drop a heavy a net over it. Crew men waiting below caught hold of the net’s lines and pulled the thing screaming to the deck. It thumped and twisted, but it couldn’t get free. The islanders threw their bodies on top of it, forcing it onto its back. Then they grabbed hold of wings through the mesh, stretching them out to full length, kneeling on them to pin them to the deck.
Kirby saw curving, fingerlike extensions of bone on the ends of its wings. The index was nearly a foot long, the others much shorter. He was staring at its strange, birdman face when it threw back its head and spoke, jolting him to the core.
“Don’t do this!” it cried in a high clear voice. “I mean you no harm. I only want to rest for a little while. I have young ones. Without me, they will starve.” Then it made the lilting, musical sounds of the islander language, presumably repeating itself for those who didn’t understand English.
The crew paid it no mind. They seemed almost possessed. Grinning, laughing, they held down the great bird with brute force. One of them yanked a feather out of its wing and stuck the bloody quill in his coil of braided black hair.
“It is speaking!” Doc said, pressing forward. “This creature is intelligent!”
“No,” Eng told him. “Manu tangata is a stupid thing. It just repeats what it’s heard. It has no wairua, no soul.”
A conclusion the evidence seemed to contradict.
“Are you deaf, man!” Doc exclaimed. “It is sentient and it is talking to you!”
The captain glowered at him and snarled, “Porangi.”
Clearly not a compliment.
Doc tucked the lapel of his frock coat behind the tooled leather holster and his LeMat. The hulking captain stiffened.
A chill crawled up Kirby’s spine and into his scalp. Doc was about to intervene on behalf of the bird creature. It was something Kirby hadn’t anticipated. He knew how life in the hellscape had affected him, how its unrelenting brutality had inured him, bit by bit, to the suffering of others.
But this was no bluff.
The old man was about to let it rip.
Kirby leaned close, turning his back on Eng while he rested his hand heavily on the butt of the LeMat, blocking Doc’s draw. “Long odds on chilling them before they get you,” he whispered. “And if you do manage it, there’ll be no one to sail the ship. We’ll all die. This is a battle that can’t be won, mercie.”
Tanner looked at him for a long moment, then said, “It would seem a concession to barbarism and blind ignorance is in order.”
“Not the first,” Kirby said.
“Nor by any means the last,” Doc said, sweeping the large black hand off his gun butt.
From a bucket under a bench, a crewman produced a two-pound hammer and a fistful of four-inch, steel nails. From under a tarp, three other islanders hauled out a large, chipped and dented wooden cross. At the foot of its vertical member was a steel eyebolt. While the rest of the crew lifted, the trio of crossbearers slid it in place under the supine and helpless bird thing.
“Please, please,” it begged. “Don’t do this…”
The islanders ignored the desperate pleading. They continued to celebrate the capture, some danced around exuberantly, waving their black-tattooed arms in the air and thrusting their wide hips.
Kneeling on the deck, a crewman pounded spikes through the fattest part of the creature’s wing bones and deep into the wood. The creature squawked in agony at every blow. It squawked even louder when its feet were nailed together at the ankle joints. A line was attached to the eyebolt, and at a signal from the captain, crewmen began to hoist the cross, upside down.
Warm rain splattered the deck around them.
Blood drops
“Why me?” the bird thing moaned as it was jerked higher and higher. “Why me?”
“Manu tangata on the mast brings fair winds,” the captain explained, answering the question of a creature that could not think but only mimic.
The irony was lost on Eng.
Chapter
Kirby saw curving, fingerlike extensions of bone on the ends of its wings. The index was nearly a foot long, the others much shorter. He was staring at its strange, birdman face when it threw back its head and spoke, jolting him to the core.
“Don’t do this!” it cried in a high clear voice. “I mean you no harm. I only want to rest for a little while. I have young ones. Without me, they will starve.” Then it made the lilting, musical sounds of the islander language, presumably repeating itself for those who didn’t understand English.
The crew paid it no mind. They seemed almost possessed. Grinning, laughing, they held down the great bird with brute force. One of them yanked a feather out of its wing and stuck the bloody quill in his coil of braided black hair.
“It is speaking!” Doc said, pressing forward. “This creature is intelligent!”
“No,” Eng told him. “Manu tangata is a stupid thing. It just repeats what it’s heard. It has no wairua, no soul.”
A conclusion the evidence seemed to contradict.
“Are you deaf, man!” Doc exclaimed. “It is sentient and it is talking to you!”
The captain glowered at him and snarled, “Porangi.”
Clearly not a compliment.
Doc tucked the lapel of his frock coat behind the tooled leather holster and his LeMat. The hulking captain stiffened.
A chill crawled up Kirby’s spine and into his scalp. Doc was about to intervene on behalf of the bird creature. It was something Kirby hadn’t anticipated. He knew how life in the hellscape had affected him, how its unrelenting brutality had inured him, bit by bit, to the suffering of others.
But this was no bluff.
The old man was about to let it rip.
Kirby leaned close, turning his back on Eng while he rested his hand heavily on the butt of the LeMat, blocking Doc’s draw. “Long odds on chilling them before they get you,” he whispered. “And if you do manage it, there’ll be no one to sail the ship. We’ll all die. This is a battle that can’t be won, mercie.”
Tanner looked at him for a long moment, then said, “It would seem a concession to barbarism and blind ignorance is in order.”
“Not the first,” Kirby said.
“Nor by any means the last,” Doc said, sweeping the large black hand off his gun butt.
From a bucket under a bench, a crewman produced a two-pound hammer and a fistful of four-inch, steel nails. From under a tarp, three other islanders hauled out a large, chipped and dented wooden cross. At the foot of its vertical member was a steel eyebolt. While the rest of the crew lifted, the trio of crossbearers slid it in place under the supine and helpless bird thing.
“Please, please,” it begged. “Don’t do this…”
The islanders ignored the desperate pleading. They continued to celebrate the capture, some danced around exuberantly, waving their black-tattooed arms in the air and thrusting their wide hips.
Kneeling on the deck, a crewman pounded spikes through the fattest part of the creature’s wing bones and deep into the wood. The creature squawked in agony at every blow. It squawked even louder when its feet were nailed together at the ankle joints. A line was attached to the eyebolt, and at a signal from the captain, crewmen began to hoist the cross, upside down.
Warm rain splattered the deck around them.
Blood drops
“Why me?” the bird thing moaned as it was jerked higher and higher. “Why me?”
“Manu tangata on the mast brings fair winds,” the captain explained, answering the question of a creature that could not think but only mimic.
The irony was lost on Eng.
Chapter
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