The Maltese Incident

by Russell Moran

  “Mike, I’m sure we’ll be speaking again soon. Good luck with your investigation.”

  “Something very strange is going on in the ocean around the Azores, ladies and gentlemen, and nobody seems to know what. Jenna Lee reporting for Fox News.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Do you miss being a sea captain, honey?” Meg asked me.

  Meg and I walked the property of Malta Town the day after the big anniversary party, not just for exercise, but to discuss plans for the future of the community.

  “Yes, I definitely miss being a sea captain. It meant having a place to go, a destination. I could tie up or drop anchor, and there was a whole new world wherever I went. I’m not happy being in one place. If it weren’t for you, I think I’d go nuts.”

  We stepped behind a tree and kissed. Meg’s rifle strap slipped off her shoulder.

  “Hey, babe, keep that rifle dinosaur-ready.”

  “So, to change the subject, how did you like the party last night?” Meg said as she readjusted the AR-15 on her shoulder.

  “I thought it was great. I still can’t believe that we’ve been here 10 years and that we’ve been married that long. And don’t make a crack about time flying when you’re having fun.”

  “I was just about to make that very crack. You and I have gotten to reading each other’s minds. So tell me, Mr. Landlocked Captain, how do you think our community is doing?”

  “That’s the only good part about not being at sea—we live in a good place, populated by great people. I don’t know if it’s a thing called chemistry, but I find our neighbors to be the best I could choose to live with, and you’re the best of the best. Maybe adversity does bring out what’s good in people.”

  “Would you trade it for something else if you could?” Meg asked.

  “Except for you, Meg, I would change all this bullshit in a prehistoric minute to go back to the civilization we came from. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, back where we came from, or now. But I sure as hell would like to go back. You?”

  “Yes, it would be great to be back in our old—or is it new—world,” Meg said. “And we’re not the only ones. A lot of our people left behind spouses, lovers, children, and grandchildren. Every now and then I get into a conversation with one of them, and the mood turns sad. A lot of our friends and neighbors feel stranded. We’re all proud of what we’ve built, but I think we’d all give it up to go back.”

  “Some of them have moved on,” I said. “I mean they’ve moved on in their heads. Ten years away from their families takes a toll, but people adjust. Look at how many people paired off and became couples like you and me. We were single, so we just began out of the starting gate.”

  “Let’s talk about Bob Flowers and his big idea,” Meg said.

  “Bob’s idea of going forward in time is a great concept,” I said, “but without fuel it will remain just an idea. Last week I spoke to him about turning his brain loose on making fuel. He pointed out that first, we need to find oil, and then we have to figure out how to turn it into diesel fuel. Another problem is the Maltese herself. Let’s face it, our ship is a rusted-out hulk, with all her moveable parts stiff or useless from age, salt, and moisture. I even thought about building a sailboat. I didn’t bring it up because you’d think I was nuts. I spoke to our carpenters, and they all agreed that the wood here is not good for building something that floats. It’s okay for land structures, but it’s too porous for waterproof planking, and we don’t have tar for the joints. Besides that, nobody aboard is skilled in maritime carpentry. We’re stuck here, babe. We’ve made the best of it so far, and my way of thinking is to continue to improve our lives among the dinosaurs. They may be bigger than us, but we’re a hell of a lot smarter than them. We’ve come up with quite a decent little town. We’ve set up a judicial system, law enforcement, farming, and, thanks to you, we even have a softball league and pretty soon a symphony orchestra.”

  “Harry, you sound like you’re talking yourself into liking it here more than you do. After 10 years I think I know you, and something tells me that you feel stuck, despite our nice little town.”

  “It’s a good thing I love you, Meg, because there’s no way I could keep anything from you, even when it’s me doing the thinking.”

  “Hey, let’s walk through the farm,” Meg said. “We can pick a couple of those wonderful apples from that tree in the orchard.”

  As we walked through the gate leading to the farm, I glanced up at one of the lookout towers.

