Involution Ocean

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.

“I’ll have Dalusa fly overhead and bomb the creature from a height,” he said. “That flower petal arrangement it has looks vulnerable, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Flack?”

Flack said, “Yes, sir. Have you a fever?”

“When I need medical help I’ll request it. Fresh band­ages.”

“Needs open air, sir.”

“I don’t want any dust on it. Besides, it would stick to my sleeve.” That was undoubtedly true. “Open that hatch a little, crewman. Lively now.”

The man nearest the hatch opened it a tentative crack.

“Peek out. You see any of its tentacles nearby?”

“No, sir, I—'

The hatch was slammed instantly shut from the outside, rapping the crewman on the head so that he fell stunned down three stairs into the arms of crewman Murphig.

I looked up at the hatch. There were no thorn holes in it That was lucky for the stunned crewman, as he had just escaped an instant trepanation.

“That settles that, then,” Desperandum said. “The crea­ture has shifted position. It cant reach both hatches at once. Mr. Bogunheim, go to the kitchen hatch and call this lookout In.”

“Take your mask,” I said. “The anemone punched a hole through the hatch just before I left” The dust- repelling electrostatic field cut off automatically when the hatch was shut, and even now dust was doubtless percolat­ing downwards Into the air in fhe hull.

Bogunheim returned in a few moments with Dalusa. She -stared rather blankly at the supine figure of the stunned crewman, now being ministered to by Flack.

“Here,” Desperandum said, handing her the black bag of blood. “I want you to fly over the anemone and