The Beast of Cretacea (28 page)

“Even after you saw what it did to that trawler?” Gwen asks.

“This ship’s ten times bigger and stronger.” Pip makes light of it. “Anyway, now that you’re back, there’ll be four chase boats again. It’s hard to envision a creature that four crews couldn’t tow in if we all work together.”

“Excuse me,” Gwen interjects, “but did you just say ‘we’?”

Pip looks surprised. “Starbuck didn’t tell you?”

Ishmael and the others swap befuddled looks. Queequeg asks, “Tell us what?”

“I’m your new lineman.”

“No Earthly way is he joining our crew,” Gwen states up on deck, where she, Queequeg, and Ishmael have gone to talk before a scheduled briefing of the chase-boat crews. “I say we go to Starbuck right now and tell him.”

“I’m not sure he wants to hear it,” Ishmael says.

“So?” Gwen asks. “
He’s
not the one whose life is at risk with a lineman who doesn’t know what he’s doing. If we were still chasing bashers and humps, then maybe Pip could learn on the job. But do you really want him aboard when we’re going after this so-called monster?”

Queequeg, who’s been gazing up at the large, luminous orb in the dark sky, nods in agreement. “Might not be a lot of room for error out there.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Ishmael admits. “I just don’t think anything we say is going to change Starbuck’s mind. He knows there are more qualified sailors aboard. So I’m guessing we’re stuck with Pip.”

“You think it’s got something to do with him being of the Gilded?” Queequeg asks.

“What
?”
Gwen stares at him like he’s gone loony. “Give me a break.”

“Easy, Gwen,” Ishmael says. “I think he might be right.”

“You mean, like it was
Pip
who gave the order? Or it came from those Gilded whoevers?” Gwen asks. “What about the captain? You really think Ahab would have to answer to them out here, a gazillion miles away from Earth?”

“Who knows how it works?” Queequeg says. “But if you’re asking how Pip gets to be our lineman, that’s the only reason I can think of.”

Gwen chews on a fingernail. “Well, I don’t believe it. And even if it were true, it’s not the Gilded who’ll get hurt by this. It’s us. Seriously, Ishmael, you could at least
try
to talk to Starbuck. After all, since he speaks
so highly
of you, he might actually listen.”

Ishmael agrees reluctantly. “I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath.”

It’s time to go belowdecks. They find the first mate in the passageway outside the briefing room, marking a tablet with a stylus. Queequeg and Gwen nod encouragingly at Ishmael, and then file inside.

Starbuck gives Ishmael a curious look.

“I wanted to thank you for giving me and Gwen the bait money from the terrafin,” Ishmael begins.

“Thank the two women, not me.”

“Yes, sir. I already spoke to Gwen, and when I see Charity —”

“Is that all, sailor?” the first mate interrupts, looking back down at his tablet.

“Well, actually there is something else. I need to have the money transferred back to Earth as soon as possible.”

Starbuck raises his head and stares at him with a seriously irked expression.

“It’s a matter of life and death, sir. Truly. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

The first mate sighs. “Give me the information.”

Ishmael gratefully provides all the necessary details.

“All right. I’ll make sure it’s done. Now, I suggest you —” Starbuck heaves a deep breath. “Don’t tell me there’s something else.”

“Well, yes, sir. I was wondering why you selected Pip to be our new lineman. That is, if you don’t mind my asking, sir.”

Behind the dark glasses, Starbuck’s eyes are unreadable. “I do indeed mind, boy.”

“Is it because he’s of the Gilded?”

“What do you know of that?”

“All I know is that it was a choice you’d never have made yourself, sir,” Ishmael says. “But why would the Gilded suggest it? Doesn’t it hurt them, too, sir, if we don’t produce as much as possible?”

Starbuck doesn’t answer. He’s done with Ishmael’s questions. Without a word, the first mate folds his tablet and heads into the briefing room.

Ishmael follows him inside, where Queequeg, Gwen, and Pip are sitting in a row at the back. Ishmael takes the seat between his boatmates.

“Well?” Gwen whispers.

Ishmael shakes his head.

Gwen balls her fists.

Tashtego’s crew file into the briefing room, followed by Fedallah’s and Daggoo’s. This is the first time Ishmael has seen Daggoo since the incident with the terrafin. The sailor stops, locks eyes with him, then nods slowly as if he hasn’t forgotten.

But Bunta sniggers. “Is it hard goin’ back to eatin’ scurry and hump?”

“Shut up,” Tashtego says. “They look like cannibals to you?”

“Don’t know, never met any — till now.” Bunta displays his steel teeth.

“Anyone know what this briefing is about?” Daggoo asks, his voice low so that Starbuck won’t hear.

“I imagine he’s gonna tell us again why we should be wasting our time chasing the Great Terrafin instead of putting meat in the cooler and money in the pot,” Tashtego gripes.

“Waste of our blasted time,” grouses Marion, one of the linemen on Fedallah’s chase boat. “No one’s ever got close to it.”

“Ahab has,” says Tashtego.

“And look what it done to him.” Marion runs a hand over her short green hair. “All the money in the world ain’t worth
that,
is it?”

At the front of the room Starbuck raps his knuckles against a desk to get the sailors’ attention. “All right, let’s get it out in the open. Who wants to go first?”

Tashtego raises his hand. “Who cares if the Great Terrafin is worth a fortune if we never capture it?”

“If we go back to hunting long-necks and humps, at least we’ll end the voyage with some coin,” adds Daggoo.

