Polaris Read online

  Maria kicked the carcass away with her bandaged foot, but it was too late. Henry had already seen it and suddenly had to rush over to the rail to heave up over the side.

  “That counts as your break!” said Thacher when he got back.

  A half hour later, Owen arrived. All eyes were on him: What lucky sod would get to lean against the wheel for the rest of this? But the choice was obvious. Maria’s injured foot still had not healed. And no wonder, thought Henry, eyeing the swampy muck she was standing in. She was putting most of her weight on her good leg, throwing off the rhythm and making the pumping more difficult for everyone.

  Henry watched jealously as she headed toward the wheel, limping slightly. Then Owen started pumping, bigger and fresher than the others, and throwing off their rhythm in a whole new way.

  “Settle down, you big dumb ox!” Emma called over.

  Owen just smiled and pumped harder.

  They went on like that until breakfast.

  “Well, I don’t think we’ll sink,” said Owen as they all washed up a bit in the ample water from the once-again-overflowing scuttlebutt. “At least not today. But we’ll have to keep this pumping up, full shifts, until we reach port.”

  Emma had just replaced her sister at the wheel, and Henry looked down at Maria’s bandaged foot. There was a splash of fresh red among the old brown stains. “You should change that wrapping,” said Henry. “And wash out that wound.”

  Maria shrugged. “It will just get dirty again. It will heal soon enough. You’ll see.”

  Henry wasn’t so sure. Was it so swollen the day before? he wondered.

  Aaron went to fetch the cooking pot from the little shed, passing one of the boarded-up hatches in the process. “Be careful,” Henry called out after him.

  The others followed Aaron’s progress carefully as he passed the hatch. There was a clang as he retrieved the pot from the shed, like the ringing of a dinner bell. Henry pictured a boy’s eyes snapping open just below—a boy’s eyes on a monster’s body. He remembered the thorny barbs on the ends of its six twitching limbs. He looked at the thin, mismatched boards covering the hatch. What good were they against such a thing?

  With mealtime upon them, they retreated to the quarterdeck, since one of them had to be back there at the wheel anyway. “There’s still too much water below deck,” said Owen as Aaron set up the little metal cookstove midship. “We can only get some of it with the pump. I can practically hear it sloshing around between decks. We need to get down there and bail.”

  “And patch the leaks,” added Maria.

  “And tar the hull,” said Emma.

  Henry stared into the distance, watching Aaron work the tinderbox to start the fire, coaxing fat sparks out of a hunk of flint and a wedge of steel.

  “But we are not going to, are we?” said Maria. “Go below, I mean?”

  Owen grimaced. “I suppose not,” he muttered. “But we will begin the next storm already halfway to the bottom of the sea.”

  It had become painfully obvious that no one truly believed the creature had been killed. Nor did Henry: Where was the body? Where was the blood?

  “We need to get off this ship as fast as possible,” said Thacher. This time his tone wasn’t angry or argumentative. His voice was quiet and flat: He was merely stating a fact.

  Owen didn’t argue.

  Henry considered the two boys. They weren’t so different, really: both strong-willed, both capable and reasonably well educated.

  The difference was that Thacher had turned to look to his left, where just over the horizon the coast of Central America was rolling slowly by. Owen had turned to look straight ahead, where over the horizon—and over the horizon after that—lay the southern coast of the United States.

  The other difference was that this boat was a family business for Owen. “The silver in here belongs to my family, you know,” he had said. And he could expect a handsome reward and a bright future for bringing it home. Thacher was indentured already, sold off. What did he have to lose, or to gain?

  From a purely philosophical perspective, Henry found the comparison fascinating. But from a human perspective, he was fairly sure it would all end badly.

  Later that day, a fresh distraction reared its head—or their heads, rather.

  “Dolphins!” called Aaron from the patched-up rail.

  Henry rushed over for a look. He’d heard these creatures were uncommonly beautiful. He slowed as he neared the rail, though. The ship was pitching a bit in the waves, and there was nothing but some rope between him and a fatal ducking.

  He gripped the rope tightly and peered over the side. He saw them immediately. With all its remaining sails set, the ship was kicking up a white wake as it cut through the waves, and the dolphins were cavorting at its edges as if delighted by the sight of breaking surf so far from shore.

  Henry counted quickly, but just as he decided there were six of them, another one surged up from the deep to join them. He watched intently as the color of the last dolphin’s skin shifted and lightened as it neared the surface and caught the sun’s rays. At first it appeared green, then blue. Then it flashed all the colors of the rainbow as it broke from the water’s grip and launched itself straight forward through the air. Henry gasped as the muscular marine mammal blew out a spray of mist from the blowhole atop its head.

  “That one’s showing off!” called Owen with delight as the dolphin splashed down.

  “Look who’s talking!” Emma called back, and the whole crew laughed, save for Thacher, who surveyed the action longingly from back at the wheel.

  “Look at the baby!” cried Maria.

  Henry swung his head back and forth until he saw it. Swimming alongside one of the dolphins, so close it could have been her shadow, was a tiny pup. It was just a few feet long, but already perfectly proportioned, an exact miniature of the rest of the pod. It swam nearly as well, tailing just a few feet behind its mother, and even rising to the surface to blow its blowhole when she did.

