The Beast of Cretacea Read online

  And if Old Ben was telling the truth about the looming end of oxygen production, what would it matter?

  “Stop agonizing, Ish. Wherever they send me has got to be better than this place,” Archie said. “And we both know they’re not going to make me do anything I can’t do. You’ll see. I’ll probably get an auditing job while you’re slaving away in a mine. And with both of us out there, we’ll have twice the money when we get back. Imagine having our own rooms, Ish. Or are you still afraid of sleeping alone in the dark?”

  That’s how Archie was. Even at a time like this, he could tease. Ishmael watched his foster brother lift his useless legs into the lower bunk and cover them with the blanket. “And seriously? If something does happen to me — if I die, I mean — it won’t be bad, it’ll just be what happens. Saying death is bad is like saying night is bad. Night isn’t bad, it’s just not day. You can’t expect me to stay here in Black Range. This isn’t living, Ish. It’s . . . it’s hardly even existing.”

  Ishmael didn’t argue; the appeal deadline had passed, so there was no point. But it was agonizing to think that after tomorrow, the next place Archie would undo his braces would be in some distant solar system. An auditing job? If such a thing hardly existed on Earth, why should it exist on some wild, uncivilized feeder planet?

  “Welcome to purgatory, urchins. Prepare to toil the longest hours for the least amount of pay and the most abuse.”

  In the galley, Gwen, Billy, Queequeg, and Ishmael, all wearing aprons, stand at attention. The speaker is Fleece, the ship’s cook and a great bearded blob of a man sitting on a stool and wearing a bedsheet-size apron covered with red and brown stains. His vast stomach stretches the apron tight, and his brown beard fans out from his face like a bib. Ishmael is certain that three or four average-size men could fit into the cook’s trousers. He is without doubt the roundest human Ishmael has ever seen.

  “Behold the sacred shrine at which you shall daily worship.” Fleece waves a fat hand at an ancient, boxy machine with a spiky black conveyor belt running through it. Stacked on one side are a dozen gray tubs filled with greasy, food-encrusted eating utensils, plates, glasses, and cooking implements the cook calls pots and pans.

  Fleece assigns them stations. Gwen’s job will be to place the dirty items on the conveyor belt. Ishmael will stand at the other side of the machine and transfer the clean plates and utensils to racks, which Queequeg will carry to the serving areas. Billy is given a bucket of rags and a mop and ordered to wipe down the dining tables and swab the mess floor.

  “Get to work!” Fleece orders.

  “Ow! Mother of Earth!” A little while later, a knife clatters to the floor and Gwen yanks off her glove. She hurries to a porthole on the other side of the galley and inspects her finger in the sunlight.

  Ishmael grabs a medical kit from the wall and goes toward her. “Let me help with that.”

  “Blast off !” Gwen snaps and turns her back.

  Over her shoulder Ishmael can see blood running down her hand. “You need a bandage.”

  Silence.

  “Seriously.”

  “Get lost.”

  Ishmael stares at her, then says softly, “Look, we don’t have many friends on this ship. It’s going to be a really miserable year if we don’t stick together.”

  Gwen keeps her back turned, her face hidden by her unruly mop of red hair. Drops of blood have begun to splatter on the floor.

  “Must be pretty deep,” Ishmael says. “Come on, let me help.”

  She licks her lips, about to say something, then stops. Without looking at him, she slowly holds out the bleeding finger. As he suspected, the cut is serious, but her hand is trembling so hard that Ishmael can’t aim the closure strip properly. He glances at Queequeg and signals for him to join them.

  “Yeesh, that looks nasty,” Queequeg says. But when he tries to close his hand around Gwen’s, she jerks hers away.

  “Don’t!” she snarls.

  “Whoa. Easy does it, friend.” Queequeg retreats. “Just trying to help.”

  Gwen glares over her shoulder, wary eyes flicking back and forth between Ishmael and Queequeg. Meanwhile, blood continues to drip onto the floor.

