Polaris

by Michael Northrop

  “Oh,” said Owen. That did make more sense now that he thought about it. Still, he was angry and searched his foggy brain for some words to lash out with. “Boards are useless,” he spat. It was the best he had.

  “We fastened some of the iron spikes underneath,” said Emma, with an odd brightness. “And left lots of nails sticking out of the bottom.”

  “Like an upside-down porcupine,” added Henry.

  Owen stared at him. “But … Aaron …” He couldn’t quite find the words in his foggy state, but it seemed very clear to him. The creature had captured their crew mate and now they were sealing him down there with it.

  He saw the others exchange quick, pained glances. They’ve talked about this, he realized.

  “Aaron is dead,” said Thacher.

  “Do you know that?” said Owen.

  Henry took his turn: “Dead, or as good as dead.”

  It took Owen a few moments to realize Henry was talking about the infection and the grim transformation it led to. He felt a sudden rush of emotion for the cautious boy. He imagined Aaron, frozen in horror at the wheel, as the beast ripped through the hatch. A tear ran down his face before he even realized it had formed.

  “Perhaps you should rest for a bit,” said Thacher.

  “REST?” blurted Owen, the sudden volume releasing a lightning bolt of pain along his scalp. He pushed on, a bit more quietly. “I am lucky to be alive!”

  “Oh, don’t be a baby,” said Thacher. His annoyingly good mood had vanished with the talk of Aaron, but now it returned. “I hit you with the blunt side.”

  Owen processed that for a moment: Struck with the blunt side of a hatchet … “Please don’t do me any more favors,” he said, managing to lean forward.

  “Don’t worry,” said Thacher, a devilish smile sliding onto his face. “This will all be over soon.”

  “What do you …” Owen began, but then he did the math. Where was Maria? He swung his head back around toward the helm. His senses reeled from the sudden movement, but as soon as the stars cleared from his vision, he saw her there at the wheel. He turned his head forward again. He couldn’t see above the bow, but he knew that she was steering straight for the Cuban coast.

  He sat there helplessly for a few moments, taking in what he could see. The pistol in Thacher’s hand, the hatchet back in his belt. Emma and Henry, giving him one last concerned look before going back to their equally concerned hammering. He looked at their makeshift hatch cover, a thick mass of mismatched wood that resembled a poorly made raft.

  This is what a mutiny looks like, he thought. It’s all the ordinary things and familiar faces, but arranged in a completely unexpected way. He shook his sore head slowly, trying to clear a few more cobwebs. He took a few deep breaths. That worked better.

  Well, whatever it looks like, he decided, I will have to put a stop to it.

  He bit his lower lip, pulled his wobbly legs underneath him, and rose slowly to his feet.

  Owen hauled himself across the deck toward Thacher. The others stopped hammering as they turned to watch the confrontation. Thacher took a few steps back as the larger boy approached. But Owen was moving unsteadily, dragging his feet heavily across the wood and nearly toppling over with each modest rise and fall of the deck. He squinted into the bright sunlight and kept his left hand on his wounded head.

  Seeing this, Thacher relaxed. “Now, settle down,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you again. The decision has been made and …” He hesitated, considering the wisdom of his next words, but then he said them anyway. “And enough people have died aboard this ship. We are taking her in.”

  Owen kept coming, one wobbly step at a time. Thacher cast a quick, uncertain look down toward the pistol, confirming Owen’s suspicion that he had never actually fired one before. Owen drew within five feet of him, then four, then three …

  “I am warning you,” said Thacher, taking half a step back and raising the pistol slightly.

  Owen stopped just short of the raised barrel, swaying on his feet like a sleepwalker.

  “Thacherrrr,” said Emma, drawing his name out in warning.

  Thacher took one more look at his woozy opponent and then risked a quick look over at Emma. “What am I supposed—”

  And just like that, quick as a rattlesnake, Owen’s right hand flashed up and out, slapping the pistol away. With the barrel pointing somewhere out to sea, Thacher squeezed the trigger on pure reflex—but he hadn’t pulled back the hammer. He looked down, suddenly realizing his mistake. Both of Owen’s strong hands were on the gun now. Thacher rushed to bring his left across, but it was too late.