  Henry was hypnotized by the changing colors on their backs as they surged beneath the sunlit surface. He leaned farther over the side for a closer look, clutching the makeshift rope rail tightly.

  Suddenly, he felt a hard push on his shoulders.

  “AAAH!” he called out as he pitched forward toward the sea.

  But the same hands that had shoved his shoulders had already grabbed them tight. He swung his head around to see Aaron grinning at him.

  “Why … you … simpleminded … shifty-eyed … son of a … cur, you …” Henry stammered out his insults, which only made the others laugh louder.

  “Did you hear him scream?” said Maria.

  “It was a shout!” protested Henry, having taken a deep breath by now. “And anyway, he could have killed me.”

  “Your last words would have been ‘AAAH!’” said Owen, causing a fresh round of laughter.

  “No,” said Henry. “I would have had some words with the dolphins. I would have told them they were much better company.”

  They laughed again, and this time Henry joined in, satisfied that he’d acquitted himself well in the exchange. But the good mood did not last—at least not for Henry. As he turned back to the rail, the dolphins were already beginning to tire of the game. They were veering off from the boat, off to pursue fresh frolics elsewhere in the deep. Henry watched them go. The last to leave was the baby, tailing a little farther behind its mother now. Either it has more of an appetite for play at its age, thought Henry, or it is just a slower swimmer.

  But a moment later, the mother dolphin slowed herself, allowing her pup to catch back up. She’s worried about it, he thought. So many dangers in the deep and it still so small, still only half-grown …

  And that’s when it occurred to him. As the sunlight played on the water before him, another much darker image flashed through his mind. He saw the creature again but not all of it. He saw its two little half-formed arms, waving ineffectually from its midsection. Still so small, still on
ly half-grown … He remembered that strange jellylike coating dripping from their tips, and now it made sense to him. It had reminded him of the clear white of an egg, and he hadn’t been far off. The whole creature was still forming, as sure as any farmyard chick. The coating was a protective salve to ease the process along.

  He saw the whole creature now. The image was so clear and the realization so intense that he stumbled backward from the rail, his face slack and stricken.

  “You all right there?” said Aaron. “I must’ve given you a greater fright than I’d planned.”

  Henry looked at him, blinking, trying to refocus his vision in the real world outside of his head.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “The creature …” At the mere words, the smiles fell from the faces of the others. “It is still growing too. Growing and changing.”

  Henry desperately searched his mind for what he knew about ants. The first thing he thought of was their formidable strength, each one capable of carrying hundreds of times its body weight … Imagine something like that the size of a person!

  Then he thought of their exoskeletons, the sheaths around their bodies, made of the same tough substance as lobster shells, an armor against the world. And how thick would that armor be on an organism of that size? The creature’s armor is still soft and wet, he realized. It is still vulnerable, clinging to the shadows for protection as surely as that dolphin pup clings to its mother’s side.

  But it wouldn’t be vulnerable for long.

  Suddenly, he knew what they had to do.

  “Don’t you see?” he said, turning from one inquiring face to the next. Then, finally, he pointed to the nearest boarded-up hatch. He understood now just how pathetic a gesture it was.

  “Don’t you see?” he repeated.

  But they didn’t, and so he had to spell it out for them.

  “We have to kill it now.”

  Owen listened carefully as Henry explained it all, for the second time. They had gathered around Thacher at the helm so that everyone could hear. Lord help us all, thought Owen, but this frail boy is right. He understood that Henry was smart and educated, but did he have to be so … He searched for the word. Did he have to be so … correct? It was maddening!

  “So each day, this thing gets stronger?” said Owen.

  “I believe so, yes,” said Henry. “It seems to be undergoing some sort of overall transfiguration. I saw the coating—it is as the white of an egg or …”

  “The pus upon a wound?” contributed Thacher.

  “Yes,” said Henry, considering it. “Unpleasant, but yes.”

  “But how?” asked Aaron.

  “That I do not know,” admitted Henry. “I am still puzzling it out. But I think it has something to do with a fungus.”

  “A fungus?” said Maria.

  “Yes,” said Henry. “Like a mushroom, that sort of thing. They reproduce by casting spores upon the wind.”

  “And Obed has, er, caught wind of this fungus, then?” ventured Thacher.

  Henry nodded.

  “But why him?” asked Emma. “Why not any of the rest of us?”

  The group looked around at each other, avoiding eye contact.

  “He’s the one who took the doctor’s chest down to the hold,” said Thacher, looking up suddenly. “Your doctor’s chest!” he added, pointing to Henry.

  Henry was caught off guard, and Owen followed up before he could deny it. “Yes! That was the last we saw of him. Perhaps he brought this fungus back from the jungle—it certainly is not like any fungus I’ve ever heard of.”

  Henry looked pained but didn’t deny it. “It is a vast and dark place, the Amazon, with countless species undiscovered.”

  “And remember what the old sailors whispered at night, remember the tales they told,” said Thacher. “A dread disease …”

  “And a beast in the darkness,” added Maria.

