Polaris Page 19

  Emma nodded. He was right. She scampered up the ratlines and quickly reached the sprung mainsail yard. Owen had sawed off the end on the port side, and now she began sliding out along the still intact starboard side of the crossbeam. She pushed the heavy saw ahead of her as she went.

  “Hurry, Emma!” called her sister, but her words were drowned out by the sound of splintering wood on the deck below.

  No sooner had Henry and Thacher retreated into the cabin than the door—and really, the wall—had come crashing in after them. Henry raised one hand to cover his face and felt a thick splinter pierce the tender skin of his palm. Lowering his hand, he saw the top of the creature’s head and realized it had rammed the door like a charging bull. He watched in horror as the creature raised its head.

  Obed’s eyes were crimson in the light from the back windows. Despite their monstrous framing, Henry saw something all too human in those eyes. Anger, he thought. Accusation.

  “He knows,” Henry whispered.

  Thacher was too terrified to respond, but Henry needed no confirmation. The creature knew what they were doing—preparing to abandon the ship, to abandon it—and it meant to stop them. How much of Obed is still in there? he wondered again. How much human intelligence is being made to serve a new master? He was sure that the boy’s brain was still in there, shot through with fungal fiber, infiltrated and harnessed. He remembered the Frenchman’s scrawled reports of infected ants marching obediently to the center of their colonies before releasing their spores.

  But the time for such academic thoughts was over. The creature stepped almost delicately through the hole it had just made. First one foot, then two, then three … Henry looked down. Only the little table was between the boys and the beast. It was made of thick wood and bolted solidly to the floor.

  The boys held their breath and watched, as the creature stepped fully into the room and reached the front edge of the table. It wasn’t that they were paralyzed with fear, exactly. It was more that they had nowhere left to go.

  The creature pinned them in place with its blood-rimmed eyes. Is that hunger I see there? thought Henry. Or something worse?

  It took a step around the left side of the table. Without a word but in perfect unison, Henry and Thacher both took a long step to the right. The creature turned the front left corner of the table, and the boys turned the back right corner. The creature paused. They paused.

  Now the creature’s mouth opened. Henry gazed at the patch of fibrous fungus inside and steeled himself for another of its hideous angry hisses. But nothing could have prepared him for what he heard instead.

  Hehhhehhehh …

  It was a breathy exhalation …

  Hehhhehhehh …

  It took Henry a moment to realize that the creature was laughing at them. It would not play this game. Instead, it placed one heavy barbed foot on top of the table, and then another. It began to pull itself up onto the table. Its exoskeleton had grown thick and heavy, and the wood strained under its weight but held. The boys took a half step back and then …

  “Run!” yelled Thacher.

  Run? thought Henry. Run where? They were only a few precious steps from the back wall, the back windows. The windows! Of course!

  Henry wheeled around to find that Thacher was already one step ahead of him. He was bending down to pick up something from the cluttered cabin floor. Henry saw the ragged cloth of his shirt stretched tight against his back.

  The creature saw it too. It crouched down on the tabletop and prepared to leap onto Thacher’s exposed back, to pin him flat and finish him. But as its powerful legs began to push down—KRICK!—the little table split under the strain. Instead of flying forward onto its prey, the creature fell onto the floor, landing on its heavy ant-like posterior. The two sides of the split table flipped up and bookended it.

  Thacher stood and heaved his own sea trunk through the bank of leaded glass windows. Pa-KRIISH! The trunk took out one of the windows almost entirely. Without so much as a look back, Thacher plucked the canvas sack of valuables from the floor, leaned forward, and dove straight through the empty frame.

  A few last shards of glass tinkled to the floor as the creature’s feet scrambled for purchase among the broken, shifting wood.

  Henry rushed forward but not toward the window. Instead, he reached his own trunk and quickly flipped open the latches. He felt the creature’s presence looming behind him, but he would not leave without this.