  Using the barrel as leverage, Owen twisted the pistol easily from his grasp. He flipped it around skillfully, bringing the flint back as part of the same fluid motion.

  “But how?” Thacher gasped, staring down at the pistol, which was now pointed at his midsection. “You can barely even walk.”

  “Can’t I?” said Owen, doing a quick little jig step.

  “That was all an act?” said Emma. “I was worried about you!”

  Owen answered her without taking his eyes off Thacher. “Oh, my head definitely hurts—not faking that—but I’m moving just fine.”

  Thacher cast another glance down, this time toward the hatchet at his belt.

  “Thacherrrr,” said Owen, imitating Emma’s warning tone. “Kindly toss that overboard.”

  “But you will leave me unarmed,” he protested.

  “Aye,” said Owen, “that is my intention.”

  Thacher slowly pulled the hatchet from his belt and tossed it over the improvised rope railing. Its splash was lost in the ship’s wake, but with Thacher disarmed, the tension seemed to bleed away from the deck.

  “If you must hold on to something,” said Owen, “grab a hammer and finish nailing up that hatchway.”

  Thacher gave him a long, hard look. “You’re a fool,” he grumbled, but then he took the hammer from Henry and got to work, angrily battering home the last few nails.

  Owen carefully uncocked the pistol and slipped it back into his belt. Then he turned and headed for the wheel. “I’ll take that too,” he said to Maria.

  Maria watched his steady approach. There was no wobble to his walk now. “I would prefer to stay at the wheel for now,” she said as he got closer. “It is just about the only thing holding me up.”

  Owen looked down at her bandaged foot. The wrapping was ragged and discolored, and the foot itself was swollen almost as round as an orange. She’ll be lucky if they don’t have to cut that off, he thought. And as he looked up and caught her eyes, he knew that she was thinking the same thing.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “You do the steering.”

  Maria cocked her head slightly, not sure she understood him. “And where should I steer?” she said.

  Owen turned back around and looked out over the bow. Land was much closer now, the approaching island visible without his scope. A cool ocean breeze at their back pushed the waterlogged ship onward and fingered through his hair, soothing the bruised lump underneath. He looked up and saw a little convoy of shorebirds flapping and darting above the mastheads.

  The last of the hammering stopped, the patched aft hatch as secure as it was going to get. Owen sized it up. The creature had torn through the hatch like silk before, and he couldn’t imagine a few downward-facing spikes would make much difference. He raised his eyes to the forward hatch, still no more secure than the aft one had been.

  The monster is uncontained and uncontrolled, governed only by its own unknowable motives.

  “Owen?” said Maria.

  “A moment, please,” he said, still watching the horizon.

  Now the eyes of the others turned toward him as well. They had expected him to bring the ship hard to port, to resume sailing around the island. He had expected to bring the ship hard to port. But now, as the shorebirds called down to the deck, inquiring about any chance of food, he realized that he was not quite ready to make that decision.<
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  So much had happened that day, and now Owen paused to consider it all. He had been challenged by Thacher, but he had won. He had been wronged, and he had prevailed. And of course, he had the gun back. He was fully in charge, he now realized, for the first time. And it was about time he was fully honest with himself as well.

  He’d considered himself in charge before: next man up for the post of captain. But it wasn’t true. He wasn’t the captain. He wasn’t even a junior captain in charge of a junior crew. He was a cabin boy—a good one, it was true, but still just a cabin boy. A cabin boy playing at being captain—a title that took a lifetime at sea to earn.

  He looked over at the others.

  Emma: a better sailor than him.

  Maria: braver than him and with, no doubt, far more tolerance for pain.

  Henry: an abysmal sailor but as smart as anyone he’d ever met.