  “Would you feel better if we got Charity?” Ishmael offers.

  Gwen considers, lets out a sigh, and once again holds out her wounded finger. This time when Queequeg takes her hand, she stiffens but doesn’t pull back. Ishmael wipes away the blood, then carefully applies the closure strip and wraps the finger in gauze. When he’s finished, Gwen’s pale-green eyes are glittery. She turns away and stays by the porthole, squinting out for a long time.

  It’s late when the nippers finally drag themselves out of the galley. They’ve been on their feet all day; as soon as they finished cleaning up after one meal, it was time to set the tables for the next. Back in the men’s berth, they find Pip in his sleeper, his face hidden behind a top-of-the-line head-mounted display.

  “Where’d you go today?” Queequeg asks.

  “Drone control,” Pip answers without taking off the HMD.

  A rare frown crosses Queequeg’s face. Back on Earth, being a drone operator is a posh job. They sit in comfortable chairs all day, looking at screens while controlling joysticks. Not that it isn’t demanding work; drones are expensive, and if you crash one, you’ll get in a lot more trouble than you will dropping a plate on the mess floor. But it sure beats toiling long hours in the ship’s galley. “How come you get to go to drone control while we’re stuck washing dishes?”

  “I suppose Starbuck took one look at me and decided I wasn’t suitable for that.”

  It’s a lie, and they all know it.

  “Guess neither of us is gonna get much sleep tonight.” In their cramped, dark bedroom, Archie switched on an old tablet he and Ishmael had found years before in an abandoned shack. The boys had toiled for weeks to get the thick, heavy device to function, but when they’d finally succeeded, the result had been disappointing. It contained screen after screen of annoyingly tiny, indecipherable symbols. But Archie had become fond of the few strange images interspersed here and there and could spend hours scrolling through them.

  Now, his face illuminated in blue light, he studied one of his favorite designs: a circular shape with a thick column in the center and intricately interwoven lines branching out from each end.

  Ishmael sat down on the edge of the bunk bed and pressed his forehead against Archie’s. It was something they’d done often when they were younger, but not recently. Archie’s skin was cool; he wasn’t at all worried.

  “Nervous?” Archie asked.

  “Hard not to be,” Ishmael replied, still wondering about Old Ben’s crazy story, and regretting that he’d promised not to tell his foster brother about it.

  “Don’t know why I’m not.” Archie grinned. “Guess I just keep imagining how incredible it’s going to be. Getting off this dry, filthy rock and seeing what’s out there.”

  Archie’s irrepressible optimism nearly brought tears to Ishmael’s eyes. Though Archie was two years older, Ishmael’s knuckles were scarred from years of protecting his foster brother from being bullied about his small size, gentle nature, and disability. But now what would happen? Once Archie went away, he’d be defenseless.

  “It’s gonna be hard on Petra and Joachim,” Ishmael said, forcing himself to change the subject.

  “Only for a year,” Archie reminded him. “And then it’s going to be so much better. Imagine moving to a place where dirt doesn’t blow in through the cracks every time there’s a storm. And having a baclum table so bright it lights a whole room, and a holodeck where all the colors work. And Petra and Joachim not having to work sixty-five-hour weeks. And me having my own room without you around doing your stupid workouts and stinking up the place with BO.”

  Ishmael turned his head toward the dark and blinked hard. He couldn’t help imagining something else: never seeing his foster brother again.

  “Hey, mop boy!” comes a shout from the me
ss.

  In the galley, Billy’s eyes dart apprehensively.

  “Get out there and attend to your responsibilities!” Fleece orders from his stool.

  Taking a mop and bucket, Billy inches out the door. At every meal chatter, laughter, and arguments filter in from the mess, so when a roar of amusement explodes among the dining sailors, no one in the galley gives it much thought.

  But when another voice calls, “Hey, mop boy, over here!” and more hilarity follows, Ishmael goes to the galley door and peeks out. Sailors have interrupted their dinners to watch Billy frantically mop up a spill, while at another table Daggoo whispers to Bunta, whose arm is still in a sling. The brute surreptitiously nudges a bowl off the edge of their table.

