Galapagos Below

by D. J. Goodman

“Just do it! We can’t let that thing near Puerto Ayora!”

  “What? What the crap? What thing?” The Cameron shifted beneath them, though, as he gently led the boat away from the most populated area of the Galápagos Islands.

  Behind them, some distance away yet closing in on them, Hug It raised its head on it long neck up above the water. It made a hooting, roaring cry that sounded similar to its mother, although this noise somehow managed to sound angrier. It splashed back below the water, and it occurred to Maria that, without an island to act as a sort of shell like with Call It George, as well as Hug It’s long neck compared to its smaller body and fins that hadn’t atrophied as much as it mother’s, the creature looked remarkably similar to a plesiosaur. Was that just a coincidence, or had whomever or whatever had created the giant turtles done this in a specific attempt to recreate the prehistoric beasts? Maria supposed the question didn’t matter much. Intention meant nothing here, only result. And the result looked like it was still pursuing them.

  “Dear God, how can it move that fast?” Merchant asked. No one had their cameras up at this point, and Merchant was apparently too gobsmacked to order them to do otherwise. “I thought this thing was supposed to be a turtle.”

  “It might have started out as something like a turtle or tortoise, but it’s not anymore,” Maria said. “If these things were created by someone, we have no idea what abilities they spliced into it.”

  “It’s beautiful!” Simon said.

  “Bet you it won’t look so beautiful from inside its stomach,” Cindy said.

  “How would you know?” he responded. “Have you ever been inside a sea monster’s stomach? I hear they’re quite nice this time of year.”

  “Banter later, survival now!” Maria yelled. “Everyone, get everything you can that’s even slightly weapon-like.”

  The beast came up again, so much closer this time. Something seemed wrong about the way it moved when it dived back down, though.

  “Yeah, uh, does this remind anyone of a previous moment?” Simon said. “Maybe we should start carrying weapons on the Cameron from now on.”

  Maria was about to tell him it was stupid to expect a sea-going science vessel to carry anything more potent than harpoon guns, but Kevin surprised her. “Yeah, I’ve got that covered. Monica, go grab the crate in the storeroom that’s labeled ‘fish sticks.’”

  “Uh, fish sticks?” Monica asked.

  “Just do it. Trust me.” Kevin turned to Maria. “Even though we never expected what happened in the Sea of Cortez to happen again, I couldn’t help but think we needed to be prepared.”

  “Guns?” Maria asked. “Did you bring guns? Holy shit, Kevin, you know how fricking illegal that is to be transporting guns in foreign waters!”

  “Relax. Tranquilizer guns only. All the legal paperwork taken care of. What, did you expect me to be carrying semi-automatic assault rifles or something?”

  Another splash from behind them. Maria missed seeing it as she was looking at Kevin, but she could clearly hear it. Strangely, it didn’t seem to be getting closer anymore.

  “Are tranq guns going to be enough against that?” Maria asked.

  “Don’t know,” Kevin said. “We’re probably about to find out. If we do manage to knock it out, we’re going to need to act quickly if we don’t want it to…”

  “Hey, Kevin?” Cindy asked. “We’ve got a problem.”

  Everyone turned to look where she was pointing. Hug It breached again, but this time, it was no longer behind them. Still moving at the same speed, it had veered off away from the Cameron.

  It was now headed straight for Puerto Ayora.

  “Oh fuck!” Maria screamed.

  “We’re going to have to bleep that out,” Merchant said absently. Charlene and Gary had both come to their senses enough aim their cameras at the action, but Merchant looked lost. Maria vaguely remembered that the woman’s previous experience directing a reality show had been one of those weight loss shows, or something like that. Going from filming numbers on a scale to filming a sea monster about to attack a major human settlement was likely a shock to her system.

  “Gutierrez!” Kevin said as he ran inside. “Back to Puerto Ayora!”

  “Make up your mind!” Gutierrez hollered back.

  “Just do it!” Kevin said.

