The Day of Thunder

[Otomo Akutou]

Sped along smoothly by a fair wind, the Hopeful Endeavor plies her way eastward, heading to the Isles of Spice from her home port at Jukami Mura. Otomo Daichi smiles as he steers her, the rudder a bit sluggish with the ship having a belly full of supplies for the new expedition, but who doesn’t move a little slower after taking in so much food? The Admiral will be pleased his old ship’s still got life in her, he thinks.

Otomo Kiseki staggers up from below deck. “Captain,” he says, “There’s something you probably ought to see.”

Daichi’s eyes flicker toward the crewman, and he asks “What’ve you got?”

Kiseki shakes his head. “Don’t know how to say it, Captain,” he replies. “But that new Hantei boy we took on…something’s off with him.”

Daichi sighs, says to another crewman “Take the conn,” and makes his way downward, following Kiseki below and through the stacked cargo to a hammock that isn’t swinging despite the motion of the ship around it.

Now that ain’t right, Daichi thinks, and he puts a hand to his knife as he nods for Kiseki to pull back the blanket that covers a mounded, writhing form.

The ship’s boy in the hammock, exposed, recoils from the dim light of the hanging lantern, moaning slightly and clutching his arms tighter around his stomach. His teeth show in a grimace, neck straining, but he makes no noise.

“What’s wrong, boy?” asks Daichi. “Seasick? Too much ship’s biscuit?”

The boy turns over and retches, once, twice, thrice, and there is a sodden snapping as tendrils emerge into his nostrils and ears, grip the corners of his mouth and his chin, digging in and pressing outward. Kiseki’s stomach empties as something comes out from the now-limp boy in a glistening welter, tendrils beginning to swell and unfurl, a maw with too many teeth opening as a split tongue begins to lap at the spreading puddle on the planks around it.

There is a high-pitched squealing scream as Daichi’s hand flickers, and a pair of tendrils start to flop independently of the central mass as it slithers away from the lantern-light and into the shifting shadows below deck.

“Shit” falls from Daichi’s mouth as he grabs his knife again and stomps the still-flopping tendrils that remain. “What’d he eat from last?” he asks, turning to find Kiseki still wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll…find out,” the younger man pants, and he heads back to the gangway.

Daichi looks about, his eyes roving across the cargo, trying to pierce the spaces that are always present between parcels and packages. Where the fuck did it go? he thinks.

Shouting from the main deck snaps Daichi’s head about, and he hears “Man overboard!” sound out. Rushing up, he sees Kiseki and several of the other crew looking and pointing at the splashing of a swimmer heading away from the Hopeful Endeavor. “It was the ship’s cook,” Kiseki says. “I was going to ask him about last mess, and he jumped over the railing.”

Daichi’s eyes close. “Who was at mess with the ship’s boy last night?” A couple of hands raise, and Daichi faces them. “Cook said he’d given the boy something special, Captain,” one of them stammers out, “on account of his youth. He’d…he’d been saying he missed his momma.”

“You sure you didn’t share from his mess?”

Several sets of eyes fall to the deck.

Daichi nods slowly. “Anybody else share your mess?” he asks.

“No, sir.”

“Anything you need me to tell your families?”

The crew pauses. One sailor answers, “That we hope they forgive us, Captain. And that you do.”

Daichi nods again. “Kiseki-san,” he says. “I know you’d been sharing my mess. You haven’t eaten with the boy?”

“No, sir. Not once.”

“Then ready the ship’s boat. Take it in to Jukami Mura. You’ll have my message for the Admiral presently.”

~~~~~

A few days later, Kiseki stands stiffly before Otomo Gusai, struggling not to flinch under his staring eye.

There’s a lot of me in this one, Gusai thinks. Makes sense, really.

“I believe all hands were lost, Admiral. I saw the flames myself, saw the Endeavor go down.”

Gusai sighs. “And you’ve been checked out,” he says, “prodded with jade and all that?”

Kiseki nods. “Invasively, sir, and extensively. The Spider and Crane were quite thorough.”

“I’d hope so. Shame to lose all that cargo. More of a shame to lose that crew. Daichi was a good man. Like a son to me, he was.”

“And like a brother to me, sir.”

Gusai closes his eye, leans back slightly. “You’re dismissed, Kiseki-san. Get some rest. You’re like to need it. New orders’ll come soon enough.”

Kiseki bows sharply and backs out of the room, sliding the door shut behind him.

Gusai turns to look out over the sea. A tear runs down his cheek. A scratching at the door reaches his ear, and he wipes the moisture away, breathes, and calls out “Enter.”

The door slides aside to reveal a Nezumi, -T’. “Leader-of-Ships need-needs assistance?”

Gusai gestures to -T’ to sit across from him. “Lost another ship to the damned tentacle things. You remember anything about them? Or Remember anything?”

“Will use sticks, let Leader-of-Ships know.”

Gusai bows. “Much obliged,” he says. “Much obliged, indeed.”