The Beast of Cretacea Page 8

  Queequeg continues: “For millions of years there was rain on Earth, until pollutants from industry and transportation caused the Shroud.”

  “Scientists debunked that theory centuries ago,” Pip states.

  “Scientists whose r-research was p-paid for by the same industries that were being b-blamed for the Shroud,” Billy adds incisively.

  “Balderdash,” Pip insists. “The Shroud is a natural astrophysical phenomenon. Maybe you’ve forgotten that the majority of planets in this galaxy are permanently covered by clouds. Even in Earth’s solar system, the only ones that aren’t are Mercury and Mars.”

  The conversation goes no further. Ishmael glances at Gwen. “Some Z-packs came through last night.”

  Gwen makes a face. Like Queequeg, she’s torn the sleeves off her uniform shirt, and in addition the legs off her slacks, turning them into shorts. Her skin has become tawny, and her tangled red hair has sun-bleached streaks of orange. “I heard. No one’s going to contact me.”

  “Could you make out your message, Billy?” Ishmael asks.

  “N-not very well. There wasn’t much. My p-parents are always busy.”

  “Doing what?” asks Queequeg.

  “They have a business.”

  “Their own business?” Pip says, skeptically.

  Except for a few shopkeepers around Black Range, whose shelves were empty most of the time, Ishmael has never known anyone who owned a business.

  “What do they do?” Gwen asks.

  Billy remains tight-lipped; apparently he’d rather not say. Last night, when Ishmael took him aside and told him what Starbuck had said about Ishmael becoming the skipper of their chase boat, Billy hadn’t seemed surprised, muttering that it would just be another disappointment for his father.

  “If your parents are so busy, wouldn’t they want you around to help?” Queequeg wonders out loud.

  Billy hangs his head. “N-not really. I-I’m only here because m-my father sent me. He th-thought it would be good for me.”

  An awkward silence falls. Then Queequeg says, “How about you, Pip? Looked like you were in VR for a long time last night. What’s the word from home?”

  Pip looks surprised; it’s obvious that he didn’t expect anyone to ask. “Uh, nothing.”

  Gwen lifts her eyes upward in aggravation. While they’ve all grown used to his evasiveness, he rarely lies this clumsily. “How about for once you tell us the truth?”

  Pip’s round face reddens.

  “Don’t you think you should get back to drone control?” Ishmael cuts in. “They’re probably wondering where you are.”

  Pip throws him a grateful look and heads off.

  “Why didn’t you let him answer?” Gwen demands.

  “He didn’t want to talk about it,” Ishmael replies. “We’re only going to alienate him if we keep pressing him for answers.”

  “So?” Gwen says. “I don’t need him to be my friend. I’d just like to know why everyone lets him do whatever he wants.”

  “Y-you really d-don’t know?” Billy asks.

  The others gaze at him curiously.

  “H-he’s . . . of the Gilded.”

  Gwen makes a face. “The what?”

  Before Billy can explain, he tenses, staring past the others with a look of alarm on his face. Bunta, the human block of concrete, is coming toward them, running his thumb along the blade of a long knife.

  Jumping to their feet, Ishmael and Queequeg look for something to defend themselves with.

  Bunta stops and snickers. “Not in broad daylight, pinkie.” With the tip of his knife, he points off the starboard side of the Pequod. In the distance a boat has appeared. It has two broad, winglike booms from which nets hang.

  “That’s a pinkboat,” Bunta says. “Now you’ll see what you’re nicknamed for.”

  Pinkboat? The word jars Ishmael, even though he knows at this point it shouldn’t. Like the name of the Pequod, like the name of this planet, Old Ben knew. But how?

  “The boat’s not pink,” Billy says.

  “Just wait,” says Bunta. “May not be much in the pot, but at least we’ll eat well tonight.”

  The pinkboat — which is blue and white — has tied up alongside the Pequod, and the captain, a stocky woman with short gray hair, exchanges sarcastic greetings with Starbuck, who leans against the Pequod’s bulwark.

  “I see you haven’t aged a bit,” the woman calls from the deck of the pinkboat, speaking around a stem with a small bowl at the end that’s clamped between her teeth.

  “Jealous, sweetheart?” Starbuck yells back.

  “You won’t catch me putting that poison in my eyes.”

