Sailors screamed, backing away, dropping the ropes as if they’d suddenly burst aflame. Rysn started, then pulled herself up on the railing to look down. Was the santhid alive? It was moving. More undulating, quivering . . . Disintegrating. Before her eyes, the santhid broke apart into hundreds of scuttling pieces. Cremlings—crustaceans the length of a person’s thumb—swarmed in the water. Rysn struggled to grasp what she was seeing. Had the hooks disturbed creatures that had been eating the dead santhid? But there were so many, and the entire beast was breaking apart. Including the shell.
