The Beast of Cretacea

by Todd Strasser

  Could the first one be a male? Ishmael wonders, since it doesn’t appear to be fleeing. Is . . . is the Great Terrafin courting? If so, there’s a chance the beast will be distracted enough that it won’t notice the chase boat until Queequeg gets to fire. Ishmael’s blood vibrates with excitement.

  But Pip extends a trembling hand. “Give me the headset. I want to speak to Starbuck.”

  “Shut up,” Gwen snarls under her breath.

  “You don’t understand,” Pip protests. “I don’t have to be here. I . . .”

  In the bow, Queequeg quietly swings the harpoon gun around and aims. Ishmael’s heart is thumping so hard it feels like it wants to climb into his throat.

  For a few seconds, the bay is eerily calm.

  Then, suddenly, the enormous creature speeds toward the surface, and the Great Terrafin breaches! It blocks out the sun when it leaps, torrents of seawater streaming off its white wings and three — yes, three — long tails!

  Queequeg swings the harpoon gun upward.

  Bang!

  The gigantic beast crashes back into the water with a deafening flop! and barrels away. Huge waves rush out in every direction, and the chase boat is rocked so violently that it nearly capsizes. Line whistles off the starboard side, and Ishmael quickly starts the chase boat’s engine and throws it into gear.

  Pfufft . . .

  The RTG cuts out and stalls. Silently cursing Perth, Ishmael tries again. Line continues to whip out in a blur. Gwen pushes the orange float over the side and shouts at Pip, “Make sure the line’s clear!”

  But Pip is transfixed.

  Gwen points at the tub and screams, “Look out!”

  The knot in the line appears so quickly that no one has time to react.

  Whomp! The boat is yanked sideways with such force that Gwen is tossed out. Somehow Pip, Queequeg, and Ishmael hang on while the chase boat is dragged, skipping and skittering like a skimmed stone. The knotted line has caught on something in the bow, but Ishmael is being buffeted so hard he can’t focus. There’s no point in shouting at Pip or Queequeg to try to clear the line, because the instant either of them lets go he’ll be thrown overboard, too. All they can do is hold tight.

  It may be only Ishmael’s imagination, but he senses that the Great Terrafin is headed for the mouth of the bay. He cranes his neck high enough to catch a glimpse of three speeding chase boats eager to put more sticks in the beast. Strangely, he counts a fourth, this one coming from behind, and catches a hint of black hull before Chase Boat Four slams into a wake broadside and goes airborne. Time momentarily slows while the boat flips over in midair and spills out the remaining crew. Ishmael feels himself flying and flailing as the bay’s surface rushes toward him.

  Smack! He plunges in face-first.

  Seconds later, he is bobbing woozily, coughing and spitting up hot seawater. The upside-down chase boat floats nearby. Did the line snap when the boat flipped? A cacophony of confusing sounds reaches his ears — gunfire, boat engines, drones whining, distant shouts — and he spots Queequeg floating and coughing up seawater a dozen feet away.

  There’s no sign of their new lineman.

  “Pip!” Ishmael shouts, fearing the worst. He twists around to see if Pip is behind him and instead finds the black hull of a pirate ship gliding close. Something heavy plummets down on him. A net! The pirates are gathering him and Queequeg in like scurry.

  They both struggle futilely while the net rises out of the water and dumps them, drenched and dazed, on the deck. Hands reach through the netting and yank their knives out of their sheaths.

  Bang! Bang! Zing! Ping! Bullets ricochet and whiz past. Ishmael and Queequeg stay curled in their PFDs on the deck under the soaking-wet netting, in no hurry to crawl out. Near them two pirates kneel against the ship’s bulwark, shouting and pointing. “He’s gettin’ away!”

  A third pirate climbs up on a capstan with a net and flings it. A minute later, a soaked, panting Pip is hauled on board and dumped next to his soggy crewmates.

  “That was some righteous swimmin’, boy.” A pirate sneers down at Pip, displaying blackened nubs of teeth. “Too bad it didn’t do ya no good.”

