The Beast of Cretacea by Todd Strasser Read Free Book Online Page A

terrafin’s skiver up his —” Starbuck’s eyes find the table of nippers watching and listening. The first mate’s forehead furrows. “Why aren’t you at work? Get your sorry carcasses into the galley, now!”
    The startled nippers jump to their feet. Starbuck points at Pip. “Not you, Lopez-Makarova.”

In the storm outside, Ishmael adjusted his goggles and tightened the thin dust mask covering his nose and mouth, but he could still taste grit. He felt for the rope that led out to the street. This length would lead to another that he could follow home while gusts whipped around, soot getting into his hair and working its way beneath his clothes through every possible crevice. The important thing was to count the number of steps. When he got to three hundred, he’d begin feeling for the rope that ran along the path to his home.
    Later, he stood inside the front door, shaking the grime and filth out of his clothes and hair and wiping what he could off his skin. Washing wasn’t an option. Water was too scarce for anything except drinking. After returning the gun to the storage closet, he went into the tiny bedroom he shared with his foster brother. It wasn’t large enough even for two small beds, so Joachim had rigged a bunk. In the shadowy dimness, Archie was barely visible sitting on the side of the lower bunk, undoing the Syncro straps on the metal braces that ran the length of both legs. Ishmael had been listening to the tearing sound of Syncro for almost as long as he could remember.
    Recalling the electric shock he’d felt earlier at Old Ben’s place, Ishmael had an idea. “Show me your registry?” he asked.
    Without asking why, Archie held out his left arm. Ishmael pressed his own registry close to his foster brother’s.
    There was no shock.
    “What was that for?” Archie asked.
    “Nothing,” Ishmael said. “Any word from the Mission Board?”
    Archie shook his head.
    On impulse Ishmael said, “Maybe we should run away.”
    “In the middle of a storm? And go where?” Archie chuckled as he braided his long black hair so that it wouldn’t get tangled in his dreams. He was right. There was nowhere to go. For many hundreds of miles outside Black Range, the territory was said to be barren, parched, and uninhabitable. Even if they packed supplies, how far could they possibly get with Archie on crutches?
    And if Old Ben was telling the truth about the looming end of oxygen production, what would it matter?
    “Stop agonizing, Ish. Wherever they send me has got to be better than this place,” Archie said. “And we both know they’re not going to make me do anything I can’t do. You’ll see. I’ll probably get an auditing job while you’re slaving away in a mine. And with both of us out there, we’ll have twice the money when we get back. Imagine having our own rooms, Ish. Or are you still afraid of sleeping alone in the dark?”
    That’s how Archie was. Even at a time like this, he could tease. Ishmael watched his foster brother lift his useless legs into the lower bunk and cover them with the blanket. “And seriously? If something
does
happen to me — if I die, I mean — it won’t be bad, it’ll just be what happens. Saying death is bad is like saying night is bad. Night isn’t bad, it’s just not day. You can’t expect me to stay here in Black Range. This isn’t living, Ish. It’s . . . it’s hardly even existing.”
    Ishmael didn’t argue; the appeal deadline had passed, so there was no point. But it was agonizing to think that after tomorrow, the next place Archie would undo his braces would be in some distant solar system. An auditing job? If such a thing hardly existed on Earth, why should it exist on some wild, uncivilized feeder planet?

“Welcome to purgatory, urchins. Prepare to toil the longest hours for the least amount of pay and the most abuse.”
    In the galley, Gwen, Billy, Queequeg, and Ishmael, all wearing aprons, stand at attention. The speaker is Fleece, the