  “Why the hell is that tower unmanned?” I yelled, to no one in particular.

  “Maybe the lookout had to climb down to take a tinkle, Meg said. “Oh shit—Harry turn around,” she screamed.

  A six-foot Velociraptor charged us. Meg slung her rifle into firing position, dropped to one knee, and pumped three rounds into the attacker’s torso, killing him. His lifeless body fell three feet in front of us.

  “Let’s climb the tower, Meg. Keep your rifle handy.”

  We climbed the ladder to the lookout platform. When we got to the top, we heard a sound and looked down. Four Velociraptors were gathered at the base of the tower.

  “Hands over your ears, hon,” Meg yelled. She opened the ammunition locker and grabbed a hand grenade. “Hi, sweeties, come to mama,” she shouted as she dropped the grenade into the group of hungry raptors. One of them grabbed the grenade in its mouth, blowing its head off. I shot the other three. I made a quick mental note that we need to make more grenades for just such an occasion.

  “We need to make more grenades for an occasion like this,” Meg said, duplicating my thought exactly.

  “Great idea, hon,” I said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I held the radio to my mouth and yelled, “Guard shack, this is Captain Harry, come in.”

  “Hello captain, what’s up?” answered the man on duty.

  “Guard tower number four on the northeast section of the farm is unattended,” I said. “Also, there’s an apparent breach in the fence. We’ve killed a total of five raptors. I can see the breach in the fence from here, about 50 feet south of tower four. Send a guard patrol and fence repair crew and keep your weapons in firing position. Meg and I are in the tower and we’ll direct you from here and give you cover. I see an object next to the fence breach that looks like a human body.”

  Meg tapped my arm and pointed as I spoke on the radio. She was pointing at six more raptors approaching the tower.

  “They’re walking slowly, hon,” Meg said. “I think they’re looking for their next meal. I’ll shoot the one on the right and work inward, so you can shoot the one on the left and do the same.”

  We killed all six raptors.

  “All the gunfire should keep any other intruders away for a while,” I said. “How’s your ammo, babe?”

  “I’ve got three rounds in the gun and another 12 in a spare magazine. That should hold us until the others get here.”

  Six people, known as a guard patrol, entered the farm, followed by a fence repair crew of four. They walked cautiously, sweeping their heads from left to right as they had been trained by Dom Maslow, the former soldier. The group leader was Loretta Jones, who once served Malta as a tax attorney.

  “Hey Meg, remind me to put out a memo that anyone serving guard tower duty can’t leave the tower unless someone with a gun is standing by,” I said. “How are you doing, hon?”

  “Oh, nothing like being attacked by a few raptors to make for a pleasant morning.”

  We held our rifles at the ready to provide cover for the guard patrol and fence repair crew while we waited for the regular person on watch to relieve us in the tower.

  “Hey what’s all the shooting about?” Loretta Jones asked. “Nice way to aggravate a goddam hangover.”

  “We were just making nice with a few Velociraptors,” Meg said.

  The replacement for watch tower four, Bill Blankenship, climbed up the ladder.

  “That body over there is Dave Nort
on,” Blankenship said. “I was due to replace him, but I guess he wanted to inspect the fence breach without waiting. I recommend that you send out one of your no-shit security memos, Harry. Walking without a rifle should be strictly forbidden. I think we should change the Second Amendment of our Constitution from a right to bear arms to a duty to bear arms. Hey, nice shooting, Meg.”

  I radioed Stu Riordan, Malta Town’s chaplain, to arrange for a funeral for Dave Norton. Stu isn’t a clergyman, but a deeply religious guy. He didn’t hesitate when, years ago, I asked him to serve as our chaplain.

  Meg and I walked back through the gate leading to the main compound.

  “I’ve had enough excitement for the morning, Harry. Why don’t we continue our conversation about how much fun it is to live in Malta Town?”

  “Let’s do lunch,” I said. “Being attacked by hungry dinosaurs always gives me an appetite.”