  The gunfire ceases. From the distance comes the receding hum of chase-boat engines, the slap of boat hulls, and the whine of drones. Ishmael imagines that the rest of the Pequod’s small armada is following the Great Terrafin out through the mouth of the bay and into the ocean. When he tries to lift his head to see, though, a heavy boot comes down painfully on his neck.

  Meanwhile, pirates throw grappling hooks over the ship’s rail, and soon Ishmael can see the stern of Chase Boat Four lifted out of the water so that the engine compartment can be kept from being swamped. He’s surprised that the bright-red harpoon line is still attached to the bow. When a pirate pulls the line in until the harpoon appears, Ishmael realizes what happened: Queequeg didn’t stick the terrafin after all. The line had simply gotten tangled in the creature’s multiple tails.

  The pirates gather around the captives, pointing and gloating. Apart from variations in height and bulk, they look eerily alike: eyes bloodred, hair uniformly black, faces crudely tattooed. When they blink, tattooed crossbones can be seen on their eyelids.

  In a tremulous voice, Pip addresses a pirate with spiky hair and a face covered with scars. “Are you the captain? I want to speak to the captain.”

  “Do ya now?” the pirate replies, amused.

  “Yes,” says Pip through the netting. “And he’ll want to speak to me once he finds out who I am.”

  “Really?” says the pirate. “Well, I’ll be sure to mention that when I next sees him.”

  The nets are yanked off and the prisoners’ hands and ankles are bound. While the pirates push and shove one another to get at the chase-boat crew’s shoes, Queequeg whispers to Ishmael, “Where’s Gwen?”

  “She got thrown out of the chase boat,” he whispers back.

  “Maybe she was lucky,” Queequeg whispers.

  “Maybe.” But Ishmael fears the worst. The last he saw, the chase boats were all headed out of the bay, leaving no one to rescue her.

  Stripped of their shoes, the prisoners are left lying barefoot on the deck while the pirate ship motors out of the bay, gaining speed and rising up on hydrofoils.

  It’s difficult to judge how fast or far they travel, but it’s growing dark when the pirate ship finally slows, dropping off the hydrofoils and back into the waves. Craning his neck in the dim evening light, Ishmael sees a beach strewn with debris and the rusted hulls of boats. The skeletons of other wrecks lie partly submerged in the shallows. It looks like an underwater junkyard.

  The pirate ship anchors, and the prisoners are dragged through the hot shallows, across the beach littered with boat parts and garbage, and along a footpath worn into the jungle. It’s not long before they come to a clearing barnacled with metal shipping containers, decrepit-looking tree houses, and other dwellings cobbled together out of wood and corrugated tin. These dwellings form a circle around a large, blackened fire pit.

  Ishmael, Queequeg, and Pip are thrown into a shipping container. Even though it’s past dusk, the dark container is filled with the day’s residual heat and feels as hot as an oven. The door has been chained so that a gap of maybe six inches allows in some air. Sweat trickling down their faces, the chase-boat crew huddle near the gap, trying to see out.

  From the distance comes the shrill squeal of an RTG being pushed to its limits while men whoop and cheer. It’s almost certainly Chase Boat Four, and Ishmael wonders how much abuse the engine can take before it burns itself out.

  “Wh-what are they going to do with us?” Pip stammers, wiping perspiration from his brow.

  Neither Ishmael nor Queequeg answers.

  “Guys?” Pip’s voice rises in panic.

  “Calm down,” Ishmael says. “They took us hostage for a reason. And whatever it is, it probably means they want to keep us alive.”

  Pip considers this and relaxes.

  Ishm
ael just hopes it’s true.

  With nightfall, the pirates wander around, pausing to drink from animal-skin sacks, after which their movements become clumsier.

  “Remember him?” Pip points, and Ishmael recognizes the tall, thin, toothless pirate who chased Pip around the mess during the attack on the Pequod several months before. The pirate dumps an armful of sticks and branches in the fire pit.

  Next, a small, scrawny pirate limps past the shipping container, dragging a limb from a tree. The fingers on his right hand are bunched together and slightly hooked.

  “You there!” Pip calls. “We’re thirsty. We need water.”

  The pirate pauses and looks in at them with dull pink eyes that aren’t nearly as red as the others’.

  Pip squeezes his face into the opening. “I’d like to know who’s in charge here. There must be someone in a position of authority. I need to talk to that person. But first, some water.”