  Everyone had to fight to keep their footing as the boat shifted direction at unsafe speeds. Monica, who’d carried the fish sticks case up from below deck, stumbled and nearly lost the tranq guns over the side. Ted caught them in time, although “catching” might not have been the right word. It was more like the box smacked him directly in the face and bounced off. He fell to his knees with a bloody nose, but everyone was too frantic to take a closer look at him at the moment.

  “Everyone who’s not doing something, get those weapons loaded!” Maria screamed. She would have joined them, but given Hug It’s speed, she was afraid to take her eyes away from it lest she lose it. Maria didn’t want it to vanish below the water only to be next seen snacking on a tourist. And there was a smorgasbord waiting for it in the harbor. Most of the ships were at dock. The cruise liner with its brightly colored cartoon characters on the side, while not holding any tourists, was still noticeably swarming with maintenance workers prepping it for the next tourist wave. A small crowd had begun to congregate on the docks, most of them appearing to stare out at the Cameron as it moved toward them at speeds everyone knew were illegal. There was a Navy ship nearby, and it looked like the Cameron’s unusual activity had attracted their notice, as it was slowly starting to move in their direction. No one among them all seemed to notice yet that there was a swell in the water as something huge came right for them.

  “We’ve got to do something to warn them,” Maria said, more to herself than anyone else, but what could she do? She could try contacting the Navy ship on the radio, but by the time she got anyone to listen, Hug It would already be coming out of the water and snatching people off the docks. There had to be something quicker…

  “Flare gun!” Maria yelled. “Someone get me a flare gun!”

  “Um, over here!” Simon said. She looked in his direction and saw him pulling one out of an emergency compartment. Maria grabbed it, ran back to the railing, and aimed at the dock.

  Please don’t hit anyone, she thought.

  They were still far enough out that Maria couldn’t be at all sure of her aim, but she had to take the chance. She pulled the trigger, and the burning flare launched out at the docks. It fell short, hitting the water not far away, but it still managed to do its job. The people in the harbor saw someone firing at them for no apparent reason and immediately began running back for land. The Navy ship must have seen it too, because she could faintly hear someone screaming through a bullhorn in Spanish that if they did not cease hostilities they would open fire. Maria only had a brief moment to worry that everyone on the Cameron was about to get shot.

  Then Hug It shot out of the water.

  The beast was probably the same one that had attacked Kevin and Ted, judging from its size. While that made it significantly smaller than Call It George, none of the people in Puerto Ayora knew they were only seeing the baby. All they saw was a sea monster out of their nightmares rising up for them, enormous dark eyes and a beaked snout at the end of a long, scaly neck. Anyone who hadn’t already been screaming from the flare attack started screaming now, but the mad rush at least cleared the docks of Hug It’s most obvious targets.

  The Navy ship, which was now on just the other side of Hug It from the Cameron, erupted with gunfire. Most of the bullets missed, impacting the water. A few hit the creature, but just a few shots were little more than an annoyance to something that size.

  “Tranq guns, now, or they’ll kill it!” Maria said.

  “But wouldn’t it be better if they did?” Gary asked.

  “We’ll discuss the ethics of annihilating new species later, just start pumping that thing with tranquilizers!”

  The Cameron cam
e to an abrupt stop just out of the Navy ship’s line of fire, but close enough that Maria could see the individual patterns of black and green on Hug It’s back. Cindy and Monica came up beside her and started shooting, but Maria could already see there was no longer any point. Every single person on the Navy vessel had lined up along the side now, and each one fired whatever weapon they had right into the creature. Hug It screeched, a noise now filled less with rage than with fear, while the water around it turned red with its blood.

  “Oh God,” Maria said, unprepared for how horrified she was at the creature’s fate. It was dangerous, true, but just like its mother, it was a living thing going according to the directives hard-coded into its genes. Now this magnificent animal was getting ripped apart by bullet-fire, patches of its skin exploding as the burst of bullets tore out chunks of meat.

