It was a full-grown specimen, I noted from my somewhat shaky position on the main lower topgallant yard. Its tentacles were a good twenty-five feet long; its barrel body perhaps four feet high, a little over five feet if one counted its immense, rather discolored rose. It looked fat and happy, reminiscent somehow of a well-fed Nullaquan. It had seven tentacles; the eighth had apparently been chewed off in some childhood mishap.
It languidly draped three of its tentacles across the topsail braces and the main brace, wrapping them securely like grapevine tendrils around the wires of a trellis. The inner and outer lifts of the yard beneath my feet sang with tension. I immediately abandoned it and headed for the crow’s nest.
A questing tentacle found the mainmast and tugged at it.
The entire thing shook; I clung with cramped fingers to the ratline.
For a moment the idea had struck me that the anemone had boarded us to rescue its captive offspring. That notion was dispelled a few moments later when, with a negligent sweep of one arm, the anemone knocked the glass jar from its table. It hit the deck with a crash and a clang.
The heavy iron grating had crushed two of the young anemone’s tentacles; a shard of glass had stabbed its tubular body. It dragged itself with crippled slowness across the deck.
Somehow the anemone sensed movement. With unerring accuracy it picked its young kinsman from the deck and tasted it with a neat thorn puncture just above the suction foot. It found cannibalism less than appealing and dropped its victim to the deck with a complete lack of interest. Deeply wounded, perhaps mortally, the young anemone crawled painfully to the rail, trailing yellowish juice. It fell overboard and sank without a trace.
The situation was critical. One of the anemone’s long thorny tentacles was laid neatly on top of the kitchen hatch. Another was within easy striking range of the tiller. It would be very difficult to change course. Worse yet, in another hour or so we would crash into a nasty-looking fanged promontory, dead ahead. We had to tack.
Now the hatch to the captain’s cabin snapped open and half a dozen crewmen came up to join Desperandum. One of them was Flack, the first mate. He and Desperandum held a hurried consultation. Desperandum shook his head. His objection was obvious. He had seen the injury of his once-captive anemone; now this leathery monster might be the last of its kind. It was not to be harmed.
The anemone was quiet now; three tentacles clinging to fhe braces, four others sprawled limply across the deck. If It stretched hard it might be able to reach the hatch to the captain’s cabin, but it had apparently gone to sleep. The lack of a supporting medium did not seem to bother it I looked north. A faint dust cloud marked the path of the striders, still in full retreat Beyond that, bright sunlight showed a distance-shrunken figure winging our way. It was Dalusa.
I felt uncomfortable in the rigging. I decided to descend, very carefully, while the anemone was still quiet.
Most of the crew had joined the captain by now. He was still discussing tactics with his three mates. The crew stood marveling; three of them nervously clutched whaling spades, and Blackburn had one of his harpoons. I began to creep quietly down the ratline. The anemone showed no sign of noticing me.
I was almost within dropping distance of the deck when Desperandum saw me.
“Newhouse!” he shouted. His cry alerted both of us, but the anemone reacted faster. A tentacle swung up off the deck like the boom of a crane, directly at me. I don’t know how I did it, but seconds later I found myself poised perilously on the footrope of the main lower topsail yard, clutching the lifts for balance with rope-burned hands.
“Watch your step, Newhouse!” Desperandum admonished loudly. “You might have poisoned it!”
Maritime protocol could not have stifled my retort, but my mask was still on. I soon had my trembling under control. “As long as you’re up there, Newhouse, start furling the sails. We have to reduce our speed or we’ll hit the rocks.”
interspecies aggression was not my forte but I could see any number of simpler solutions to our problem. I made something of a botch job of furling the sails. It didn’t help much, anyway, as I could only work four of them and the Lunglance had twenty.
Dalusa flapped nearer. She was flying low, and therefore, she was nearly grabbed by a cunning snap of tentacles. My heart leapt into my mouth. I swallowed with difficulty, returning it to its proper anatomical position. Human blood was reputed to kill anemones; I accepted that, although I did not care to put it to the test. But Dalusa’s was different. She might be lethal, deadly even to Nullaquan sharks whose heavy-duty digestive systems made hors d’oeuvres out of human beings. On the other hand, the anemone might find her eminently delectable, even as I did.
The anemone seemed restless. It was not often that ft got a chance at a tidbit like Dalusa, and the lost opportunity must have annoyed it. Rather pettishly, I thought, it wrapped two of its tentacles around the mainsail yard and ripped it loose with a snap. Another tentacle grabbed the young anemone’s table, tugged it free from the deck, and threw it The men scattered and the anemone, sensing movement reached for them. Its arms stretched a surprising distance, so close to the hatch that several of the men abandoned that means of escape and leapt with commendable energy into the rigging.
While the anemone was distracted I streaked down the ratline, ignoring my injured hands, and ducked into the kitchen hatch. And just in time, too; as I shut it behind me a tentacle descended on it with such force that a thorn punched through the thin metal with a terrific report.
I dodged through the storeroom to the captain’s dining room. Desperandum, surrounded by crewmen, was sitting on the table! It bowed under his weight.
“Fire would work. Harpoons would make short work of it. Killing it’s no problem, it’s at our mercy. What I want is some way to immobilize it.”
The crew looked at him stonily. I pulled off my dustmask.
“I think that five good men could wrap it in a sail and have it completely trapped. Do I have any volunteers?”
I lifted my hand to wipe the sweat off my forehead.
“Not you, Newhouse. I need you to cook.” He looked at me kindly, his small, wrinkle-shrouded eyes filled with appreciation. “No other volunteers?”
I broke in before the rest of the crew could be embarrassed by the revelation of their good sense.
“Captain, I have an idea.”
“And that is?”
“We might drug the creature. A minimal dose of human blood should reduce its ability to resist”.
“Drug it?”
“Yes, Captain. Drug.” He looked so blank that I continued, “Drugs. Foreign chemicals introduced into its bloodstream.”
“I know the meaning of the word, yes. That sounds practicable. Crewman Calothrick, bring a basin. I’ve been meaning to have this lanced, and this looks like a convenient time.”
Calothrick still had his mask on, doubtless to hide his features, frozen in a Flare-blasted grin. By the time he returned with a basin, Desperandum had rolled up the sleeve of his white blouse and unwrapped a long stained bandage on his arm. The amount of infection and inflammation on that single arm would have put two or three lesser men to bed. Flack, lancet in hand, stared at the wound, then at the captain, as if expecting him to drop dead of blood poisoning on the spot. Desperandum refused to collapse, however, and at last Flack made a tentative puncture. I could tell by the crew’s intake of breath. I had averted my eyes; infection disgusted me.
When the ordeal was over, Desperandum poured the loathsome fluids into a thin black plastic bag and sealed it with a twist of wire.