The Argo Goes West

25, Aattack of Scylla and Charybdis, part 3

"Um... I get it!"

Deke found the switch he was looking for in the hot and humid chamber like a sauna bath. He turned it on and it sounded like the grasshopper's chirpin behind the backrest. It bothered him, but now he had to concentrate. He grasped the handle of the whaling gun with both hands. It was modified from a prototype to resemble the whaling cannon Deke was used to using. He saw his target, Scylla, through the slit window. It was big and slow. 容It was an easy job, he thought, but he had to be vigilant. He has seen many of his comrades die from overconfidence. He took aim, took a breath, and fired the harpoon.

A shell fired from the 305 mm artillery successfully hit Charybdis in the middle. A huge pillar of sand rose up from within the whirlpool with a cloud of dust. After a while, something red fluttered down from overhead. It was a fragmented piece of Chalybdis' flesh. Galloway's hat and military uniform were heavily soiled and caught on film camera.

The tip of the harpoon that flew towards Scylla had the same shape as the trident of the sea god Poseidon. As Deke intended, the harpoon pierced Scylla's fat meat around the waist. At that moment, Scylla's tentacles began to scramble randomly, and immediately stopped moving. A cable was attached to the harpoon, but it was no ordinary cable. There was a wire inside. It was a mechanism that generated a high-voltage electric current with a generator installed behind the gun chamber and sent it to the tip of the harpoon through a wire. Nikola Tesla invented the electric whaling gun. The next day, when a newspaper reporter informed him of the results of the battle, Tesla said: "It was successful because of the AC power system. If we had used the DC power system, the Argo would have been prey to the monsters by now."

(Actually, Stella was originally thinking of something called the Tesla Cannon. Tesla has long aimed to realize wireless power transmission using Tesla coils as part of World-Systems. The Tesla Cannon uses it as a weapon. But it was still experimental, so he chose this wired method instead.)

A whistle was sounded announcing the success of the operation, and the Argo temporarily stopped. Everyone got off and an impromptu victory party was held. Theodore Roosevelt gave Hawk Galloway the Medal for blowing up Charybdis and Deke Anderson the highest praise for killing Scylla. Newspaper reporters interviewed the two, but Clifford Kent did not. Kent asked the man who was looking at Scylla wistfully. He was Hercule Giraud, the French head chef. Hercule said. "I want a piece of Scylla."

"Why?" asked Kent.

"Because I think it can be used for cooking. For example, it can be braised in white wine and garlic in a Mediterranean style, or deep-fried and served with marinara sauce. I wonder if there is squid ink. If there is, I want to use it for pasta and risotto."

Hercule's wishes were not granted. A few days later, Scylla's corpse was embalmed and sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The researchers were lucky to get the specimen intact. After being dissected and examined, it was put on permanent display next to Sciron's a huge monstrous sea turtle in the Greek mythology section. (However, several years later, the Scylla specimen was stolen by someone and disappeared.) On the other hand, although many pieces of Charybdis' flesh were recovered, it was impossible to reassemble the pieces by putting them together. Alex Carruthers, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, deduced that it was a giant worm-like creature, since there was no skeleton at all. One of the reasons was that it lived underground. Bernard Blair, a professor at Harvard University, refuted that theory. He argued that Charybdis were not solitary organisms but gregarious creatures like fish. Everyone knew they were like cats and dogs. The identity of Charybdis remains a mystery to this day.