  The corners of the man’s mouth curl scornfully. “Position of authority? Like the president? Or maybe you wanna speak to the king?”

  Chuckling to himself, the scrawny pirate once again starts dragging the limb toward the fire pit.

  “Wait! What about our water?” Pip cries.

  But the pirate doesn’t look back.

  Soon a large blaze is burning in the fire pit. Startlingly, the pirates’ tattoos have begun to glow faintly green in the dark. Dinner appears to be every man for himself. Some roast scurry on sticks over the open flames, others brown chunks of meat in handheld grills. But all who cook are warily watching other pirates who, having no food of their own, linger nearby in groups, whispering.

  The scrawny pirate limps toward the fire pit with a plump white flyer tucked under his arm, but before he can roast it, a big bruiser of a man sneaks up from behind. The bigger man has a sloping forehead, deep-set eyes, and a grotesque nose that looks both crushed and bent. He tries to grab the flyer, and a tug-of-war ensues until they literally pull the creature apart, leaving the smaller man with only a wing.

  The bruiser lifts the raw, bleeding carcass to his mouth and takes a bite.

  In the shipping container Pip shudders. “How barbaric!”

  The heinous behavior continues. Three pirates rush a fourth, who’s cooking close to the flames, and two of them begin to brutally beat the man while the third grabs his food and runs off. Moments later, the two pirates give chase to the third, who’s decided not to share. Now the beaten pirate joins another group that hovers near the fire, looking for someone else to steal food from.

  “Complete savages,” Pip murmurs.

  Later, when dinner has ended and the fire has slowly begun to burn itself out, the horde gathers, sitting on tree stumps, crates, and whatever else is available. Now and then a pirate will pull a vial from his clothes and use a dropper to place a tear of glowing greenish liquid in each eye.

  Terrafin serum, Ishmael thinks. Of course. That explains the red eyes — and the immunity to pain.

  The bruiser who stole the flyer from the scrawny pirate steps into a cleared area beside the fire pit. He’s bare-chested now, his skin grotesquely disfigured, covered with scars and glowing green tattoos. He folds his muscular arms across his chest and waits while the other pirates argue and gesticulate. From the shouts and laughter, Ishmael gathers that the big pirate is called Winchester and that he’s waiting for someone to challenge him.

  “I think they’re making bets,” Queequeg whispers.

  Finally, another pirate pulls off his shirt and joins Winchester beside the fire pit. The audience starts to cheer while the two bare-chested men, circling each other with fists up, exchange jabs. Soon the jabs become outright punches. Even in the container, Ishmael can hear the nauseating smack and crack of knuckles against jaws and cheekbones.

  The battle turns bloody and furious, the audience howling with delight while the two men stand toe-to-toe, trading ferocious blows.

  But the goal of the fighters isn’t merely to pummel each other. As they slug and grapple, it appears that each is trying to throw the other onto the glowing red coals in the fire pit. This, Ishmael realizes, probably accounts for the horrible scars that mark Winchester’s torso.

  Sure enough, the fight ends in an explosion of sparks when Winchester wraps his arms around his opponent and hurls him, screaming, into the pit. In a flash his opponent launches himself out of the fire and frantically rolls on the ground, trying to dislodge the sizzling red-hot coals stuck to his skin. Winchester raises his fist triumphantly, and pirates cheer and chant his name again and again.

  When the sickening scent of scorched flesh reaches the storage container, Pip whimpers, “I have to get out of here!”

  Ishmael and Queequeg share a grim look. It’s hard to foresee how that will happen.

  In the almost-complete dark, Ishmael sits by the shipping container’s chained door. Near him, Pip and Queequeg are curled on the filthy floor, asleep. Several sticks the length of men’s arms lie close by. Each is bare of tree bark and blunted at the ends, apparently smoothed by years of use. Ishmael wonders what they are for. Meanwhile, the camp never becomes completely quiet. A constant, hypnotic humming — reminiscent of small RTGs — makes his eyelids grow heavy. . . .

  “Ah!” Pip’s cry pierces the night.