  And finally, he looked at Thacher, who looked down to avoid his stare. Thacher, the pain in the butt. Thacher, the sneaky such-and-such. Thacher, bitter and dark … Finally, Thacher looked up and met his eyes.

  Thacher, who had been right all along.

  The revelation rocked Owen where he stood. He could not risk the few remaining lives on board for one moment longer than necessary. Not for pride, and not for profit.

  “Owen?” said Maria, breaking in on his tumultuous thoughts. “Which way?”

  Owen cleared his throat, just to buy himself another moment. Was he sure about this? But the next words he spoke were loud and clear.

  “Take her in, Maria,” he said, turning back toward the wheel. “Make for land, and leave a straight wake.”

  Maria smiled, a big toothy smile that made Owen smile back despite himself. “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Funny,” he said. “I was just asking myself the same thing. But I am sure.” He looked back toward the others, seeking out Henry, in particular. “Unless there are any objections?”

  Henry had backed away from the patched-up hatch, and the question seemed to rouse him from his own heavy thoughts. “No,” he said, shaking his head firmly. “We cannot release this pestilence upon an unsuspecting land. It is not only more contagious than I thought, but it is smarter as well. It would spread like a wildfire.”

  “And what of our responsibility to science?” said Thacher from the far rail. Owen didn’t blame him for seeking to soothe his own wounded pride.

  “It is true that we have an obligation to science—that I have an obligation to science,” said Henry. “I did not misspeak, but I can see now that science itself must be exercised responsibly. And besides,” he added cryptically, “there may be another way to satisfy that responsibility.”

  Owen was about to ask him what that might be, but Henry kept talking, his tone turning darker. “But there is a problem,” he said. “This organism is contained deep within this ship. It is impossible to say what forms it might have taken by now, be it boy or rat. It may even be growing in the very walls.”

  Owen nodded solemnly. “We will have to destroy the ship.” He could hardly believe his own words, but at the same time, he knew they were true.

  Henry gave him a curious look. “Yes, but that is not the problem.”

  Owen blinked back at him, incredulous. What could be worse than destroying this noble ship, the fruit of his own family’s labors?

  Henry clarified. “The fungus is contained within the ship,” he said. “But we have all seen the deadly white spores …” He allowed his words to trail off, as if the implication was clear.

  The others looked around at each other, not yet comprehending.

  Finally, Thacher spoke up on their behalf: “So? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  Henry looked at him, as if trying to decide if the other boy was being serious. He shook his head and took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly and then pronounced his grim verdict. “The fungus is contained deep within the ship,” he repeated. “But it could also be contained in any one of us.”

  Henry stood his ground on deck and did his best to field the barrage of questions that followed.

  “What do you mean, infected?” barked Owen.

  “I mean, um, infected,” said Henry.

  “I feel quite human, thank you!” said Thacher.

  “Well, you would, I think, at least at first …”

  “I mean, sure, I haven’t washed in a while,” protested Emma, “but I don’t think I am a fungus.”

  “It doesn’t work like, I mean, it gets inside the host,” said Henry, rushing to explain before he was cut off again. “Affects the brain first, I think, makes you clumsy. I’ve read of it in insects …”

  “Yes, yes, and seen it in Wrickitts,” said Owen. “And in the trembling walk of the Obed beast—but you’re the one who falls over all the time!”

  “And she’s the one with a limp!” said Thacher, pointing at Maria at the wheel.

  “Aah!” said Maria, indignant. “That is only because my foot is infected.”

  “Exactly!” said Thacher, taking a quick step away from her.

  Henry knew he needed to put a stop to this quickly. A little suspicion, in the absence of reliable information, could be a very dangerous thing.

  “It could be ANY OF US!” he yelled. “Or all of us—or none of us!”

  “But you said …” said Thacher.

  “Yes, yes, the walk, and then a rash, a perfumy smell,” said Henry, frustrated. “We know the symptoms, but not how long it takes them to start to show. Wrickitts made it all the way back from the jungle, remember.”