  “So what’ll it be today, my love?” Starbuck asks.

  “Got sixty pounds of hump meat?”

  “Yes, ma’am, nice and fresh. What else?”

  “A gallon of marine grease, five pounds of red berry, a couple of quarts of alcohol. And you wouldn’t happen to have any VR appropriate for a twelve-year-old boy, would you?”

  “I’m sure we can scare up something,” Starbuck replies. “Twelve’s about the average maturity of the men on this ship. So for all that, I’d assume we’re talking fifty pounds of pinkies?”

  “Funny, sounds to me more like thirty,” replies the captain.

  “Settle on forty?” Starbuck proposes.

  “That’s a deal.”

  The nippers watch sailors hoist up baskets of small translucent gray sea creatures with black eyes and long pink antennae. In return go the hump meat and other supplies. Finally, a sailor from the pinkboat climbs a rope ladder and boards the Pequod, then stands on the deck, looking around. He has a pack slung over his shoulder and looks to be about nineteen or twenty. “Say, mates, where’s yer stasis tech?”

  “I’ll take you,” Ishmael volunteers. They start across the deck. “Been on that boat long?”

  “Couple a weeks,” the sailor replies, in an accent Ishmael has never heard before. “Hopscotching me way to a tub with a workin’ stasis lab. After three years, this salty dog’s ready to git home and feel some dirt ’tween his toes.”

  Ishmael leads him belowdecks. “Three years, huh? On what kind of ship?”

  “Factory vessel,” the sailor answers. “Big old can of rust like this one. Called the Town-Ho.”

  “Hunting humps and terrafins? Things like that?”

  “Humps, for sure,” the sailor answers. “But terrafins? No way, mate. Ain’t worth the trouble.”

  Ishmael makes a mental note of that. “Whereabouts did you sail?”

  “Darned if I know. All open ocean to me. Seen land a few times, but we stayed clear. They say it’s dangerous.”

  “Catch a lot of beasts?”

  “You kidding? The ocean’s full of ’em, mate — though I probably don’t have to tell you that. The weight we put in, I got enough in the bank so’s I’ll never have to work another day in me life.”

  Ishmael brings him to the stasis lab and knocks. Charity answers, looking distracted. “Help you?”

  “Here to get transported, miss,” the sailor says, then adds with a leer, “but now that I seen you, I might decide to stick around.”

  “And I might send you back to Earth missing a few parts,” Charity replies sharply.

  The sailor goes pale. “Sorry, miss. Just been a while since I seen a pretty lady. Promise you’ll send me back whole and I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

  Charity smiles. “That’s more like it.”

  That night festive sailors gorge themselves on boiled pinkies, which are more delicious than anything Ishmael has yet eaten. The mess is jammed. There’s an entire table of mud-skinned belowdecks “bilge rats”— mechanics, nuclear techs, engineers — their dirty olive uniforms stained with grease and oil. At another table sit the drone operators, who are as dull-skinned as the bilge rats but whose uniforms are pressed and clean. They sit apart from everyone else and confer quietly while they eat. At other tables are the flensing crew, the deck hands, and “slimers,
” who prepare the catch for cryogenation and transport back to Earth.

  The nippers are on their feet nonstop and barely have time to feed themselves. There follows a long cleanup, and they’re exhausted by the time they drag themselves back to their quarters.

  Ishmael climbs into his sleeper and closes the curtain. But sleep doesn’t come easily. Earlier that day, the sailor from the pinkboat reinforced something he’s been wondering about. Compared with humps and the other large sea creatures they’re supposed to be hunting, terrafins are smaller, more difficult to capture, and much more dangerous. According to the sailor, the ocean is full of beasts, and yet the Pequod’s caught only a few of them since the nippers came aboard. Why are they spending so much time and energy pursuing terrafins?

  “Battle stations! All hands! Battle stations!”

  The next day the nippers are in the middle of cleaning up lunch when Starbuck’s strident voice blares over the speakers, followed by a steady, pulsing alarm.

  “Cadwallader’s cuticles! Not again!” Fleece gripes as he and the other kitchen staff strip off their aprons and hurry out of the galley, leaving the bewildered nippers behind.

  “Battle stations?” Queequeg repeats.

