Cryptozoica
CRYPTOZOICA
Mark Ellis
Copyright Mark Ellis 2011
Interior artwork & cover art copyright Jeff Slemons2011
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Cryptozoica is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the
products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons is entirely coincidental.
Art Director & Incidental Art - Melissa Martin-Ellis
Logo Design - Deirdre DeLay-Pierpoint
www.millennialconcepts.com
DEDICATION:
For Melissa. Nothing would be
possible without her.
In loving memory of our friend
Jim Mooney
1919-2008
“Tombstone” Jack Kavanaugh
Bai Suzhen
Augustus Crowe
Honoré Roxton
Aubrey Bellea
u
Mouzi
Hamish Oakshott
If (and oh! What a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, would not have been the case before living creatures were found.
—Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker
The megatherium, the ichthyosaurus. They paced the earth with seven-league steps and hid the sky with cloud-vast wings. Where are they now? Fossils in museums, and so few and far between at that, that a tooth or knucklebone is valued beyond the lives of a thousand soldiers.
—George Bernard Shaw
Mythology is shorthand. It is condensed history and it lives on in analogy.
—Brinsely lePoer Trench
May 7th, 1836: The Island of Big Tamtung, 518 kilometers southwest of the Makassar Strait.
The
Beagle’s
longboat rode the wild breakers at the shoreline, rising and falling and rising again. Waves lapped over the sides, drenching Darwin, Martens, Belleau and the three sailors. Salt spray stung their eyes and stiffened their beards. The smell of brine and kelp filled their nostrils
Darwin vainly tried to shield the wounded man from the seawater, but the waves still splashed over the gunwales, spilling into the raw gashes slashed through Hoxie’s torso, sluicing away the blood and dragging a cry of agony from his lips.
Bassett and Phyfe leaned their considerable weight against the oars, rowing desperately to break free of the combers before the stormy seas smashed the boat back onto the beach or piled her up on half-submerged rocks. With teeth bared and biceps bulging, they strained against the wooden sweeps.
Darwin hoped that once the boat cleared the breakers, the violent, up-and-down buffeting would cease.
A white skein of lightning broke through the cloud cover, flashing over the waves. Thunder boomed, the air shivering from the concussion like the striking of a gong.
Clearing his vision with swipes of his hands, Darwin glanced over his shoulder at the rock-strewn beach. It was surrounded by thick clumps of palm trees and flowering brush.
High above the treeline towered dark ramparts of volcanic stone. He saw no movement there but wind-whipped foliage. Belleau leaned close and shouted triumphantly into Darwin’s ear, “Charles,
mon coquin,
I think we have escaped from Hell!”
Dr. Jacque Belleau’s English was so heavily accented, Darwin only caught every other word. He just nodded in response. Hitching around, he squinted toward Conrad Martens. The middle-aged artist clutched his oilcloth-bound sketchbook tightly to his chest, both arms crossed over it protectively. Water streamed down his bald pate and flowed over his round-lensed spectacles. His lips moved as he recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over.
Darwin couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. The round-the-world voyage of the HMS
Beagle
had already presented its fair share of dangers, but so far without loss of life or even a serious injury amongst the crew. Now, with the end of the five-year long trek less than six months away, Bosun Hoxie’s blood mixed with the seawater puddled around Martens’ ankles.
Long ago, Darwin had accepted the perils of the voyage, but even his own broad imagination could not have anticipated the horror that came roaring out of the jungle on Big Tamtung Island. The courageous Hoxie had faced down the beast with a misfiring musket. Belleau, the botanist who served as the ship’s surgeon, had already expressed his doubts that the injured Scotsman would live until they reached the
Beagle
. The survey barque lay at anchor barely an eighth of a mile from the sprit of beach upon which they had landed the afternoon before.
Thunder exploded directly overhead, as stunning as the detonation of an artillery shell. Lightning crowded the sky, the brilliant flash turning the dim gray dawn to blazing noon. Within seconds, a howling squall hit the longboat broadside, tossing the craft about as if it were a twig caught in rapids. A swell peaked like a hillock beneath the keel and the boat slid down it.
Belleau cried out,
“Merde! Non!
” and snatched madly at the capped metal canteen that slipped from his fingers. He managed to catch it and he exhaled a long, relieved sigh.