  Crash! The bowl shatters on the floor, spilling its contents.

  “Hey, mop boy, over here!” Daggoo calls mirthfully.

  Having seen enough, Ishmael pushes through the galley door. He stops beside Billy and takes the mop from him, feeling the vibrations of Billy’s jitters through the handle. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “Go run the dishwashing machine.”

  “B-but F-Fleece s-said . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” Ishmael reassures him. “I’ll take care of it.”

  The sailors in the mess go silent while Ishmael pulls the mop bucket toward the splatter on the floor where Bunta dropped the bowl. He locks eyes with the brute and holds out the mop. “You made it, you mop it.”

  Murmurs begin to ripple from table to table. Bunta grits his steel teeth. “Don’t think I heard you right, pinkie.”

  “You heard me just fine.”

  Bunta looks to Daggoo. “You believe this squirt?”

  Daggoo crosses his arms and glowers. Bunta turns to Ishmael and juts out his chin. “Make me, pinkie.”

  “I would . . .” Ishmael nods at Bunta’s injured arm. “But unlike you, I don’t take advantage of defenseless people.”

  The sailors around them snigger, and Bunta’s face goes red. Ishmael leans the mop handle against the table. “I know you’ve got only one working arm, so take your time cleaning up. Just make sure you do a good job.”

  Hoots and hollers follow. Ishmael starts back to the galley, but stops when he hears chair legs scrape behind him. He spins around just in time to see Bunta take the mop bucket with his good hand and fling it, losing his balance and falling forward. Ishmael tries to duck, but the bucket clips him on the shoulder and he crashes into a table, sending plates and mugs flying as cursing sailors jump out of the way.

  Bunta grabs him, but Ishmael is now slick with soapy mop water and manages to wriggle out of the brute’s one-handed grasp. With sailors circling around, cheering and shouting, Ishmael scrambles onto Bunta’s back and hooks an arm around his thick, muscular neck. Bunta bends and twists, trying to wrench the clinging nipper off his back while Ishmael delivers punch after punch to the brute’s remarkably hard skull. Finally Bunta gets a handful of Ishmael’s hair and starts to pull.

  “That’s enough!” a voice yells. A hand closes on Ishmael’s collar and yanks him off the brute. Breathing hard, Ishmael finds himself looking at his reflection in Starbuck’s dark, round glasses.

  “Let me have him!” Bunta lunges for Ishmael, but the first mate shoves him back.

  “That’s enough, Bunta. I’ll deal with this nipper and be back for you later.”

  With Starbuck firmly grasping his collar, Ishmael is strong-armed out of the mess, down passageways, and up ladderways until they enter a spacious, well-appointed cabin that seems to belong on an entirely different sort of ship. Starbuck slams the door and plunks Ishmael into a high-backed chair before a large, neat desk.

  The first mate straightens his uniform and leans against the desk, scrutinizing Ishmael, whose bloodied knuckles have begun to throb from repeated contact with Bunta’s concrete cranium. “What in Mother Earth is wrong with you, boy?”

  Breathing hard, heart drumming, Ishmael looks around at the couch, table, and vast holodeck over which floats the three-dimensional image of a planet that is mostly covered with water. Beyond that, through a partly open door, is a bedroom with a large hovering sleeper, upon which lie two T-pills.

  “Well?” Starbuck is waiting for an answer.

  “He was bullying Billy, sir.”

  He feels the first mate’s eyes bore into him from behind the dark glasses. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Never pick a fight you can’t win’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t believe everything I hear, sir.”

  A muscle twitches just below the rim of the dark glasses. Starbuck leans toward him. “Listen closely, boy. There’s only one reason why any of us are on this ship, and it isn’t to prove how tough we think we are. It’s to grab the biggest share of the pot we can. And getting into fights for the sake of some weakling isn’t going to help you do that, understand?”

  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 tr
ained 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.”