  A sudden rat-a-tat-tat! of gunfire rings out, and those in the galley flinch and duck. Their ears fill with the sharp pings and plangs of what must be bullets ricocheting off the ship’s hull. It’s clear that they’re under attack, but from whom? The nippers dash to the portholes and peer out. At first there’s only endless blue ocean, but then a fast-moving black skiff speeds into view. Half a dozen men crouch in the seats.

  Bam-bam-bam-bam! From the deck above them, the drum of heavy machine-gun fire rips through the air, and the sea around the skiff begins to dance and splash. The skiff cuts hard to starboard and peels out of range, leaving an ever-spreading white wake. Now there’s the loud trampling of feet, and gunfire erupts from the other side of the Pequod. Is the crew firing at another vessel?

  “Who are they?” Gwen gasps.

  Ka-blam! An explosion on the port side makes the entire vessel shudder. Plates and pots crash to the floor, and everyone grabs the nearest handhold.

  “T-torpedo?” Billy asks, shaking.

  “Or some kind of cannon.” Queequeg squints out the porthole. “Nothing on this side. Must be a gunboat on the port side.”

  Rat-a-tat-tat! The heavy machine-gun fire resumes. Whoever these raiders are, they’ve smartly picked the middle of the day, when the chase boats are far away hunting and the Pequod is running with a skeleton crew.

  Blam! Another shell slams into the port side. More plates crash.

  “Look!” Gwen points. Through a porthole they see a crudely made rope ladder. It’s being pulled taut, the strands slowly twisting under the weight of someone climbing up.

  “They’re tr-trying to b-board!” Billy cries.

  Suddenly Ishmael realizes what’s happening. The firefight on the port side of the ship is meant to distract everyone while raiders sneak up on the starboard side. He sticks his head out the porthole. Five feet below, a grizzled face covered with crude black tattoos glares up at him from the rope ladder. Ishmael is momentarily transfixed by the man’s eyes, the whites of which are bloodred, making him look like some kind of demon. The man sneers. The few teeth he has are discolored stumps.

  Other raiders are climbing up rope ladders to the left and right. Ishmael ducks back inside and grabs a plate from the floor to fling at the raider, but when he sticks his head out the porthole, he finds himself staring down into the black barrel of a gun.

  BLAM! Ishmael jerks back, the bullet whistling past just inches from his face. Next to him, Queequeg has opened another porthole and is throwing everything he can find down on the raiders, who respond by firing pistols. Bang! Bang!

  PIT-CHOING! A bullet ricochets off the rim of the porthole. Queequeg staggers backward, and for an instant Ishmael fears that he’s been hit, but his friend steadies himself and waves that he’s okay.

  A hand grabs the lower edge of the porthole. Ishmael smacks it with a pan. The hand slides off but returns an instant later with a gun, waving it around blindly. Ishmael grabs the man’s wrist and forces his arm upward.

  BANG! PIT-CHOING! The gun fires and a bullet ricochets off the galley ceiling. Ishmael’s ears ring painfully from the sharp, impossibly loud report.

  Gwen rushes over and helps him force the man’s arm back.

  BANG! PIT-CHOING! The gun fires again, the bullet ricocheting dangerously close. The blast is a hundred times louder than the loudest thunderclap. Gwen clamps her hands overs her ears, and the raider yanks his arm free.

  “O-over here!” Billy yells. A meaty, tattooed arm has reached through a porthole and closed around Queequeg’s throat. Queequeg’s hands are clamped on the raider’s wrist, and he’s gagging while the man tries to choke him.

  Gwen and Ishmael dash over and try to pry the thick, mangled-looking fingers from their friend’s neck.

  “A knife!” Ishmael shouts to Billy, who stands openmouthed, staring. Ishmael starts to bend one of the raider’s fingers back until he hears a sharp crack! But the man’s grip on Queequeg’s throat remains tight.

  “Here!” Billy holds out a dinner knife.

  Ishmael does a double take, but there’s no time to argue. He grabs the knife and tries to stab the attacker, but manages only a glancing blow. The man’s grip still doesn’t loosen.

  Queequeg’s eyes are bulging and his face has turned bright red. Ishmael rears back with the knife and strikes again, this time burying the dull blade in the man’s forearm.

