The Beast of Cretacea Read Online Free PDF Page B

anything raw. Nothing that’s green, red, yellow, or orange. Stick to foods that are brown or close to white. You can eat things with skin, but don’t eat the skin itself. Your bodies don’t have the microbiota for that stuff yet.”
    “Wh-what’s microbiota?” Billy asks nervously.
    “Bacteria,” Charity answers. “In the old days, our digestive systems were full of them, but it’s been so long since people on Earth ate anything except liquid nutrients that they no longer have much gut bacteria. Here on Cretacea the food’s a lot more complex, and it’ll take your gastrointestinal tracts a few weeks to adjust. You can’t rush it without getting sick, so just bide your time.”
    Ishmael is still trying to wrap his brain around the idea of eating
anything
that has skin when Charity leads them into the large, noisy mess filled with sailors, their plates piled with awful-looking matter. Some of the sailors are trim, while others have clearly been so well fed since their arrival on Cretacea that their uniforms are stretched tight over their bellies.
    Charity directs the nippers to the far end of the mess, where they get trays and eating utensils, which she calls silverware. Next stop is the galley, a hot, cramped room filled with pungent aromas that make Ishmael’s stomach rumble hungrily. Behind steamy glass cases, sailors wearing stained white aprons serve portions of grossly unappealing fare. Despite his growling stomach, Ishmael is repulsed by the dark-brown lumps, the crusty, light-brown sticks, and things with tails, glassy eyes, and mouths filled with tiny teeth, lying in shallow pools of oily yellowish liquid. They’re supposed to
eat
this stuff ?
    “Believe me, it tastes a lot better than it looks,” Charity assures them. “It just takes getting used to. Sample a few things and see what you like. Then you can come back for a few bites more.”
    Moments later, carrying trays, the nippers follow her back into the mess, where she instructs them on the use of the silverware. They watch in fascination as she spears a morsel with a fork, then chews and swallows. “Delicious!” she pronounces.
    Queequeg is the first to follow her example, stabbing a small brown lump and placing it in his mouth. His eyes go wide and he quickly begins to tear at another piece with his spoon and fork.
    “Use the knife to cut, and don’t forget to chew,” Charity advises. “Otherwise you can choke.”
    Ishmael’s head is spinning. Food with eyes and tails? Food that was once alive? Food that can
kill
you? Back home, all they had was Natrient, a sweet, gooey “natural nutrient” squeezed out of hermetically sealed pouches. Why would anyone choose to eat these weird-smelling, awful-looking lumpy things instead?
    But Queequeg’s blissful expression and eagerness to eat more motivate Ishmael to pick up his fork and sample something. The food feels strange in his mouth, and he has to remind himself to chew, but it does indeed taste far better than it looks, and like nothing he’s ever had before.
    “Slow down,” Charity cautions. “Chew for as long as you can before you swallow. It helps with digestion.”
    They try, but it’s difficult to pace themselves. Ishmael and Queequeg hunch over their plates with knife and fork tightly in hand, their mouths working busily. Billy uses the spoon to try small bits of the blandest-looking lumps. Once Gwen discovers how delicious the food is, she sets her arms on either side of her plate protectively. Pip, however, eats slowly and delicately, resting his knife and fork on his plate while he chews. But then, given that he’s the only plump one among them, perhaps he isn’t as hungry.
    “What is this stuff ?” Gwen asks with bulging cheeks.
    “Mostly what we catch,” Charity answers. “Hump, long-neck, basher.”
    “Wh-what about that?” With his knife Billy pokes one of the things that have eyes, a mouth, and a tail.
    “Scurry. Someone must’ve caught it, or maybe we traded