That didn't need to happen.
They could have simply sent Blakeney ahead to raise the alarm while the other two got there in their own time with the animals/plants. It's not as if everyone ashore is going to instantly get to the ship and take off as soon as they get the news.
They may have thought that carrying all the extra weight of the cages and animals would really slow them down.
shareWhat I mean is Blakeney, being the fastest, could have run ahead to raise the alarm while the other two continued with their loads. Or at least continued with what the doctor considered to be the more important specimens.
shareWell that would have left the doctor behind with that guy that had limited thinking. He wouldn't know what to do if the doctor passed out or something. I think with the doctor having some medical problems still it was best they stay together.
shareProbably set the study of evolution back 150 years.
shareThey couldn't just throw the living critters onto the deck and take off after the Acheron, they had to get food for the critters and find space for them on the ship, which would probably involve reshuffling the stuff in the hold, which usually meant using ropes and pulleys to haul stuff onto the deck. That sort of thing took hours!
So the critters slowed them down at a moment when speed was crucial, and it wasn't practical to take them onto a ship that was going to haul anchor and start a battle as soon as humanly possible. I mean there was presumably going to be a battle with canon fire that was likely enough to kill the specimens or let enough water into the hold to drown anything living in there, or they might find themselves taking off on a chase that covered hundreds of miles and led away from the only source of critter food within thousands of miles.
So if Stephen let his specimens go, it's not just because they slowed them down, it's because he wouldn't be able to care for them under the circumstances that were about to happen.
Being a keen scientist as he was demonstrated to be, I doubt he would have been overly concerned if his samples didn't survive, he could still study and at least attempt to preserve them.
I'm not saying he's a monster, but certainly a pragmatist.
Maturin did not have a problem with killing when necessary, whether it be human enemies or lab rats.
However, in his weakened state it's possible that hustling back to the ships carrying the critters, and trying to deal with the specimens on a ship that was hauling anchor and preparing for battle, while preparing to be a ship's surgeon facing a battle himself... might have seemed like more trouble than it was worth. And it's not like he realized the true value of his specimens, some of them might have been unknown to science, but he had no idea that they could unlock the answer to one of science's great unanswered questions.
it was 10 miles.
share