  The raider lets go. Queequeg collapses to the floor, gagging and coughing. While Ishmael kneels to make sure his friend is okay, he sees that the wounded raider has climbed up the rope ladder past them, the dinner knife still embedded in his arm.

  From the deck above comes the scuffling of hand-to-hand combat. Closer by, a door slams in the mess, followed by rapid footsteps. Billy peeks out the galley door. “It’s Pip!” he cries. “Someone’s after him!”

  Ishmael and Gwen sprint into the mess. Pip’s on one side of a table, a tall, rail-thin raider on the other. The man’s long hair is jet-black and greasy, his black clothes tattered, and his eyes are that eerie bloodred. He chases Pip around the table once, twice, and then they stop and face each other, breathing hard.

  “Well, now, what a plump little marsupial you are.” The raider cackles. “Surrender, Pudgy. You’ll make a suitiful hostage.”

  Pip responds by hurling a handful of salt in the man’s face. When the raider squeezes his eyes shut, Ishmael sees a crossbones tattoo on each of his eyelids. The man grabs the edge of the table and heaves it over. Plates, mugs, and silverware crash to the floor, and the chase begins anew.

  “Hey!” Ishmael shouts.

  The raider pivots and draws his gun. Ishmael and Gwen spring out of the way.

  BANG! PIT-CHOING! A shot rings out and ricochets off the wall.

  “Decrease, Pudgy. You’re worth a fortunate ransom!” The raider chortles as he chases Pip.

  Crouched under a table, Ishmael catches Gwen’s eye and signals to a pair of chairs. A moment later, after Pip rushes past them, they both jump to their feet, grab the chairs, and swing as hard as they can.

  Smack! Wham! Gwen gets the man square in the face, while Ishmael’s chair smashes into his chest. The raider goes down on his back with a thud and lies there stunned, the gun still in his hand.

  But a moment later he’s up again, blood rushing from his nose. Spitting a disgusting glob of blood and short, blackened teeth onto the floor, he aims his gun at Gwen, who dives away.

  BANG! PIT-CHING-CHING! A bullet ricochets off the leg of a table inches from Gwen’s face. Having missed her, the man points the gun at Ishmael, who also dives.

  BANG!

  The bullet whizzes by as he hits the floor.

  “Wheresh Pudgy?” the raider slurs, now almost completely toothless. A door slams on the other side of the room. Ishmae
l hopes it’s Pip escaping. The man starts to follow but suddenly grunts and falls face-first; Gwen’s grabbed his ankle and tripped him.

  On the floor, the attacker rolls over and aims his gun at her.

  Only a few feet away, Gwen’s eyes widen with terror. She starts to crab backward on heels and hands, but this time the man with the gun is too close to miss.

  Sweeeeee!!!! A shrill whistle pierces the air. In the mess, the raider with the gun looks up. There’s a second whistle, and he jumps to his feet and dashes away, squeezing through a porthole and dropping out of sight.

  Rat-a-tat-tat . . . A fusillade of machine-gun fire strikes the Pequod’s hull again, and the whine of drones is in the air. Ishmael helps a trembling Gwen to her feet, and they hurry into the galley, where Billy’s kneeling beside Queequeg on the floor. Queequeg gingerly traces the red choke marks on his throat with his fingertips. Through a porthole, Ishmael watches as black-clad raiders fire from the skiff to provide cover while their comrades jump off the ship and swim back.

  “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot!” Starbuck’s voice roars out of loudspeakers all over the Pequod. Through the porthole Ishmael sees why: In the raiders’ skiff, a big man yanks a drenched Charity to her feet and presses a gun against her head. The skiff starts to speed away.

  The Pequod’s all-hands bell rings. Ishmael turns away from the porthole. Gwen and Billy are helping Queequeg to his feet.

  “You all right?” Ishmael asks.

  Queequeg nods, and winces when he tries to swallow. “May not be saying much for a while,” he rasps.

  “Is that a promise?” Gwen asks archly.

  The door swings open, and Fleece waddles in, mopping his broad, sweaty brow with a dish towel and breathing hard. “From up on deck, it appeared as though someone down here was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with those carnal criminals.”

  “Th-those three.” Billy points at Ishmael, Gwen, and Queequeg.

  Fleece raises his eyebrows. “Well, I’ll be Melville’s mother!”