PoraBora

Chapter Sixty-Six

"Sharks," Pe muttered, "Salting seaweed, barracuda, gull, fish, pelican--"

"We've got to get back there!" shouted Hui.

"Are you kidding?" Pe demanded, as the god's flippers transformed into arms as thick as her boat and began to pummel the ship. She didn't need her monoscope to see it. The god was enormous.

"He'll die!" exclaimed Hui.

"He's dead," Pe said, "and we will be too if we get anywhere near that thing."

Surely they didn't have to save it. The god looked every bit capable of saving itself. She had to worry about getting out, alive, and not seared into a flaming, burning spectacle to match Hui's face.

She found some comfort in the thought. It didn't last long, because she knew the only way they didn't get caught by Keasau's flailing arm was by getting rid of the net. Otherwise, they'd be trapped in one of its three mouths. Did it have teeth? Some whales did. She tried to tell herself this one just ate krill.

It dropped its jaws until it had its mouth around the stern of the bat ray, like a toddler testing something it had found on the floor.

That's what happened to Hui, she told herself, to stave off the certainty of death that froze her every time she saw it. He picked up a crab when he was a kid, and put it in his mouth, and fifteen years later this is what he got.

Hui grabbed her hand. "Pe," he said. "I'm not kidding. We need to go back!"

"Did the boom hit you?" Pe growled, pulling her arm back. Maybe it had. Right in the face. The rest of him had grown around the wound. "If we go back--"

"My squadron is on that ship," snapped Hui. "That's my family, Pe, and I can't leave them to--"

Pe kicked out the tiller and the boat turned back. "Fine! But if we die for dead men, I'll make sure the hagfish get you first!"

Hui grinned, went to the bow, and held his spear like he wasn't sure what good it would do. Pe wasn't sure what good she would do. Or her boat, in that oil.

It was coming in full, now, draining from the body like water off rocks after the wave had come by. It turned the sea black. The lights were drained. Probably the jellyfish died. Just like she would, if she got close.

Pe could see men throwing themselves off the bat ray as if they had a better chance in the jellyfish.

Hui grabbed the monoscope and peered through. "I don't see any koa," he said. Then he stiffened, pushing his face harder into the scope, as if that would help him see better. It was a monoscope, thought Pe, it smashed into his face right when he went off a swell.

"There!" he said. "It's Tua!"

Which of them was Tua, Pe couldn't tell and wouldn't have known, but she hoped for Hui's sake it wasn't the one who slid over the oil, into the god, and disappeared. Four other men climbed away, kicking cannons down into Keasau, as if it would help. Other ships fired again, and more of Keasau's skin was peeled back. Every infliction burst a geyser of oil.

"That's Noikoa," said Hui. "It has to be. The bastard's still got his firelock. Sharks, Tua," and he shouted, "Tua! Behind you!"

Pe heard the crack of the gun, and she guessed Tua based on who fell to his knees. Her boat jumped a swell, and she winced, but Hui got the monoscope away from his eye in time and kept his balance. It was a near thing. He'd fallen, as a kid, off a boat and into an urchin, face-first.

When the bow hit water again, and a jelly's arms washed over before dripping off again, Hui had the scope back up. "That's Akoni. Hurry, Pe!"

Pe's motor was hurrying the best it could, but she didn't know what in the salting seas they were going to do.