The Beast of Cretacea (24 page)

Ishmael and Archie were stuck, unable to climb out of rock-throwing range because of the loose rung above them. Fortunately, the poachers had poor aim, and the few rocks that hit the boys were slowed by gravity. The worst were the stones that flew too high, striking the smokestack above, then falling and clunking them on their heads.

Then the rocks stopped. Ishmael looked down and saw why: One of the poachers had started to climb.

Suddenly, the only thing racing faster than Ishmael’s thoughts was his heart. He and Archie were completely defenseless. What would happen when the poacher reached them?

Riiipp!
From above came the unmistakable sound of Syncro tearing. Archie had hooked his arm through a rung and was undoing one of his braces.

He handed it down to his foster brother.

Ishmael grabbed it and lowered himself a few rungs, then waited. When the climber got close enough, he’d club him.

“Stop!”

On the ground below, Petra, Joachim, and several others were running toward the smokestack. Joachim and another man were carrying guns. The two poachers on the ground instantly ran off with Archie’s crutches, leaving their comrade on the smokestack to fend for himself.

Ishmael, Archie, and the last poacher began to climb down. “I didn’t mean no harm,” the poacher yelled to the small crowd below. “I was only tryin’ to help them down.”

“Is that why you and your friends threw rocks at us?” Archie asked from above.

The poacher dropped from the lowest rung and faced the group. “They’re just kids. Don’t believe them.”

“They’re
my
kids and I
do
believe them,” Petra growled back furiously. “And your friends stole his crutches.”

“Get going.” Joachim waved his gun. “If we ever catch you around here again, you won’t get off with just a warning.”

Without another word, the poacher took off, soon disappearing in the gray haze.

Joachim and Petra thanked their friends and then took Ishmael and Archie home.

It would be a month before the boys were allowed outside again. And much longer before Petra or Joachim would let them out of their sight. But the boys had learned a lesson: not to put themselves in a dangerous situation without an escape route. Ishmael, though, would never pass a tall smokestack again without a yearning to climb up and see if the faint bluish-green dot in the distance was still there.

“Anyone else noticed that there are no chairs here?” Queequeg asks. “Only benches. And they never say ‘I.’ It’s always ‘we.’ As though the whole idea is to always be part of the group.”

Fayaway and Thistle have gone off somewhere. The crew of Chase Boat Four sit on mats in the shade. Despite the somber occasion, Ishmael feels a sense of peace and well-being like nothing he has ever felt on Earth or on the
Pequod.

“They tr-truly care about one another instead of j-just th-thinking about enriching themselves,” Billy says. “It’s about as f-far from Earth as you can get.”

Gwen makes a face. “Sorry, Billy, but I still intend to enrich myself. And if you’re well enough to climb trees, why aren’t we headed back to the
Pequod
?”

“It could be hundreds of miles away,” Ishmael says.

“Gabriel said the
Pequod
passes by here fairly often,” Queequeg adds.

“Who knows what ‘often’ means to them,” argues Gwen. “Could be every ten years, for all we know. You really want to sit around here and wait?” She smirks at Ishmael. “Well,
you
probably do.”

“What’re you talking about?” Queequeg asks.

“You don’t think Ish would rather stay here with his girlfriend than get back to the ship?” Gwen asks.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ishmael protests.

Gwen lifts her eyebrows in disbelief. “You’re practically joined at the hip.”

“Why? Because she taught me to swim and hunt scurry?” he asks. “She’d teach you, too, if you asked.”

“I don’t need to learn that,” Gwen counters. “I need to return to the
Pequod
and do what I came here to do: make money.”

She’s right. As pleasant as it is living on this island, they need to get back to their ship. Ishmael doesn’t even know if Charity was able to persuade Starbuck to grant Gwen and him the bait money for helping to capture the terrafin the day they rescued Daggoo.

“So what do you suggest?” Queequeg asks Gwen. “That we stock up on food and water, set out in the chase boat, and just hope we run into the
Pequod
?”

“If our supplies get low, we can always come back here and get more,” Gwen says.

It’s a long shot, but Ishmael agrees. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Right,” Gwen concludes. “So tomorrow we leave.”

When Ishmael glances at Billy, he looks away.

The decision has been made: Mikal will cease. Later that evening, when it’s dark, a pyre of branches, sticks, and dried leaves burns at the lagoon’s edge, orange and yellow flames leaping while red sparks fly overhead to mix with the stars and then fade. Fayaway sits beside Ishmael, her face flushed with the apricot light, and her long dark hair glowing. Night-blooming flowers release their perfumed scents, and again music plays. Ishmael knows without asking that the islanders will stay as long as the fire burns, watching over Mikal while he rejoins the elements from which they all sprang, to become part of something new in the great cycle of life, death, and renewal that pervades every corner of the universe.

The next day, Ishmael and Queequeg are crouched over a net on the beach, picking out scurry. A shadow falls over them. It’s Fayaway.

“What art ye doing?” she asks.

When Ishmael tells her that they are preparing provisions for their search for the
Pequod,
her face falls, and she hurries away.

“I get the feeling she’s not real happy about that,” Queequeg says.

Ishmael watches Fayaway go, wondering if he should follow. But what could he say or do?

A few minutes later, Diana and Gabriel approach across the sand, both looking agitated. Ishmael and Queequeg rise to greet them.

“’Tis true ye’ve seen our terrafins?” Diana’s bearing is severe.

“Your terrafins?” Queequeg repeats with a scowl.

“I came upon them by accident,” Ishmael says. “Fayaway told me to keep them a secret, so I did.”