  “Stop,” Maria said to the others on the Cameron. They all lowered the tranquilizer guns, each of them just as aware as Maria that any attempt to take Hug It alive was now pointless.

  Hug It screeched as parts of its face erupted in blood. Then, with one last feeble cry, its head and neck crashed down onto the nearest dock. Even as it bled all over the wood, the Navy continued firing until the creature went completely still. The only movement was the occasional jerk from one of the last bullets hitting its neck, and the weight of its body trying to pull the rest of the carcass into the water.

  The firing stopped. Everyone on the Cameron stood silently looking at Hug It’s remains. The cameras, Maria noticed, were still filming.

  After several moments of silence from both ships, a voice came over the bullhorn again. It started out speaking in Spanish, but after a few words seemed to realize the crew of the Cameron would better understand English.

  “Do not move! By order of the Ecuadorian Navy, you are not to move your ship. We will send someone to board you. If you disobey these orders, we will open fire.”

  “God damn it,” Maria said under her breath, but at least this was over. They would simply have to explain everything to whoever was in charge on that boat, and then they could declare their entire Galápagos adventure at an end.

  “Maria?” Gutierrez called from inside. “Padilla’s on the radio again. You need to hear this.”

  “Damn writer,” Simon mumbled. “Can’t let us have a moment’s peace before the final climax.”

  “Brother, please shut up forever,” Cindy said.

  Being sure to move slowly so that no one on the Navy ship thought she was trying to make a break for it and shot her, Maria went inside and again took the radio handset. “Ernesto? Now’s really not a good time.”

  “You are right. It’s not. And your time is about to get worse.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Mayor Estevez. Right when I was trying to tell him that Isla Niña needed to be shut off from the public permanently, that creature attacks. We could both see it from where we were standing. He started babbling about fixing his mistake and ran off.”

  From the window of the bridge, Maria could sure a flurry of movement in the harbor. She grabbed the nearest pair of binoculars to see a number of men, one of whom might have been the mayor, running for some of the boats. They couldn’t run that fast, though, as each of them was lugging some heavy container.

  “I can see him now,” Maria said. “Although I don’t have the slightest clue what he and his people think they’re doing. They’re carrying something, but I can’t tell what.”

  “I already know. I tried to stop them, but one of his thugs held a gun on me. Maria, those canisters are full of gas. The mayor is going to burn Isla Niña.”

  19

  “Gutierrez, how much fuel does the Cameron have left?” Maria asked.

  “Maria, we need to fill up before we can think about—”

  “Just tell me how much.”

  The man looked at her grimly, but there was nothing about his voice that sounded challenging. Gutierrez would follow along with whatever she decided. “We have enough to get back to Isla Niña. Maybe enough to return after that, but I doubt it.”

  “Good enough for now,” Maria said to him, then turned her attention back to the handset. “Ernesto, I’m assuming no one’s pointing a weapon at you now if you’re making this call?”

  “No. Estevez’s man left to help him load the gas.”

  “Right. See if there’s anything at all you can do to stall them, but don’t put yourself in danger. You’ve already done so much.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Maria handed the binoculars to Gutierrez. “Keep an eye on the mayor. Make sure I know if they leave. And be prepared to take off after them if I tell you.”

  “What about the Navy?”

  “Let me see what I can do. But just in case I fail, that ship looks big and heavy. Hopefully, the Cameron is faster.”

  “I should have known when I woke up this morning that I was going to get shot at,” Gutierrez mumbled.

  “At least nothing has tried to eat you today, which puts you ahead of several people standing on this boat.”

  “That’s true, I suppose. Got to appreciate the little things in life.”

  Maria flagged down Kevin and told him what she knew, along with a rough idea of what she had planned. Although she had expected him to protest, he just nodded and said he would support whatever she decided. While he went to quietly inform the others what might be about to happen, hopefully without arousing the suspicion of anyone on the Navy ship, Maria turned her attention back to the radio and tried to find a channel to reach the captain of the ship.

