“What about a genetically engineered, species-specific antibody?” Sarah Slate offered. “These do exist.”
Smith nodded. “Some do, but they’re infamously imprecise.” He punched out the commands. “Of those in existence, none target squid or cephalopods in general. Regardless, deploying the toxin would take weeks—and we don’t have weeks.”
Remo sighed. “Maybe he’ll run out of squid.”
Mark shook his head. “Cephalopods are thriving like never before. The fishing industry is removing squids’ competition for food sources. The oceans are warmer because of climate change and that’s making conditions better for squid, as well. They’re growing faster than ever because of optimized conditions.”
“Ideal for Sa, uh, you-know-who.”
“The biomass of cephalopods has eclipsed that of humans,” Mark Howard added. “That’s not counting the unknown population of the giant and colossal squid, about which very little is known.”
“The biomass of humans?” Remo asked. “All the squid in one hand, all the people in the other?”
“The squid hand outweighs the human hand,” Smith concluded. “If there is a creature that thrives on the cephalopods, it must be gorging consistently.”
“Squid live fast and grow in a hurry. Here’s a researcher quoted saying that a single-degree increase in water temperature will cause exponential increases in the growth of the young cephalopod.” Mark Howard looked up. “If you-know-who has a metabolism like that, and feeds like we think he’s feeding in equatorial water, the results would be obvious.”
“Yeah,” said Remo. “I guess so. Smitty, you and I both wanted to know how he could grow so big so fast. Now we know.”
“Yes,” Smith replied. He was still unconvinced that a mad, boneless sea creature was the cause of the problems.
“But what about the second part of the message,” Sarah said. “‘The more minds it consumes, the more powerful becomes its mind.’”
Mark Howard chewed his lower lip. Dr. Smith looked sour. Chiun was silent.
Remo wished somebody would say something.
“Some cephalopods are thought to be intelligent,” Mark said at last. “It’s difficult to measure. I guess you can’t test a squid like a dolphin or a chimpanzee. It would follow that the bigger-brained squid could be more intelligent—nobody’s ever seen a giant squid alive, let alone a colossal squid. Maybe they’re much more intelligent than anybody expects.”
“The message speaks of humanity,” Chiun declared. “It is the brains of humans that he needs. Sarah, you have provided us the key.”
“People? Eating smart people makes Sa Mangsang smarter?” Remo asked.
“Say not the name,” Chiun chided. “It is not the intelligent minds of this age that are drawn to him—it is the sensitive of mind. The powerful seers have always been the most highly tuned to him, and now it is they who spur the worshipers to take themselves into his realm. His siren song goes out to the world and the people come to him and are devoured by him. This increases his power of mind, and his siren call grows louder. Thus it shall continue to escalate.”
Smith nodded. “The creature grows in physical strength as he grows in mental reach. Eventually he’ll have the strength to do whatever it is he wishes to do.”
“What he wishes to do is end the world,” Chiun insisted.
“Master Chiun, I can’t accept that. Regardless of the nature of this creature, it must have a goal that is selfish—all goals are selfish. It wouldn’t take these steps without a reason.”
“Perhaps it will have the physical growth to launch itself from the earth,” Mark Howard said.
“You guys still on the space-alien kick?” Remo complained. “Maybe it’s just the opposite. Maybe he’s going to use his hyper-special-ESP to summon more things like him to Earth.”
“Under the circumstances, it makes more sense,” Dr. Smith admitted.
“A planet full of Sa Mangsangs,” Remo said. “There wouldn’t be room for people.”
“Remo, you bring his attention closer to you every time you use his name,” Chiun said. “Emperor Smith, there is nothing we can do to halt the flow of sea creatures that are being swept into the maw of the beast, but we must halt the flood of human beings who go to him and sacrifice themselves to him.”
Smith nodded. “I agree. Even if I can convince the President to commit the resources—and I don’t know that I can—I’m not sure if it can be done logistically. The area that will need patrolling is huge. The number of people converging on the vortex is growing each day.”
“It is?” Remo asked. “What kind of numbers are we talking about here?”
“Unknown,” Smith said. “Many ships, every day.”
“How many?”
Chapter 34
Henry Lagrasse couldn’t count the number of powered ships coming onto the shore every day, but it was easy to count survivors: Zero here, two here, four here.
They were more headstrong with every passing day, too. They crashed, picked themselves out the wreckage and almost immediately began their trek into the interior of the city.
The small and nonpowered watercraft had a better survival rate, and the South Seas natives were flowing in to the island in ever increasing numbers. Yesterday there was thirty-four. Today the count was a hundred and it wasn’t even noon.
Not one of the arrivals, from yesterday or today, was alive. Every last one of them had become food for the thing with the tentacles in the pyramid.
Henry Lagrasse, on the other hand, was still very much alive and having a great time. Life was one rollicking entertainment after another. His head hurt, sure, but the hurt came and went. Right now the pain was ebbing and he was watching the arrival of a sweet-looking yacht with some kick-ass power plants.
“Check it out!” he shouted. “Impact in two, one—now!”
The rushing yacht bottomed out on the stony incline of rock, still in two feet of water, but the friction was so great the hull still let out a screech and shot out a blaze of sparks. Once it cleared the sea it made twin twenty-foot feathers of white friction sparks.
“Look at them go! This is gonna set a record!” Lagrasse shouted.
He had been counting the skid grooves of all the vessels that slammed into the rocky island and knew the record was four hundred paces, set by a fiberglass pleasure yacht. This yacht was big, with a metallic hull, but it had come in fast and straight. The pilot looked as if he was steering into the current of the vortex, which meant he sailed neatly up the incline and across the stone beach.
“Oh, no, come on, baby!” Lagrasse shouted as the speeding yacht homed in on another pile of wreckage. It was speeding right at the mass of metal. Lagrasse desperately hoped it would miss and he leaned bodily to the right to help the new arrival.
“Yes!” he cried as the yacht slipped past the wreckage with inches to spare—a marvelous stroke of luck. The yacht’s inertia finally ran out and it ground to a halt.
Lagrasse was sitting down again. A wave of pain in his head made him want to throw up, but it went away. Shouting made the pain come. He really should try not to shout. But what about that yacht?
He started at the shore, where the fresh groove marks appeared, and he paced all the way to the yacht.
“Four hundred and twenty-one paces! You guys rock!”
The folks emerging from the yacht were in brown robes with deep hoods that hid their faces. There were several of them regarding Lagrasse somberly as other robed figures were being carried from the wreckage.
“Nice outfits,” Lagrasse commented.
“Who are you?” intoned a tall robed man who left the neat new rows of corpses. “Whom do you serve?”
Lagrasse shrugged. “I don’t know. Not the Coast Guard anymore, I guess. You know you guys made the best landing of anybody? You set the distance record for sure. I can already tell you set the survivor record, too. The best survivor rate so far was five, I think.”