Chapter 15: The Treasure Hunt Begins
Jim Hawkins's immediate reaction to the pirates' presence within the formation was to contend with them and escape. The crew moved slowly from the shadows of their locations and came at him, and he got a fast glimpse of the Doctor and me in our captivity before he fled for the front opening of B.E.N's formation. He was barricaded from escape, however, by most of the crewmen, as they moved between him and the door. So Mr. Hawkins skidded to a halt and turned the other way, and as he fled back to the dome, he shot passed some of the pirates, and it seemed almost as though he might make it. Luck was not on our side, however, for in the next moment Meltdown raced after Jim, and soon after, seeing Jim struggle against Meltdown's hold, Turnbuckle ran to Meltdown's aid. Jim had shortly been imprisoned by their grips.
Silver was standing smugly before the Doctor and me, and when Jim Hawkins was presented to him by Turnbuckle and Meltdown, he chuckled mockingly. "You're just like me, Jimbo," he observed serenely, bowing his head enough to be at eye level with the boy, "You hates t'lose." Jim did nothing but watch Silver contemptuously.
Silver straightened again, chuckling as though he'd at last gotten the final word, and twisted both his hands about the map, attempting to open it.
This reminded me of something that I'd almost forgotten in the perilous events of the mutiny: Jim Hawkins was the only one with the knowledge of how the map was activated. I glanced quickly at the Doctor, who was sitting upon his knees with his eyes closed, quite resigned. But I looked back at Silver, now on perhaps his third attempt to open the spherical map, and reckoned up with optimistic rationalism that perhaps not all was lost, and that we didn't have to resign to our aparrent defeat just yet. If Silver was never able to open the map, the Doctor, Mr. Hawkins, and I still would still possess the ultimate advantage.
But now that Silver had failed a fourth time, I noticed dauntingly that Jim was watching Silver, obviously amused, with a ridiculing smile. Silver noticed as well.
"Open it!" he commanded hotly, holding the map out to Jim and planting it heavily into the boy's released hands. Mr. Hawkins hesitated, seemingly unsure of what to do. His eyes wandered for a moment, indecisive. Silver activated his right arm, and the same flintlock lurched into view, replacing his hand. Jim's eyes shot up at him.
"…I'd get busy," Silver warned him, and motioned at the Doctor and me, again threatening to pick either me or the Doctor off if Jim refused to open the map.
Silver was playing his last two cards.
Jim's gaze bounced about, looking at everything in the room as he tried to think, until at last his eyes fell upon me, and he looked at me almost questioningly. I rigorously shook my head to signify that I did not want him to open the map, but his gaze quickly bounced off me and landed on the Doctor, and then his eyes searched the floor.
Silver's gun clicked.
Jim looked scornfully at Silver, and to my indescribable regret, he began to press the buttons upon the map in what I supposed was a specific pattern. When this had been accomplished, the map separated into distinct parts which he twisted around, until at last the golden-copper sphere split into eighteen pieces, and an emerald light seeped from the interior, illuminating the entire room in less than a second.
Small pixels of a deeper jade color emerged and spread about the room, and for an instant I expected to see the Doctor's dome, according to the description he'd given me of the hologram in my stateroom after the launch. This did not occur, however. Instead, the glimmering holograms gathered together in the center of the room, high above all our heads, and formed a depiction of Treasure Planet itself. Silver murmured wondrously as we all motionlessly watched the holographic planet take shape. Then, the moment the depiction was completed, it imploded upon itself, starting with its northern hemisphere, and the pixels that had originally shaped the image of the planet ran from the interior of B.E.N's formation, aligning themselves into a thick cord of emerald light that led outside, bent sharply, and pointed east.
Silver raced after the beam of light to the door of the formation, and followed the rest of its travel with his eyes. It must have extended a far way off, for he stood there gazing at it a while before he turned, the green light shimmering in his eyes, and commanded in his cold, authoritative, and intelligent tone, "Tie 'im up," and he gestured at Mr. Hawkins, "an' leave 'im with the others until we—"
But Silver's order never reached completion, for, just as quickly as it had come, the emerald light, the beam leading from the door, and the pixels all vanished again within the map. Twisting about, I caught sight of Jim's hand tightening around the map, clicking the eighteen pieces back together and closing it.
"You want the map?" Mr. Hawkins said decidedly, with remarkable determination, "You're taking me, too."
Silver stared at him. It seemed as though Silver was not patient enough anymore to argue Jim's decided edict, and I feared for Jim's safety, but only for a moment. Silver soon smiled, only a little, and chuckled, not without some irritation, and I was reminded once again of the only weakness Silver possessed.
Silver raised his head and spoke to his crew, conclusively, after a small pause. "We'll take 'em all!"
