Now Laura could see how old the monster was. Its sides were blotted with great caking masses of rust, sealed shut under layers of modern high-tech shellac. The shellac clung, but badly; in places it had the wrinkled look of failing plastic wrap. The ship’s endless sheet-iron hull had flexed from heat and cold and loading stress, and even the enormous strength of modern bonded plastics couldn’t hold. Laura saw stretch marks, and broken-edged blisters of "boat pox," and patches of cracked alligatoring where the plastic had popped loose in plates, like dried mud. All this covered with patches of new glue and big slathery drips of badly cured gunk. A hundred shades of black and gray and rust. Here and there, work gangs had spray-bombed the hull of the supertanker with intricate colored graffiti. "TANKERSKANKERS," "MONGOOSE CREW—WE OPTIMAL," "CHARLIE NOGUES BATALLION."