  We entered one of the two diners on the compound. Nobody knew what to call the eating establishments, so they became known as diners. They were imaginatively named by the infrastructure committee as The North Diner and The South Diner. The food also tastes like it was put together by a committee. When we first came ashore 10 years ago we hoped to find edible small game besides fruit and vegetables. We did find some edible game, including small ungulates that looked like deer, but there was one problem—the meat was tough as hell and they all tasted horrible. So, although we’re ashore, fish is the highlight of any menu.

  “I’m looking forward to the day when we print money,” I said. “Once we can exchange currency we’ll start to see business activity replace this forced socialism. There’s nothing like free enterprise to deliver satisfaction, including tasty food.”

  “Hey, hon, look at the bright side,” Meg said. “No hungry dinosaur would set foot in one of these places.”

  We sat at a table by a window with a great view of the forest. Too bad the view isn’t edible. The waiter, Jimmy Reese, came to the table. Jimmy was once a computer programmer with Malta Investments. The Infrastructure Committee also determined that table-waiting would be a rotating assignment, the result of which was that nobody gained any table service skills.

  “Hi Harry, hi Meg. Our specialty today is—surprise—fish. But I’m happy to announce that there’s a choice. We can fry it, bake it, or serve it raw. Hey, what’s that smell?”

  “Maybe it’s your latest catch of fish,” Meg said.

  “No, I think it’s outside. It smells like something’s burning,” Jimmy said.

  The three of us went out to investigate.

  “It’s that shed by the farm where they keep cans of wood stain,” Jimmy said. I couldn’t believe that we still had wood stain from the Maltese after 10 years. But, judging from the burning shed, there was now a lot less.

  As we spoke, a group of people wheeled up and unrolled a fire hose, one of the valuable items we retrieved from the Maltese. The nearby waterfall, besides acting as a source of hydroelectric power, provided a water system with pipes throughout Malta Town. The pipes were salvaged from the Maltese. The fire fighters hooked up the hose to one of five fire hydrants in the town, smothering the burning shed in water. After five minutes, the fire was out, but the smoke kept billowing into the air.

  “Your firefighting training paid off, hon,” Meg said. “Those guys handled that hose like they do it for a living.”

  “Damn, that thing is smoky,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It masks the smell of that crap you’re cooking.”

  “Maybe the smoke will attract a rescue party to come save us,” Meg said.

  “You’re becoming a bigger wiseass than me,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Let’s hear it for Rick Townsend, the Entertainment Officer of the Melody of the Seas,” said the band leader.

  A smattering of weak clapping followed his announcement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I normally stand in front of you with my bright smile, cracking bad jokes, and giving you confusing tour instructions. As the Entertainment Officer, my job consists of light and airy fun stuff. But this afternoon, we need to address some important matters. Have you noticed?”

  He was amazed that his crack actually brought some laughter.

  “It gives me great pleasure to introduce The Man with the Answers. Well, let’s just say he’s The Man. Ladies and gentlemen, the commanding officer of the Melody of the Seas, Captain Lars Ragnarssen. He’s an expert fisherman, and after his question and answer presentation, Captain Ragnarssen will deliver his popular lecture, ‘How to Catch a Prehistoric Shark.’”

  Lars had mixed feelings about Rick Townsend’s humor, but he figured it couldn’t hurt, and may even warm up a tense situation.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Lars began, “two nights ago we experienced something out of science fiction. We went from darkness to sudden daylight, and the ship rumbled as if we were steaming over cobblestone. As I said in my brief announcement, there are two questions that I know you want to ask.

  “First, what happened? The answer is, we don’t know. Second, where are we? The answer to that question is also, we don’t know.

  “Yes, I understand that we should be able to answer those questions, but unfortunately we can’t. So now I’m going to open the floor to any questions. I’ll answer your questions fully and truthfully, to the extent that I know the answer. If I don’t know it, we’ll try to find the answer.”