Diana turns to Gabriel. “’Tis a lie. ’Tis why they art in such a hurry t’ get back t’ their ship.”

“No, it’s because Billy’s better,” Ishmael says.

Diana snorts derisively. “’Twill tell them of the terrafins and ’twill come here and take it all.”

“Take all of what?” Queequeg asks, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“They can’t be allowed t’ go,
ever
!” Diana vehemently tells Gabriel.

Gabriel gives Ishmael a grave look, but before he can speak, a voice down the beach suddenly screams, “Thistle!” Ishmael is almost certain it was Fayaway who cried out.

Islanders are pointing at the sky, where a huge winged beast is flapping away, the tiny figure of a struggling girl clenched in its talons.

Gabriel and Diana dash toward the outriggers. Gwen comes running up. “Did you see it? It took Thistle!”

“The chase boat!” Ishmael yells to his crew. By now some of the islanders are in outriggers, paddling madly, but the winged beast is already growing smaller in the sky. The chase boat is the only vessel that stands a chance of keeping up with the giant flyer.

Billy joins them as they shove the boat into the water and climb aboard. Ishmael tries the engine. The RTG starts, then quits.

“Not this again!” Gwen groans.

Ishmael restarts the engine, and this time it keeps going and they accelerate past the outriggers and out of the lagoon. As they splash across the ocean, they watch the creature swing west, Thistle a tiny dark spot in its claws.

“For Earth’s sake, don’t drop her!” Gwen cries into the wind.

Thankfully, the beast is flying at an unhurried pace, certainly unaware that it’s being followed. Ishmael trails at a safe distance.

Behind them, the island grows smaller and more distant. Queequeg shoots Ishmael a concerned glance. Ishmael suspects that his friend is wondering how far they’ll go in this chase, and what they’ll do when — or if — it eventually ends. Gwen and Billy, however, never look back; their eyes stay fixed on the giant flyer and its prey.

A strip of green appears on the horizon and slowly grows, rising and broadening into a jagged coastline of cliffs with tall emerald mountains in the background. The beast flies toward the shore. If this is another island, it’s much bigger than the one they just left.

“What now?” Queequeg asks.

Ishmael doesn’t know. Unless the chase boat grows wings, they won’t be able to follow the creature inland.

“There!” Gwen points at a broad, murky river emptying into the ocean from between the cliffs.

“Think we can go up it?” Billy asks.

“We’ll find out.” Ishmael steers toward the mouth of the river, where the sea goes from sparkling blue to muddy brown. The riverbanks are jammed with thick green trees dotted with long-necked white flyers that burst into the sky when the chase boat nears. The air begins to feel warm and moist.

Queequeg points off the starboard side, where large river creatures with bumpy green snouts, bulging eyes, and long, pointed teeth watch them for a moment before slowly receding into the turbid depths. Billy and Gwen take their eyes off the flying creature long enough to glance worriedly at the beasts, and then look up again.

As they travel up the river, the banks begin to narrow, the tree canopy sometimes blocking their view of the huge flyer and Thistle. Soon the roar of rushing white water is in their ears. The river squeezes into a torrent. Ishmael has to gun the RTG to keep the boat headed upstream while he steers around the massive rocks that jut up from the riverbed. The crew hold tight as the chase boat struggles against the surging current.

Finally, the river grows too narrow and rocky, and the deluge too strong. Ishmael has no choice but to nose into the tree-lined bank, where the crew jump out and pull the boat partway out of the water.

They stand on the rocky shore, trees and thick green undergrowth on one side, the turbulent river on the other. Clouds of tiny insects swarm overhead, and feathery flyers dart from branch to branch. Pointing at a tall, limbless tree, Ishmael shouts to Billy over the river’s roar, “Can you climb that? Maybe you can see where it went.”

Like a born islander, Billy scampers up the tree. Near the top he points at a nearby peak. “I th-think it landed up there!” He scrambles back down. “We’ll need some l-line from the boat.”

Moments later, with coils of red rope over their shoulders, the crew start through the jungle. Billy has taken the lead, hacking with his knife through the thick underbrush. There are broad silken webs and nasty-looking eight-legged vermin to avoid, while flyers screech in the trees and delicate metallic-blue creatures flutter and dance in the air around them.

Their path begins to slant uphill, and they have to find handholds among the tree branches and vines to pull themselves along. From the undergrowth come the scratching and slithering of unseen creatures fleeing through the thick brush. Now and then the limbs of trees rustle and clatter when some larger beast is startled into a quick departure. Recalling the stories about the dangers of the mainland, Ishmael, Gwen, and Queequeg cast jittery glances at one another, but Billy forges ahead with single-minded determination.

The slope becomes steeper and the ground rockier. The air grows cooler and drier. There’s less foliage up here, and between the last remaining trees they can see the rocky crown of the peak.

Billy stops to catch his breath, then presses a finger to his lips. “Listen.”

Sounds of whimpering are coming from somewhere above.

“Thistle?” he calls.

The whimpering stops. Several dozen feet above them, Thistle’s face pokes out from a rocky ledge. Her cheeks are smudged with dirt and tears. Her eyes widen when she sees the chase-boat crew.

“Is the flyer up there?” Billy calls.

“’Twent away.”

“Can you climb down?”

“Art scared.”

“It’s okay. We’ll come get you.” Billy turns to the others, who hold on to roots and rocky edges to keep from slipping down the steep grade. “Who’s coming with me?” he asks while tying one end of the red rope around his waist. He plays out a couple of dozen yards and then secures the other end around the base of a tree. Ishmael volunteers and ties a line around his own waist.