Darwin glanced sourly at the tall, broad-shouldered Frenchman. He could not understand why he had risked his life to fill the flask with slime from the pool he had discovered at the center of the island.Belleau had traipsed off alone to collect a sample and when Hoxie went off into the jungle in search of him, he had been attacked by a savage animal.
The ocean heaved and roiled, and more water flowed over the sides. Darwin cupped his hands over Hoxie’s waxen face, trying to keep the sea from filling his mouth. Belleau tugged down the makeshift bandage wrapped around the man’s midsection to examine the wounds. Darwin averted his gaze from the blue-sheened intestines bulging through the three vertical gashes torn in the man’s belly.
As they drew closer to the ship, Darwin saw how the
Beagle
rocked beneath the storm’s pummeling. The sails of her two masts were tightly furled. He could barely make out the people on deck, a handful of sailors who crouched in the lee scuppers, draped in tarpaulin cloaks. He felt certain the sailors were profanely wondering about the sanity of the crew of the longboat for braving such wild seas at such an hour. He couldn’t blame them.
The boat dipped down in the green trough of a wave, then rose up on its foaming slope. Darwin gestured frantically to the sailors on deck. The boat fell again and when the seas lifted it once more, he saw the rope ladder unrolling from the deck rail above them.
Bassett and Phyffe cast fevered glances over their shoulders, gauged the distance to the survey ship, and rowed even more single-mindedly, the oar blades biting deeply into the ocean. The two men breathed through their open mouths, blowing out droplets of water in fine sprays.
When the prow of the boat bumped against the hull of the
Beagle
, a sailor tossed a coil of rope down to Belleau, who expertly knotted it around a cleat. Working in tandem, he, Phyffe and Bassett handed the unconscious Hoxie up to the waiting crewmen, after first making sure the man’s bandage fit snugly. Darwin waited until his companions were aboard the barque before he clambered up the ladder.
Captain Fitzroy hauled him over the side and both men staggered when the ship rolled. A slurry of warm rain and foam splattered against their faces. “What in God’s name happened to Hoxie?” the burly, flaxen-haired officer bellowed. He shouted because he was angry, and also to be heard over the keening of the wind through the rigging.
Darwin opened his mouth to answer, but Belleau interjected quickly, “He was attacked by a wild animal, possibly a leopard.”
“Did I not advise against going ashore?” Fitzroy glared balefully at the waves slamming against the hull and the dark bulk of the two islands then transferred his gaze to the tall, blond-haired Frenchman. “The Tamtungs have never been explored by white men. They’re completely unknown.”
Rather than respond to the captain’s accusatory tone, Belleau said, “Let us get this poor fellow below so he can be treated.”
Sailors carried Hoxie down the forward companionway to the far cabin and the cramped, makeshift surgery within. They laid the red-haired man down upon a table, his arms and legs dangling over the edges. Darwin and Martens joined Belleau.
To the seamen, Belleau snapped, “Leave us.”
Their eyes flashed with resentment at the man’s autocratic manner. More than one member of the
Beagle’s
crew had served aboard a Royal Navy vessel during the Napoleonic wars. They didn’t make much of an effort to disguise their dislike of the French in general and Belleau in particular.
Martens made a move to follow the sailors out of the cabin, but Belleau laid a hand on his arm. “One moment. Leave your sketchbook with me, Conrad.”
The slightly built man froze, blinking from behind his salt-smeared spectacles. Seawater dripped from his muttonchops. “What are you going to do with it, Jacque?”
“I will keep it safe, never fear. What is within it is for no eyes other than our own.”
Martens considered the man’s words for a thoughtful moment, and then slowly handed it over. He closed the door firmly behind him. Darwin and Belleau stripped out of their wet coats and lit the whale-oil lamps. Rain drummed heavily against the glass of the cabin skylight.
“I will do what I can to dress his wounds,” Belleau declared, placing his canteen on the table and rolling up his shirtsleeves. “But I have faint hope that I can do anything for the poor fellow, except to ease his suffering for a few minutes. Fetch me the lint, Charles.”
As the ship’s surgeon, Belleau often decried the poor quality of the medical supplies available to him. Darwin didn’t blame him. Everyone on the barque performed various duties and over the last eighteen months, he had become the de facto medical aide to the French doctor.