  “Captain, my name is Hank Billings from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’m a petroleum engineer. My question is: How far we can travel on the amount of fuel that’s aboard?”

  “We topped off in Lisbon, Mr. Billings,” Lars said. “We can travel at moderate speed for about 5,000 miles. We have one of the largest fuel capacities afloat, so we have plenty of cruising range, but I don’t know where we’d go.”

  “Sir, my name is Walter Roemer from Chicago, where I work as a stockbroker. You said that you don’t know what happened or where we are. Fair enough, but what are you going to do to answer those questions?”

  “Mr. Roemer, that is a fair question, probably the best question that anybody could ask. It could be summarized as ‘now what?’ The answer is that we are headed toward the land that you can see on the horizon dead ahead, although it doesn’t appear on any of our charts. If the stars come out, we can take a celestial fix, but it won’t do us much good without accurate charts. I want to put out the word that we welcome input from all of you, although that isn’t what you paid for. Speaking for myself and my crew, we want to go home as much as you folks.”

  “Captain, my name is Dwight Thurber. I live in New York City and I’m a professor of paleontology.”

  “Paleontology?” said Captain Lars. “That would be the study of prehistoric fossils, is that correct Mr. Thurber—or is it Doctor Thurber?”

  “Yes, it’s Doctor Thurber, but you can call me Ike, captain. A colleague of mine, a Doctor Max Feigenbaum, is actually in Lisbon as we speak. He’s investigating the numerous sightings of the giant shark, the Megalodon. He conferred with me while this ship was in port. So, my question is, have we had any sightings of the Megalodon since we left Lisbon?”

  “No, we haven’t, Ike. We’ve been at sea for two days without one sighting. I can’t explain it, nor can I explain if a prehistoric fish has anything to do with our current circumstances. If we do see any more giant sharks, I’ll be calling on you.”

  “Captain, my name is Jake Monahan and I’m a retired junior college teacher from Long Island, New York. My son is a novelist, or fancies himself to be one. Only kidding. He writes well, and I think his books are great. His favorite genre is time travel, and all five of his books involve that theme. So, here’s a completely insane question: Do you think we’ve traveled through time?”

  “Mr. Monahan, your question isn’t insane,” Lars said. “Until we can find a more logical answer to our circumstance, your question is quite reasonable. If you ask me if we’re all characters in a Disney cartoon, I would be wi
lling to entertain the possibility.”

  ***

  I walked along the promenade deck feeling like a spooked-out spook. I was with my new friend, Al Avila.

  “Hey, Buster, have I thanked you recently for inviting me on this lovely cruise?”

  “Okay, wise guy, I’m no happier than you are to be here. Let’s stop complaining and start thinking.”

  “I don’t want to think about being stuck on this ship indefinitely, but you’re right, we need to think.”

  Al stood there and did nothing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I just did some thinking and I haven’t come up with anything. I believe it’s more productive to complain.”

  “I wonder if the sun ever shines or if we’re stuck in this permanently cloudy weather,” I said, changing the subject. “This may sound weird, but it seems like we’re in a gigantic cave.”

  “Nothing sounds weird given our circumstances, Buster. Even the ocean looks weird. Holy shit, look at that. Is that our friend the giant shark? And there’s another one.”

  I picked up a house phone hanging on a bulkhead and reported our double shark sighting to the bridge. Al snapped photos with his phone.

  “This is the first officer speaking. We’ve seen the sharks from the bridge, Mr. Atkins. Thank you for your report.”

  “Mr. Atkins?” Al said. “Your mailman must have schizophrenia.”

  “It’s one of my CIA aliases. Remember—my very existence is top secret. How am I doin?”

  “Your secret is safe with me, Buster. With me and about half the ship.”

  “Hey look, Buster, I think I see another one of the giant sharks about 200 feet to starboard.”

  “Forget the shark,” I yelled. “Look at that smoke off the starboard bow. There’s no electric storm going on, so it can only mean one thing. People start fires. There must be people ashore.”