  Ishmael’s eyes burst open. Pip is shimmying backward toward the door while pointing at a large, shadowy creature on the floor. It’s big — about the size and shape of a man’s leg — and Ishmael can hear the tapping and scraping of hundreds of tiny legs as it wriggles toward them.

  Now he knows what the blunted sticks are for. He grabs one and pokes at the crawling thing until it retreats into the dark depths at the back of the container.

  “Wh-what was that?” Pip stammers.

  “Not a clue,” Ishmael answers, keeping the club close in case he needs it again.

  “What’s going to stop it from returning?” Pip whispers fearfully.

  Ishmael suppresses a weary sigh. “I’ll stay up and watch for it.”

  At the first gray hint of dawn, Ishmael listens to the hoots and howls of jungle creatures, the grating snores of pirates, and that constant humming sound. A light film of dew covers the rusty lock and chain that secure the container door, and he can smell the tart scent of damp coals from last night’s fire. Ghostly wisps of smoke rise from the dying gray ash while small brown four-legged animals with white-striped tails sniff around the edges of the fire pit, searching for leftover bits of food.

  As the world outside gradually brightens and angled light seeps in through the gap in the doorway, Ishmael sees that the back half of the shipping container is filled with gauzy webs on which rest nasty-looking, furry red-and-gray creatures the size of treestones, each with eight spindly legs. On the floor below them crawl long, thick invertebrates with hard, segmented bodies and hundreds of short legs. One of these, Ishmael thinks, is what he poked with the stick last night.

  Lovely company to share a cell with.

  The sun starts to rise above the trees, and the container grows hot and steamy. Thin shafts of light come through rusty holes in the ceiling, and insects fly in and out.

  “Anyone thirsty?” Queequeg croaks hoarsely.

  Ishmael’s mouth is dust-dry, and he feels parched. If they don’t get something to drink soon, will they end up a meal for the creatures in the back of the container?

  A motley, haggard, and bleary-eyed group of pirates approach the container. In their midst is one Ishmael didn’t notice the night before. Like the others’, his black clothes are tattered and patched, and a pistol and knife hang from his belt. His face is gaunt and his hair spiked, but unlike the others’, his hair is pure white. By the deferential way the men treat him, Ishmael assumes that he is their leader.

  With fiery-red eyes he stares in at the captives. “What quantity of juice has he acquired thus far on this voyage?”

  “Juice?” Ishmael repeats.

  “Neurotoxin. From terrafins.”

  “Ahab?” I
shmael guesses.

  “No, King Neptune. Of course I’m referring to Ahab, you dithering dimwit.”

  Pip squeezes beside Ishmael and presses his face into the gap. “Excuse me. My name is Pippin Xing Al-Jahani Lopez-Makarova.” He waits, apparently believing this should mean something to the pirate. “Do you understand?”

  But the white-haired pirate keeps his reddened eyes on Ishmael. “If you’re unable to estimate the extent of his cache, perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to the number of terrafins he’s corralled in the past six months?”

  “Please, sir, I can tell from your diction that you’re an enlightened man,” Pip says anxiously. “I’m of the Gilded. Surely you know what that means. If you send out word that I’m here, I promise you’ll be amply rewarded.”

  This time, the white-haired pirate takes notice of him.

  The container feels like a furnace. Ishmael knows that they won’t last much longer without water, but it appears that the pirates couldn’t care less. The oppressive heat and thirst make even the good-natured Queequeg edgy. “You really think the Gilded’s authority extends all the way to this planet and these pirates?” he asks Pip. “Like that white-haired pirate’s on some kind of two-way right now checking out your story?”

  “You have no comprehension of how powerful the Gilded are,” Pip replies crossly.

  Queequeg scratches the sparse beard along his jaw. “If they had any influence here on Cretacea, why haven’t they gotten rid of these pirates?”

  “And exactly how would you suggest they accomplish that?” Pip asks with a condescending tone. “Transport a force of specially trained mercenaries all the way here just to eliminate a minor nuisance? A complete waste of resources.”

  “It’s got to cost them money each time these pirates attack one of their ships,” Ishmael points out.

  For a moment Pip gives him an odd look. He parts his lips. “You should . . .” he begins, then changes his mind. “A pittance. Easily factored into the cost of doing business.”