As Belleau snipped away Hoxie’s scarlet-soaked bandages with a pair of scissors, Darwin poured vinegar into a saucer and placed a handful of lint within it. Sponging away the blood from the man’s torso, Belleau shook his head at the sight of the three gaping wounds, all of them four to five inches long. The flesh around them was swollen and inflamed. Both men caught a whiff of a punctured bowel. Belleau uttered a wordless murmur of dismay.
The Frenchman removed the lint from the saucer and carefully applied it like a paste around edges of the slashes. He said sorrowfully, “He will not live out the day. He has lost too much blood. For all intents and purposes, he has been disemboweled. Such savagery—”
Darwin’s hands began to tremble. “You saw?”
“From a distance, only a glimpse. I was at the pool when I heard Hoxie scream. I turned just as the creature sprang away.”
Darwin’s throat constricted and he had to force out the words. “Conrad and I saw it, too. It came to the outskirts of the camp and shrieked at us. A devilish thing, a scaled monster howling up from Hell. I believe it would have attacked all of us if not for the birds.”
Belleau glanced up from Hoxie, eyes narrowing. “Birds?”
“We heard birds singing…the creature seemed distracted by the song and then it fled.” Darwin shook his head. “I cannot speak of it.”
Belleau nodded. “That is good, Charles, that is undoubtedly for the best. We must never let the world know about this place. Our visit to the Tamtungs must not be recorded in the ship’s logs or your journals.”
Darwin frowned. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It will undo all our work, all of the gallant battles we scientists have fought to replace religious superstition as the dominant force in human culture. The voyage of the
Beagle
is devoted to advancing biogeography, paleontology, embryology and morphology. Those sciences must become the world’s new scriptures and there is no place in them for tales of monsters.”
Bewildered, Darwin exclaimed, “You confound me, Jacque! How will telling the truth of the Tamtungs set back science? I would judge that allowing the world to know about all the life forms upon it would have the exact opposite effect. The thing is done. The island has been discovered, it cannot be undiscovered.”
Belleau straightened up from Hoxie. Softly, he intoned, “He has lapsed into a coma. I fear he will never awaken. I have done all I can.”
Then he turned toward Darwin and cuffed him across the right side of his face, leaving an imprint of bloody fingers on the younger man’s cheek. Darwin staggered against the bulkhead, gaping at him in astonishment.
“Jacque, are you mad?” he cried, struggling to keep his temper in check.
Belleau retorted grimly, “I am far more sane than you, Charles. The creature that attacked our poor comrade is completely unknown to science, more of a monster of myth than of nature…a basilisk, a sirrush, the dragon slain by Daniel—and where there is one, there are bound to be many more.
“Once that revelation reaches the rest of the world, then all of the scriptural literalists, whether they are Christian, Jew or Muslim, will use the island’s existence to dismiss and denounce scientific thought for the next hundred years.
“By documenting what we have seen, you will restore the power to churchmen to act as the final arbiters of what is true and what is not.”
Darwin rubbed the stinging side of his face with a handkerchief, wiping away the blood. “Your argument is without merit. Perhaps the creature was an unclassified species of lizard, or perhaps a larger version of a Galapagos iguana or a giant specimen of the New Zealand tuatara. I think you’re overwrought.”
Belleau voiced a derisive laugh. “Am I?”
With sharp, violent movements, Belleau snatched up Martens’ sketchbook and yanked away the oilcloth covering. Crowding Darwin up against the bulkhead, he flung open the cover, stabbing with a finger at the first charcoal rendering. It depicted deep parallel tracks sunk deep into mud.
The outside edges of the prints showed a pattern resembling splayed, three-clawed feet. “Have you ever seen an animal track like that before, Charles?”
He flipped to another sheet of paper, and to a hastily done portrait of a horse-shaped head, grinning jaws baring double-rows of dagger-like fangs. A pebbled pattern of scales coated its snout. A crest of feathers stood up from the center of its skull.
“Or an animal like
that?
” Belleau demanded. “Not even in Africa would you find such a beast! To the churchmen, it is not a new species of reptile, but a creature from the ancient bestiaries, a cockatrice, a dragon or a basilisk. They will cite the ancient legends to support their belief in superstition.”
He turned the sheet aside, revealing another grey and black rendering beneath it, of a creature whose outline resembled that of a kangaroo. It stood on powerfully muscled hind-legs with a thick tail tapering to a sharp point. Both of three-toed feet were equipped with a large, cruelly hooked talon, curving out from the third claw like a sickle.