  “And now, it seems, we have a beast of our own,” said Thacher. “But what of Obed? I saw his face—the monster was wearing it as its own. Is it still … him?”

  He turned to Henry for the answer. They all did.

  “Perhaps in part,” he offered weakly. “How much is unknowable.”

  But the others refused to look away and, reluctantly, he continued. “I believe he is being consumed, taken over by this larger composite creature. He recognized the gun, for example, but he could not speak.”

  Owen nodded. He had seen the same thing. “So every day there will be less of him?” he said. “And more of the monster?”

  “Yes,” admitted Henry, “and every day the monster will be stronger: its armor thicker, its limbs longer, its claws sharper.”

  “But to what end?” asked Owen. “If it is no longer Obed who controls its movements, what does?”

  “It must be the fungus,” said Henry. “I saw it, in his mouth. It will be growing inside him as well. It is almost certainly in his brain.”

  “A fungus, in the brain?” said Emma, horrified. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  Henry nodded again. “I have. In truth, I have heard of funguses affecting the brain, causing changes in their hosts. It would not have undertaken such an elaborate transformation—such a vulnerable incubation—without a reason.”

  “But again, what reason?” repeated Owen. “What does it want?”

  There was a heavy silence as Henry formulated his reply. Owen tried to imagine the horror of the transformation. What must it have been like for poor Obed? Did he understand what was happening to him? What was he thinking as he slowly lost control of his mind? As his body became something other—other than him, other than human.

  “It wants the same thing as all funguses,” said Henry at last. He looked up at the sails, avoiding the eyes of the others.

  “And what is that?” asked Thacher.

  Henry looked him directly in the eyes. He let out a long, slow breath and then spoke. “It wants to reproduce.”

  There was silence as the thunderstruck young crew processed this idea. The wheel slipped from Thacher’s hand, and for a few stunned moments, he let it wander. By the time he’d gotten hold of it—and of himself—the ship had ventured a full two points off course.

  “Oh no, no, no, no,” Aaron was saying.

  “But this thing’s manner of reproduction,” Owen mumbled, struggling to find the words for so repugnant a concept. “I mean to say, the way it goes about …”

  “It is with other organisms,” said Henry. “With people.”

  “And we are the only other people on this ship,” whispered Emma.

  Henry looked at her, then around at the others. “It will wait in the shadows. It will grow stronger. And then—”

  And this time it was Owen who cut him off. “And then it will come for us.”

  Henry nodded. “And it will be strong, many times stronger than the strongest man. We will be powerless to halt its advance. Wood, rope, even steel: Nothing we have would stop it.”

  “But what of the gun?” said Owen, looking down toward the pistol at his belt.

  “I don’t know,” said Henry. “Think of an ant …”

  “A bullet would smash it!” declared Aaron triumphantly.

  “Now think of an ant the size of a man, its external skeleton perhaps several inches thick and harder than the horns of a bull.”

  “Oh,” said Aaron, slumping visibly.

  “So we must strike now,” said Owen.

  Henry looked up at him. Owen had hoped to see resolve in his eyes—grim determination for what needed to be done and certainty as to how to go about it. Instead, he saw only resignation and sadness.

  “If it is not already too late,” said Henry. “But we must try at least. Either it lives or we do. The ship is too small. It cannot be both.”

  There was silence, save for the whipping wind.

  It was Owen who broke the spell this time. “Then it will be us,” he said firmly.

  His bluster energized the others.

  “The mon
ster must die!” cheered Thacher.

  “Huzzah!” called Emma.

  Maria set the plans in motion. “We must fetch weapons,” she said. “Anything to strike at it.”

  Owen saw her turn and take a few steps, off to fetch some sharpened thing or other. But he also saw her wince as she put her weight on her swollen and bandaged foot, and he saw her limp as she dragged it forward for another painful step.

  “Not you, Maria,” he said.

  She turned back toward him, pivoting on her good foot. “What do you mean?” she protested. “I must do my part. I was a bullfighter in a past life!”

  Owen had no idea how to respond to that. A bullfighter? “You would only slow us down,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “And I believe you might be of more service up here.”

  “At the wheel, you mean?”

  He looked up at the sails and then out at the horizon. The wind was light but steady and the seas mild. The wheel wasn’t fighting Thacher, particularly. Owen shook his head. “No, we can risk tying the wheel off again, at least for a bit,” he said. “We can fashion other instruments for you, deadlier ones …”

  Maria smiled. He guessed that the bullfighter in her liked that idea.

  He smiled back, but it was forced. The wind was in the sails. The way was clear. They had food and water. It was going well, if you could ignore the fact that the boat was taking on water—sinking as it went—and there was an armor-plated, fungus-brained monster growing stronger each day and waiting to turn them all into its kin. He sighed heavily as Maria took the wheel.

  And so they began to make their preparations to go below once more. Eyeing the sun above, working quickly but with great care. It wouldn’t be their first trip between decks. But this time, he knew, they wouldn’t be avoiding this fierce creature.

  They would be hunting it.

  The sun had passed its peak and begun its slow slide toward evening.