  In the end, he discovered, he did have a responsibility to science—and a need to understand this organism. He reached into the corner of the trunk and pulled forth a small, soft shape. A jar wrapped carefully in wool.

  A shadow fell across his back. He sensed the bulk of the creature and heard its hind feet scratch against the wood as it rose up behind him.

  Henry spun around, whipping the scrap of blanket away as he did. As he fell back onto the floor, he lifted the jar. The movement caused the rat-creature inside to jostle and bounce, almost as if alive.

  Gazing through the spore-frosted glass, Henry saw the creature looming above him, one powerful foot raised to deliver a crushing blow. But it hesitated and peered down at the mutated rat. Henry slowly rattled the jar again—it was easy to do with his hands shaking from fear.

  Once again, the rat-creature shifted and shivered.

  The creature lowered its head and looked more closely. Its barbed foot lowered slightly. Surely, thought Henry, it would not harm one of its own.

  But he was wrong.

  The creature let out a long and angry hiss and raised its murderous forelimb once more.

  Henry realized too late: Of course, it would harm one of its own. What did he think it had been eating down there all this time?

  As the creature clubbed one barbed limb down toward the floor, Henry pushed off with both legs and rolled to his left, doing his best to keep his arms rigid and shield the glass jar.

  The creature missed Henry by inches, hammering the floor so hard that it punched a hole clear through it. Henry rolled again, closer to the window. He rose to one knee as the creature pulled its barbed forefoot from the splintered wood.

  The creature gathered its hind legs underneath it as Henry gathered his own legs beneath him.

  It leapt; he leapt.

  Suddenly, sunlight. Henry was bathed in it as he cleared the empty windowpane. He heard a heavy crash of wood and glass behind him and braced himself for searing pain, for something to catch his foot and hold it fast.

  But his feet were clear of the cabin now.

  He felt his body begin to arc down toward the ocean.

  They had both leapt at the same time, but the creature was far heavier.

  Henry bent like an arrow at the end of its flight, descending toward the tropical blue sea.

  A moment before he splashed down, he tossed the jar gently to one side. It must not break now. He heard its soft splash and felt the warm embrace of the Caribbean.

  He dove down deep, testing himself for any pain in the sudden buoyancy. Am I really still in one piece? Am I really still intact?

  He was.

  He swam to the surface and blew out some salt water. He looked up to find Thacher a few feet away, floating alongside his trunk with the canvas sack slung across its top.

  “Your rat’s over there,” he said.

  Henry nodded his thanks and swam over to retrieve the floating jar—and the invaluable scientific specimen within. As he did, he cast one eye up toward the broken cabin windows. The ship was already two dozen yards on, still sailing slowly toward shore. But all he saw at its stern was an empty pane and a featureless darkness within.

  He had to raise his eyes up to see the full story.

  Owen descended the rigging with reckless speed. The creature had disappeared into the wrecked cabin, and as worried as he was about Henry and Thacher, he needed to take advantage of the opportunity. He swung off the last ratline and dropped down cat-footed onto the gently rolling deck.

  He lande
d in a crouch and peered back toward the cabin. He saw only shifting shadows through the jagged hole where the door had once been. Then he heard a sudden crash of breaking glass. He smiled, picturing the others diving headlong to the relative safety of the sea.

  As he rose to his feet, he was already pulling the coiled fuse from his belt and measuring some out. He looked directly up the mainmast and saw Emma laying out on the yard, furiously sawing away at the wood. “Almost done?” he hollered.

  Emma grunted and then shouted back: “Close!”

  Owen looked down at the coiled black fuse in his hand. If he made it too short, he would blow the ship up while Emma was still aloft. If he made it too long, the creature might identify the threat and extinguish it, just as it had splashed water on his pistol below deck. “How close?” he called back.

  “Look out below!” she called down triumphantly.