A chorus of agreement rises until the first mate holds a hand aloft to quiet them. “Okay, pipe down! I know you all feel that chasing the beast is a fool’s errand. But the captain is prepared to make it worth your while. Here’s the deal: The first crew that puts a stick in the beast gets forty thousand. Ten thousand per man — or woman.”

For a moment there’s stunned silence. Then the murmurs begin. Daggoo’s the first to speak up: “A stick that leads to the terrafin’s capture? Because that’s pie in the sky.”

“No, forty thousand for the first stick, period,” Starbuck states. “The captain isn’t stupid. He knows what you’re up against.”

More chatter breaks out around the room. “Ten thousand a man, for
one
stick?” Bunta says, as though waiting for Starbuck to correct him.

“Given how little’s in the pot, it could be our only chance to make some decent coin on this voyage,” says Marion.

Ishmael’s eyes settle on Tashtego, curious to see how he is taking to the news. He’s both respected enough and sensible enough that the others will listen to whatever he says. But Tashtego hooks his thumbs into his belt loops and remains silent.

“Any other questions?” Starbuck asks.

The roomful of sailors is quiet.

“All right,” says the first mate. “Be prepared to launch first thing in the morning.”

The chase-boat crews tread out. Ishmael’s is the last, and they’re passing Starbuck when Charity appears in the doorway. The pink is gone from her eyes, but she looks distressed as she addresses Starbuck: “How can you live with yourself when you know you’re sending these sailors to almost certain death?”

Starbuck frowns. “I know nothing of the sort. And no one’s making them do anything they don’t want to do.”

“No, you’re just offering them the one thing they can’t resist,” she spits back.

The first mate gives her a stony look, then strides away. “Don’t fall for this,” Charity warns Ishmael and his crew, now the only ones in the briefing room. “There’ll be other voyages.”

But other voyages mean more years away from loved ones, something Ishmael can’t imagine. On the other hand, he
can
imagine making an extra Ψ10,000 fast, paying back Gwen, and still having plenty of coin left over. Charity’s right. It’s the one thing none of them can resist.

“So what’s everyone going to do now?” Pip asks out in the passageway.

“Take a long, hot shower,” Queequeg replies. “That’s the only thing I missed on that island.”

“And I need to talk to Ishmael,” Gwen says. “In private.”

Pip makes a face, clearly not happy at being left out now that he’s one of the crew.

“We won’t be long,” Ishmael promises.

Abovedecks, a warm wispy fog wafts out of the dark, making the deck beneath their feet slippery. The great orb is barely visible. Gwen stops beside a crane mast. “What did Starbuck say about Pip?”

“He didn’t argue when I suggested that the Gilded were behind it. He seemed pretty upset that I even knew about them in the first place.”

“You
really
think they exist?”

“I’m starting to. Between the things Queequeg and Billy said and the way the first and second mates treat Pip, how else can you explain it?”

“But why would anyone go to such lengths to make sure Pip becomes part of our crew?” Gwen asks. “You think Pip learned ahead of time about the new bait Starbuck’s offering?”

Ishmael shrugs. “Don’t know. I get the feeling these Gilded folks like money, but not enough to risk dying for it.”

The thickening fog drifts across the
Pequod
’s dark deck. The ship creaks, and waves splash against its hull. Ishmael’s uniform is growing damp in the mist. “Guess I’ll head below.”

“Wait. There’s something else.” Gwen looks around, then lowers her voice. “A way we can all get rich without risking our lives.”

Ishmael stares at her uncertainly. “How?”

“Tell Ahab and Starbuck about the islanders raising terrafins.”

Ishmael feels a chill that has nothing to do with his damp uniform. “You . . . know about that?”

“Queek told me,” Gwen says. “Don’t be mad at him. I asked him why Diana didn’t want to let us leave the island. I guess he felt I had a right to know.”

Ishmael can’t really argue with that. “But why would telling Starbuck and Ahab about the islanders change their minds about hunting the Great Terrafin?”

“The night I stayed up with Charity, after she came back from being held by the pirates? She said some things about her and Starbuck. And about this green neurotoxin that terrafins have. I think it’s what was in those darts the islanders shot us with.”

Ishmael nods. It’s just as Gabriel said.

Gwen continues: “The way Charity talked about the neurotoxin, you’d think it has magical powers. She said that the amount the Great Terrafin has would be worth an unimaginable fortune.”

To have that much neurotoxin, it would have to be incredibly huge . . .
Ishmael goes cold, recalling the enormous skiver leaning in the corner of Ahab’s quarters. It
couldn’t
be from an
actual
terrafin. But what if it was? They’ve seen enormous humps, and huge beasts on land. Why couldn’t there be an even larger creature? The sailor who’d been hopscotching across the sea to a working stasis lab had said terrafins weren’t worth the bother. But what if he didn’t know about the neurotoxin? Now it makes sense why Ahab and Starbuck want the Great Terrafin so badly.

All this raises another question: “Worth a fortune to who?”

“That’s what I was wondering, too,” Gwen says. “And I’m thinking maybe it’s these Gilded people. Charity never identified them. She just said there’re people who are desperate for the stuff. They’ll pay anything.”

Ishmael hasn’t forgotten how euphoric he felt while waking up after being shot with a dart, and how a mere drop of the most-diluted form of the nectar instantly healed his head after he’d been hurt while saving Thistle. Nectar, serum, neurotoxin — it was all the same.

But there’s something else he remembers as well: Gabriel saying,
“Can change a man in unnatural ways.”

“All we have to do is tell Starbuck and Ahab about the islanders’ terrafins,” Gwen continues. “Then they’ll have all the neurotoxin they want
without
risking anyone’s life. . . . That means
our
lives, Ishmael, now that we’re stuck with an incompetent lineman.”