  She finally got someone on the ship, but he refused to put her through to the captain. As she argued with the Navy equivalent of middle-management, Gutierrez grunted.

  “Looks like they’re all loaded up.”

  “El capitan esta comiendo no debe de estar estorbado,” the radioman said.

  “Mierda que esta comiendo! Si tomaria su trabajo de proteger estas isla’s enserio, se reportaria por radio y esuchar lo que tengo que decir!” Maria looked to Gutierrez. “I’m not getting anywhere with this guy. I hope you know how to patch bullet holes in the Cameron.”

  “Is this going to be common thing from now on? Should I get some kind of insurance against accidentally being shot in the head?”

  “Don’t worry. This will be the last time something like this happens, I swear.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Probably.”

  “Looks like they’re taking off. Three small boats. They’ll probably be hard to catch with something the size of the Cameron.”

  “Then I guess we don’t have any more time to waste,” she said. She turned off the radio. “Time to try something else. Ready to put the pedal to the metal?”

  “The Cameron doesn’t have a pedal.”

  “Smartass.” She went back out on deck. Up on the Navy ship, the crew had lowered most of their weapons, obviously not expecting the Cameron to be any more of a threat. Every single person on the Cameron, however, had either gone below deck or were now sitting against something that would keep them from flying off the boat if it suddenly started moving. Which was exactly what it was about to do.

  Maria watched one of the sailors turn around so he could light a cigarette and hide the flame from the wind. Several of the others were chatting. One still had his weapon ready but wasn’t looking at them, instead watching a storm petrel as the bird flitted overhead.

  Maria leaned back into the cabin and braced herself in the doorway. “Now!”

  The Cameron was a modified trimaran yacht. It wasn’t designed for sudden acceleration, especially when they weren’t even facing the direction they wanted to go. Yet Gutierrez knew it, and he knew had to coax things from the boat that someone new to it would have thought impossible. With a lurch, the Cameron started up and whipped in a tight, fast circle. Anything on the bridge that hadn’t been strapped down flew across the room. Maria, again forgetting that she didn’t have the same balance that she used
to, slammed into the wall but just barely managed to keep from falling. For several seconds, there was no gunfire, and Maria hoped they’d somehow managed to catch every single sailor on deck off guard, before she heard a couple of pops in the air. Nothing seemed to hit the Cameron, though, and as the boat faced a hundred and eighty degrees from its original position, she saw everyone onboard the Navy ship scrambling, some trying to line up a shot and others preparing for the ship to take evasive maneuvers. Their ship was now the one facing the wrong way, though, and Maria doubts they could turn it around with the same speed.

  “Good! Go, go, go!” Maria yelled at Gutierrez.

  “No, I think maybe I’ll just stop right now while we’re being shot at. Of course I’m going. You and your man have hired me to do this job, so just shut the hell up and let me do it!”

  Deciding it was probably best to stay out of his way from this point on, Maria left Gutierrez and staggered onto the deck to join the others. Although everyone was still bracing themselves against the boat’s speed, they all had a grim and determined look as they gathered together.

  “Look, we’re now in the realm of doing something illegal,” Maria said. “At the very least, the Ecuadorian Navy has us for resisting them. At most, we might get charged with other crimes against the mayor if we try to stop him.”

  “But isn’t what he’s doing illegal?” Ted asked. Or at least that was what she thought he asked. Between his broken nose, the blood running down his face and into his mouth, and the rasp he still had from getting a lungful of seawater, he was almost unintelligible.

  “Oh, most definitely,” Kevin said. “He’s about to deliberately destroy part of a protected World Heritage Site. No matter how powerful he thinks he is or how high up his friends might be, he’ll get called to task for this. But we can’t let him actually go through with it, and the legal morass this is sticking us in is going to follow us for a long time.”

  “So anyone who wants to claim that they’re not a part of this, speak up now,” Maria said. “No questions from us, no retribution. I and Kevin, and everyone else on this boat, I hope, will say to the authorities that these people had nothing to do with our decision, tried to stop us, and were held against their will.”