The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(25)
Two figures standing out against the horizon interrupted his meditations. Reynolds took the spyglass out of the pocket of his oilskin and trained it on a pair of dark shapes advancing toward the ship. Although he could not make out their faces at that distance, it had to be Carson and Ringwald. So they had not been eaten alive by the monster. And from the way they were walking they did not seem to be injured either. Then Reynolds noticed the sled they were pulling between them, on top of which was a large mound draped in a tarpaulin. Reynolds’s jaw dropped in astonishment. This could only mean one thing: Carson and Ringwald had captured the monster from the stars.
V
THE ARRIVAL OF THE MEN THEY HAD GIVEN UP for dead created the same stir among the crew of the Annawan as if they had seen a ghost. Reynolds, Captain MacReady, Doctor Walker, the boatswain Fisk, and some of the sailors, among them Peters, Allan, and Griffin, clambered down the makeshift ramp to welcome their lost companions, although most of them seemed more excited by the prospect of the two men having captured the monster from space. They came to a halt in front of the sled, plunged into a reverential silence.
“Did you find the demon?” MacReady asked, still unwilling to show any admiration for the two sailors whom he considered the most inept on the ship, while pointing at the mound upon which all eyes were focused.
“No, Captain,” Ringwald replied, “but we found this.”
The sailor gestured to his companion, and each tugged at a corner of the tarpaulin, revealing what was on the sled. The sight drew a murmur from the crew, for it was no less shocking than if it had been a demon from the stars. What Ringwald and Carson had brought from their search was the head of a gigantic elephant seal. The neck of the animal had been ripped apart, its huge skull crushed. The animal’s wounds were so extreme that no one dared to imagine what might have caused them. While the astonished group were examining the carcass, Ringwald explained that when they had found it, the animal’s innards were still steaming, which meant it could not have been long dead. The thick fog made it impossible for them to continue, so they had decided to open up the animal’s abdomen even further and to take turns sheltering inside its still-warm interior. In this way, they had avoided freezing to death, although both had lost all feeling in their toes. Hearing their story, the others tried not to retch when they saw the thick, foul-smelling film covering the sailors’ oilskins. They could not help imagining the two of them curled up inside the bloody cocoon, brandishing their muskets at the fogbound air. Leaning over the animal, Reynolds saw near its mouth what appeared to be shreds of strange reddish skin.
“Well, perhaps we still don’t know what the monster looks like, but at least we know its skin is a bright crimson,” he said, standing up straight. “It will be easy enough to spot in the snow.”
“Crimson, sir?” one of the sailors said in surprise as he studied the shreds of skin. “It looks yellow to me.”
“In that case, Wallace, you need your eyes tested,” another sailor named Kendricks chimed in. “It’s obviously blue.”
Wallace insisted it was as yellow as straw, at which the other sailors leaned over to see which color the monster’s skin was. Each appeared to see a different color.
“Stop arguing, damn it!” roared the captain, tired of this absurd debate. “Can’t you see it doesn’t matter what color the creature is? For God’s sake, look at what it’s capable of!”
Suddenly ashamed, the sailors fell silent. For his part, Reynolds felt a degree of disappointment as well as horror as he contemplated the carcass.
At that moment, Captain MacReady stepped back from the remains, scanning the horizon through narrowed eyes while the others looked on apprehensively.
“Listen carefully,” he said, turning to them at last. “From now on, no one leaves the ship without my permission. We’ll take shelter inside and take turns on watch. If that thing did this to an enormous elephant seal over sixteen feet long, I don’t need to tell you what it could do to any of us.”
An anxious murmur spread through the crew.
“As for the head of the seal,” he added, “take it on board. At least we’ll have something to eat while we wait for that thing to come after us, which it will do sooner or later.”
The crew nodded as one and trudged back to the ship, trying to come to terms with the state of siege into which they had suddenly been plunged, although their apparent composure probably owed more to the fact that there was no one to gripe at. As if freezing to death on that accursed lump of ice were not enough, now they had to contend with a monster that could tear an elephant seal to ribbons. Reynolds, who had taken up the rear of the gloomy procession, noticed that Allan was still standing next to the sled, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. Finally, the young gunner turned around and followed the group, head bowed, a grim look in his eyes.
“We are alone . . . ,” he said, as he drew level with Reynolds. “Alone with the creature.”
His words made Reynolds’s blood run cold. All of a sudden, that vast space seemed to him terribly small.
? ? ?
TWO DAYS LATER, EVERYTHING was still calm. It was a tense calm, filled with furtive glances and fearful faces, where the slightest noise made everyone jump, and the more sensitive souls spilled half their broth, while muskets sat alongside spoons at the table. A wary, strained composure where tempers frayed easily and arguments were generally resolved by one party drawing a knife or by the intervention of Captain MacReady. In short, the kind of nail-biting stillness that made them all secretly wish the monster from the stars would attack once and for all, so that they could see if they could defeat it—or, on the contrary, find out if all resistance was useless, as in the case of the seal, whose flesh was now sating their hunger in broths.