  “You are saying we could have this thing inside of us and not know it,” said Owen, clearly wrestling with the idea. “And not even show it?”

  “And not show it yet,” said Henry.

  “A mushroom does not grow overnight,” added Emma.

  “Exactly!” said Henry, relieved that someone else understood.

  “I truly hope I am not a mushroom,” she added softly.

  “But how can we know?” said Thacher. “We can’t just … wait?”

  And for that, Henry had no answer. “Uhhhh …” He tried to think of what Dr. Wetherby would have done. A quarantine, perhaps, a waiting period, keeping a close watch for any signs. Perhaps he would have them attempt to walk a straight line? He looked up to find everyone staring back at him, still waiting on an answer he didn’t have.

  “Perhaps if we waited a few—”

  “No!” said Thacher. “We have waited enough. We are in mortal danger here. We will reach the shore before nightfall, and I am not spending another night upon this accursed vessel.”

  Henry stared back at him. “You would bring this thing with you?”

  “I told you, I feel fine!” he said.

  “Me too,” said Emma.

  “Quite hearty,” said Owen.

  “My foot hurts, is all.”

  “But …” Hadn’t he just explained this to them? “We cannot. Not until we know for sure.”

  He surveyed their deeply doubtful expressions. He needed to make them understand. “This is a thinking organism: versatile and highly adaptive. It is a danger to civilization itself!”

  “It is a sneaky devil,” conceded Owen.

  “Well,” said Emma, looking around the circle. “How long would we have to wait?”

  “I am not waiting!” said Thacher.

  Maria gazed up into the sky. At first Henry thought she was looking at the sails, but then he realized she was looking beyond them, toward the heavens. She whispered a quick prayer in Spanish and then dropped her head and said, “This is a test. Surely, we are being tested.”

  The words hit Henry like a lightning bolt. “What did you say?”

  “I said we are being tested.”

  Henry’s expression brightened and he broke into a broad smile. Of course, he thought. That is exactly what Wetherby would have done. Perhaps the scope? He remembered the fuzzy white tongues of both creatures. Yes, that could work.

  “Why are you smiling?” said Maria
.

  “What are you up to?” said Thacher.

  He ignored the questions and looked at the wheel in Maria’s hands. “Can we tie that off?” he said. “I will need everyone in the cabin.” He paused. “And we do not want to leave anyone out here alone this time.”

  “Everyone in the cabin?” said Owen. “For what?”

  Henry turned and looked him in the eyes, the smile falling from his face as he got down to business. “Why, for the test, of course.”

  Emma filed into the captain’s cabin with the rest of them.

  “Do you need any help?” she asked her sister, but Maria shook her off and limped in with her pride intact.

  Emma sought out her eyes—how are you?—but Maria kept her gaze down toward the floor. Emma moved on to the next pressing topic: How am I?

  She felt her pulse thrumming in her veins. She was nervous. She had seen the deathly spores, and up close too. She remembered bringing the spear down on the rat-thing. She remembered the puff that had escaped from within its strange armor.

  The blood pushed through her veins faster. Were those tiny spores inside her? She’d seen them so clearly, been so close. In all that gusting wind, had she breathed them too? Oh God, she thought. What if it’s me?

  She kept those thoughts to herself and did her best to appear calm. She looked around at the others, but none of them met her eyes. Are they all thinking the same thing?

  “Should we all sit at the table?” asked Thacher.

  Henry was already kneeling over his leather trunk. “Sit where you like,” he said, unlocking it and popping open the latches. “But we will need to do this one at a time.”

  He opened the trunk and began pawing around inside. First he pulled out a book and then a strange metal-and-glass contraption that looked like nothing Emma had ever seen before. He walked over to the head of the little table and set them down. Then he pulled out a chair for himself and began flipping through the book.

  From the other corner of the table, Emma raised up on her tiptoes to get a look at the pages. In the light streaming in through the back windows, she saw pages of heavy black text alternating with pages of precise, detailed illustrations.