A longboat was loaded with pick axes and shovels and other tools for delving in the dirt, and as soon the whole crew was aboard (which was a tight enough squeeze), the Doctor, Mr. Hawkins, and I boarded the craft as well. We were all considered prisoners by the pirates, and thusly there was dispute amongst the crew on whether or not Jim should be bound and gagged as well. But Silver tore in positively like a rhinoceros, called them all asinine ninnies, and demanded from them the reason why Jimbo should be bound, and for what advantage should Jimbo be gagged? For what reasons, when he's so benevolently agreed to take part in the winning party, and help them open the map, and help see to it they get their fair share, down to the last farthing, and get his share, too, for that's what he's done: transferred, and in the nick of time, too! Silver shook a ferocious fist all around, and observed that perhaps they should tie up him as well, who was not only loyal to the cause, but the blessed chieftain as well! No, he supposed, they wouldn't, so neither would Jimbo, being one of their own, and far better than their own, too, perhaps, he not being as dizzy and air-headed as the lot of them.
And that settled the dispute.
However, ultimatums were not done with quite yet, for, just as soon as the entire crew had gotten aboard and we were prepared to cast off, Jim Hawkins, at the bow with Silver, announced suddenly, "I'm not going to open the map for you if you don't untie and take the gags off of the Doctor and the Captain."
Silver reared in astonishment for an instant at this, and I could hear the crew around the Doctor and me grumble and scoff. Silver soon collected himself and shouted over his shoulder at his men, saying that if they would only hold their horses for a moment, he might discuss terms with the boy. There was then a fair amount of murmuring between the two, murmurings of which each and every crewmen scooted up a little to better their chances of hearing, until at last Silver hailed a buccaneer, announced a compromise had been made, and gave the command to remove our gags. There was an immediate and dissident uproar to this order, but Silver shouted and banged his fist against the longboat until the order was obeyed. They removed the Doctor's gag first, and then mine, and with that the longboat made its launch into the air.
There was a warm, misty gold at the tip of the horizon, seeping into the sky at an imperceptible rate, revealing the coming of the morning as we sped along at a low altitude above the ground. Jim Hawkins had opened the map again and the thick cord of green light had extended itself fully to the gold burning in the sky near the horizon, leading us at long last to the discovery of Flint's Trove. There was little talking, even amongst the crewmen, and I felt an odd state of concord between our two adversary causes. There was, for the time being, no apparent need to be worried for either of the Doctor's, Mr. Hawkins's, or my safety, for the pirates seemed much too concerned about the retrieval of the treasure to be, at the moment, any threat to us.
We saw a good amount of the strange, untouched terrain of the planet as we skidded about and above it; moss and short grass, peculiarly resembling mold one might discover growing on an old piece of bread, covered the entirety of the planet's floor. There were also eerie, massive growths with very thin stems that sprouted above the ground and shot passed the level at which our longboat was zipping along, and bloomed several feet above our heads into bean-shaped balloons. Some of the taller ones possessed a rather acrid odor, a defense, I assumed, which the coxswain came to try and avoid when we could. The smaller of the sprouts still towered above us, and they were really quite interesting to behold.
There were other plant species, such as an odd type of green underbrush that rose and dipped in its formation, like an inchworm, with its many millions of roots partially above the soil, taller or shorter as their area's height determined, which made the plant appear to be a gigantic, frozen centipede crawling along the ground. Treasure Planet certainly proved to be an alien environment, and I could not help wondering at its landscape in partial fascination, until all of a sudden the longboat skidded to a halt and levitated in the air as Silver hailed the driver that the longboat would no longer be useful to us.
In front of the longboat, there was a dense thicket of small, fan-shaped plants that waved about like hands, that were perhaps four or five feet taller than Silver himself, who stood at a rather notable height. The fans were much too thick to get through with the longboat, so Silver hopped down from the bow as the driver lowered it towards the ground, and commanded that, from here, they'll be hunting treasure the old fashioned way: on foot.
When the longboat hovered perhaps four feet off the ground, the crew sprang over the sides as well, pick axes and shovels in hand, and Jim Hawkins slid out after them with the map, B.E.N, and Silver's pet Morph trailing behind. Meltdown was assigned to keep watch over the prisoners—the Doctor and me—he being handiest with pellet and shot, and so corpulent that the rest of them felt he would risk slowing them down.
After all was arranged, Silver tossed his head skyward and analyzed the glowing green beam that was still pointing the way towards Flint's infamous gold. It had taken on a certain design that resembled the shapes and lines on the map itself, which spun rhythmically about the original cord of light. Silver beamed, obviously having interpreted what he thought these signs might mean, activated his mechanical arm to replace his hand with a cutlass, and, grabbing hold of Jim's shirt, called, "We're gettin' close, lads! I smell treasure a-waitin'!" And off the treasure hunters went, Silver in the lead, hacking away with his cutlass the stems of the fan-like plants that stood in his path, and leaving us alone with Meltdown.