight, who signals for them to follow her. The girl wears a bracelet of flimsy red, purple, and yellow scales. As she leads them along the walkway, she looks often at Gwen’s bright-red hair, seemingly fascinated by it.

  She brings them to a large hut. Unlike the others, it has some windowlike openings to allow light in. Inside, several people, including Billy, lie on woven mats. Billy’s eyes are closed, and his face is serene. A bandage of some rough type of material covers the wound in his thigh.

  There’s a foul, rotten odor in the air when they kneel close to him.

  Queequeg wrinkles his nose. “What’s that smell?”

  Gwen places her palm on Billy’s forehead. “No fever.”

  Just then, a small white larva crawls out from under the bandage.

  Gwen yanks her hand away. “What in the universe!?”

  “’Twill help,” the young girl says.

  Ishmael reaches down and carefully lifts a corner of the bandage. The edge of the wound is raw and pink, and more white larvae mill about, some burrowing under the skin.

  “They’re maggots, for Earth’s sake!” Gwen gasps, disgusted. “How’s that supposed to make him better?”

  “’Twill,” a deep voice says behind them. It’s Gabriel. “His wound is infected. ’Tis what makes the odor. ’Twill help him heal.”

  Gwen crosses her arms over her stomach. “Try telling Billy that when he wakes up and finds them crawling around under his skin.”

  “He shan’t wake up till we want him to,” Gabriel says. “By then the maggots ’twill be gone.”

  Ishmael looks around the hut. In one corner is a low table with mortars and pestles, clumps of dried vegetation, and several vials that contain various shades of green liquid — from a watery light green to a chartreuse so dense it glows. The color reminds him of the glowing green sac Starbuck removed from the terrafin’s tail.

  “Yo
u’re keeping them asleep?” Ishmael says of the other patients lying peacefully on mats.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Be patient,” he says.

  “Who’s taking care of them?” Gwen asks.

  “We all do. ’Tis not hard.” Gabriel beckons for Ishmael and the others to rise and join him. “’Tis time to eat. Ye must be hungry.”

  As they follow him out of the hut, Gwen mutters under her breath, “I’m starting to get really impatient with all this ‘be patient’ crap.”

  Gabriel leads them along a walkway through the tall plants with brown shafts. Long, ropy green plant life drapes and loops through some of the limbs, and here and there small, colorful winged creatures hop and sing. Other, more delicate creatures with nearly translucent wings flutter by.

  They continue to a widened area of the walkway where long tables are lit by flames flickering in bowls filled with an oily amber liquid. The creature that the tall huntress killed earlier is being turned on a spit over a fire.

  Gabriel gestures for them to join the two girls they encountered earlier — the young one who led them to the hut where Billy lay, and the beautiful one with the pink patch of skin around her eye. “They art my daughters, Fayaway and Thistle,” he says. “’Twill answer ye questions.” He leaves to join a group of older men and women at another table. One of them is the tall huntress.

  The crew sit with Gabriel’s daughters. Thistle, the younger one, is still trying, but mostly failing, to mask her fascination with Gwen’s red hair, while Fayaway tries — and mostly succeeds — not to meet their eyes.

  Finally, Gwen collects a lock of hair in her hand and offers it across the table. “Would you like to touch it?”

  When her sister eagerly accepts the offer, Fayaway rolls her eyes disdainfully. And when Thistle seems to fondle Gwen’s hair for a moment too long, her older sister fires a look of disapproval. “’Tis enough already.”