  A slow splintering sound gave way to a thunderous crack and suddenly the starboard end of the yardarm was plummeting toward the deck. Owen barely had time to cover his head before it hit. There was a huge hollow BONK as the sawed-off spar hit the side of the deck. The force of it bounced Owen off his feet and up into the air. Stunned by the impact, he landed on his backside just aft of the powder keg. The big wooden beam bounced up and toppled over the railing, landing in the water with a resounding splash.

  The falling yard had torn some of the starboard rigging, and as Owen looked up, he saw Emma descending toward him on the port side. He gathered himself to rise to his feet.

  Suddenly, he heard a skittering chorus of clicks and clacks from the forecastle. He turned toward the gaping hole in the forward hatch. The yardarm had beat the deck like an enormous drumstick, and it had stirred up something from deep in the hold. A dark red ratlike creature emerged from the hatch, then a second, and then they all began to pour out. One dozen, two dozen.

  Two of Owen’s least favorite things, rodents and insects, had merged perfectly—three of his least favorite things if you counted the fungus that had somehow glued them together. And now a wave of them was streaming straight for him, their long black front teeth gnawing at the air.

  Owen desperately scrambled to his feet, but he already knew he would never reach the rail in time. Would they gnaw him to death, or would they too seek to transform him?

  Suddenly, they stopped, all but skidding to a halt. They formed a jagged line and hissed viciously, showing their sharp black teeth. Why would they stop? wondered Owen, finally reaching his feet. Why would they threaten me with teeth that could already be sunk in my flesh?

  Then he heard another sound: a soft thud followed by a rasping scrape.

  Oh no.

  They hadn’t stopped because of him. They had stopped because of what was behind him.

  “Watch out!” called Emma from somewhere just up above.

  By the time Owen turned his head, the creature was already rushing toward him with its strange fractured gallop. Owen took off at a run, straight toward the line of rats. He made it just a few steps before the creature’s shadow fell across him. Reaching over, he grabbed the mainmast with both hands and swung himself up and around it. His sweat-slicked palms held on just long enough to whip him around to the other side.

  The creature tried to stop, but its bulk was too great. It skidded into the front line of rat-things, causing them to scatter in all directions.

  With shaking hands, Owen snapped off a short length of fuse and managed to stuff it into the hole he’d carved in the top of the powder keg. He took the tinderbox from his vest pocket, but it was hard to use with shaking hands. He struck it awkwardly, and the weak spark failed to ignite the little pinch of rope fiber within. An armored rat scampered past his feet, but Owen had bigger problems. Much bigger. The creature’s shadow fell over him once more as it rose up to its full height.

  He shot a desperate look in its direction—and he saw a handsaw bounce off its back.

  The creature hissed up into the rigging. The handle of a knife conked off its head. Emma and Maria were throwing everything they had down at the thing.

  Owen turned back to the fuse. He exhaled, willing his trembling hands to obey him. He wouldn’t get another chance. He struck flint against steel once more. A fat spark jumped from the steel and landed on the rope fiber. The pale strands began to glow red as he blew on them softly and held them to the fuse.

  With a sputtering crack, the fuse caught fire. Owen leapt to the side as the cord began to hiss and pop. He felt a quick breeze as the creature’s barbed forefoot passed just inches from his cheek. As he turned to run, he heard two quick splashes. The Spanish sisters had jumped overboard. He raced to join them.

  He hopped over one mutant rat only to land just inches from another. He hopped again without breaking stride. This time he landed firmly on both feet and sank down to his knees in front of the sagging rope at the rail. He reached over to pluck one last thing from the edge of the deck. It squirmed wildly in his hands.

  “Settle down, Daffy,” he said. “This is for your own good.”

  Then, as the creature crashed toward them, Owen pushed down with both feet and jumped straight over the side of the ship.

  He splashed down into the sea to the sound of cheering in the distance.

