Fragment A Novel

Aboard a long-range research vessel, in the vast reaches of the South Pacific, the cast and crew of the reality show Sealife believe they have found a ratings bonanza. For a director dying for drama, a distress call from Henders Island-a mere blip on any radar-might be just the ticket. Until the first scientist sets foot on Henders-and the ultimate test of survival begins. For when they reach the island's shores, the scientists are utterly unprepared for what they find-creatures unlike any ever recorded in natural history. This is not a lost world frozen in time; this is Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path for half a billion years-a fragment of a lost continent, with an ecosystem that could topple ours like a house of cards.

Warren Fahy has been a bookseller, a statistical analyst, and managing editor of a video database, where he wrote hundreds of movie reviews for a nationally syndicated column. He is currently the lead writer for Wowwee, generating creative content for their line of advanced robotic toys. He lives in San Diego, California. Delacorte will publish his next novel in 2010.


From the Hardcover edition.

AUGUST 21
5:27 P.M.

"Captain, Mister Grafton is attempting to put a man ashore, sir."

"Which man, Mister Eaton?"

Three hundred yards off the island's sheer wall, H.M.S. Retribution rolled on a ten foot swell setting away from the shore. The corvette was hove to, her gray sails billowing in opposite directions to hold her position on the sea as the sailing master kept an eye on a growing bank of cloud to the north.

Watching from the decks in silence, some of the men were praying as a boat approached the cliff. Lit pale orange by the setting sun, the palisade was bisected by a blue shadowed crevasse that streaked seven hundred feet up its face.

The Retribution was a captured French ship previously called the Atrios. For the past ten months, her crew had been relentlessly hunting H.M.S. Bounty. While the British admiralty did not object to stealing ships from other navies, they had a long memory for any ship that had been stolen from theirs. It had been five years since the mutineers had absconded with the Bounty, and still the hunt continued.

Lieutenant Eaton steadied the captain's telescope and twisted the brass drawtube to focus the image: nine men were positioning the rowboat under the crack in the cliff. Eaton noticed that the seaman reaching up toward the fissure wore a scarlet cap. "It looks like Frears, Captain," he reported.

The dark crack started about fifteen feet above the bottom of the swell and zigzagged hundreds of feet across the face of jagged rock like a bolt of lightning. The British sailors had nearly circled the two-mile-wide island before finding this one chink in its armor.

Though the captain insisted that they thoroughly investigate all islands for signs of the Bounty's crew, a more pressing matter concerned the men of the Retribution now. After five weeks with no rain, they were praying for freshwater, not signs of mutineers. As they pretended to attend their duties, 317 men stole furtive, hopeful looks at the landing party.

The boat rose and fell in the spray as the nine men staved off the cliff with oars. At the top of one swell the man wearing the red cap grabbed the bottom edge of the fissure: he dangled there as the boat receded.

"He's got a purchase, Captain!"

A tentative cheer went up from the crew.

Eaton saw the men in the boat hurling small barrels up to Frears. "Sir, the men are throwing him some barrecoes to fill!"

"Providence has smiled on us, Captain," said Mister Dunn, the ruddy chaplain, who had taken passage aboard Retribution on his way to Australia. "We were surely meant to find this island! Else, why would the Lord have put it here, so far away from everything?"

"Aye, Mister Dunn. Keep a close counsel with the Lord," replied the captain as he slitted his eyes and watched the boat. "How's our man, Mister Eaton?"

"He's gone in." After an agonizing length of time, Eaton saw the scarlet capped man finally emerge from the shadow. "Frears's signaling . . . He's found freshwater, Captain! He's throwing down the barrecoe!"

Eaton looked at the captain wearily, then smiled as a cheer broke over the decks.

The captain cracked a smile. "Ready four landing boats for provisioning, Mister Eaton. Let's rig a ladder and fill our barrels."

"It's Providence, Captain," cried the chaplain over the answering cheer of the men. " 'Tis the good Lord who led us here!"

Eaton put the spyglass to his eye and saw Frears toss another small barrel from the fissure into the sea. The men in the longboat hauled it alongside.

"He's thrown down another!" Eaton shouted.

The men cheered again. They were now moving about and laughing as barrels were hauled up from the hold.

"The Lord keeps us." The chaplain

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Excerpted from Fragment: A Novel by Warren Fahy
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