  The warm water enveloped him. It felt good, but he knew he wasn’t safe yet. He swam up and forward. As soon as he broke the surface, he began to swim away hard from the ship. With the soggy, deeply unhappy ship’s cat under one arm, Owen was forced to use a sidestroke rather than the faster crawl. But the ship was moving too, still sailing steadily away, doubling the distance between them.

  He kicked hard and took one last look back toward the Polaris. The creature was raging at him from just behind the rope railing. Its black-toothed mouth hissed, and its blood-rimmed eyes glared.

  Owen had asked Henry, at the start of their final preparations, whether ants could swim. His answer then gave Owen comfort now. “Real ants are small enough to float for a bit, but the armor of this one is far too thick.” Owen understood neither the biology nor the physics of it, but he smiled as he remembered Henry’s next words: “It would sink like a stone.”

  He kicked away from the ship, and as the creature watched him go, something seemed to occur to it. It ceased its raging and spun its head around. It stared back toward the mast—and the keg at its base. Suddenly, it turned and disappeared from view.

  Owen dove down below the waves, once again taking the squirming, disgruntled cat with him. The sound of the first explosion carried through the water, muffled but unmistakable. Then, almost immediately, there was a second and much larger blast as the main stores of gunpowder below deck went up. The explosion rang through Owen’s entire body. The surface of the water above him turned a bright blood-orange. A moment later, chunks of wood began raining down.

  He stayed under for as long as he dared, but not knowing how long a cat could hold her breath, he was forced to surface.

  “Over here!” he heard over the sound of roaring flames.

  He looked over to see an odd little flotilla. Emma, Maria, Henry, and Thacher were clinging to the yardarm, their hair slicked back by salt water and just their upper bodies visible. Henry was holding his jarred mutant, and Thacher had one arm on his trunk, which was floating alongside the yard and topped with the sack of valuables.

  What an odd bunch, he thought, brimming with affection.

  “Is that Daffy with you?” called Emma.

  “It is,” said Owen, swimming toward them. “And she is not happy.”

  “The ship is alight behind you,” called Henry, as if Owen could possibly have missed that.

  “I know it is,” said Owen, but even once he had his own spot along the yard and Daffy was transferred safely to the top of the floating trunk, he didn’t look back at it. He had no doubt it was a remarkable sight: flaming wreckage, sinking beneath the waves.

  He had made up his mind, though. He would not look. That would not be his last view of the sailing ship that
he had been so proud to call home.

  Instead, he kept his eyes forward. He saw the white of the crashing waves off in the distance now, and the green of the fields beyond.

  “What will happen to us?” said Maria.

  “We will be all right,” said Owen.

  “But before you said—” began Henry.

  “I know what I said,” Owen cut in. “But I was wrong.”

  “Right, wrong, we all made mistakes,” said Thacher. Owen knew that was as close as he’d get to an apology for the conk on the head, and it was good enough for him.

  “And we have money,” continued Thacher, “a whole sack of it.”

  “We have lost one of our own,” said Emma, and the memory of poor, ever-cautious Aaron passed over them like a dark cloud above the glittering sea.

  “But we still have each other,” she added, and a bit of light broke through again.

  Owen opened his mouth to respond, but what did he have to add, really? He nodded instead. They did have each other—a mismatched crew, perhaps, but capable and battle-tested. Who could outsail the sisters? Who could outthink Henry? And who, in their right mind, would want to meet Thacher in a dark alley?

  And all of them—the survivors—continued to kick toward shore as the last of the shattered, smoldering remains of the Polaris sank slowly behind them. Soon, the sound of crashing waves mixed with the calls of shorebirds.

  Then a third sound mixed in. Human voices. Owen looked up and saw them on the beach, little figures, still small in the distance. He felt his nerves swell along with the rolling wave that lifted the yard beneath him. Then, as the wave passed, he heard himself laugh. He was being ridiculous again.

  What does it matter if we wash up on a foreign shore? The U.S. was just a thin island and a narrow strait away now.

  And how can we be scared of mere men when we have overcome monsters?